Thar Shaddin

This character is deceased as of May 122PW.

Name: Ran Azshmatha (Pronounced: Ra-an Azs-huh-ma-tha)
Age: 25
Race: Human Male

Physical Description: Ran belongs to the nomadic and tribal people of Hamil Kha who reside in the southern end of South Eyropa, and like most of its members is a darker-skinned breed of human. In the context of real world human races, Ran's tribe is composed of people who look predominantly Moroccan with a mixture of European and South African blood.

He stands 5'8" tall, not slender nor wide, and weights about 150 lbs. He is more agile than he is strong, though he is not exceptionally agile, and Ran’s body reflects his average physical abilities.

His skin is on the darker side of tan, and his hair is a sandy, dirty yellow; blonde if not for the lack of a reflective sheen. Ran wears his hair long and sometimes in braids. Somewhere between wavy and curly, his hair reaches just above the shoulders.

Ran’s face is more North Eyropan than it is South Eyropan, although the tall forhead and the shape of his eyebrow ridge suggests the blood of southern races runs through him. He has a face that is more exotic than handsome; a mostly straight nose with a slight ridge near the eyes, a small but surprisingly expressive lips, and serious but earnest eyes of green that lie beneath strong eyebrows.

Ran’s clothing is simple. Loose fitting pants, cheap and sturdy, and a simple, short sleeved shirt along with a pair of black, low-cut boots. A black leather belt completes the basic outfit.

However, Ran owns various beads and ties with which he adorns the braids in his hair, and each of his ears have multiple piercings with metal earrings hanging off them.

Finally, Ran owns a light tan cloak of wool. This cloak has a unique, wrap-around hood which, when fully worn, covers the lower half of Ran’s face while leaving the area around his eyes uncovered for vision.

Possessions: Ran stumbles on to the town of Shim with little but the clothes he is wearing. He has on his person, 50 bishani split into two small brown pouches, tied with a string. He also owns a waterskin with a leather strap. These are kept hidden under his woolen cloak. Hanging from his belt is a small, well-made knife which he uses for both self-defense and as an all-purpose tool.

Powers or Strengths: Ran is a clever and resourceful man, balanced in many respects; intelligent and physically capable, though not a genius nor a gifted fighter.

World wise: Ran has seen more of the world than most, from the harsh continent of South Eyropa to the numerous towns and cities of North Eyropa. In addition to possessing a mild expertise in the culture and happenings of the Eyropan Empire, Ran benefits from his wide ranging experiences in being more resourceful and insightful than others who have known only one place their entire lives.

Battle survivor: Having survived the horrors of violent and prolonged battle, Ran is quick to react to danger and has a keen sense of self-preservation.

Knife Proficiency: Ran knows how to use a knife to kill and defend himself. He is not especially skilled, and he’d much prefer running away rather than fighting anyone in melee if given the choice.

Hamil Kha Alchemy (anu hikhna): Ran has a basic grasp of the unique alchemic theories taught by his tribe. With the proper tools and enough time, study, and experimentation, Ran can concoct simple potions and poisons. Though trained from a young age, Ran is only just beginning to understand the finer points of alchemy.

In theory, alchemical reactions can be created for any number of magical purposes. Many simple magical effects can be recreated through alchemy, but it is rare for an alchemical compound to actively generate any energy. For example, a substance can be created which amplifies any flame it touches, or reacts to organic matter by smoldering, but none has yet found a way to create a substance which spontaneously generates fire.

More commonly, alchemical substances are meant to be consumed or otherwise to interact with living organisms, whether willingly in the case of beneficial potions, or unknowingly in the case of treacherous poison. The ways an ingested alchemical substances can interact with a creature’s metabolism is too varied and Hamil Kha alchemy too rarely practiced to be properly accounted for in a complete listing.

Alchemy is a time consuming activity and requires a great deal of preparation. Anything other than the substance producing the weakest of effects require some seemingly unfathomable ritual. For example, a potion temporarily granting night vision must be created entirely within the light of the full moon. Unless the alchemist has access to stores of dried ingredients, he is limited to creations using local ingredients, whether they be fauna, flora, or some metal or mineral.

In the hands of Hamil Kha, the practice of alchemy, that of turning a mixture of natural ingredients into a product of magical nature, uses a little-understood form of magic practiced only by Ran’s native tribe and is similar in its application to the way gnomes create technology. The practice distinguishes itself from other forms of alchemy in its use of an abstracted and convoluted system of logic to produce reliable results with alchemy; alchemy is tied innately to one's understanding of this astral logic and is called anu hikhna, or "great wisdom" in the native language of the Hamil Kha.

Hamil Kha alchemy is also similar to medicine in that its effects are not completely consistent. Some will react differently than others, and even with the same compound used by the same person, random side effects may occur. For the most part, alchemical preparations are reliable.

Ran knows little bits of an incomplete alchemical recipe for a potion that could, hypothetically, temporarily increase the imbiber’s access to the Astral Plane. His knowledge is far from any practical application.

(For more information, see "The Pseudo-Science Behind Hamil Kha Alchemy" on the next post)

Weaknesses: Hamil Kha alchemy as a practice has its own weaknesses, which is listed above. As for Ran…

Foreignness: In Thar Shaddin, and anywhere further north and east than Athena, Ran sticks out like a sore thumb. The color combination of his skin, hair, and eyes, along with the way he wears his hair and his accented use of the common language mixed with colorful native curses mark him as an outsider. In the dark and isolated climate of the Sooqui plains, Ran is very much looked upon with suspicion and distaste. Little charity has come to Ran in his life; he expects little and receives little from others. True friends are few and far between.

Depression: Having been torn from his home and shuttled around for years in unfriendly and foreign environment, Ran’s great love for life is offset by frequent bouts of depression, days in which he does little but fret or wander listlessly.

Homesick: For far too long, Ran has been away from his homeland. Though Ran ably hides this longing most of the time, when it does express itself, it does so to an obsession. The object of Ran’s homesick obsession can be virtually anything; a work of art or fabric, a woman who reminds him of the girls of his tribe, a particular ambiance… sometimes, the subject of his obsession is so abstract in its relationship to Ran’s longed for home that it is incomprehensible to anyone else but Ran. When the longing strikes Ran, he will go through great lengths to quench his desire, whether it is to chase the hand of a woman to the point of her family threatening to kill him, or to spend all of his spare bishani on a particular item against his better judgement.

Battle Trauma: Recent experiences of slaughter and chaos in the forests south of Thar Shaddin has left a scar on Ran’s mind. Nightmares plague Ran at least twice a week, interrupting his sleep. Despite a sturdy psyche, Ran finds himself questioning the ultimate sanity and goodness of man.

History: Ran hails from a small tribe, numbering barely over two hundred, from the desert plains near the southern coast of South Eyropa. The tribe, called Hamil Kha, live a nomadic life, hunting and gathering what they could, settling down for short periods at oasis scattered throughout the desert, and at times entering the protection of the more densely wooded parts which held hidden dangers of their own.

In addition to the ordinary difficulties of desert life, the Hamil Kha must contend with the consequences of residual energies from the Great Scar, which twists the terrestrial reality in the region. Strange phenomena occur often; a lightening storm which appears from thin air, large areas of the desert plains temporarily turning into a deadly quicksand, to a cave in which it is always light—not to mention the twisted beings which are often drawn to the chaotic environment around the Great Scar all threaten the existence of human society in the region. From the west come strange beasts, some mindless and slavering, others advanced scouts sent from mysterious factions of the Tzalxochitl.

The desert plains south of South Eyropa, far from the civilized protections of Semerkhet, are a harsh and isolated area, technically under the rule of the Eyropan Empire. Due to its proximity to the unpredictable dangers of the Great Scar and its climate and lack of resources, the Hamil Kha, one of several small tribes to live in this region, live largely outside of the western empire's regulation.

The Hamil Kha are able to survive this unforgiving land through the use of a unique form of magic; a semi-structured, pseudo-scientific discipline referred to as Hamil Kha alchemy. In Hamil Kha's traditional tongue the practice is called anu hikhna, or "great wisdom". The natural resources of the region, hypercharged with magical potential, provide especially effective ingredients for alchemical preparation. One out of ten Hamil Kha are trained from youth to become alchemists. These alchemists serve a dual role as leaders of the tribe, and the greatest of them become the elder and lead the other alchemists in running the tribe. Ran’s uncle, Oruhan, was an elder of the tribe and had just named Ran his heir when a contingent of the Eyropan army came upon the tribe.

The alchemical tradition of Hamil Kha, now hundreds of years old, had developed a slow reputation in Eyropa which had grown considerably by the time Ran was named heir at the age of sixteen. The Eyropan military forcefully conscripted Oruhan, Ran, and all but two of the tribe’s alchemists in an effort to direct alchemical research towards increasing the power of Eyropan Empire. The principle actor behind this plan, an ambitious officer in the Eyropan military, hoped to combine the rigorous logical system of anu hikhna with the mass production capabilities of gnomish factories to empower the Empire's military.

The Hamil Kha alchemists formed a research and development team led by Oruhan. The western empirea attached them to a special contingent of their army; their main project was the development and testing of an alchemical compound which would allow its imbiber greater access to the Astral Plane. It was hoped that this product could then be transcribed to be mass produced in gnomish factories, to greatly increase the magical potential of the Eyropan Empire.

The alchemists worked with great secrecy for fear of reprisals from hostile, anti-magic puradynes. They traveled from Semerkhet to Trelham, to the frigid clime of Norroenirlund, to Keltaris and finally to the Sooqui Plane in search of rare ingredients and special conditions for the creation of a mass producible potion which could pierce the veil between the material and astral planes. Though without much freedom and under the careful watch of the empire's soldiers, Ran experienced a truly wide range of locales and people, an obedient captive on the surface but ever on the search for something, anything to satiate the wild passions of his youth, often in chase of some secret obsession linked with his longing for home.

Nine years had passed. Oruhan, Ran, and the four other surviving alchemists arrived along with a small army contingent to the Sooqui Planes, south of Thar Shaddin only to come across a sizable party of marauding bandits, far from the protection of the Eyropan main army. Ran experienced hell for some four weeks as his party fled the bloodthirsty pursuit of an organized band of murderers. Oruhan was slain in front of his eyes some days into the chase, and some mornings Ran woke to the blood curling cries of an ambushing warrior and the sickening crunch of a companion’s brutal death.

Eventually, the party was separated and Ran found himself alone. Though he didn’t know it, Ran found himself on the eastern side of the Ofriyu Mar river, wounded and still in fear of being hunted. The fear pushed him north, away from the certain death to be found to the south.

Dirty, unkempt, with torn clothing and a self-dressed spear wound in serious need of expert care, Ran stumbles into the town of Shim, the first civilized society he has seen in many days.

I realize that the system of alchemy may be a bit vague in its description; I didn’t want to take away from the character description by devoting a huge section to describing the working system of alchemy. But since I am eschewing revealing the specifics of its powers, I thought I should outline the basics of what is and isn’t possible with alchemy, and how alchemy is practiced. I've tried my best to fit with the setting of Thar Shaddin's world so please let me know if anything doesn't fit!

All Things Have an Essence

A key idea behind Hamil Kha alchemy is that all things of the world have a characteristic essence which is unique to them. The essence is an abstract representation of the object’s existence. This essence is fairly consistent across different incarnations of the same object; for example, the petals of a yellow tulip from Marn and the petals of a yellow tulip grown in Shim would have about the same essence. It is rather the story behind the object in question that determines the essence of an object as an alchemical ingredient. For example, the newly sprouted grass in the aftermath of a wild fire carries with it the essence of regeneration, and is an important ingredient for balms which soothes burn wounds.

The essence of an object can be seen as the abstract interpretation of that object’s history. The essence of an object is unique to its history, so that in theory, each incarnation could be completely unique in its effects. Practically, a tulip tends to live the same story no matter where it is found, thus there is a measure of reliability to how ingredients can be mixed together to perform alchemy.

Essence Can Be Distilled

In the context of Hamil Kha alchemy, each ingredient (usually some part of flora or fauna, though inorganic matter can also be used) has an essence which can be distilled or otherwise removed from its bonds to the material plane, and then preserved through special methods. The essence, thus removed from the material, can then reach to the astral and generate magical effects.

As a pseudo-science, there are some systemized rules which can be observed with the practice of alchemy. It is possible, for example, to make less or more concentrated doses of certain essences. Mixing two essences together will have varying effects, but it almost always follows a consistent set of logic. Mixing the essence of grass sprouted in a field of ash after a fire with the distilled essence of troll blood, for example, may create a regenerative potion which is especially effective for healing burn damage.

Conditions of Creation

Hamil Kha alchemy can be understood to be the creation of magical substance which takes the essential story of some object or multiple objects, and interprets it into a magical effect. The story of the ingredients plays a key role in the effects, but so does the story of the alchemical substance’s creation.

The more elaborate or convoluted the creation process, the more elaborate or convoluted the results of alchemy. As noted in the character sheet, potions which grant low-light vision must be created entirely within the light of the full moon. A particularly rare and deadly poison requires its ingredients to be distilled within the mouth of a man’s still-rotting corpse.

The ingredients and the process of creation together can be seen as a process by which the alchemist “programs” an alchemical substance to produce certain results. Unlike true science, Hamil Kha alchemy does not follow strict and unbreakable rules and although reliable, alchemical practice often results in accidents of varying degrees. Side effects are known to be common.

Tools of the Trade; Practice

Technically, Hamil Kha alchemy can be performed using impromptu equipment, although it is difficult and prone to unpredictable failures without quality tools. Beakers and containers for a variety of wet and dry ingredients are important for proper storage and dosing of alchemical ingredients, but they are not quite essential for alchemy.

Three things are of the utmost importance to perform the most basic of alchemical experiments. Fire (or an alternative source of high heat) is a purifying agent, and is absolutely critical to the distillation of most essences. Water provides a neutral medium in which essences can be distilled from ingredients; many ingredients cannot withstand the direct heat of fire and water serves as a key buffer between the purifying fire and the raw ingredient. Finally, some form of heat-resistant container is important for the actual process of distillation.

A standard kitchen will make do, but specialized tools greatly increase the safety, reliability, and versatility of alchemical experimentation. For example, a mortar and pestle is not an essential tool, but without this and other specialized tools, the alchemical compounds created will ultimately be simple and restricted to few ingredients.

Most simple alchemical compounds can be created in the course of an evening, given that all necessary ingredients and tools are readily available. The more elaborate or potent the intended effect of the alchemical creation, the longer and more prone to failure its creation is. In the case of the aforementioned low-light vision potion, even a stray fox casting a brief shadow on the distilling solution can cause hours of work to become simply ruined.

The Effects of Hamil Kha Alchemy

Although almost any number of magical effects is possible through Hamil Kha alchemy, alchemical compounds operate under two main restrictions:

First, the effects of an alchemical compound are rarely permanent. Most alchemical compounds are meant to be ingested or topically applied, and go through some form of physical and astral metabolism. Once the substance has been fully metabolized by the body of the imbiber, its effects fade.

Second, alchemical compounds rarely create matter out of nothing. It can temporarily increase or decrease the mass or the volume, or provide a particularly potent fuel for certain elemental energies, but an alchemical compound will never create something out of nothing.

Outside of these restrictions, alchemical compounds can do any number of things, such as affect the mind of its imbibers to promote euphoria, or to cause depression, or to clear one’s sinuses, to induce panic or fear, and cure all manners of ills. The main restriction here is that the right essences must be found, properly distilled, and then created under strict conditions. As such, alchemists are themselves interpreters who analyze the abstract and philosophical meanings behind each object and to combine them in a way they desire.

The Hamil Kha Alchemist

The final ingredient, perhaps the most important, is the alchemist himself. The typical Hamil Kha alchemist is less magical than the simplest of spell casters, yet they are undeniably linked to the workings of the astral plane. It is the alchemist who must, through experience, study, and wisdom, learn how the meanings of this world interact with one another.

Inevitably, mistakes are made in his interpretations, and inevitably, alchemical formulas are bound to cause some sort of unintended harm. To the Hamil Kha, however, these risks are small compared to the protection alchemy grants them from the harshness of their native land.

Hamil Kha Alchemy in Pal Tahrenor’s History

Hamil Kha alchemy as a tradition has existed for some two hundred years. In its inception, it was a little-understood magic ritual practiced by the wise men of Hamil Kha to help the tribe survive the harsh desert plains of Southern Eyropa. The tribe was isolated and word of Hamil Kha alchemy spread slowly or not at all during the early years.

Hamil Kha alchemy only became a semi-structured pseudo-science within the last fifty years, and as such the full extent of alchemical knowledge is as of yet, undiscovered. Rumors have spread only in the last few decades about the strange magical experiments of the Hamil Kha tribe, and the rumor spread slowly from South Eyropa to North Eyropa. An ambitious officer of the Eyropan military tracked the rumors to the Hamil Kha tribe, and set off the chain of events which led to Ran’s displacement.

In the nine years of forced research, Oruhan’s research team has made great leaps in the knowledge of Hamil Kha alchemy; unfortunately, most of this knowledge is useless without the deep alchemical insights which disappeared with Oruhan’s violent death.

What you did with the physical description is perfect. I really do like the alchemy write up.

Approved. If you want to make any changes to it after talking with Frug pm myself or any other moderator to unlock it.

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The player Forgewright seems to be having a hard time snagging someone for his thread; I'd suggest checking him out to see if it would be something you're interested in. http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2693