Kariyun

Information

Player: flammos200

Character Full Name: Kariyun Astralrend

Character In-Game Name: Kariyun

Nickname(s): Kari, sun-blighted, sun-kissed, day-walker, traitor, teacher.

Association(s): The Highborne, The Shen’dralar(what's left of them), The Kirin Tor(loosely).

Race: Highborne Night Elf

Class: Mage

Age: 12,782

Sex: Female.

Hair: Long, held in a couple of twintails by engraved silver clasps. Its natural color is white.

Eyes: Amber.

Weight: 125 kg

Height: 2.15 m.

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Either a tunic, pants, boots and a pair of gloves, or robes with some light metallic reinforcements on them, typically engraved with Arcane symbols that help with conductivity or work as mana-batteries.

Other: Always carries an arcane runed blade with herself.

Personality

Kariyun bears the scars of her past with the pride that made the Highborne legend. The ages have done little to dull her spirit. Though the world is a pale imitation of its former glory, a hollow shell of what it once was, she finds seemingly limitless enthusiasm in its defense. Azeroth may be a war-torn rock, but by whatever gods still listen to people like her, she will fight for it to the bitter end. Perhaps to conceal the anguish she feels over what her own people did, Kariyun is a relatively unapologetic individual, prone to the odd bout of hasty, emotion-driven behavior.

In spite of this, she maintains the viewpoint that most of the younger races are still little more than animals – though that’s not to say she’s not an ‘animal lover’. She’ll tell Dwarves she remembers the days when they were all Earthen, gleefully recounts the genocidal Arcane wars on Trolls, and generally shakes her proverbial cane at anyone she can. One of the few species she steps on her pride for are the Draenei, a race for which she shows a fair deal of reverence. She has displayed considerable interest in the Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei, and has partnered up with the Kirin Tor in the past, aiding in anything from research to warfare.

Nevertheless, Kariyun feels the loss of what was – to her, at least – utopia in earnest. She empathizes with the Kaldorei as regards the Sundering, and is surprisingly benevolent in regard to the reintroduction of the Arcane arts to the Night Elven people, sometimes partaking in teaching. At her best, she is a determined and honorable ally to the defenders of Azeroth. At her worst, she is a bitter old bearer of unfulfilled wishes and hasty judgment.

History

Born in Zin-Azshari, to Highborne parents, Kariyun’s early life was paradise. She wanted for nothing and the magical utopia provided everything the girl could desire. She lived the golden age to its fullest, basking in the adoration of those not of her caste and eventually coming into her own as an adult. Education was primarily centered on magic, and as the girl settled into a career, it veered into blacksmithing and enchanting. Her apprenticeship was served under one of the major suppliers of the Moon Guard. For the better part of the time prior to the War of the Ancients she was one of the many magical crafters of the city, bringing into existence many wondrous artifacts in parallel with studying the intricacies and depths of the Arcane arts, drawing deeply of the gifts of the Well of Eternity.

When the War came Kariyun was not in Zin-Azshari, having gone far southward in search of materials to work with in her craft. She returned to a war not of her own making, and tried doing her part to stem the tide of demons, her heart feeling as though it cracked a little each time she was forced to slay one of her kind. Thanks to nearly three thousand years of experience with the Arcane, she was able to contribute to the struggle – but more so did the work of her craft, for many magical arms and armors were distributed to the troops of the resistance, priceless artifacts given up with no small amount of bitterness on Kariyun’s part, urged by the haste of the moment.

With the advent of the Sundering and the end of the War, Kaldorei society met a reform and the arcane craftsman’s life shattered around her as the very fabric of her art was banned under pain of death. Kariyun clung tightly to the clusters of Highborne that remained and even got a few glances at the royalty, whom she presumed would provide some sort of direction for her people, and spied for a brief few moments the legendary runeblade Felo’melorn upon her king's person. This instant set alight the spark of rebellion in the heart of the Arcanist.

Kariyun’s mind was set, and her mission was the only thing that kept her from falling completely into the lethargy that plagued her kin: She would create a sword in the same style as that wielded by her King. But what would she make it out of? She set out across Kalimdor in search of the proper materials, probing and testing the earth for metals, until at one point she came across a strange vein of ore unearthed by the Sundering’s blast – a sliver of Elementium. There was precious little metal, and she took great care to extract it from the earth with magic, mundane tools being insufficient for the delicate work.

For the next two and a half thousand years, Kariyun’s sole occupation was working the metal into a weapon, the process being exceptionally time-consuming due to the nature of the substance and its resistance to any sort of method she tried to manipulate it through. Eventually, she succeeded, and the sword was created after millennia of careful smithing – Its hilt was studded in subtle mana-filled topaz, jacinth and diamond, its pommel was a star-sapphire, its crossguard twin chimaeras, its blade bore a golden filigreed inscription in ancient Kaldorei runes: ‘For whosoever draws this sword in battle shall be as a victorious king.’, and many enchantments were placed upon it even through the forging process, creating a true Highborne Runeblade, and all of it in secret.

Alas, as she returned to her people she was met with the Arcane storm over Ashenvale. Kariyun’s heart sank. Fearing slaughter, she turned tail and ran as far as her legs could take her, until all of her energy was spent. By luck, she managed to evade capture – or perhaps no one bothered to hunt her down, or no one knew she was even gone – and found herself near one of the southern cities presided over by the Highborne – one that had been spared the ravages of the War by the intervention of Goldrinn: Eldre’thalas.

Kariyun approached slowly and carefully, fearful of potential Night Elves within the citadel. Even so, the lure of arcane energy from within hinted to the city’s true masters and soon, the Arcanist met the Shen’dralar. They were welcoming, certainly, and Kariyun’s talents were put to good use – making few weapons and armor, but many baubles to make life easier, from brooms that sweep by themselves, to shovels that move aside rubble on their lonesome, to flasks that filled themselves with water so long as they had a source of mana to conjure it, she helped provide some of the sundries needed for living in the crumbling city, and in return, she was allowed to subsist of the same source of magical energy that the rest of the Shen’dralar did: the demon Immol’thar.

Immortality was denied to the Highborne, so now they took it by force. Kariyun was eager to tap into the new source of energy, and siphoned her fill, banishing lethargy and the ravages of time alike. And for a time, life was good. Then someone complained about the state of the world and said they wished they could turn back time to change it. That was all it took.

Kariyun set herself to magical research into temporal manipulation, and though she became more and more proficient in it, and learned much of the nature of time-flow altogether over the next two and a half thousand years, it all came to naught. The present refused to change, plain and simple. History, it seemed, was dead-set, so she gave up the foolish pursuit after being talked out of it by one of the older Shen’dralar Highborne. Nevertheless, more practical applications of time-manipulation remained in her repertoire and they continue to be there to this day.

By the time she got over her little obsession, a new pursuit came up: An alternative source of power. As no external one could be found in due time – and due to her concerns about continuing to draw energy from Immol’thar as well as the oddities in Prince Tortheldrin’s behavior – she directed her attention to the smallest bits she could find. She took a tiny amount of silver and divided it using the Arcane again and again and again until it could no longer be divided. Surely, there must have been some sort of magical power holding the tiny piece of metal together. It was certainly far smaller than the eye could see – requiring quite a lot of arcane magnification to perceive. And she tried pulling at it in numerous methods.

It took a few hundred years until she gave up dividing this smallest piece of silver into bits by applying physical force and took to transmutation and a thousand more until she actually succeeded. What resulted were a flash of light and heat, and two smaller bits.

Kariyun replicated the experiment, using more and more instances of silver at a time, and in time trying to do it with other substances. It worked, and it was a pretty basic spell with low energy requirements due to the very small target. The reverse of the spell also worked, given enough mana.

She wondered if anyone’d tried it before, and when she tried doing it with a chunk of rock visible to the naked eye, she found the answer: She was nearly burnt alive in the ensuing blast, requiring extensive healing later on, and the energy requirements were extremely steep – and moreover, the energies produced in the reaction were not arcane in nature and thus could not be harnessed. Even more so, they were harmful to the people around her, the flashes of light and heat sickening her and the few who came to watch her experiments. Later on, in Dalaran, she would collaborate with a Gnome natural philosopher well-versed in radiation, and she would find out that she simply produced fission when splitting atoms and fusion when joining them, both nuclear transmutations producing light, heat and the aforementioned radiation. She would be disappointed that her little personal discovery was in fact nothing special; it was just that she didn’t know of anyone to have done it solely with the Arcane – but she did end up helping with the retaking of Gnomeregan, eager to study the effects of radiation, and even went as far as to question Draenei on the emissions of their vessels’ engines.

Kariyun applied her newfound knowledge to practical uses – clearing rubble, warding off invaders and the like. It was more effective – if also more draining – than the average fiery explosion, and she sort of felt fond of it, in spite of its glaringly obvious drawbacks.

Time passed and Kariyun left Eldre’thalas altogether before the slaughter of many of the Shen’dralar at the hands of ogres, demons and Prince Tortheldrin alike. Time passed and wars happened without her knowing. She traveled east and encountered a species she didn’t know existed. Humanity. It was already well past the third war, and she found herself in Theramore.

It took some time for her to gather the courage to interact with humans on a genuine level – the squirmy little beasts seemed to live their lives at far too swift a pace, always preoccupied with one thing or another, scurrying about like ants. She watched them for a long time before speaking to them – human-watching is still one of her favorite pastimes to this day.

She was thus introduced to the fact that mankind had arcanists of their own, and a whole organization centered around them – the Kirin Tor. And what was even more shocking was that her kindred had gone across the sea and became High Elves – and Sin’dorei. She was very, very confused for a few months that were spent asking one question after another. She left for Dalaran on the first Icebreaker she could board, though the sight of Northrend’s Highborne ruins pained her.

Once in the grasp of the Kirin Tor formally, Kariyun made a handful of friends and colleagues, and ended up fighting in the Nexus War alongside some of them, but she did not concern herself with any other conflicts. The idea that a Dragon Aspect would turn on the world had not struck her since the War of the Ancients, and reality dealt her a harsh blow. Truth be told, she was scared witless throughout most of the Nexus War, frightened of either the Arcane being taken away from her or dying at the talons of the masters of magic, but the experience hardened her.

She was in Ratchet when the Cataclysm hit, trying to secure a shipment of gemstones to bring back for a friend to practice enchanting on. Her first instinct was to run and hide – and she did just that, at one point even catching the briefest glimpse of the Destroyer before teleporting to safety. Nevertheless, she was once more determined – she would not let Azeroth fall. If there ever was a cause worthy enough to fight tooth and nail for, it was this. The advent of the reintroduction of the Highborne into Kaldorei society provided an opportunity: she would teach and see if she couldn’t perhaps turn a few Night Elves back to their ancient duty: the defense of the world.

Skills and Abilities

Due to being privy to many of the ancient secrets of the Highborne and Arcane lore from the time before the War of the Ancients, Kariyun differs a little from the archetypal mage:

Master of All Time: Kariyun’s focus on the manipulation of time spanned millennia and continues to be honed to this day, improving upon spells such as Slow, Time Warp, etc.

Relics of a Bygone Age: Kariyun’s original profession centered on the creation of magical artifacts, from alchemical steels to fiery weapons and lightweight armor to rune-inscribed trinkets. The works of what was once an arcane smith were mostly lost to the War of the Ancients and the Sundering, but many found their way unwittingly into the hands of adventurers, and a few of those were worthy of song and legend in their own right. Kariyun still possesses the capability to forge and enchant artifacts, but getting her to do it is a trial in and of itself.

You Know This Sword: Kariyun’s most prized possession, the finest creation to ever come of her craft; it is a named runeblade in the style popularized by the Highborne kings around the time of the War of the Ancients. An engraved sword, with a filigreed golden inscription, its hilt studded with mana-filled gems, the crossguard depicting twin chimaeras. It is resistant to the wear and tear of combat and the ravages of the ages, and is an excellent conductor for magical energy – so much so that when a particularly potent arcanist draws it, its blade alights brightly. Its pommel has a cut gem, the facets of which seem movable like a puzzlebox. Kariyun is proficient with its use.

God-splitter: Pouring the entirety of her power into a single spell, Kariyun unleashes an eruption of heat and light in an area. Replaces Flamestrike and drains all her mana, leaving her fully depleted. Rather than leaving an area scorched like a normal Flamestrike, it leaves it irradiated.

Sadly, all of this brings drawbacks:

For I Have Tasted The Fruit: Kariyun has gazed long and hard into the abyss - from experimenting with magic, to witnessing the ravages of war or warping time one too many times - and it has gazed into her. She remains slightly more susceptible to the mental manipulation coming from particularly powerful creatures, due to her weakened mental barriers.

Arcane Addiction: Kariyun is addicted to the Arcane arts, be it casting, or being in an area infused with magical power, or merely touching or being close to an Arcane-infused object or enchanted item. Lack of Arcane brings with it cripplingly painful withdrawal.

Arcane Corruption: Power corrupts, and Kariyun is still subject to such. One could wax poetic and say her soul was tainted by the magics she wields, but practically speaking, the eternally-patient and kind Arcanist from before the War of the Ancients is seldom seen nowadays, more often replaced by a quick-tempered creature possessed of inhuman morals and intellect.