AntiVehicleRocket/Challenge

Ragara Calel Magnus (or: a Dragon-Blood On Dare)

(Character specifics courtesy of Tiffa, from Tiffa/Challenge)

Name: Ragara Calel Magnus
Aspect: Earth
House: Ragara
Concept: Bastard scion with a dream
Nature: Visionary
Experience: 0 XP (0 spent)

Attributes
Strength 2, Dexterity 4, Stamina 4
Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3
Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 2

Abilities
Aspect Abilities: Awareness 1, Endurance 3, Martial Arts 3, Resistance 4
Favored Abilities: Dodge 3, Archery 3, Medicine 4
Non-Favored Abilities: Athletics 2, Linguistics 3 (High Realm, Low Realm, Rivertongue, Icetongue), Lore 2, Melee 1, Occult 3, Performance 1, Presence 1, Ride 1, Socialize 2

Backgrounds

Artifact 3
(Magnus has been granted three artifacts of some power. His prized possession is his and his alone: Caution and Diligence, a set of white-jade hearthstone bracers given to him by his mentor Nellens Pavar upon his graduation from the Cloister of Wisdom. The set is a level 3 artifact and, in addition to the +2 initiative bonus provided by jade hearthstone bracers in general, also provides Magnus with a two-die bonus to dodge attempts and allows him, at the cost of 1 mote, to make barehanded Martial Arts parries against lethal attacks. Magnus also possesses a short white jade powerbow, a gift from his father upon his coming of age, and a white jade hearthstone amulet.)

Breeding 2
(As a bastard, Magnus lacks the impeccable bloodline of some Dynasts, but the strength of his father's blood gives him some power.)

Manse 2
(Magnus has been allowed access to several Manses of the Ragara family, and he carries two Hearthstones: the Gem of Healing and the Salt-Gem of the Spirit's Eye.)

Mentor 3
(Magnus's mentor is Nellens Pavar, a cousin of his mother's and a well-established Air-Aspected physician and occultist. The two are on excellent terms, and Pavar is well-placed to help Magnus in his aspirations.)

Resources 2
(Magnus is still young, but he has managed a reasonable stipend from his family, especially given his relatively conservative living habits.)

Virtues: Compassion 3, Conviction 2, Temperance 3, Valor 2
Willpower 6
Essence 3 (Personal 11, Peripheral 27)
Health Levels: -0 / -1 / -1 / -2 / -2 / -4 / Incap

Charms
Archery: Spring Follows Winter
Endurance: Unsleeping Earth Meditation, Untiring Earth Meditation
Medicine: Infection-Banishing Prana, Disease-Banishing Technique
Occult: Spirit-Detecting Glance, Spirit-Grounding Shout

Appearance:

Ragara Calel Magnus is an attractive young man; of average height, he cuts an athletic figure, and his features blend classic Dynastic strength and a subtle darkness that seems almost Southern. His elemental nature is subtle but obvious; his skin is the pale pink-tan of sandstone, an odd but interesting contrast to his dark hair and eyes.

Background:

Ragara Calel Magnus, like perhaps too many young Dynasts, is a bastard by birth. His father, the Wood-Aspected Ragara Calel Neroff, fulfilled his function well as a member of the social arm of the Ragara family; he bred fine dogs, hunted with great skill, and was a sparkling banquet host. Neroff had his failings, though -- the first among them being his womanizing. Neroff had an inexhaustible libido and a remarkable number of mistresses among patrician and peasant alike. One such mistress was Stormcloud, a darkly beautiful young woman who was pleased to manage a job working at the Calel estate, not unhappy to accept the advances of Ragara Calel Neroff, and not entirely surprised to eventually find herself bearing his child.

Even so, Stormcloud's child was Neroff's third bastard, and so everyone involved were able to settle things more than reasonably. Neroff's wife, the Earth-Aspected Nellens Terabi, was eminently tolerant of her husband's habits, and so she wore the pillow, as was only right and proper; Stormcloud was sequestered until the birth of "Terabi's" son, and thereafter her pay was increased and she stepped into the role of a wetnurse. While nobody was particularly fooled by the pageantry, it was the proper social manuevering to ensure that the unfortunate circumstances of Ragara Calel Magnus's birth would not greatly sully his role within the Realm.

Magnus grew up in a chaotic home; despite the natural spacing of Dragon-Blooded births, the house was still quite full, as Neroff was quite prolific; Magnus grew up in the company of ten half-siblings, six the children of Nellens Terabi and four the offspring of other dalliances by his father. The chaos was not much aided by the fact that Neroff's blood was quite strong, and thus virtually all of his children received the blessing of the Dragons; by the time Magnus departed for primary school, four of his five older siblings had Exalted, and so his parents had great hopes for him. After all, a successful Exaltation would forever erase whatever remaining stigma might have attached to his half-peasant blood. His childhood was relatively stable; he had three adults who cared for him, and while he was aware from an early age that his father's wife and his mother were not the same person, the resounding calmness of all involved about the situation kept it all in perspective. Magnus had a well-rounded childhood -- hunting and hiking with his father, lessons in courtly behavior and academics from his stepmother, and time in the "lower society" from Stormcloud, all balanced with a healthy amount of time alone.

By the time he entered primary school, Magnus had already become a quiet, thoughtful boy, dark-haired and growing handsome in the manner of his father. He excelled at his physical education and in his studies, but his budding sense of networking was weak; slightly introverted from early childhood, Magnus had already developed a tendency towards silence and solitude by primary school. He took an early interest in the patterns of life energy, sickness, and health, an interest that ran so deep and so engaged him that at times it was dangerous. It was during one of these moments of fascination that the 12-year-old Magnus, working earnestly on a project at the end of a term, managed to seclude himself from all human contact for days; somehow managing to elude the attentions of anyone in particular, he studied the patterns of plant growth and disease ceaselessly for nearly a week, until his vision began to blur and his body ache from hunger and fatigue. It was only when Magnus realized how close death lay that the blessing of Pasiap seized him, turning his body and will into inviolate stone and strengthening him against his self-inflicted agonies.

When news of his Exaltation (and its circumstances) came, Magnus's guardians were conflicted. While they were pleased at the news (and at his Earth Aspect, which solidified the illusion that he was the child of Nellens Terabi), his development overall seemed to be taking a strange turn away from the social-butterfly norms of the Ragara Calel family. What could be done about a child, even a strong child, who was a recluse and a bookworm -- a child who had nearly killed himself from reading? It was a difficult case, but a solution occurred, and then another presented itself as secondary school drew near. First, Nellens Terabi consulted with a cousin of hers, an Air-Aspected scholar named Nellens Pavar whose temperament seemed to match Magnus's well, and asked him to serve as a mentor to the boy as he chose a path in life. Next, Ragara Calel Neroff was discreetly approached by a recruitment officer for the Cloister of Wisdom; they had heard of his son's Exaltation, and the boy seemed to have remarkable potential, so if there were no better plans for the boy, perhaps Neroff would consider his enrollment in the Cloister...? It seemed as good a plan as any, and so it was that Magnus became a student of the Cloister.

Secondary school was better for Magnus than primary school was; as his stepmother had anticipated, he got along very well with Nellens Pavar, and the older man taught Magnus a great deal about illness and its roots in Essence. Magnus's time in the Cloister was primarily spent on perfecting his knowledge of himself and his Essence; he learned meditation techniques and strengthened his own hold on his power, especially useful as he found the techniques that drove him to be the gifts of diverse Dragons. Although he chose not to embark on the path of a true Immaculate, Magnus learned well how to fight (and how to avoid being hit) while in the Cloister, and he also became a staunch believer in the Immaculate Philosophy. When he emerged from the Cloister, his connection to Pasiap (and the other Dragons) was strong and his devotion to study and practice medicine unshakable.

Magnus graduated from the Cloister of Wisdom five years ago, and most of the time since has been spent studying with Nellens Pavar and learning more about both practical and metaphysical medicine. He has begun to formulate a grand schema about improving the health of the Realm, one rooted in the Immaculate Philosophy; not only must the service of the stronger to the weaker be fulfilled in mundane Creation (by the Dragon-Blooded making the lives of mortals cleaner and safer from sickness and injury), but it must also be such in the Perfected Hierarchy, and those rogue disease spirits who choose to infect against the wishes of the Dragon-Blooded must be brought to heel. It is a grand plan, but Magnus is entirely devoted to it. He has the support of his mentor, who truly believes the young man to have great potential, and Pavar has taught Magnus several techniques to detect and deal with spirits on a more even plane. In his personal philosophy, Magnus is very much a believer in "sound mind, sound body, sound soul"; he does his best to stay physically fit and still hunts extensively with his father, and one of his reasons for being so interested in public health is the belief that better physical condition will help the masses of the Realm become more spiritually advanced. Socially, he remains relatively reclusive; his parents are working on arranging a marriage for him, and his strength of Essence and handsome face have made him a good catch, he is almost entirely apathetic and appears at parties only as required to fulfill his social obligations to his family. His primary concern is for public health and public health alone, and while he will accept parties and a bride as part of his duty, he dreams of bending the plague spirits of the Realm to his will.