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Shyfios

Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 11:01 pm
by Shyfios
Name: Shyfios
Age: His kind do not celebrate birthdays once adulthood is reached, but he is most certainly older than twenty, which is the age of adulthood for his people. Maybe about twenty-seven or twenty-eight?
Race: Tropical mer
Height:
↪ Human — 5'11"
↪ Mer — 7'6"
Weight:
↪ Human — 155lbs
↪ Mer — 196.2lbs
Physical Description: Tall and slender even by mer standards, Shyfios can be called quite handsome. His face isn't too round or square and he has high cheekbones with eyes that are a little larger than the average human's or elf's. His skin is quite pale, due to living so far under the surface for most of his life. Sunlight rarely hit his skin and so his skin never really tanned. Due to this paleness, he burns quite easily in the sun, which is why he is often seen wearing light long-sleeved shirts and pants when outside. He does this even during the warmer seasons, which is only possible due to his high tolerance of heat. His hair is long and an eminence colour. His hair at its longest reaches his knees. His bangs are short and swept to the side and his hair is longer in the back than it is in the front. Normally he wears his hair pulled up into a high ponytail, only a few of his front locks hanging free. HIs eyes are the same purple as his hair and his tail is a pearlescent purple. In place of human ears he has fin-ears, behind which are a set of gills that run down the sides of his neck, stopping midway. Running along his spine is a translucent dorsal fin that is only a few inches tall. It is purple as well. His hands are scaled, webbed, and end in long claws. The scales travel and stop about midway up his forearm, where he has two additional fins. Shyfios keeps most of these traits even when in his human form.
Images: one two

Possessions: He has his regalia, which was passed through his family and given to him by his father, as per tradition (though he rarely wears it), a set of two identical thrusting spears (one is a spare since they can be quite troublesome to make a high quality replacement), a number of large (massive by our own standards, about the size of an adult's head) mystical flowers which really only serve the purpose of making his home smell lovely, which in turn calms and relaxes him, a violin, and some special oils to keep his skin moisturized so he does not have to return to the water so often.

Powers or Strengths: As expected, he is an incredibly strong swimmer and can breathe and see perfectly underwater. He is an excellent fisherman and is skilled at fashioning various spears (though he is best at thrusting spears). He is relatively good at playing the violin, though he has only been playing the instrument for two years. He has the ability to communicate freely with sealife and can mimic many of their sounds. He is able to also communicate with land animals, but not as freely. In terms of more magical abilities, Shyfios is a capable healer and purifier. He is also able to turn many everyday items into weapons by making them an "offering". By making them an "offering", the object modifies itself into a weapon that reflects in some way what it is. For example, if he gave as an "offering" a branch of a poisonous bush, that branch would turn into a short sword whose blade is coated in poison. If he gave a thorned rose, he would receive as a weapon a number of throwing needles or knives. Once his body dries out to a certain point, he loses his tail to legs, which is an agonizing process, mind you

Weaknesses: He must return to water every other day. Usually, though, instead of returning to a body of water, he fills his bathtub and squeezes himself in there. His grasp of the local language is poor. Offerings tire him greatly and can even lead to injuries, usually in the form of internal bleeding which can easily escalate from minor to major. When it rains, he is forced into his mermaid form should he get wet, and he can't exactly walk on land when he lacks his legs. Due to spending most of his life underwater, he has little resistance to the diseases he is exposed to on land, making him usually rather sickly.

History: Shyfios' past isn't all that extraordinary. He suffered no tragic losses and wasn't an outcast. He had it relatively good, actually. His pod (which consisted of a thousand or so mers) traveled constantly, never staying in one part of the oceans for very long, meaning that he has no real home town, but he was happy with his way of life. He was able to see so many wondrous and fantastical things during their travels. His family was of nobility, due primarily to his father being of high rank in their pod's small military. Nobility didn't mean all that much, though, for the mers. It primarily meant that he could, well...there wasn't much he could do that others couldn't. His caste primarily meant that he was given more respect and better battle training, but really, that was pretty much it. Due to him being given much better battle training, it was expected of him to go into the pod's military, but surprisingly he refused to go, deciding instead to leave the waters for land upon coming of age. He spent the next number of years traveling the land, sticking primarily to the coast. After, though, a few year he grew tired of the constant wandering and one way or another found himself seeking a home in Marn, despite the laws against magic and the general fear of outsiders. To him, the place just has a certain appeal in being out in the middle of no where and so very isolated.

{ Okay, really crappy profile, sorry ;; I swear, my posts are many times better than this form. }

Re: Shyfios

Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 12:38 am
by Niabi
Hello Lee, and welcome to Thar.

I'm going to try to address all the questions I have in one go, so you don't have to wait much longer.

1. Where do his massive flowers come from? What sort of significance do they have? I'd like for any out of the ordinary possessions to somehow tie back into the character.

2. In what way does he communicate with sea life and other creatures? Is it a form of mind reading? Is it though non-verbal clues, such as reading body language? Or does he actually speak with the animals? (In that case do other people see him barking at dogs, meowing at cats, etc.?)

3. To what extent can he heal and purify things? I'd like to see some descriptions. Can he magically mend broken bones? Can he repair broken flesh at an accelerated rate (how quickly?) Are his purifying powers limited to water? Can he make pond water safe to drink or do his powers extend to the ability of negating toxic waste?

4. How does he magically make everyday objects into weapons? You say he needs to make an "offering" but what kind of offering? Does he offer his own flesh and blood? Does he sacrifice another living thing? Is it something different? Does he need any special tools or magical ingredients to make a weapon? Are the weapons in anyway magical? Does it take time and energy to make a weapon or is it a matter of just thinking it and it appears? Does he know what the weapon will be prior to making it, or it a random thing that just happens? Is there any limit to what can or can not be a weapon? Does it take a lot of energy out of him to make a weapon? I want to see some limitations as well as it taking some kind of toll on him, this could be a very powerful ability.

5. What happens if he doesn't bathe or get wet for two days? Does he die? Does he shrivel up, become extremely dehydrated and sickly? Would rain or drinking water count as getting wet and keeping him healthy?

6. If his tail appears whenever it rains, does it also happen when he takes a bath? What about drinking water? What if somebody threw a drink at him or if a cart rolled by in the street and splashed water on him?

I'd also like to see some more to the history. Can you break it up into a few paragraphs to give us a feel for his young life growing up in the ocean as well as what he has learned and done since leaving that life behind. Give us a feel for his personality. Does he ever miss his home? Does he miss being among his kind? Does he plan on going back? What were his reasons for not doing what was expected of him and did that have any influence on his decision to live on land?

If you have any questions or would like me to read over your edits, please leave a reply here and I will check back over it.