character info

[apocultypse]

CHARACTER INFO

NAME: Ishaq Duvainor
AGE: 41
SPECIES: Half-elf
CANON: D&D campaign: "Raith" by Britt; his campaign wiki page

Appearance

Here is a photo reference. Ishaq is 6’1’’ with a slim, athletic build. His proportions are better built for running than enduring most physical labor. Dark reddish eyes, black and stylized hair, pointed half-elven ears, a large aquiline nose, and an easygoing smile all characterize his face. He favors burgundy, black, and gold-colored clothing, his bearing practical and sleek. Stylistically, he cultivates an approachable fashion (not too pretentious, not casually sloven) and maintains a clean, crisp appearance. His material vanity is most evident in the jewelry he keeps: an assortment of golden rings and whatever attuned magical items he’s allowed. He’ll sometimes wear a trimmed beard.

Setting

The original universe of the high-fantasy Raith campaign is set 700 years after the First Empress had conquered nearby lands and established the golden era of the Raithir Empire before allegedly ascending into godhood. Ishaq Duvainor, along with an eclectic band of misfits, has been “leased” out as a mercenary for the Crown, a bargain he willingly took in order to escape the remainder of his dreaded incarceration at the prison known as Traitor’s Keep. Ishaq’s sentencing incurred from the allegations of his blasphemy and treason; the Raithir Empire is a theocratic autocracy, and Ishaq is a cult leader in abject defiance of divine worship and, by extension, Empress worship. This alone makes him an enemy of the state.

Initially Ishaq and his party were closely controlled by their NPC escort-guards, as technical property of the Crown, but have since befriended and manipulated their way into a gray-zone of equilibrium with their former custodians. The missions they had been sent out to accomplish under strict supervision have since melted into antics motivated by their own ambitions and whims, which has had the consequential effects of city-state coups, uncovering police corruption, and igniting the embers of a Godwar.

As Ishaq, cult leader of the Host Radiant, advocates against divine reliance, his interest in the prophesied Godwar grows immense. Raith and its surrounding provinces are environments that interact regularly with sorcery and holy magic, and his utter distaste for the Pantheon (and even the old gods that Raithir propaganda tries to censor) causes tension with his own party members. Nevertheless, he sees an opportunity in the fracturing of divine influence, and he carries a personal crusade burning within him as he and his party wreck the chains of Raithir conquest.

The Raithir Empire is loosely modeled off the late-stage Roman Empire, with a stratified hierarchy based on one's citizenship, familial connections, and sociopolitical power. The divine Pantheon is both a state-recognized collection of legitimate gods that people worship and a useful tool for the Empress to wield when asserting her divine-right to rule--she is, after all, descended from the deified First Empress. Mages (wizards and sorcerers) are sourced to variant arcane schools, where they are indoctrinated with empire propaganda and graduate as weaponized soldiers for Raith’s ever-expanding borders or as bureaucratic hammers of oppression serving the Crown’s agenda. Ishaq, a sorcerer who was admitted into the Sky Spire as a teenager, took neither path and made his name as a heretic instead.

Background

Born to an elven father and human mother in the heart of Raith, Ishaq Duvainor grew accustomed to Raithir privilege by circumstance and by talent. His father, ashamed of the secret draconic blood introduced into the Duvainor bloodline centuries ago, tried and failed to repress Ishaq’s immense arcane instinct. His mother remained stalwart and supportive, and her love anchored Ishaq to his confidence as much as his father’s dissatisfaction steered an interest towards the secretive and esoteric. Accepted and matriculated into the Sky Spire as a teenager, Ishaq buried himself in the ancient and divisive lore of pre-Raithir gods and their forgotten dominions--but most specifically, he took an interest in the Lady of the Lasting Embrace, the goddess of death. He had discovered that the current Pantheon had older incarnations of themselves, versions that had been since revamped to serve Empire purposes, and he obsessed over the Lady and her truer, original meaning. His passion and charm attracted a following, and particularly attracted a young sorcerer named Felix, who became his dear paramour and closest confidante. Ishaq’s research led him to an obscured, non-canonical primary text, halfway destroyed, that he painstakingly put together; a ritual that revitalized the Lady in her true glory. Ishaq believed he could resurrect her true power, her original meaning, he wanted to restore her full dominion and unleash her from this neutered state. The ritual seemed to call for a blood sacrifice, a real sacrifice, a poetic surrender of the heart. The Lady would return the beloved sacrificed, sparing him from death, sparing all her truest faithful from death. So, burning with an unfaltering faith, he sacrificed Felix. He sacrificed Felix in vain, to an empty and cold room, before an uncaring god who hated his zealotry and who had refused to intervene. So Ishaq fled.

In another story, Ishaq Duvainor is the villain.

But not in this story! Ishaq fled south to Fairsold and from the deepest despair he rebuilt his whole world. He understood that faith in the divine is a mockery, he realized he needed to redirect the faith of people once like him, he believed that he could do better. Through his penchant for persuasive speech and easy charm, he again attracted a following--but this time, he built a community out of it. He forged a philosophy, an ethos to be practiced, a belief that mortals can be better and owe it to each other to try. Mortals must be the gods to their fellow beings. Mortals must carry full responsibility for their impact upon the world.

And so Ishaq’s cult, the Host Radiant, was born.

The Host Radiant is about community, it’s about helping your fellow mortal, it’s about forgiving yourself for your failures and finding the courage and support to try again. It took to hearts and minds like wildfire to dried grass. It spread from Fairsold to Porthaven, it spread from Porthaven along the trade routes, it spread into the outskirts of Urn’s Harbour and northward. It spread into Raith, the heart of the empire.

Two decades after his retreat from the Sky Spire in Raith, Ishaq returned. He established a sect in the belly of the beast, his defiance too bold to be ignored. His beloved, Ayleen Tua, his High Priestess of the Lunar Motion, sold him out to the Crownsguard and enjoyed an easy political ascent for it. Ishaq was arrested, put on trial, sentenced to Traitor’s Keep, and his Raith sect was disbanded or killed. For eighteen months, he wasted away in a small and dark cell until he was called upon a mission that would reduce his sentence, but surely kill him in the process.

It didn’t kill him.

He acquired new friends in this strange little party, from the gruff Max Power who became his bodyguard and then his best friend to the Lady’s own death cleric Celia, whom he has since persuaded to deny her god and become a god in her own right--the core ambition that persists within Ishaq. His flirtations with the druid Alana has born tension, as she is obliged to an ancient god that Ishaq is determined to overthrow. They had overthrown and exposed Ayleen as a traitor (promoted to mayor of a town for her treachery! Awful!), restructured the political landscape in a city-state, fought demigods, hunted war criminals, and forged peace treaties between mindflayers and humans. Recently, a newcomer has complicated the party dynamic, as the death-paladin of the Lady has come to aid them in their battle with an archlich called the Undying. This paladin, called Tristan, had another name in another life. He was once an enamored young man named Felix, now brought back to life in a different body with a different face and beholden to the Lady of the Lasting Embrace.
Ishaq doesn't know that part, though.

Meanwhile, he is dealing with the fallout of an instant-death, the archlich having killed him with a word before Ishaq was brought back to life by Celia. Faced with the reality of his own mortality, he’s returned with a searing vigor for his grander scheme.

Personality

Ishaq can be different things to different people, but consistently he’s described with three qualities: charismatic, ambitious, and optimistic. His personal magnetism aids him in his eternal recruitment for his cult, the Host Radiant, and his natural charisma often enables him to be the “face” of the party; Ishaq persuades, he negotiates, he deceives with his warm smile and charitable demeanor. He is a good listener, he’s sincere in his interest of mortal concerns, and he authentically believes in the power of mortal potential. These qualities amplify his charm; he’s as easily a hype man for a compatriot as much as he is for himself. He knows how to attract attention, he excels at performance, he understands what motivates and inspires most people. His lack of faith in divinity is redistributed to his faith in mortality, a feverish philosophy that bleeds into his optimism. His charisma, bright and warming as it might be, harbors darker edges. Ishaq is manipulative, he’s analytical, and he pairs his intellectual capacities with a charm that can render people vulnerable.

His charisma would be aimless without his ambition. Ishaq has big ideas and a singular focus: he wants to kill the gods of his universe and replace that Pantheon with his own friends, setting himself as the solar-celestial head of a new era. He sincerely, authentically believes that absolute power absolutely exposes, and that the gods he has studied and known are nothing indolent, nihilistic, cruel masters who delight in their followers' suffering. Ishaq, frankly, would do divinity better. He had hauled himself from an existential crisis and darkest sin committed to forge a new philosophy and established a cult that, in its height, was 14,000 members strong. His arrogance cannot be understated. While he isn’t smug or conceited or satisfied with vainglory, he is arrogant, he is outright hubristic. In so many outcomes, it is his arrogance, born of his ambition, that dooms him.

Optimism colors Ishaq’s general outlook on mortality (which describes any non-immortal entity, from tieflings to elves to humans). He believes in the inherent potential for goodness of mortals, that people are superior to divinity because gods, unlike mortals, cannot change. A mortal who falls short of their aspirations or personal qualities can always strive to become better. Gods, in contrast, are stagnant--and worse, gods are uncaring and negligent in their stagnation. Mortals receive his full benefit of the doubt, to an extent where Ishaq puts himself in situations where he is deceived and betrayed by people he thought he could trust. It isn’t pure naïveté at work: Ishaq knows mortals are capable of malice and selfishness. He certainly is, too. But his shining optimism has a doubled arrogance to it; he simply does not believe people would choose to lie to him. His hubris that defies divine rule and his arrogance that declares himself just slightly above any given mortal often impedes his most immediate goals. This has dulled his intuition with people, even if he successfully analyzes their observable behavior. A wiser man would come to realize this dangerous and repeated error, and while Ishaq is clever and cunning, he is hardly ever wise. He learns the loopholes of his mistakes, he doesn’t learn from them. Perhaps because of this searing blindspot, Ishaq remains compassionate towards his fellow mortal; his belief in their ultimate integrity cannot be shaken.

Powers/Nerfing

Ishaq is a draconic bloodline sorcerer. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, that means he’s a Charisma-based magic caster who was born with his arcane ability because, at some point, his ancestor had a productive rendezvous with a literal dragon. Specifically, in his case, a red dragon. While he is capable of learning an array of sorcerer-specific spells, Ishaq mostly specializes in Evocation (fire) and Enchantment (charm). As a sorcerer, he benefits from a mechanic called Metamagic, which allows him to cast his spells subtly, with more damage, or very quickly. His Metamagic relies on inherent energy, and this energy’s strength is determined by his experience. At this current point in the campaign, he is a level 11 sorcerer.

Below is the list of Ishaq’s spells (and a brief description) as per his character sheet:
CANTRIPS (infinite slots)
Chill Touch (necromantic damage, shoots an unpleasant ghost hand)
Fire Bolt (fire damage, shoots a little fire bolt)
Message (communication utility, range of 120 ft.)
Minor Illusion (make a little sound or static image)
Prestidigitation (literally the best cantrip: clean or soil, make sparkles, chill or warm something)
Shocking Grasp (lightning damage, touch-based spell)

1ST LEVEL (4 slots: can do 4 per day without using Sorcery Points)
Charm Person (makes someone think you’re cool for an hour, they know you charmed them after and are free to hate you)
Disguise Self (makes the caster appear like someone else for an hour, but it’s not foolproof and close inspection could expose the disguise. I usually use it for clothes.)
Magic Missile (force damage, shoots out little beams of illuminated force)
Shield (+5 to AC, reactive protection spell)

2ND LEVEL (3 slots)
Charm Person (+1 person charmed)
Magic Missile (more missiles)
Suggestion (concentration spell up to 8 hours, which means it can break sooner, the caster suggests a course of action and if successful, the target enacts that suggestion)

3RD LEVEL (3 slots)
Charm Person (+2 people charmed)
Magic Missile (more force missiles)
Fireball (big fire explosion with a 20 foot radius, fire damage)
Counterspell (stops someone else from doing a spell at 3rd level, or roll to challenge a higher level)

4TH LEVEL (3 slots)
Charm Person (+3 people)
Magic Missile (you guessed it)
Counterspell (mechanically, this would cancel a 4th level spell)
Fireball (more fire damage)
Dimension Door (instantly teleports 500 feet in any direction)
Dragon’s Breath (can give someone the ability to breath fire, etc. for 1 minute)
Greater Invisibility (invisible for 1 minute)

5TH LEVEL (2 slots)
Charm Person (+4 people)
Counterspell
Fireball (even hotter fire)
Magic Missile
Synaptic Static (psychic damage, confuses target up to 1 minute with “muddled thoughts”)

6TH LEVEL (1 slot)
Charm Person (+5)
Counterspell
Disintegrate (a lot of force damage, this literally disintegrates something/someone if “reduced to 0 HP” as the mechanic describes)
Fireball (hottest fire possible)
Magic Missile
Sunbeam (concentration spell that shines down a beam of pure sunlight, radiant damage, can last up to 1 minute)

Inventory

-- Headband of Intellect: a golden band (it’s a tiara) he wears around his head that amplifies his natural intelligence. His higher INT stat is often embattled with his low WIS stat; a smart brain does not necessitate a wise man.
-- Bracers of Defense: golden forearm bands that increase his durability. In terms of dwrp, these are just for aesthetics, as the mechanics don’t translate to journal roleplay.
-- Ring of Liara’s Boon: gold ring (I did warn he likes gold) that makes him invulnerable to fire.
-- Dagger of Venom: dagger stolen from his high priestess/lover who BETRAYED him, he keeps it for sentimental reasons. It leaks black venom when he successfully stabs someone, but it only does this once per day.
-- his normal clothes, boots, non-magical rings, his cloak, his spell components for casting.