Thar Shaddin

Name: Eridanus (Êridanos in Greek)

Nickname(s): king of rivers, Istros, Po, Hyperborea

Age: 610

Gender: Male

Race: Flumen, Amnis Flumina, Amnes (Potamoi in Greek)

Rivers: Hyperborea (Modern day Rhine of Germany and Don of Italy), Istros, Po, Constellation Eridanus

°•Physical Description•°
Eridanus is 6'3" with broad shoulders, tapered waist, and narrow hips that are typical of athletic swimmers. His body is all lean muscle that are well defined and he has fair white skin that is tinged with pale blue.

Eridanus' hair is worn long and is the color of white water rapids. It moves with the breeze as if by a water current instead so that it flows about his face and shoulders like it would underwater. His eyes are always deep like he is always in thought and the iris is the color of liquid amber. He also has almost Egyptian-like markings around his eyes of the same liquid amber. He has the mark of 'water' on both of his cheeks below his high cheekbones.

°•Personality•°
Once carefree and smiling, he is now quiet and keeps to himself since his daughters' deaths. He avoids confrontation and any social situation when he can but won't turn away from his responsibilities as a Potamoi. Once he finally opens up to someone, Eridanus can be kind and friendly.

With his looks in human form combined with his brooding eyes, many women find themselves attracted to him. The fact that he rarely talks to anyone aside from a few polite words, didn't help discourage the womenfolk. When he does speak, his voice is deep and strong as if he is used to people taking heed of his words. When angered, his voice almost echo the sound of rumbling waters.

°•Possessions•°
Eridanus lays claim to anything lost in the depths of his rivers but if the rightful owner comes along, more often than not they will find the lost item washed up on the shore. He spends most of his time flowing along in his rivers but when he does venture out in his human form, he wears clothing he finds that were left forgotten.

Not one for fighting, he doesn't really have any weapons but he does have a set of ancient Greek style armor that was made magically by his daughters' amber tears. Their tears turned into a suit of golden colored armor. It is light weight and unable to age so that it forever looks and works the same way it always had since first created. Eridanus has never used the armor and keeps it well hidden in his watery depths. It is the only thing he has that his daughters made before the Changer's earthquake took their lives.

°•Strengths•°
He is strongest when he is in his own waters. The mist alone from his riverbanks is enough to give him a boost in strength. In human form he is as strong as three human men combined when out of freshwater. When he is up to his knees in freshwater, he is as strong as a bull in its prime. If Eridanus is submerged in his own waters, he can muster up the force of the current and make it his strength.

°•Powers•°
Potamoi can take on several different forms at will. The greater the river, the more forms they can take and the more control they have over the shift. The three forms they can take when they are not one with their river is a bull with the head of a man, a man with the head of a bull, or a man with a water serpent's body from the hips down.

Eridanus can take these forms and more. He also has a humanoid one but has long pointed ears, a light blue tinge to his skin, and flowing hair the color of white water rapids. He also can turn into a full serpent that resembles a water dragon, its colors very similar to his humanoid form but with a more silvery aspect than white.

Like his brethren, he has control of his rivers when he is submerged and a part of it to an extent. When he is a part of it, Eridanus is quite literately part of it. No longer would he have a solid body. He would be the river but would still have his own mind and have his senses albeit scattered in the water. He can make his rivers flow as fast or slow, run shallow and wide or deep and narrow, when he is in this state. Although he can control the movement of the rivers that are his, it would still take years of time to shift the water's course just like with any other river.

If severely injured, he can be submerged and become one with the river to heal but it would take time. If it is a killing blow, he can still die from it like any other being but his chances of survival are about 10% better when in his river. He can only heal in his own river. Taking water from it to use on him won't work neither will any other freshwater.

If a person prays at his banks using one of his names, he will hear it. It is customary to bring some kind of offering in payment if the person is asking for a favor. The offering needs to be something pleasing to one of the senses such as good smelling incense or flowers, a food or drink that smells or tastes good (basically not burned or overly bitter/sour/spicy) and so on. Of course there are always exceptions such as a person who has nothing or one in danger but if a deal is struck or a promise made to Eridanus, there is no breaking it without his consent.

°•Weaknesses•°
Eridanus may be very strong but he is one person. Just because he can be as strong as three men does not mean three men can't gang up on him and win. He will put up a good fight though but since he doesn't have any experience in fighting, he would be going on instinct alone.

Two of his biggest weaknesses is fire and electricity. If a storm looks like its rolling in, he heads for the safety of caves or the subterranean caverns and galleries that were naturally formed by his river Hyperborea underneath Laurium.Usually when in a fight that is unnecessary such as Eridanus being singled out, he would escape by entering his river and basically disappear. Since water is a major conductor of electricity, he cannot escape from it and it would cause him more pain than getting hit or sliced by a bladed weapon.

Fire is an element that never really got along with him since he is water. Flames or heat from them can cause him to evaporate which is not a very pleasant feeling. Not that his phobia of it helps matters either but his dislike of fire is a natural instinct as much as a groundhog's fear of its shadow. The thought of being burned alive by fire horrifies him to the point that he will avoid any flame bigger than that of a lit oil lamp.

Because Eridanus is directly tied to his rivers, if one dries up it would cripple him greatly. Since the first of his rivers was Hyperborea, if he would somehow lose it, it could very well kill him. If all were to dry up, he would most certainly die. It is also true the other way around. If he were to die, all his rivers' water sources would be cut off and they would dry up. The one way known so far to counteract the impact of losing the river is the amphora jug his race and their children usually carry. From it pours the waters of their owner and it is ever flowing. The amphora jug cannot break or dry up as long the source of all freshwater still flows.

°•History•°
His childhood was carefree as it was with his three thousand brothers and sisters of Oceanus. He was spirited, womanizing, and fond of traveling as far as his stream would take him. When Eridanus became more mature and his stream became a small river, he found himself on the outskirts of a town called Hyperborea.

The people there became dependent on his river for their crops and for drinking. It gave him a feeling of being and so his river stayed its course and the people named him after their land. Every now and then, Eridanus would take shape of a man with the lower body of a serpent to converse with the women that came to fetch water.

Over the years, he became the father of the Naiads of Hesperiai who brought him joy as he watched them play at his riverbanks. He could even be seen in his bull form with the head of a man, one of his daughters perched on his back while holding a amphora jug. They were known to go to farmers who had prayed for a drink of his cold water as they worked in the fields. Eridanus humored his daughters and would carry them on his back to the one who prayed, the naiads pouring the water from their jugs.

Life went on like this in Hyperborea for countless years, the river growing slowly as Eridanus' strength and powers grew with it. Then one day a tragedy befell the son of Helios, the brother to his daughters. Phaethon attempted to drive the sun chariot across the sky only to be struck down by Zeus' fire barbed bolt.

Phaethon fell through the night sky like a brightly shining star. Eridanus seen the boy get struck as did his daughters on the riverbank. Rising up from his river with arms outstretched, he received Phaethon and washed the flames from the youth's body. The Naiads Hesperiai wept for their fallen brother who had came into their world. Eridanus laid the boy's body on land as his daughters built a tomb around Phaethon. On his epitaph they engraved: 'Here Phaethon lies, his father's charioteer; great was his fall, yet did he greatly dare'.

After their loving chore was done, the daughters then transformed themselves into poplar trees to ever weep tears of amber for the grief of their lost brother. Eridanus' river would from then on would exhale breezes and chill mists that would harden the amber tears as they fell and later collect.

Eridanus no longer would venture out far from his river to deliver water as he did when one of his daughters would perch upon his back. Time he would have spent watching them laugh and play at his banks, he spent tending to them and collecting their tears. When Poseidon wedded Beroe, Eridanus came bringing shining gifts of amber that had been collected from the trees of Hesperiai.

Time ran together for him after that with nothing to make itself prominent until one day, when he went to collect tears, a set of golden colored armor was there instead. Eridanus knew that it was made from his daughters' tears. Taking up the armor, he hid it in the deepest and darkest part of his river so that it wouldn't be stolen from him.

More time passes and though he still answered prayers like his brothers and sisters, he didn't feel as much joy in it as he had before. That is, until the Changer's War. The earthquakes tore up the city and the landscape making the survivors flee for a safer place. During the most violent quake, the earth split around him forcing Eridanus to retreat to his river and become one with the water.

He watched in grief as the poplar trees that were his daughters were uprooted and smashed by the earthquake that sank him into a deep fissure. Waves of power that was not of this world, warped the lands around and twisted everything he had known. He could feel a trembling through him as his daughters, brothers, sisters, and nieces were all affected in some way and others killed.

The final and most violent spill of magic sealed him off from the world above that he had known his whole existence. After everything had finally settled, he took on his half serpent form to give voice to his anguish. After several decades of simply being water flowing along, Eridanus finally brought himself around to focus on carving a new path for his river.

Without realizing it, his river had branched off in two places on its own, the water finding its way to the surface. The main river continued on underground until it reached the ocean. Using his mist, he made the caverns and galleries wider and higher over time. One day, he felt a sudden splash of something falling in him. He became a entire water serpent for the first time and seen the human male that had fallen through a weak part of the ground.

Eridanus pushed him to shore with his snout and then retreated again as the mortal began coughing up water. Before he knew it, a tribe of them had lowered a rope, voices hollering the name 'Cyril'. After the man was hoisted up, Eridanus thought it would have been the end of it. The following day, a group of men stumbled along his riverbank with the one called Cyril guiding the way.

He didn't care what the humans did as long as they didn't try to muck around in his river. After a couple months, he could hear the humans faintly as they worked on making a permanent home for themselves overhead. A decade passes and strange things made of wood churned in his water, moving with the force of his currents.

Eridanus became curious of his new neighbors and started to listen to them speak more. The way they spoke, it seemed much depended on his river flowing strong and steady. Once again he had a feeling of purpose. These humans were depending on him for their livelihood.

Soon after that, he gained in strength and power little by little as he worked on controlling his waters to benefit the humans. Confident in his abilities, Eridanus rose from his river Hyperborea in a fully human male form. He borrowed clothes left behind as one of the workers and walked the steps leading up to the now fully formed city of Laurium. Cyril was long dead as was his son but the city lived on.

Now Eridanus walks the streets, pathways, and caverns above his river. People who held on to their myths and were descendants of his city from long ago, still pass on the few stories they had about him and his daughters. Workers or children who had slipped and fallen into the river, tell stories of something pushing them to shore. The grateful families leave him offerings and pray for his continued watch over their loved ones.

Eridanus receives the offerings with a faint smile after the giver leaves, setting a white pebble worn smooth in its place. It was the known sign that they had been heard. He was a Potamoi and like his brothers and sisters, he would always fulfill his responsibilities.

Oyoy!

I would like an estimate of his age.

You have him with "River(s)" -- does he only inhabitate one river or several?

Okay, the number one thing that I tend to emphasize about exotic non-human species is this: besides his looks and his abilities, what about him makes him non-human? His personality could mark him as any mysterious mourning young human father. What are his species like, and how does he exhibit those traits? What obstensibly marks him as non-human? What are the notable similarities to humankind? Being that he is primarily a water species and humans are definitely land species, I would like to see some thought put into this and exhibited in both history and personality, as well as how this affects him positively (strengths) and negatively (weaknesses). How does he feel about the various land species? What about other water species?

Complete control of his rivers is a very, very strong power to have. We prefer for newer players to be around for a bit and posting before starting to get into such powers. Think about it -- for some of these towns being able to control a river would make or break them. Heck, even my city would suffer if the river was to endure forced flooding or dried up! I would suggest lowering the effect of his abilities on his rivers, or waiting until you've been here for awhile longer before revisiting this.

What smells or tastes good to a river spirit?

Under weaknesses you have that he "can be as strong as three men" -- please detail that in his strengths.

Is he stronger in his river? Out of it? Is he defenseless out of the river? What makes him different from a human in or out of the river? Is he physically formed the same? Different?

Does fire or elecricity have any affect on him that is different from a regular human? Please detail this.

As his daughters died during the Changer's War (and from the history it sounds like he existed at least a few thousand years before that), that makes him very, very old. We tend to require players wait to make such characters until they've been with us awhile -- it requires really getting into the setting nitty gritty and detailing out their lives. The longer a person lives, the more that happens to them. How does that affect their personality and outlook? How does it change them? What do they do? Whose lives have they affected? So on.

Errum, I'm assuming Phaethon is, in this instance, a euphemism for a minor Changer? The Greek gods did not exactly exist as in myths; much is the same for any religion -- they'd have to be the pal tahrenorian counterparts! Magic didn't show up until around 1100BCE I think it was, so please be conscious of that with Eridanus.


I like the gist of what you're making, and how it's tying in to Laurium, but if you're going for approval now ya gotta tone it down as far as his age and power goes.

I understand and agree about the age. He really is old by the other race's standards that can be found in Thar. I was simply working with blending mythology and the history of the site. If you want me to make him younger then I will readily do so. Right now, he would be the equivalent human age of 37 if I have the time line right. With him being a river, he is slow to age and slow to mature.

With the complete control of the river part, in the next couple lines that had followed after I listed what I had meant. Even if he is a Potamoi, to fully shift all that water would take years. That was why it had taken him so long to carve the caverns and form the galleries in the history section. It takes about ten or more years for a normal river to shift course on its own if at all.

The boy that had died was from the astral plane that had fallen through when he had been struck down. That was why he was dead by the time Eridanus received him and why I had said he had fallen so far into their world, the world of Thar.

With him having the strength of three men, I mean that his physical strength when in solid form was the equivalent of three human men. I should have clarified that better. ^^; Oh and that would be while dry and his strength goes for all his forms.

Thanks for getting to my character so soon. I really do appreciate it.

Oh I forgot about addressing the fire and electricity part for you. >…<

Water is a big conductor of electricity so it would be something he couldn't escape from by merging with his river. With fire, it could make him evaporate. His phobia of it probably doesn't help matters either.

My first suggestion would be to maybe put this guy on hold until you've been here awhile and had some other characters. If I were to approve him right now he would be the oldest and one of the most powerful characters on the board -- and we definitely err on the side of caution with power. We do tend to play it safe when it comes to new players, and even if the player in question is a cool cucumber (like you are) we try to be as fair as possible -- meaning no exceptions. I would suggest making a more mobile character who has more capabilities than Tanya but isn't such a powerful being as Eridanus so we can see your stuff, and then we can come back to this guy. A good example of a character that came after the player had been with us for a few months is Vanyusha. The history was detailed, the abnormalities of the character compared to your typical human were laid out, and while he has some power he is by no means a powerful being.

If you still want to go ahead with Eridanus now, I would like you to cut his age way down, choosing one of his major powers to focus on (strength, shapeshifting, control of/being water, or healing) and minimizing the rest. I would also suggest putting in weaknesses that are a bit greater than what's currently there (what is he made of that makes fire and electricity such a big danger? How does his physiology compare to a human's?).

Be more detailed with his history. How does time affect him?

Try add more to this that will better define what separates him, psychologically, from your typical human. What makes a potamoi a potamoi, and not your usual human-shifter? That sort of thing.

I heard this character is being shelved for the time being. I will be moving it to the Old Characters forum for now, but if/when you would like to bring this character into play just send a PM to one of the active staff members and we will move the topic back to Character Applications.