To ignite a fading star

[The Yaski]

This is a compilation of important characters in my little story here. More sheets will be added as characters appear, and they will be updated as situations change.

Spoiler: Mechanical breakdown

For these sheets, abilities are broken down into various tiers, as follows:

• Nonexistent (-100)
• Near Nonexistent (-80)
• Pitiful (-60)
• Weak (-40)
• Poor (-20)
• Below Average (-10)
• Average (+0)
• Above Average (+10)
• Proficient (+20)
• Noteworthy (+30)
• Professional (+40)
• Exceptional (+60)
• Outstanding (+80)
• Field defining (+100)
• Overwhelming (+120)
• Awe-inspiring (+160)
• Mythical (+200)
• Pinnacle (+250)

(We'll be rolling d100s when your stats are involved. DCs will usually be known ahead of time (I don't yet know why I wouldn't tell you, but I want to leave that door open just in case). Natural 1s and natural 100s will have additional effects. Which probably won't happen but won't it be interesting if it does~.)

Different characters may be measured on different scales. Our main character will be gauged on multiple scales simultaneously. The definitions stand in relation to what scale they are being measured against.

For example: A beginner swordsman Ignited and a beginner mage Ignited both start their first day in the adventurers guild. The swordsman's "Swordplay" skill and the mage's "Magic" are both "Professional" grade when measured on a Civilian scale. However, when measured on an Adventurer's scale, their respective talents are only "Average". One might even be "Below Average" despite that being their class's specialty. Similarly, a moderately successful adventurer with a few quests under their belt might be considered "Professional" in their area of expertise even on an Adventurer's scale, which would be "Exceptional" or "Outstanding" to a Civilian.

One more thing of note on the Civilian and Adventurer's scale. These things are measured across the entire breadth of that respective tier. If a wizard has a "Poor" endurance, this doesn't mean they are poor compared to other wizards, it means it's "Poor" relative to the sum of all Adventurers (Including brawlers, swordsmen, knights, and so on). Similarly, while a majority of adult Civilians have "Average" physical stats, a similarly large majority have "Nonexistent" magical stats. As such, despite its name, even a "Poor" or "Pathetic" magical ability can be noteworthy in the Civilian space. It can be similarly impressive in the Adventurer's space given the right context: A knight with "Exceptional" physical stats normally will have "Nonexistent" magic. So if they have "Weak" magic that may make them stand out even more, and since it's something they aren't normally reliant on, they may be able to leverage that small amount of magic further than the title implies.

I don't have a tabs addiction, I can quit any time I want (god help me, this is hell to maintain through BB code orz).

The Al-Hafiz Family Confidants Acquaintances

• Lady Al-Hafiz William Al-Hafiz Sahin Al-Hafiz Aoibheann Al-Hafiz

  • Yes SV, this is you.
    
    
    Eliana Shira Al-Hafiz Rookie Protector Candidate 001

    • Abilities:
      
      Civilian Adventurer

      • Strength: Below Average
        Speed: Proficient
        Endurance: Below Average
        Swordplay: Above Average
        Magical power: Pitiful
        Magical control: Proficient
        Resolve: Professional
      • Strength: Weak
        Speed: Poor
        Endurance: Pitiful
        Swordplay: Below Average
        Magical power: Near-Nonexistent
        Magical control: Poor
        Resolve: Professional
      As you can see, our fine heroine here is actually a little above average overall for the Civilian populace. The error bars on each tier have some wiggle room, so she may be a bit better off than the tiers alone imply. Her Strength and Swordplay both sit close to the higher end of their respective Civilian tiers. If I have some time I'll work on turning these from broad categories into more quantifiable stats (to show how far you are from the next tier), but for now you have this while I work on getting this entire project up and running.
      
      A lot of her benefits can be attributed to her parentage and her situation growing up (and if that isn't just the tagline for life, I don't know what is). Her Above Average swordplay comes from her time studying under her father, and while she hasn't been keeping up with it as much as of late, she still has a lot of ingrained muscle memory. The rest— her Speed and her magical abilities —are gifts from her mother. Our lovely protagonist still does not possess the Spark, so her magical abilities are limited to those she gains through her bloodline directly, but even that is more than the average person can say.
      
      Appearance:
      In most fantasy media, half-dragons come in two flavors: "bipedal dragons whose only human features are their skeletal structure (and probably their chest)" and "just a baseline human, but with a pair of horns, a tail, slit eyes, a few patches of scales on their shoulders and maybe face, probably some claws, probably some wings, and maybe digitigrade legs if the artist likes that sort of thing". Which– while being quite the list –are all traits that don't stop them from being recognizably human (and recognizably 'sexy').
      
      Your brother definitely got the latter option and you... well, you kind of fall between the two. Appearance-wise your mother was more of a drake than a dragon, and she has that fey influence mixed in as well, so while you are very very dragon, you don't go as "full dragon" as some half-dragons do.
      
      Firstly, you have hair. Long, straight, and black. It's one of the few features you share with your father. You also don't have any human skin. Your skin ranges from somewhat bumpy and leathery in places like your throat and palms, to fully scaled down your back and over much of your legs. Your skin, whether leathery or scaly, doesn't technically have a default color. If you focus on your colors and try and keep them neutral, force them down without focusing on one color in particular, the end result is somewhat random. But the most common results of that type of effort are either gold, a chocolaty brown, or most commonly of all, what looks like mother of pearl, white with rainbow pearlescence.
      
      You're good at controlling your colors (usually) and your constant practice on controlling them is a large factor in your magical control. Your scales naturally want to change color. When you're scared or startled they try to make you blend into the surrounding environment, and the rest of the time you are a veritable mood-ring chameleon if you aren't careful. Not everyone knows you well enough to guess what colors correspond to what emotional responses, but you try to keep the colors under control so people aren't able to figure it out (or sometimes, when you are feeling extra devious, you make the colors give false signals, making it appear you're feeling a color you actually aren't).
      
      You have clawed hands and feet and digitigrade legs. Your claws are sharp and your teeth are more so, at least in the front of your mouth. Your eyes are slit and are the color of platinum coins. Your ears got hit with the double whammy of Fae and Dragon heritage, becoming long and pointed things that sticks out past the back of your skull, about the same distance as your horns. Speaking of, you have a pair of backwards sweeping horns that are generally white with black tips and are usually not subjected to your skin's regular color shenanigans, but they still get caught up in your panic response and you can get them to change color if you focus hard on it.
      
      Rather than the traditional half-dragon tail, you have a long thin tail like an iguana or long tailed lizard. Your natural build is more lithe than bulky. You don't have any wings, and you still don't have a control over your breath abilities. Chronologically and mentally you are 20 years old, but your mother's lineage has a bit of a lifespan, and physically you look closer to 16.
    • Abilities:
      
      Civilian Adventurer

      • Strength: Above Average
        Speed: Noteworthy
        Endurance: Average
        Swordplay: Above Average
        Magical power: Below Average
        Magical control: Proficient
        ???: Nonexistent
        Resolve: Professional
      • Strength: Poor
        Speed: Below Average
        Endurance: Poor
        Swordplay: Below Average
        Magical power: Weak
        Magical control: Poor
        ???: Nonexistent
        Resolve: Professional
      This is also you, but when you're suited up. The suit gives you a pretty decent bump to your abilities across the board, and this is just the generic rookie suit. None of your stats are extraordinary on their own, but your spread is pretty decent. Were your physical and magical stats swapped you'd look like your average apprentice wizard. You aren't quite the level of even your average newbie adventurer, but they normally have several years of extra practice on you, so you aren't doing too bad for just starting out.
  • Your younger brother. You... well, you love him, but you can't help but feel a little jealous. Or maybe a lot jealous.
    
    You got more of your Mom's genes that your brother did, and it shows. Your brother is still young, but he's clearly going to grow up to be the poster boy for 'sexy' half-dragons. He got Dad's bronzy skin and rakish looks. Shoulder length black hair he doesn't even have to do anything with for it to look good. Long (but not as long as yours) pointed ears that look 'exotic'. Golden eyes with flecks of silver in them. A pair of horns like yours that sweep back along his skull. Sharp canines but otherwise normal teeth. Patches of scales on his forehead, along his jawline, on his shoulders, elbows, and knees, that slowly change in color as opposed to your sudden shifts. Claws on otherwise human hands and feet. A dragon tail that is shorter than yours so it gets in the way less. It's honestly not fair.
    
    On top of that, he gets to have the Spark while you don't. Dad used to make him practice the sword, and he's gotten pretty good at it, but he's uncertain if he wants to stick with it now that he's not forced to. You know he struggles between choosing his own path and throwing away all the work he's put in on the training so far, back during happier days. He's still only 14, so he has some time left to make his choice, but that time where a decision must be made is swiftly approaching.
  • This is your dad.
  • TLDR; your mom was a Fae who was basically a dragon, and was a huge nerd about books
    
    The study of the Fae has been a long and troubled process. The Fae are generally uncooperative in allowing themselves to be studied for the sake of understanding, and attempts by less scrupulous scholars to contain Fae forcibly for study have a tendency to end... poorly.
    
    What it generally known and accepted is that the Fae are some sort of Nature spirits. The mechanisms of their formation and the reasoning behind the forms they end up taking is a mystery that has evaded centuries of study. The Fae themselves are not shy in admitting they are formed of Natural energy when asked, but are highly evasive when pressed for further details. Some researchers have questioned if this makes Fae some sort of heightened Elemental, something that the Fae are quick to deny, although rarely giving reasons why. The greatest breakthrough on this subject came from the recounting of a wayward spearman who had a brief conversation with a Fae, and who quoted the Fae as stating "It's like we're formed from clouds while the Elementals are carved from glaciers. The stuff you're working with is technically the same, and yet it's completely different from the very start." (The fact that Fae seem most willing to reveal the greatest secrets to people with the least capability to act upon them is another source of frustration for academics)
    
    It's generally accepted that Fae in some way embody aspects of Nature, but this is more a general observation than a measured fact. In this way, common knowledge has roughly grouped Fae into two camps: Direct Manifestations and Conceptual Personifications. Direct Manifestations are things like Dryads, Naiads, Genius Loci, and Hesperids. They are directly linked to tangible objects and locations, acting as the face and voice for powerful natural formations. They are easy to identify, understand, and qualify.
    
    Conceptual Personifications on the other hand make up the remaining 80% of Fae, and are far more difficult to pigeonhole into easy classifications. Some Fae simply get placed in this camp for lack of a better understanding for why Nature gave them the forms they did. Unicorns, Pixies, Gremlins, and Huldra to name a few. Nobody really knows what they are supposed to embody, and none of the Fae are telling, but for now scholars (for the sake of the their theories as well as their sanity) just assume that their concepts are too nuanced for them to yet understand. While things like Bogeymen and Gytrash are easier to acknowledge as embodiments of things like Fear and Doom, respectively.
    
    Then there are the Fae that people are most likely to encounter, and the ones that skirt the line between the two camps: the house spirits. They come in many forms and have many names across the lands, but they follow predictable patterns. They live in residences and will generally act benevolently and helpfully if appeased, and cause pranks and mischief if not given "proper" respect. They may be rarely seen, but their presence is often felt. They may not even technically live in the house. Many farmers speak of the Fae inhabiting their barns, or some people of the sprites that claim their yards as territory. These types of Fae are never found in the "wild". A Domovoi is never found in the middle of an uninhabited forest. A Tomte is not encountered on the peak of a lonely mountain. They seem to manifest directly in their place of residence, and disappear with the residence.
    
    Which is vastly interesting to academics. They appear to operate like Direct Manifestations, being directly linked to what is both an object and a location. And yet these things are themselves Conceptual. The only difference between a yard and a field is if someone claims it as such. A barn and a house are structurally similar, yet different in purpose, and the Fae that inhabit each are different, and both are different from the Fae that inhabit ruins. The Fae that manifest seem to understand the purpose of the location before they even arrive.
    
    Some scholars struggle with this fact, but for many it is simple. All living beings are extensions of Nature, and those that form civilizations are no different. They may have distanced themselves further from it, but they have not completely separated from it, and so the concepts they form are as valid as any other concept. By making new ideas and defining new concepts, they open up room for the creation of new Fae.
    
    But what is relevant here are the house spirits. Many people think of the house fey as looking like diminutive people, often but not always elderly looking, usually warped or deformed or with some sort of exaggerated proportions but not necessarily so. And this is an entirely human-centric viewpoint as well. Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Orcs, and all other speaking races are just as much a part of Nature as humans are. And they of course have their own house spirits, and their respective spirits tend to resemble the race living there just as much as human's house spirits do.
    
    Your mother was once the house (cavern? hoard?) spirit of a great and ancient dragon. Taking the form of a diminutive (relative to the dragon. She was still over 5 feet long in that form) drake, she was shown great respect by the master of that lair and so she returned it in kind. With golden scales she slithered amongst the piles of coins and kept them neat and orderly. With stony scales she crouched in the cave's mouth and kept an eye out for intruders. With scales the color of ancient wood she crept amongst the bookshelves, seeking moths, silverfish, and other pests that might seek to harm her master's precious tomes. For the master of the house(?) had a great hoard of knowledge, and it was there she found a fascination with books.
    
    Neither with the knowledge the great reference books contained nor with the epic tales of the rest. No, she was still Fae, and her fascination came from the concept of books themselves. Taking plant matter, pulping it up, then smashing that pulp down into thin sheets? Taking hundreds or thousands of these sheets, scribbling funny shapes all over their surface, stacking them all up, and then binding them all together and covering them in the skin of animals? What a funny and quaint idea!
    
    For centuries she cared for the dragon's hoard, and to her the books were always the most interesting artistic sculptures within it. Even better when they had fancifully illuminated letters or detailed art contained within. But in time even dragons die, and her cavern was left abandoned. Not for long, some wargs and goblins were quick to move into the vacated and thoroughly looted space, but Aoibheann had little interest in them. No, it was time to find a new place to reside.
    
    What most scholars don't know is that house spirits do not automatically dissolve back into Nature when their residence is destroyed. Oh many choose to, certainly, but that's a matter of the priorities of the Fae and not of their biology. But not all choose to, and your mother did not make that choice. Instead, she did what is considered an oddity to the Fae and instead of finding a new cavern with a new dragon to care for, she instead chose to pursue her newfound interest in books.
    
    Your mother travelled across the paths between paths and found herself at the bookbinding shop you now live in. She had a small stash of coins she'd taken from the hoard after her former master fell, before adventurers could claim the rest (it was barely enough to purchase a noble's mansion). With some of this she acquired the bookbinding store from its former owners, and set about learning the craft of making books, and became quite good at it. And, in time, she was joined in this by your father, your brother, and you.
    
    Your mother had learned the art of taking human form from watching her former master do so, and her human form was beautiful in that exotic way the Fae often are. She was endlessly patient and endlessly passionate in her craft. She loved books and cared little for their contents. She knew how to read and write dozens of languages so that she could write as many books as possible, but rarely bothered to actually read. For her, lines on a page were art pieces, and she worked to make her writing as beautiful as possible visually, regardless of the content of the sentences themselves. Sometimes she would even challenge herself in writing a book to never let any two of the same letter look completely identical to each other, shaping each and every one to look as beautiful as possible when melded into the complete form of the sentence.
    
    Your mother had both great talent and practice in her craft. She could identify the work of different bookbinders with the briefest glance at their stitching of the spine. She had endless praises and critiques for the choices of ink different writers used. Her choices of leather for covers was both perfect and extremely exacting. Your home has a collection of books your mother gathered, and she had attempted multiple times to explain her reasoning for keeping those books in particular, but it had always gone over your head. Their contents were a complete mishmash of different qualities and subjects, and would be baffling to most collectors who would assume that reading them was their purpose.
    
    Your mother was also still a house spirit at heart. She was not physically incapable of leaving your home but she was extremely agoraphobic and only ever did so out of the greatest necessity and with the greatest discomfort.
• WIP
• WIP

 

[The Yaski]

Nothing to see here yet.

You do not yet possess the tools to change your fate~

 

[Words on screen]

Nothing to see here yet~

This is a surprise tool that will help us later~ <3