Micaiah Blightbane, Last of House Chamizin
| Age 38 |
| Gender nonbinary |
| Origin tbd |
| Occupation knight-turned-cazadore |
Not much survives the father.
Not the widow, though she does not die; finds a new man to sire her children, rather, wan and stiff as the corpse she’s only just put to mausoleum, and more hateful in life than her late husband would prove as a revenant. She is a new woman entirely, by all accounts — her first child’s, most of all.
And not the first child, who, at first opportunity, is spirited away to monastery, cleverly stripped of inheritances when they are too young to know better, and just old enough not to resent being placed upon a path of righteous purpose. Blightbane might have been as apt as it was aspirational, the day Micaiah chose it for themself, trembling in their hold upon the cold stone of Vayd’s Lookout, transfixed to the dark horizon — a noble enough stand-in for that old and titled name, Chamizin, long since shorn from their identity and buried with its patriarch in the ground. But it is a stand-in all the same for a legacy rent to pieces, which no amount of study at the healing hand can mend.
Sufficed to say, the family does not survive, but is carved out of the body of the house, accused of gangrene: And their little world closes around these absences - Micaiah, their father — like a wound, pink and shiny and tender to touch. The new master of the house is fastidious and fickle in his ambitions, greed matched for cunning, and it shows in the thrifty play of his fingers over every gilded heirloom, in his vice grip on the filigreed prospect of his daughter, Micaiah’s half-sister, Fenestra — until she is cold to the touch, too.
If anything lives on, perhaps it is a curse: some hidden pox that lines the creases of Chamizin fingerprints and sets all that meets tender embrace to festering. Ironic, maybe, given Micaiah’s call to healing — or perhaps it makes sense of his turn away from it now. Micaiah does not wear the blacks of mourning for their sister, after all, for by the time of her death, they have known enough of it to know better. Death of a loved one does not match the full-color richness of the dark. That death leaves only the pale afterimage of the haunting specter. That death casts the world in the mournful nothingness of white.
So it is white they wear, and the nothingness they feel, as they turn their back on yet another home, betrayed by the warmth of knowing and being known. Long, bright, colorful years carried them from cast-off through to knightly oath and beyond, only to be rendered gray as the skin of their lifeless lover by the failures of one and all to defend the defender. There is no body to bury; perhaps if there had been, perhaps if the cycle of loss to rot to new life had not been broken along with their glaive, the world would not seem so empty.
Absence, in the end — of color, of companion, of such precious and breakable things as dignity and trust and affection — is safer.
In a barren landscape, one can see the danger coming from a mile away.
Appearance
| Height 6'4 |
| Build neither stocky nor svelte |
| Hair deep brown |
| Eyes amber gold |
Micaiah’s eyes and the space around them are at war, the former arguing years beyond what they have to their name, the latter suggesting far fewer. Their youthful appearance is owed, perhaps, to the only inheritance that could not be pried from them — vanity — which has seen them through to the other side of daunting quest and grievous injury with a well-concealed dusting of silvery scars. Their foray into healing and illusion magics can also be thanked, while their discernment can be attributed to those other things: quests, injuries, et cetera.
More tower than fortress, Micah is accustomed to standing a head above the crowd. Simply put, they loom: the fine line of their posture is liable to bow, these days, the proud figure they once cut reduced to something brittle and weary-wary. Their disinterested mien, all unimpressed scowls, and flat, cryptic lines, is a smokescreen for those rawer feelings that stay resolutely tucked behind rarely-seen gleaming tooth and rarely-smiling full lip. Still they are betrayed by the kind, curious glint that flashes in the amber of their eyes, and by the way they lean in more, and more, as they make heads or tails of whatever eavesdropping has piqued their interest.
There is strength to their figure yet; more so now that they cut glaive through the world alone, rather than with the order at their back. One would think to strive for inconspicuousness, crawling into the foul underbellies of the world. Instead they are often recognizable by garb so white as to surely be worn for the first time — or, more likely, enchanted to hide all the bloodstains — and find themselves moving from comfortable background to discomfiting foreground by the glint of their adornments, similarly shroud-polished to shining where tarnish has taken hold. The sore thumb of a helping hand, if ever there was one.
More tower than fortress, Micah is accustomed to standing a head above the crowd. Simply put, they loom: the fine line of their posture is liable to bow, these days, the proud figure they once cut reduced to something brittle and weary-wary. Their disinterested mien, all unimpressed scowls, and flat, cryptic lines, is a smokescreen for those rawer feelings that stay resolutely tucked behind rarely-seen gleaming tooth and rarely-smiling full lip. Still they are betrayed by the kind, curious glint that flashes in the amber of their eyes, and by the way they lean in more, and more, as they make heads or tails of whatever eavesdropping has piqued their interest.
There is strength to their figure yet; more so now that they cut glaive through the world alone, rather than with the order at their back. One would think to strive for inconspicuousness, crawling into the foul underbellies of the world. Instead they are often recognizable by garb so white as to surely be worn for the first time — or, more likely, enchanted to hide all the bloodstains — and find themselves moving from comfortable background to discomfiting foreground by the glint of their adornments, similarly shroud-polished to shining where tarnish has taken hold. The sore thumb of a helping hand, if ever there was one.
Personality
Micaiah unwittingly cultivates a certain mystique through their quietude. Not unfriendly, they nevertheless carry themself with a cautious stoicism that some find enigmatic, and others find offputtingly high-and-mighty. This is not helped by the fact that they are self-assured, too, to the point of being uncompromising; and yet they are also possessed of an earnest, if jaded heart, which, combined with their lack — of companionship, of purpose — leaves them susceptible to taking up with people of all walks of life. And dirtiness of hands. They know many people throughout the continent, but in the way a breeze moves through many trees; largely unmoored in the world, especially absent the lightning rod of the Knights of Anathaeum, they try not to alight in one place for long, avoiding attachment as a plague. They’d prefer to deal with a plague, really. There’s money to be made by a plague. Usefulness to be had.
Their foray into monster hunting for profit has been a growing pain from a life of duty and, especially, mercy. Although they are an accomplished combatant, healing was once their true passion, since distorted by the quagmire of their grief into fascinations both morbid and bleak. It has been some years since tragedy left them so disillusioned. Increasingly they find themself thinking fondly of that old life — wondering, traitorously, if new love might heal them — and resolutely shaking off the warmth of memory in favor of reality’s chill.
Neither quick to anger nor slow to act, they balance on the tightrope of pragmatism between the two. They are an amalgamation of knife’s edges, that way: still nosy, despite having disavowed themself of other people’s tribulations. Still proud, even with so little honor to their name. Theirs is an ultimately lonely and unsettled aspect — a lost one — pockmarked by tragedy, yet ringed, however lightly, with hope.
+ evenhanded + meticulous + cerebral + resourceful + phlegmatic
- unyielding - jaded - vain - possessive - withholding - maudlin
Their foray into monster hunting for profit has been a growing pain from a life of duty and, especially, mercy. Although they are an accomplished combatant, healing was once their true passion, since distorted by the quagmire of their grief into fascinations both morbid and bleak. It has been some years since tragedy left them so disillusioned. Increasingly they find themself thinking fondly of that old life — wondering, traitorously, if new love might heal them — and resolutely shaking off the warmth of memory in favor of reality’s chill.
Neither quick to anger nor slow to act, they balance on the tightrope of pragmatism between the two. They are an amalgamation of knife’s edges, that way: still nosy, despite having disavowed themself of other people’s tribulations. Still proud, even with so little honor to their name. Theirs is an ultimately lonely and unsettled aspect — a lost one — pockmarked by tragedy, yet ringed, however lightly, with hope.
+ evenhanded + meticulous + cerebral + resourceful + phlegmatic
- unyielding - jaded - vain - possessive - withholding - maudlin
Skills
Raised by the Knights of Anathaeum, Micaiah was not always the most voracious learner. It took the discovery of subjects that interested them for any kind of promise to show, and so it follows that the things Micaiah does well, they do very well — and the rest, well. It’s better to find someone else for the rest.
Among those skills they did hone are healing and defensive magics, illusion magics, and polearm fighting; Loch and Life are their primary pursuits, and they approach weaving in the realm of Death with heady suspicion (in no small part due to the death-disappearance of their lover, a fellow Knight Pursuant, whose passion was for death itself). Their skills in healing span both magical and nonmagical means with an emphasis on triage in combat, running the gamut from stab wound to the cleansing of eldritch poisons. A poor judge of character, but a quick situational study, they are highly learned in the natural world, and know ample remedies to be found in each region they’ve traversed.
They are graceful and swift despite their height, albeit not particularly stealthy; they rely on illusion for camouflage, as much as to make a statement. Their weapon of choice is a glaive they received in thanks some years ago, starkly plain, compared to the rest of them, and now broken towards the end of its shaft. They are not nearly so strong a weapon as they are a shield, however, and they tend to accompany others for a smaller cut of the profit.
They are an exceptional hand at riddles, too, but aside from the occasional sphynx, this hardly serves a practical end.
Among those skills they did hone are healing and defensive magics, illusion magics, and polearm fighting; Loch and Life are their primary pursuits, and they approach weaving in the realm of Death with heady suspicion (in no small part due to the death-disappearance of their lover, a fellow Knight Pursuant, whose passion was for death itself). Their skills in healing span both magical and nonmagical means with an emphasis on triage in combat, running the gamut from stab wound to the cleansing of eldritch poisons. A poor judge of character, but a quick situational study, they are highly learned in the natural world, and know ample remedies to be found in each region they’ve traversed.
They are graceful and swift despite their height, albeit not particularly stealthy; they rely on illusion for camouflage, as much as to make a statement. Their weapon of choice is a glaive they received in thanks some years ago, starkly plain, compared to the rest of them, and now broken towards the end of its shaft. They are not nearly so strong a weapon as they are a shield, however, and they tend to accompany others for a smaller cut of the profit.
They are an exceptional hand at riddles, too, but aside from the occasional sphynx, this hardly serves a practical end.
Art Credit: Red Spring Studio