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ADRIAN BOUGHBEND
"So much wasted talent!"
General Information
name. Adrian Boughbendage. 29
birthday. April 6
sexuality. bisexual
marital status. single
occupation. sword instructor
current location. Everlight Hold
Characteristics
height. 5'10"build. fencer-fit
hair. brown, notable sideburns, to cover his death mark (not fully)
eyes. blue
Family Background
mother. Carissafather. Terry
sibling. none
other. sword students...
Extended Information
Add any genre-specific info fields you need here!
About
Formerly a talented young sorcerer scouted for the Empire's elite Proxy program to create, as it sounds, Proxies (magically mind-linked cadre of officials) to enact the will of the Emperor even distantly. During a training session, a member of his cohort lost control of their magic and reached something else, an otherworldly/eldritch horror that killed them and left Adrian deathtouched. This means his magic is now irreversibly "tainted" by the thing that killed his classmate, which means the program swiftly let him go, and put a magical ban on his use of sorcery just in case. He is also left with a mark of the deathtouched on his face and blood that bleeds black, which people make comments about these days. Now Adrian works as an instructor of swordsmanship to noble youths, a tutor for hire, and he has long since given up on his own youthful dreams of being somebody important in the world of sorcery.
When one of his students, herself being looked at for the Proxy program, abruptly goes missing, he gets involved in a conspiracy that somehow his washed-out failure is the key to making him the man to solve the problem. He, too, is confused and upset by this. Needs must?
When one of his students, herself being looked at for the Proxy program, abruptly goes missing, he gets involved in a conspiracy that somehow his washed-out failure is the key to making him the man to solve the problem. He, too, is confused and upset by this. Needs must?
Personality
exhausted.
Appearance & Body Language
Adrian is tallish and muscular-ish, with a fencer's build. He tends to look tired or less than enthusiastic about any given situation he's in, whether or not he really feels that way; he has resting snooze face. While he may keep to himself, his typical body language doesn't suggest that he's withdrawn or shy, only acutely aware that there's a big curse mark on his literal face and he tries to avoid spending too much time with total strangers because of it. He's an accomplished swordsman and moves with the expected grace, though he still instinctively moves to use magic sometimes and then falters, like it physically hurts (it does). In times of need he can turn up the confidence, which mostly manifests in wordplaying around people to change minds even on a technicality, or to actively lean into being deathtouched and use it as a kind of symbol of being "the dreaded," not to mess with.
As for typical dress, he has ye olde fashion sense and his clothing varies from plainer working/training clothes to moderately fancier clothes that are, like... D&D Shein, in terms of actual fineness. He can't afford real finery but sometimes he needs to dress it up, so he has cheaper clothes that are done up to look more intricate and "fancy."
He also has the deathtouched mark which super unluckily for him is on his face; he makes a half-hearted attempt to conceal as much of it as he can under his big-ass sideburns, but it doesn't entirely work. His blood is also black, but that's much less obvious than the death mark.
As for typical dress, he has ye olde fashion sense and his clothing varies from plainer working/training clothes to moderately fancier clothes that are, like... D&D Shein, in terms of actual fineness. He can't afford real finery but sometimes he needs to dress it up, so he has cheaper clothes that are done up to look more intricate and "fancy."
He also has the deathtouched mark which super unluckily for him is on his face; he makes a half-hearted attempt to conceal as much of it as he can under his big-ass sideburns, but it doesn't entirely work. His blood is also black, but that's much less obvious than the death mark.
History/Setting
Adrian is born in 1512 to the Boughbend family in the city of Redchurch, a modestly-sized city in the Empire of Kesh. He is the only child of his parents, who own and operate an in called The Sweet Pea, and he has a comfortable childhood spent meeting many travelers and strange characters who come through the inn. It's through listening to these travelers that he develops a drive to learn sorcery, which luckily for him he has an innate inclination towards, and he focuses his education on magic as soon as he hits the properly educable age (twelve).
He excels at it; he is a very good sorcerer. Top marks in school, the pride of his parents and the neighborhood, and even, as a teenager, scouted to participate in the Proxy Program, to train to be a Proxy of the Emperor. This is essentially sorcerer accelerated grad school, and once he becomes a Proxy he will be able to buy his parents a hundred inns with the renown and gold that will come with the position.
In his advanced studies he continues to excel, challenged for once by peers who are on his own level, which is fresh and new and sometimes frustrating. A year in he receives the Proxy gem, an enchanted piece of magitech inserted behind his right ear, that will enable the mind-linking magic that Proxies use to act in the Emperor's name. In another few years, during a practical exam, disaster strikes: a classmate's overuse of magic splits the veil and touches something, something eldritch and hungry, and they are torn apart by both magic and creature. Adrian is witness to it and the creature is witness to him, leaving him deathtouched. For this reason and his lingering trauma leaving him volatile and prone to lashing out, he is removed from the program.
The problem with failing out as a Proxy is no one has ever done it before; people who can't cut it tend to die rather than drop out, and Adrian has the Proxy gem stuck in the side of his head, permanently. It gives him too much magical access, and so as a precautionary measure, the program leaders fasten an enchanted silver cuff around his wrist that will silence his magical ability as long as it's there, or else it will hurt him gravely to try. Adrian, angry and defeated, becomes a teacher of swordsmanship. He does this in the university for about a year before the looks and the muttering and the rumors—about the cuff, the deathtouch, the incident—get to him, and he quits to become a private tutor for local nobles' children.
It's a living. He's not very happy about it, but his dreams were ground under heel years ago now, and he's able to live comfortably, at least. He has some renown as a good teacher and swordsman, although people still ask him off the cuff questions about his past, and it stings every time. He tries to move on, but random people he meets don't want to let him. He tries.
Another few years on and one of his students, a young girl nicknamed Bee, goes missing—suspiciously quickly after she tells Adrian someone from the Proxy Program has reached out to her family about her potential. Her parents quickly lose interest in investigating her disappearance; if she isn't around to get them that Proxy money, they will focus on her younger sister instead, and Adrian takes this a little personally. Other Proxies-in-training have also started to go missing, and a conspiracy seems to be afoot, and despite his reputation and all his misgivings, Adrian is well-equipped to investigate the disappearances. At the urging of Bee's younger sister, he agrees to... try. To do... something.
The cuff is still a problem. So is the way he's not a Proxy, and so old contacts and former friends in the program have very little interest in helping him out in any way. It takes him months to make any progress at all, and his progress takes him deep into a monster-infested cave. In the cave, disarmed and desperate, he makes the near-suicidal choice to use his magic despite the punishment of the cuff; the Proxy gem activates, and the wellspring of magic he reaches in the Proxy connection allows him to quite literally burn through the cuff's enchantments and shatter it. He passes out, but the monster still dies.
Now he's a bit further into his quest, and the Proxy gem connection is unstable—but he can reach out to Bee, wherever she is, and she can do her best to help him get there. All on his own. Maybe he should gather a party? He's trying.
Setting
Kesh is a big country, an Empire that has previously absorbed smaller city-states into its political mass, so the culture is wide and varied throughout. Many of the typical fantasy races are represented: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, dragonborn, etc., and the more populous cities are melting pots of culture and people as a result. Keshen cities traditionally have a central castle (or at least a big manor, depending on the size of the town) where the Emperor's Proxies and other local government work, surrounded by industry and residential areas, eventually surrounded by farmland. Keshen cities vary at the individual level in terms of layout, what kinds of industry and shops are in town, and what kind of local traditions each culture contributes, but in terms of basic structure: castle, economy, farms.
Adrian's hometown of Redchurch is one such town; it's medium-sized for a city and the castle sits at the very edge, on the shores of a great lake. It's pleasant, it's a Nice Town, and its relative proximity to the Kesh capital means there's a lot of different types of cultures, people, and traditions mixed together. Adrian's parents own one of the inns in town and it has been successful and popular for many years.
The capital city of Everlight Hold is big and sprawling and also on the water (although it's different water), a bustling port city that is like Redchurch turned up to eleven. Even Adrian, who grew up in a decently busy city with all kinds of melting pot culture, had a bit of culture shock when he first moved to Everlight Hold to attend the sorcery school. The city's development follows its water, clustered around the coast and hugging the river as it pushes further inland. The Proxy school is located in the Old Ward, closest to the castle. It is unknown whether the Emperor is actually in the castle or even uses it as a chief residence at all, but their absence could just be a wild rumor.
Kesh is bordered by Stroia to the west and Grattan to the north. Relations with Grattan are friendly; relations with Stroia are less so. Adrian's current theory is that Stroia is behind the Proxy kidnappings—Proxies are a direct line to the Emperor in Kesh, after all, so they would be an advantageous group of people to target. Why the targets are all trainees is another question entirely...
maps: Redchurch | Everlight Hold
Deathtouched
While the setting is loosely D&D based/adjacent, since he isn't actually from or in a tabletop game, there's no character sheet with spell slots etc. to refer to. Adrian is a sorcerer: he has been artificially nerfed for several years and unable to use his magic, but he has the knowledge of basic sorcery. This includes elemental magic, detection of magic, thaumaturgy, and offensive/defensive magic. He doesn't know any healing spells because that was someone else's job back in school— Anyway.
Adrian is also deathtouched, which means what it sounds like: he came in close contact with death both as a concept and as a physical, eldritch creature. As a result his magic is permanently tainted, he bears the mark (the literal "touch") on his face in the form of a dark and gnarled "scar," and his blood is black and thicker than it should be if spilled. The tainting of his magic means that it all, if he could use it, comes with a light edge of harm, for example: thaumaturgy will look wrong, elemental magic will be too harsh, detect magic will leave a stain, and so on. His magic is very burnt.
The cuff put on him after he was removed from the program is silver and enchanted in nature. It serves only one purpose: to hurt him if he uses magic, to the point that it could kill him if he keeps using it. It also has the lesser enchantment to alert the authorities if magic is used, and to also hurt its wearer if someone tries to take it off. Eventually, he manages to get it off by quite literally exploding it, through channeling enough magic that the enchantments are overpowered. This does almost kill him in the process, and the resulting physical trauma of it has left him in a dire state—using magic still hurts, although not as bad now—but it's better than nothing.
He excels at it; he is a very good sorcerer. Top marks in school, the pride of his parents and the neighborhood, and even, as a teenager, scouted to participate in the Proxy Program, to train to be a Proxy of the Emperor. This is essentially sorcerer accelerated grad school, and once he becomes a Proxy he will be able to buy his parents a hundred inns with the renown and gold that will come with the position.
In his advanced studies he continues to excel, challenged for once by peers who are on his own level, which is fresh and new and sometimes frustrating. A year in he receives the Proxy gem, an enchanted piece of magitech inserted behind his right ear, that will enable the mind-linking magic that Proxies use to act in the Emperor's name. In another few years, during a practical exam, disaster strikes: a classmate's overuse of magic splits the veil and touches something, something eldritch and hungry, and they are torn apart by both magic and creature. Adrian is witness to it and the creature is witness to him, leaving him deathtouched. For this reason and his lingering trauma leaving him volatile and prone to lashing out, he is removed from the program.
The problem with failing out as a Proxy is no one has ever done it before; people who can't cut it tend to die rather than drop out, and Adrian has the Proxy gem stuck in the side of his head, permanently. It gives him too much magical access, and so as a precautionary measure, the program leaders fasten an enchanted silver cuff around his wrist that will silence his magical ability as long as it's there, or else it will hurt him gravely to try. Adrian, angry and defeated, becomes a teacher of swordsmanship. He does this in the university for about a year before the looks and the muttering and the rumors—about the cuff, the deathtouch, the incident—get to him, and he quits to become a private tutor for local nobles' children.
It's a living. He's not very happy about it, but his dreams were ground under heel years ago now, and he's able to live comfortably, at least. He has some renown as a good teacher and swordsman, although people still ask him off the cuff questions about his past, and it stings every time. He tries to move on, but random people he meets don't want to let him. He tries.
Another few years on and one of his students, a young girl nicknamed Bee, goes missing—suspiciously quickly after she tells Adrian someone from the Proxy Program has reached out to her family about her potential. Her parents quickly lose interest in investigating her disappearance; if she isn't around to get them that Proxy money, they will focus on her younger sister instead, and Adrian takes this a little personally. Other Proxies-in-training have also started to go missing, and a conspiracy seems to be afoot, and despite his reputation and all his misgivings, Adrian is well-equipped to investigate the disappearances. At the urging of Bee's younger sister, he agrees to... try. To do... something.
The cuff is still a problem. So is the way he's not a Proxy, and so old contacts and former friends in the program have very little interest in helping him out in any way. It takes him months to make any progress at all, and his progress takes him deep into a monster-infested cave. In the cave, disarmed and desperate, he makes the near-suicidal choice to use his magic despite the punishment of the cuff; the Proxy gem activates, and the wellspring of magic he reaches in the Proxy connection allows him to quite literally burn through the cuff's enchantments and shatter it. He passes out, but the monster still dies.
Now he's a bit further into his quest, and the Proxy gem connection is unstable—but he can reach out to Bee, wherever she is, and she can do her best to help him get there. All on his own. Maybe he should gather a party? He's trying.
Setting
Kesh is a big country, an Empire that has previously absorbed smaller city-states into its political mass, so the culture is wide and varied throughout. Many of the typical fantasy races are represented: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, dragonborn, etc., and the more populous cities are melting pots of culture and people as a result. Keshen cities traditionally have a central castle (or at least a big manor, depending on the size of the town) where the Emperor's Proxies and other local government work, surrounded by industry and residential areas, eventually surrounded by farmland. Keshen cities vary at the individual level in terms of layout, what kinds of industry and shops are in town, and what kind of local traditions each culture contributes, but in terms of basic structure: castle, economy, farms.
Adrian's hometown of Redchurch is one such town; it's medium-sized for a city and the castle sits at the very edge, on the shores of a great lake. It's pleasant, it's a Nice Town, and its relative proximity to the Kesh capital means there's a lot of different types of cultures, people, and traditions mixed together. Adrian's parents own one of the inns in town and it has been successful and popular for many years.
The capital city of Everlight Hold is big and sprawling and also on the water (although it's different water), a bustling port city that is like Redchurch turned up to eleven. Even Adrian, who grew up in a decently busy city with all kinds of melting pot culture, had a bit of culture shock when he first moved to Everlight Hold to attend the sorcery school. The city's development follows its water, clustered around the coast and hugging the river as it pushes further inland. The Proxy school is located in the Old Ward, closest to the castle. It is unknown whether the Emperor is actually in the castle or even uses it as a chief residence at all, but their absence could just be a wild rumor.
Kesh is bordered by Stroia to the west and Grattan to the north. Relations with Grattan are friendly; relations with Stroia are less so. Adrian's current theory is that Stroia is behind the Proxy kidnappings—Proxies are a direct line to the Emperor in Kesh, after all, so they would be an advantageous group of people to target. Why the targets are all trainees is another question entirely...
maps: Redchurch | Everlight Hold
Deathtouched
While the setting is loosely D&D based/adjacent, since he isn't actually from or in a tabletop game, there's no character sheet with spell slots etc. to refer to. Adrian is a sorcerer: he has been artificially nerfed for several years and unable to use his magic, but he has the knowledge of basic sorcery. This includes elemental magic, detection of magic, thaumaturgy, and offensive/defensive magic. He doesn't know any healing spells because that was someone else's job back in school— Anyway.
Adrian is also deathtouched, which means what it sounds like: he came in close contact with death both as a concept and as a physical, eldritch creature. As a result his magic is permanently tainted, he bears the mark (the literal "touch") on his face in the form of a dark and gnarled "scar," and his blood is black and thicker than it should be if spilled. The tainting of his magic means that it all, if he could use it, comes with a light edge of harm, for example: thaumaturgy will look wrong, elemental magic will be too harsh, detect magic will leave a stain, and so on. His magic is very burnt.
The cuff put on him after he was removed from the program is silver and enchanted in nature. It serves only one purpose: to hurt him if he uses magic, to the point that it could kill him if he keeps using it. It also has the lesser enchantment to alert the authorities if magic is used, and to also hurt its wearer if someone tries to take it off. Eventually, he manages to get it off by quite literally exploding it, through channeling enough magic that the enchantments are overpowered. This does almost kill him in the process, and the resulting physical trauma of it has left him in a dire state—using magic still hurts, although not as bad now—but it's better than nothing.
maps courtesy of this generator
player
name. Laura
age. 30+
timezone. EST
pb. custom pc from greedfall
code. tessisamess