'''Name:''' Yanden 'Yan' Lagozoli
'''Age:''' 42
'''Race:''' galdor
'''Place of Origin:''' Vienda

!!!Backstory:
Born into a wealthy family with a long history of powerful and respected sorcerers, Yan had an easy life by all accounts. His childhood was uneventful, at least by galdori standards, his parents were no more distant than others and by some accounts might even have been considered fairly attentive. Years passed without anything of real note occurring in his life until he came of age and he took the test for Brunnhold on which he scored very highly. When he arrived he found that he very much enjoyed school; his studies fascinated him, and the environment seemed made for him. He wasn't particularly popular, but he made friends among his more studious peers and the teachers agreed unanimously that he could potentially be at the top or near top of his class.

When he was 16 he returned home for one of the regular breaks. During the stay a fire broke out late at night, engulfing the house rapidly in flames. Under heavy smoke Yan attempted to escape but was struck and trapped under a large beam as it burned, as more and more debris fell on him he was able to eek out an Airlessness spell and quell the flames around him before he blacked out. Undoubtedly this saved his life, as while he was unconscious the flames began to return but were further staved off by a sudden rain that came. He woke a few hours later, burned in various places all over his body, but managed to drag himself through the house until someone found him and he passed out again. While he was unconscious the second time someone attempted to heal him but the spell would not take and magic never seemed to be able to fully heal the specific injuries he had sustained in the fire. Unfortunately for him his injuries included a crushed and burned voice box, preventing him from ever being able to form sounds beyond the sound of his breathing. Both his parents died in the fire and his sister was whisked out of the house by her nanny.

He and his sister, who was 8 at the time, were put in the care of his Uncle. He returned to Brunnhold, but with his ability to practice greatly reduced and hindered by his inability to speak he fell into deep depression which was further exacerbated by the fact that others now avoided him fervently. He attempted to continue on simply by signing what spells he could but he was never able to recover mentally from his disability. Thus he left shortly before his 20th birthday and took his considerable inheritance, using a small portion to buy a small property in Vienda. He sequestered himself away for several years; buying virtually every work of print that he could. Late into his 20's he began to write and publish, living out the lives he assumes he can't ever have through his characters. As the years have gone on he has only withdrawn more and more, going out rarely and relying on hired help to keep himself properly fed. Most of his work has been written under various pseudonyms.

During the time after he left school and before he began writing his sister graduated herself, married, and then been made a widow. After liquidated her late husbands assets she disappeared from Yan's life, leaving behind a young girl with their uncle owing to the fact that Yan himself would certainly not have beena ble to care for her.

!!!Personality:
A quiet man for both the obvious physical reason, and because he is more often off in a world of his own imagining. Those he does have interactions with him, not including those whom he has hired to take care of him, often find themselves annoyed with his apparent lack of attention and find it supremely difficult to hold conversations with him. He cares little for the political goings on of his day, and holds no real opinions on any of the current issues that most galdori do or might. He keeps abreast of current events only insofar as they provide ideas for his own stories and thus inform them. The prejudices that plague his people do not find much root in him because he finds stories of all kinds to be more interesting than propriety and what popular opinion of him there is, is split between thinking him a harmless recluse who has no influence on the world and finding him a dangerously unprincipled man with far too much time, money, and influence through his writings. The reason for his various pseudonyms is that he uses them as characters themselves to espouse differing and often contradictory worldviews. He is not often made angry, but occasionally he will be set off and he can become violent, most often he goes off on the assistants he occasionally hires; fortunately these bouts of passion rarely last long and he is usually fairly contrite after them.

!!!Physical Description:
Yan is of average height for a galdori but he is thin with arms that seem longer than they ought to be and ended in hands that are often ink-stained. The only vanity that he maintains is shaving his head, which grows in patchwork because of minor burns on his head. Much of his body is scarred, the most noticeable being his throat which is still easily visible from a fair distance when not covered by a collar. He has pale gray eyes that tend not to stand out.

!!!Inventory:

Clothes:
*high collared red shirt; stained at the cuffs
*wrinkled dark purple vest
*fading black pants
*worn calf high boots

Stuff:
*walking cane; either made from a black wood or painted black and topped with a metal sphere and capped at the bottom with metal
*pocket watch belonging to his father

Home: Two story manor at the edge of Vienda. The first story contains the bare necessities to entertain the infrequent but occasionally obligatory guests (mostly family), along with the kitchen. The second story is made up mostly of an expansive library, and guest rooms as well as his own private quarters though they are rarely used. The basement contains the stores and the quarters for cooks and other staff.

!!!Career

Novelist
*impressive vocabulary
*single-minded focus
*expansive imagination

!!!Goals
To continue writing, and to reconnect with the world in some way as he has been quite lonely. To reconnect with his sister as well.

Hi Yanden. Wow! great character concept. I can picture him very clearly in my mind.

There are a few things we can do to make this adhere more to the reality of magic. First of all, no spell can make you immune to healing forever (all spells have limitations) but there are injuries that magic can't heal, especially if the mona have a specific reason for refusing. The mona are quite wise and if there's some deeper reason that your character can't speak, they would know about it.

Secondly, if he was 16 at the time of the accident, he would have already begun to learn spells that could be cast with sign language. Although they are much weaker, he'd still have use of those after losing his voice. Most of the spells that use sign language are Static or Living. These are weaker versions, mind, but they're functional (Nauleth used one of them in a duel once, actually).

Thirdly, there's simply no way he'd be top of his class at Brunnhold. The professors would be sympathetic and I'm sure they'd let him stay on and apprentice or learn theory, but pretty much all the classes (even theory) include spoken spells. It's more realistic that he would never technically graduate, but be allowed to stay on and perform research. He could be an expert in a topic, like your backstory suggests, but unfortunately magic is a major part of being a galdor, and there's a significant stigma attached to anyone who can't do it. Now, if you decide to let him perform with sign language, there'd be less of a roadblock to his success.

Please think about that stuff, let me know what you decide

Thanks. The whole magic thing was really something that was bothering me because I wasn't sure that I had it all quite right, part of the problem is that your wiki isn't awfully specific (it mentions being able to sign spells but doesn't go into specifics like how many spells or what spells can be signed). This was mostly just to see if I could get it right.


Anyways, you're input affords me the opportunity to go another route that I was exploring with essentially the same character before I settled on what I posted. I'll have that up in a few hours at most.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that he was immune to healing magic, just that the specific wounds wouldn't heal by it. My fault for not making that clear.

Ah, I see.
Would you mind posting again when you finish your edits, so the topic will light up? Thank you!

It's up. Let me know of any problems with this one and I'll fix 'em up right quick.

Also, I've been trying to figure what day it's supposed to be.

Check the wiki. Underneath the centered links to the forum, art gallery, and chat it says "The current game date is..." And today happens to be Intas 20th. You don't have to post on this exact date, but definitely use it as a guide.

I love the direction you took him! He's very interesting. Thanks for making the edits.

You're approved, go have fun posting