Edward Larel's Blog - Posts Tagged "sentinel"
Character Profile - Arawn Segomo
*Warning, some spoilers involved*
To start things off, I'd like to thank Shay Fabbro for having Wren Emerson guest post on her blog. It was an incredibly well written piece on forming ideas which got me thinking about my topic below.
With that said, I wanted to take a handful of blogs and dig into character backgrounds from the Zen Chronicles. Today, I thought we’d start with the primary hero of book 1, Arawn Segomo.
Want a little more insight into Arawn's background? Check out his short story over on Deviantart.
When my friends and I sat down for the first time back in 2009 to talk about this world they'd always dreamt of but couldn't find time to build, I wrote down everything they had:
* Shapechanging race (xendauni) banished by elementals
* Arawn Segomo gets free and wants to rescue his people
* Race of tripodal creatures (vedros) who control magic
* A kid who is vital to the success of the heroes
* Children of Destiny, Diaden is a magic user, magic is forbidden
* Powerful artifact that can free the xendauni but is deconstructed
* Gems of Power
* Giant moon, lycanthropes
So, from that, I sat down and put together an elaborate web of notes that ultimately tied everything together. The first thing I did was determine that Arawn had to be important to everything related to my friends’ concepts. So, Arawn Segomo became somebody of great importance to the xendauni. He would be a prince, but not like the son of a king because the xendauni are ruled by elders. So, he’s the son of an elder, but also a hero leaving on this quest.
Why did they elect him? Because he’s exceptionally talented at changing his form. He can become animals and humanoids. Most xendauni can only become humanoids. He can’t fly, though, because that’s hard even for him. He’s also really good with swords and can use nature magic, but only when he concentrates.
Why is this important? The elementals won’t know what to expect if they do find him. It will also mean he can scout or spy better when needed. If there’s a tight situation (sometimes literally) he has some way out of it.
Does he know anybody? No, he’s been in the forest. He was born there and nobody has come into it since they were banished. So, he meets the mage and the kid when he leaves. He finds out that he should work with them because of a letter. The letter was written by somebody he can trust. These are the only people who know who he is and how to help so he has to rely on them.
The artifact is actually a pair of gloves. They have no power on their own because they require the Gems of Power to use properly. The gems were spread across the continent by the elementals. Arawn has the gloves because the person he trusted rescued them from the elementals and used a little of their remaining power to get them to him in the forest. The gloves were made by a mage before the xendauni were banished to help battle the elementals. The elementals stole the gloves from the xendauni and used them to exile the Black Forest.
The moon affects all things on Pnumadesi. It is always full. The xendauni, elementals, and lycanthropes can all change as easily as they do because of the presence of the moon. It isn’t the only moon, it’s actually the second. It also hasn’t been there forever, only since the second war, when the elementals banned arcane magic. There’s more about the moon that isn’t explained initially to anybody.
Lycanthropes train xendauni warriors, called sentinels. The training has a magical side effect that makes a sentinel’s normal form appear more animalistic over time. Arawn hasn’t started to experience that change yet, but probably will during the course of his quest. The more he uses his sentinel magic, the more it will eventually change him.
What are Arawn’s flaws? He has trouble controlling his emotions. He’s brash, stubborn, and a little arrogant at times. This is bad in a world where your enemy will declare war on the continent if they find you. Xendauni’s eyes trail colors when they’re emotional.
Arawn’s glow shades of purple. He can’t always hide the color by transforming and when his adrenaline gets going, he forgets entirely. He’s mortal, so he gets hurt when he falls or is attacked. He’s good, but not so good with his skills and abilities that he doesn’t have to worry about a fight.
He tires after extended exertion of any of his powers, so changing from a human to a xendauni to a horse wears on him and he needs to be aware of that if he’s going into battle.
He can’t transform from one creature to another without becoming a xendauni first, so there are times when he may just be stuck as something.
He’s all alone. With the difficulty of his quest and the fact that nobody really understands what he is, Arawn can’t always come to terms with things the same way another character might because he has to think about how it will affect not only him, but the view of his entire race. If he messes something up, the elementals could make a case that all xendauni are like him and people would hate them all for it. Then it wouldn’t matter if the race is free because nobody will trust them.
Thank you for sticking with me through this. Next week I’ll tackle another character. Got any questions, preferences, or suggestions? Leave me your comments.
To start things off, I'd like to thank Shay Fabbro for having Wren Emerson guest post on her blog. It was an incredibly well written piece on forming ideas which got me thinking about my topic below.
With that said, I wanted to take a handful of blogs and dig into character backgrounds from the Zen Chronicles. Today, I thought we’d start with the primary hero of book 1, Arawn Segomo.
Want a little more insight into Arawn's background? Check out his short story over on Deviantart.
When my friends and I sat down for the first time back in 2009 to talk about this world they'd always dreamt of but couldn't find time to build, I wrote down everything they had:
* Shapechanging race (xendauni) banished by elementals
* Arawn Segomo gets free and wants to rescue his people
* Race of tripodal creatures (vedros) who control magic
* A kid who is vital to the success of the heroes
* Children of Destiny, Diaden is a magic user, magic is forbidden
* Powerful artifact that can free the xendauni but is deconstructed
* Gems of Power
* Giant moon, lycanthropes
So, from that, I sat down and put together an elaborate web of notes that ultimately tied everything together. The first thing I did was determine that Arawn had to be important to everything related to my friends’ concepts. So, Arawn Segomo became somebody of great importance to the xendauni. He would be a prince, but not like the son of a king because the xendauni are ruled by elders. So, he’s the son of an elder, but also a hero leaving on this quest.
Why did they elect him? Because he’s exceptionally talented at changing his form. He can become animals and humanoids. Most xendauni can only become humanoids. He can’t fly, though, because that’s hard even for him. He’s also really good with swords and can use nature magic, but only when he concentrates.
Why is this important? The elementals won’t know what to expect if they do find him. It will also mean he can scout or spy better when needed. If there’s a tight situation (sometimes literally) he has some way out of it.
Does he know anybody? No, he’s been in the forest. He was born there and nobody has come into it since they were banished. So, he meets the mage and the kid when he leaves. He finds out that he should work with them because of a letter. The letter was written by somebody he can trust. These are the only people who know who he is and how to help so he has to rely on them.
The artifact is actually a pair of gloves. They have no power on their own because they require the Gems of Power to use properly. The gems were spread across the continent by the elementals. Arawn has the gloves because the person he trusted rescued them from the elementals and used a little of their remaining power to get them to him in the forest. The gloves were made by a mage before the xendauni were banished to help battle the elementals. The elementals stole the gloves from the xendauni and used them to exile the Black Forest.
The moon affects all things on Pnumadesi. It is always full. The xendauni, elementals, and lycanthropes can all change as easily as they do because of the presence of the moon. It isn’t the only moon, it’s actually the second. It also hasn’t been there forever, only since the second war, when the elementals banned arcane magic. There’s more about the moon that isn’t explained initially to anybody.
Lycanthropes train xendauni warriors, called sentinels. The training has a magical side effect that makes a sentinel’s normal form appear more animalistic over time. Arawn hasn’t started to experience that change yet, but probably will during the course of his quest. The more he uses his sentinel magic, the more it will eventually change him.
What are Arawn’s flaws? He has trouble controlling his emotions. He’s brash, stubborn, and a little arrogant at times. This is bad in a world where your enemy will declare war on the continent if they find you. Xendauni’s eyes trail colors when they’re emotional.
Arawn’s glow shades of purple. He can’t always hide the color by transforming and when his adrenaline gets going, he forgets entirely. He’s mortal, so he gets hurt when he falls or is attacked. He’s good, but not so good with his skills and abilities that he doesn’t have to worry about a fight.
He tires after extended exertion of any of his powers, so changing from a human to a xendauni to a horse wears on him and he needs to be aware of that if he’s going into battle.
He can’t transform from one creature to another without becoming a xendauni first, so there are times when he may just be stuck as something.
He’s all alone. With the difficulty of his quest and the fact that nobody really understands what he is, Arawn can’t always come to terms with things the same way another character might because he has to think about how it will affect not only him, but the view of his entire race. If he messes something up, the elementals could make a case that all xendauni are like him and people would hate them all for it. Then it wouldn’t matter if the race is free because nobody will trust them.
Thank you for sticking with me through this. Next week I’ll tackle another character. Got any questions, preferences, or suggestions? Leave me your comments.
