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« PLAYER INFORMATION »

Name: Campa
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: Zodiacrockstar
Other characters, if any: N/A


« CHARACTER INFORMATION »

Character: Essek Thelyss
Canon: Critical Role
Canon point: C2E133 “Hunter and Hunted”: The moment Caleb’s tower is dispelled.
OU or AU?: OU
Age: 120ish (appearance early 20’s)
Species: Dark Elf (Drow)



« RECORD »


Disposition:

Intellectual: A prodigy, a master of his field, and borderline arrogant in his self assured confidence of his capabilities, Essek is extraordinarily intelligent. From a young age, he has demonstrated an excellent command of dunamancy, a field of magic that is rare and very protected by the Kryn Dynasty. Being an intellectually driven individual, Essek loves to learn about his speciality and further research it, taking every opportunity to do so. He finds a lot of frustration with the religious importance and connections dunamancy and it’s artifacts hold within the Dynasty that often prevents him from researching and learning to his heart’s content. He strives to answer questions and unlock mysteries, but never to the detriment of himself, always approaching all things with extreme caution and careful deliberation, never to reach beyond his capabilities or what dangers he feels able and ready to handle. Because of this, Essek has spent a great deal of his life alone, finding it easier to not have to take in consideration the risks to anyone other than himself.

Ambitious: Essek is an extremely ambitious individual, often in the past seeking knowledge and pursuing important avenues without second thought of the consequences for anyone other than himself. With the weight of having to prove himself and his unconsecuted nature worthy of his den(kinda like family) from a young age, Essek has always pushed himself to be exactly that: worthy. At a young age he learned to move by floating just to impress people, but then it became so expected of him that he still continues to do it to this day. The complete confidence in his ambitions have driven him to commit treason against the Dynasty, unconcerned about if they were good, only that he deemed them important. This drive has often found him isolated in the past, unwilling to stop long enough for things he once considered frivolous like friendship. “I have a lot I want to accomplish. And only one person who understood and believed in that idea, and that's me.”

Political (The Shadowhand): When taking on the air of his political title, Essek comes off as very calm, collected, and aloof, the political professional that he prides himself on. His job often asks of him tasks in the nature of political shadow work, including scrying on individuals, handling prisoners, interrogation, and even overseeing torture and execution when necessary. This has toughened him to not be phased by many of these acts, even using his skills earned to assist in him committing treason against his own nation. Still, the skills gained in learning to cloak himself in a well crafted persona of his title, alongside a healthy dose of paranoia, has assisted him in keeping a lot of suspicion off his back.

Charming: Essek, while not always predisposed to acting charming intentionally, has a very charming nature inherently. Often he can be found with an almost ever present grin or amusement about him, even if he isn’t actively smiling, he can be found with a tilt to his head or brow that still conveyed his pleasant attitude towards most situations. His handsome looks help significantly in that regard, even making his most arrogant or threatening moments come off as frustratingly or off-puttingly charming. Even when that fades and he is genuinely frustrated, angry, or even scared, he actively tries to remain relatively polite, often making even his most offensive remarks come out layered.

Loyal: A relatively new aspect to Essek’s personal journey, he has only recently in his life made his first real friendships, something that has changed him significantly. Though this new found ability to care for others has also cost him a great deal of heartache when his personal actions before meeting the Mighty Nien was seen as a betrayal they struggled to forgive him for. Still, Essek, now learning to trust, be vulnerable, and care for others the first time, has learned loyalty. A loyalty so strong that he is willing to follow them into certain death without hesitation, even put his ambitions and political position aside to aid them. Even going as far to trust them with priceless dunamantic artifacts and prioritize aiding them over himself. Their kindness and friendship has born in him a conscience for the first time. "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust. And I never let anyone close. ... When you gave me trust, it gave me a perspective that was so agonizingly striking. ... I would be lying if I said that our paths crossing hasn't shaken me to the core. And I'm appreciative."

Suitability:
Due to making friends he wasn't ready or prepared to make, Essek has only relatively recently learned to have a conscience and how to trust in others. It's been a really difficult experience in general for him, especially with how closely tied it is with him having justified paranoia living on limited time as his new enemies wish to assassinate him. And because of his reliance on being solitary before the Nien came into his life, Essek has little experience with touch and affection, resulting in the awkward nature of a touch starved individual: initiating touch awkwardly, reacting strongly to it, always keenly aware of it regardless of how insignificant. I think an environment like Noctium would be a good experience to get him to interact more with people, develop further friendships, perhaps learn more about trust, and grow accustomed to touch (especially without the threat of ever looming death).

He would find the whole situation extremely fascinating once he learns to get past the initial mistrust of the situation and locals. He would even potentially be actively interested in helping to find a way to return everyone home, mostly interested in wanting to figure out the mysteries of the situation but using that interest to help (something he’s working on). Especially since he would consider this yet another (as of until now undiscovered) plane of existence alongside his own home plane (planar travel is not his specialty, but he's quite interested in learning).

Essek would also have a growing academic interest in the gembonds and how they work and affect people who came here. Growing up in Rosohna, he was surrounded by many "monstrous" races (goblins, minotaurs, ogres, bugbears, and so on) and accepts them naturally, so many of the transformations wouldn’t phase him too much. Though, initially, he wouldn't like how the gem changes himself in many ways, especially emotionally, he would still embrace learning more about it and it's many possibilities.


Condition upon arrival:
Hale and Hearty. Essek is in very good condition upon arrival. A little bruised but otherwise in excellent condition. Mentally, Essek is extremely mistrustful, paranoid, anxious, and analyzing, but by no means hostile or aggressive, mostly keeping up a front of being calm, put together, and polite. In fact he listens intently to everything told to him and asks plenty of questions, seeming to want to understand his new environment even if he doesn’t automatically believe everything told to him.

Abilities:
Being a drow, Essek is gifted with a number of traits due to his heritage alone. His darkvision allows him to see when in complete darkness, but only in greyscale and also due to drow's superior level of darkvision, their eyes are very sensitive to direct sunlight or very bright light. Like all elves, he has keener senses than many races, allowing him to be more perceptive, as well as being more resilient to charm related magics. Drow don't need to sleep, they can spend 4 hours in a meditative trance and are unaffected by sleep spells. He also has access to the innate magical capabilities of his race.

Essek is a highly trained and skilled wizard, a prodigy at his specialty: Dunamancy. Dunamantic magic focuses on the manipulation of gravity, time, fate, and potentiality, something he is extremely skilled at.

Floating: He can levitate a few inches off the ground at will without impeding his ability to move across the ground (and does so all the time). This floating is able to maintained without any concentration or conscious thought, giving him the capability to float even while trancing. Additionally, he can use this ability to also fall distances at a safe speed to avoid damage.

Gravity: Essek is capable of altering gravity to make things weigh less or more, control the directional pull of gravity to move people or objects, use it to increase the velocity of moving items (like something falling or swinging), and create a field of increased gravity around him to make moving near him more laborious.

Time/Fate: Essek can manipulate the flow of time on a smaller scale (as in seconds or minutes tops), using the slowing of time to manipulate an outcome or seeing ahead toward the many possible outcomes and pulling one of the events forward to make sure it happens. He can trap someone/thing in an extremely short time stasis. He can also condense spells into a mote of frozen time, allowing him to pass it to someone else to use/activate.

Essek is a 15th - 16th level D&D 5th Edition Wizard, meaning that he can cast a number of spells that he memorizes daily from his spellbook and a small number of which he can ritually cast from his book at any time. I understand that due to the nature of the game, many of the damaging spells are nerfed and any deemed game breaking will be made unavailable. As well as a number being unavailable due to lack of casting components. Luckily, Essek isn't one to throw around spells and cause damage and harm unnecessarily, often even shown to (usually) be a bit reserved with the use of his spells. To avoid the word limit restrictions of the application, I’ll link in the notes to a page that better details his abilities and all the spells as of canon are or believed to be within his spellbook. I'm also happy to in the future discuss with the mods any spells I am unsure of before they come into possible play (in case you don't want to read all of them).

Inventory:
Essek's most notable items are his spellbook that he keeps secreted away in a pocket dimension he has access to through a spell, an amulet of Proof against Detection and Location around his neck, a magical Warming Orb at his hip, a highly intricate piece of jewelry used as an arcane focus, and the second half of a sending stone. He also has a spell component pouch that contains a number of items used in the casting of spells (shards of onyx, chalk, gold dust, some pearls, etc) and an ornate miniature chest, the size of his palm that he uses to magically summon a larger chest from a pocket dimension. In this chest is some extra clothing, some extra spell components, research paperwork, paper, ink, and a beautiful parasol that is very important to him.

Gembond: Emerald
Gem Location: Right below the clavicle, about the size of a silver dollar.


« MISCELLANEOUS »

Sample: Top Comment On TDM & TDM Thread
Short Sample of Essek’s Initial Arrival:

[It takes a moment before Essek can truly take in his surroundings, the light causing his eyes to strain and squint harshly, pupils contracting painfully against the abundant source of light. When the pain slackens enough that he need not squint so harshly as he uses his hand to cast a shadow over them, he finds himself momentarily breathless. He was just in Caleb's demiplane waiting for it to be dispelled, on the precipice of an encounter, if not there then he should be in the harsh, bitter cold of Aeor, yet...

His mind races with possibilities - had the mixture of the disrupted magical ley lines in Aeor caused the dispelling of Caleb's demiplane to shift him (and his fellows?) into another plane of existence instead of back to the prime material plane where the creation of the demiplane had originated? Perhaps there had been a... something of a temporal shunt that is causing him to experience the exact in-between of the dissolution of the demiplane before he will find himself back in Aeor? Or well... there's the very real possibility that he's dead.

Magic can be finicky - he smiles to himself at his choice of words - and in a place like Aeor, well, that's decidedly an understatement. Still, as the thought settles into his mind, he feels his chest tighten with anxiety, mind racing once more to try and determine the possibility, the likelihood of the many options, both those that are probable and improbable. Was it just him? Did this even encompass the Mighty Nien as well? His chest tightens further at the very thought.

Taking a shaky breath, he does his best to settle his rapidly fraying nerves. If he is dead, then perhaps they will see fit to bring him back, if not then- he moves on from that thought and instead to his surroundings once more.

Something about the endless light and reflections reminds him of the beacon, the Luxon. Though, he imagined it more... ethereal than what he is currently experiencing. He shouldn't be in a beacon, consecution wasn't something that took for him and he doubts that an afterlife with the Luxon is in his cards - if there is much of such a thing, seeing as the deity is scattered into pieces.

It's then that he catches an image of someone else, no one he has seen before. Standing straighter, Essek squints painfully against the light, trying to determine exactly what he had seen. Curious. Well, he isn't solving anything floating here lost to his own thoughts.

Taking one more deep, settling breath, he straightens his cloak and mantle and moves forward with purpose through the maze, hopeful to find answers that are not coming readily any other way.]

Notes: Detailed List of Essek’s Abilities and Spells