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[haldaneprotector]

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Name: Becky Age: 45 Contact: wunderkindking@gmail.com Timezone: EST Other Character(s): Scott Summers, Bruce Wayne

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Name: Alaric Morgan Door: Not relevant this month. Canon: The Deryni Chronicles. Canon Point: Early in King's Service/just after Brion's death. Age: 32 - looking young is a thing though. Appearance: History: Here Personality: Loyalty: Alaric is magically bound to the King as a very young child, destined to unlock the King's magical abilities when the time is right. He is not bound to love the king, nor to be loyal to him, but he is - completely, and even in situations that come at great personal cost and danger to himself. He goes into a hostile court as a child to serve, and leaves again when the Queen hates and despises him and will not return with his presence there, giving up his life and what few friendships he has, yet again. At even higher cost he witnesses a man burn to death to prevent civil unrest and his King (and friend) being sanctioned by the Church. He serves Brion personally, not only as a page and squire, but as a friend, in doing things as simple as allowing the King time alone, or starting a fire and catching and cooking a rabbit for their dinner. There is no resentment, no bitterness, no resistance. It is simply who he is and that includes loyalty that goes all the way to his bones. Remote: Alaric is told time and again that he must not ever allow people to see him cry - not even people who want him dead, not even people who torture him, directly or otherwise. His father tells him when he is seven years old that he is too old to be hugged, though he makes an exception. The result of both of these things is that he is not at all inclined toward initiating physical displays of affection, and even less inclined toward expressing his emotions in any way that is visible. He will, with a deep amount of trust, cry in the presence of someone as close to him as his cousin or the man who has been his knight since he was a very small child, and under dire circumstances express some anger, but these are both rare, even then. He shares very, very little of himself and even less emotionally. The result of all that reserve is that he can seem incredibly unapproachable, and even cold. He does not make friends - real friends - easily. Mistrustful: He also does not make friends easily because he has been aware, since he was four years old, that people hate Deryni in general and that many, some very powerful, hate him in particular. That he is never entirely safe, that he is always in danger. This feeds into the remoteness, but it is also an entirely separate thing. He expects to be challenged, met with derision, or even to be outright hated. He watched a man burned to death for being Deryni, forced to be there by the Archbishop (who, you guessed it) hates him. He knows how dangerous that sort of hate can be, and it has been very firmly directed at him his entire life. He can't even escape it; he is known to be Deryni from young child, because his mother was known to be Deryni and helped to prosecute a very public man (The Archbishop's heir), and is in service within the king's court. This makes him watchful, cautious, and he absolutely can and will respond defensively to perceived threats. And because he is so wired to expect people to respond terribly to him, he sees a whole lot of challenge and threat where they do not exist. Uptight all around: Alaric had been aware since he was very young that the weight of his decisions would ultimately be that of life and death. He has heard, time and again, that the games he plays when he trains, his studies, are things that prepare him for battle - and that a lost piece on a game board is a lot man in reality. Added to that his position within the King's Court and his awareness of that as something like fate, or destiny, and that he was pushed and pushed hard to live up to incredibly high expectations of those around him, and Alaric has very, very little sense of play. Even his humor is somewhat subdued and more rare than it should be, especially now that he is actually an Earl and Duke, rather than simply one in training. He just... does not know how. He is also, on a directly interconnected vein, always, always, concerned with what people think of him, are thinking of him, and of presenting the proper image and doing things 'right'. He can, has, and will absolutely stand up and push back against even the King, but awareness of position and decorum has been drilled into him from early childhood. It isn't likely to fade quickly or easily. Effectively, everything he does - from the state of his hair and his word choices, to military orders - have always had capacity for profound consequences, and he does not know how to let that go. Arrogant: Alaric's rank and position within the court leaves him with an expectation that, while people may hate him and want him dead, they will be respectful to his face - respectful and with some degree of deference. He expects to be listened to and his words to carry weight. He has been interrupting, challenging, and making demands of the King (and his advisors and other adults) since he was a child. More over, those demands and interruptions were usually listened to. He also has a very high rate of succeeding what he attempts. Sometimes with a lot of hard work, yes, but he expects to 'win'. This sort of arrogance isn't all that overt, but he does have a very high opinion of himself and his abilities. Driven Alaric is driven to succeed, both internally and from external sources, and has been since he was four years old. He is inherently competent and intelligent, even athletically gifted, but mostly he just wants to succeed. He wants to win. He wants to be the best. If there is a task before him, be it magical skill or learning a new language, he will doggedly pursue not just acquisition of that skill but mastery of it. He is easily frustrated while in pursuit of something that is coming more difficulty than he believes it should be. He does not quit, though, not by a long shot. This is a trait I would consider both positive (he gets things done) and negative (he does not understand a lack of drive in others, and he does not know how to just be). Determined: There are a whole lot of expectations placed on Morgan - when he is young those expectations are based on what he will become, and later because of what he is. The expectation of excellence is one of those expectations. When he's faced .with a challenge - smaller rings in jousting games, a manuscript written in a language he doesn't read, some new magical ability - he simply digs in and pursues it, for as long as it takes for him to master it. His attitudes are not different with personal adversity. He faces a lot of people who want to see him break, cry, or run, and flatly refuses to do so. He's forced to watch the execution of a Deryni priest and goes immediately back to work in spite of his deep trauma. The person who forced the viewing - and the execution - wants him to run. He simply will not and says as much. He goes from the Court when the King asks, but refuses to be driven from the Court by the Queen - or, for that matter, any of the many other people who want him gone. Ethical: He is rigidly ethical. The bulk of this comes from the amount of power and authority he has, via his position as Earl, Duke, his position within the court, and his Deryni abilities. His actions have consequences - big ones - and a good number of his early lessons are reiterating to him that men's lives are in his hands. That means his decision making must be on point and guided by strict ethics. But there's also that he wants to behave in a way that his dead mother (and father) would be proud of, and an acute awareness of how much otherwise good people fear loss of free will. He won't ever, ever, do anything to invade another person's privacy, or to interfere with their ability to choose, without it being to protect his life or the lives of those he is responsible for - or sworn to. Compassionate: And finally, compassion. Alaric is, in his mid 20s, someone who has seen man killed, seen men executed, witnessed mercy killings, participated in mercy killing on the battlefield, and killed men himself. He does that without outward expression of emotion because he is so reserved and remote, but his impulse is always, always to help. To help with magic and easing fear or pain, to help more physically, to -- to literally do anything that he can do to ease pain, or distress. He does this for wounded animals, frightened horses, and dying men, over and over in canon. It's as much a part of him as his loyalty. Powers and Abilities: Psychic abilities: Memory manipulation: The ability to retrieve, alter, block, or erase specific memories, either in the Deryni's own mind or in the mind of someone else. Mind-Seeing: The ability to completely enter a subject's mind, thus viewing the subject's memories, emotions, reasoning, and intellect. Shields: Occasionally described as the foundation upon which the rest of the Deryni powers are built, shields are mental barriers that a Deryni erects around his/her mind to protect it from attack or intrusion. The strength of a Deryni's shields is often a combination of his/her natural strength and the quality of their training. Telekinesis: The ability to manipulate small objects with only the power of the mind, such as moving the tumblers of a lock, igniting a torch, or altering the flight of an arrow. Telepathy: The ability to communicate mentally, including the power to share large amounts of information in a very brief period of time. Truth-Reading: The ability to detect an intentional spoken lie. This power only reveals the presence of the falsehood, not the specific truth that is being concealed. Truth-Saying: The ability to force a subject to truthfully answer any question to the best of his/her abilities. Frankly, Alaric has never been exposed to most of the sorts of people present here and I am more than content to assume that it simply doesn't work on them - if he ever stops shielding - without permission or explicit invitation from the other player in any given interaction. Magical abilities: Minor spells: Trained Deryni are often capable of performing basic spells, such as spells to calm the mind, focus the mind, or temporarily relieve fatigue. Major spells: Those Deryni powerful enough to work more complex spells can perform feats such as manipulating the weather, changing their physical appearance, creating illusions, or summoning and controlling fire, water, or lightning. Ritual magic: Skilled Deryni adepts are capable of performing complex arcane rituals designed to accomplish a wide variety of effects. Such rituals often involve a great deal of magical power and can be quite dangerous to the untrained practitioner. Transfer Portals: A Portal is an artificially-created nexus of arcane power that is set in stone or earth. Deryni have the ability to access the nexus and use its energy to instantly transport themselves to other nexuses in other locations. Each Portal has its own unique energy signature (or coordinates), so a Deryni must be familiar with the coordinates of his/her intended destination to be able to use a Portal. This is best accomplished in person, but it is also possible for highly skilled Deryni to read the coordinates of a Portal from the mind of another person.) (He cannot do this without helpe, and clearly I do not expect that to work in Duplicity!) Taken from Here Weakness: Merasha (Write up by kingforboth ) Merasha is a drug, which acts different depending on species. In humans, it acts as a simple sedative. Against Deryni--and those with Deryni like abilities and genes, like Kelson's Haldane Potential, it completely shuts down any magical abilities, and the touch of another mind or magic is extremely painful. They also become paralyzed, blind, nauseous and the slightest touch causes pain. The dosage is important, it lasts a couple of hours, so to render someone incapacitated they would need frequent dosing. However too much can kill, cause seizures or disrupt breathing. It is very fast acting. It has a slightly bitter aftertaste. When ingested, it starts as a tingling in the back of the throat. Then the nausea and dizziness starts immediately as it hits the stomach, sitting like hot coals, but not enough to vomit up the merasha. The vision begins to blur and tunnel until the subject is blind physically and magically, the shields start to fail, pocketing like swiss cheese until they're gone. The limbs start to go, nerves hypersensitive yet loosing all sensation until the body can't move at all. While the merasha lasts for about 6-12 hours, the effects of the merasha last longer, like the worst hangover ever. Kelson remembers screaming for two hours the last time he was exposed to merasha training, before they knocked him out, but it was only internally, he was never able to make a sound. It can taken with food, be injected or absorbed through the skin. There is no antidote for merasha. Kelson has had a brief 2 hour 'training' on how to deal with it, or at least recognize the symptoms so he knows what is happening. General abilities: Excellent swordsman, horseman, and strategist. Very much a general under a very pretty facade. (Also literally a general). Really, really, super good with animals. Inventory: Long sword, a silver locket with his mother and father's pictures inside, and a carved, adorned, but very sharp daggar. Samples: Prose log with Caleb Network with Rhys Top Level TDM