Lord Chris Sonom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chrisisofaith) wrote2020-08-19 02:04 pm
chrisisofaith) wrote2020-08-19 02:04 pm
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Name: Chris Sonom Door: Right Canon: D&D OC Canon Point: Level 12/Arrival at the city of Ilinivur Age: 25 Appearance: PB Image 1|PB Image 2 | Illistration he’s based on Chris is 5’8, average build, with blond hair and pale green eyes, he has a small scar on his upper lip and one on the palm of his left hand. Chris is biologically female, but identifies and presents as male. History: (World setting info) Chris was born Chrystal Sonom, one of a set of twins born to the noble Sonom family in the Moonsea Region city of Melvaunt. Melvaunt is a port town and one of ill-repute as corruption, worship of dark gods like Bane, and slave trade were all common and accepted practices. The Sonom family held a high seat in the noble-ruled city and, along with the very closely related Lister family, made a lot of decisions regarding city practices. However, the Sonom’s recent religious awakening to a more kind-hearted and loving goddess started bleeding into their political practices and the changes they were making were slowly changing the tone of the city in a way the Listers did not see as profitable. Seeking to end the changes and seize the Sonom seats and power for their own, the Listers ordered the entire Sonom family killed through a local assassin carta. Chrystal and Rhyt were only four years old, but their nanny was very loyal, so she fled with the girls at the risk of her own life, to hide them away in safety; no one else of the Sonom household made it out of the slaughter. Fearing they would be more likely to be found and killed if they stayed together, their nanny split up the twins. She sent Rhyt away with a thieves guild who were loyal to the Sonoms and travelled around the Moonsea, Chrystal she gave to a local brothel whose matron, Lady Ivaline, owed the Sonoms a life-debt. The twins would go on to write to each other over the next several years and shared everything with one another as best they could, but they wouldn’t see each other again for eighteen more years. Lady Ivaline and her right-hand-woman, Kayt, raised Chrystal with a decent education and taught her things she thought a lady ought to know like diplomacy and manners and how to smile even when you didn’t feel like smiling as well as practical things like history and math and economics. Despite being raised in a brothel, Chrystal was never intended to work there since they both thought of her as a noble girl and not just another ward. Still, Chrystal never liked to be idle, so she helped about the brothel with cleaning, dressing, and keeping up with the books, once she was old enough. However, due to her circumstances, Chrystal was never allowed to leave the brothel’s property and, knowing her restless nature, Ivaline decided it might be better to have her more involved in the business. At seventeen, she had Chrystal dress up and play the role of a ‘Companion,’ someone whose time was bought strictly for company, the lowest cost option at the brothel. Seventeen was also when Chrystal finally started coming to terms with the fact that she didn’t feel right being who everyone thought she was or being ‘Chrystal’ at all. However, she didn’t know what to do with the feeling until she met a man named Malik Kallian, a bard and merchant for the local temple of Bane who purchased her time from dusk until dawn every day for a week. He could see her unrest and gave her what she wanted: stories of the outside world, of adventures on the sea and fantastic travels. Their conversations ranged all over the spectrum during their hours together, including a dip into religion where Kallian told Chrystal about Bane and how he was both the god of tyrants and against tyrants, how Bane’s goal was strife and pain, a thought that would attract Chris later when deciding to become a cleric. Despite the gap in their ages, Chrystal found herself attracted to and enchanted by Kallian to the point that, when Kallian asked Lady Ivaline if he could spend the night with Chrystal, she spoke up for it, even though that wasn’t supposed to be her type of work. Ivaline allowed it, despite her reservations, and the two spent an intimate night together. Afterwards, while Kallian still slept, Chrystal tried on some of his clothes to see how he felt in them. The pieces started falling together when he realized he felt more like himself in Kallian’s clothing than he ever did in his own, but Kallian himself put things together for him when he woke up and found Chrystal trying on the clothes. He started calling Chrystal ‘Chrys’ for short and told him about his brother who had been through similar feelings of uncertainty until coming to terms with himself. Through Kallian’s wisdom and support (and some skill with a pair of scissors), Chrystal gave way to Chris during the hours of that last day together. Kallian made Chris promise to keep working on finding himself and, when he came back from his next shipping venture, he’d introduce Chris to his brother. Unfortunately, Kallian never returned from sea and Chris never knew what happened, but he was on the path to making himself into someone he was comfortable being. Although hesitant, Ivaline helped him and his role changed from a lady of the brothel to a protector and allowed him to start his studies as a Cleric, something Chris pressed for in the hopes that Bane’s support would allow him to eventually take revenge on the Lister family. The real test came when the head of the Lister household arrived at the brothel one day, looked Chris in the face, and didn’t recognize him. From that day on, Ivaline allowed Chris more freedom around the city. Chris spent the next five years training, scoping out the city, and building a web of contacts and informants for the eventual ruination of the Listers. His anger and desire for action in the face of patience resulted in a habit of starting bar brawls in the slums of Melvaunt, something he became quite good at and even better at slipping away from after the chaos was in full swing to avoid being caught. When he was twenty-two years old, he received a letter from Rhyt, their only but constant form of contact over the years, that said she’d found an adventuring party that seemed like promising help in their plot for revenge. He agreed to meet with them at the docks that the Listers used for slave trade and see what they could do. His arrival at the docks was well timed as the group (a human sorcerer, tiefling barbarian, and human rogue) wasn’t fairing well against uneven odds in their attempt to free the slaves. Chris turned the tide with his magic and the group was able to dispatch the slavers and free the slaves. Chris wasn’t very impressed with the group but, during the confusion, Rhyt was taken by the same assassin group hired by the Listers years ago, now with a bounty on ‘the twin girls.’ Without other options to save his sister, Chris teamed up with the group and they followed the trail to save Rhyt. The trail eventually led to the Listers themselves and the group was able to save Rhyt and kill the entire Lister family, finally offering the closure both twins had been looking for. However, killing the Listers left a power vacuum in the city, so the group convinced the twins to step into their noble roles and take over the Lister-Sonom power with a promise that they would help to make the city better as well. The next three years saw the twins and the group newly dubbed ‘The Guardians of Melvaunt’ slowly improving the city’s practices and reputation like they wanted through abolishing slave trade and hunting down the fetid parts of the city’s underbelly that Rhyt’s thief guild connections couldn’t control. However, where Rhyt flourished in her new role, Chris chaffed. He longed to leave the city, as he’d always wanted to, and see what the world had to offer. On top of that, the city’s position on the worship of Bane was changing to something negative and Chris began to question his faith in the deity he’d given everything to. When a chance arose to leave the city to check on an issue out of town, Chris leapt at it and joined the Guardians on their journey to a neighboring city, despite the fact that his magic had started to fail due to his crises of faith. The venture saw the group magically teleported apart from each other, so Chris headed back to Melvaunt, figuring he’d meet them there. What he found, however, was the city burned and the dead body of his sister near a massive clockwork dragon that appeared to be a culprit. In his grief, he tried to fight the dragon, but his magic continued to fail him. Fortunately, the Guardians arrived and were able to retreat with Rhyt’s body and a struggling Chris to regroup. They were able to find some other members of their household who’d escaped the city and were informed that an army led by another cleric of Bane had come and killed a bunch of people who didn’t make it out in time, the dragon came afterwards to raze the city. With nowhere else to go, the group burned Rhyt’s body and retreated to the mountains and the hometown of one of the guardians that was located there. On the way to the mountains, the group kept seeing ravens, particularly one that had unique markings that always sat just outside their campsite at night. With Chris’ fractured faith apparent and his magic unreliable, one of the Guardians suggested Chris switch to worship of the Raven Queen, a neutral force who collected the souls of the dead and who fit much more closely with Chris’ beliefs. Still reeling from his own doubts and feelings of betrayal, Chris turned down the suggestion, but said he’d think about it. When the group arrived at the mountain city, there were new problems to help with, including rifts between the material plane and the shadow plane. Their venture in the shadow plane led them to the throne of the Raven Queen herself who asked for the Guardian’s help. While in the Raven Queen’s castle, they discovered Rhyt in her service, were briefly reunited with her, and she admitted to being the uniquely marked raven that had been following them. In return for the Guardian’s heroics, the Raven Queen gave them each a gift. To Chris, she gave not only a gift, but a new holy symbol, appointing him her cleric. A role he accepted gratefully, if hesitantly. She pointed them to the northern city of Ilinivur for their journey and promised that, should they seek to resurrect Rhyt someday, she would not stop her soul from returning. With renewed faith, hopeful he could one day revive his sister, and a direction to head in, Chris and the Guardians headed north towards Ilinivur. Weeks of travel, adventures to help cities they stopped at along the way (including an encounter where Chris was turned to stone for about a day before being restored by the group), and new connections made in their mounting war effort against the Clockwork Dragon, saw the adventurers to Ilinivur’s doorstep and hope that they could find information and help there. Personality: The very core of Chris’ personality is his anger. What happened to his family was never hidden from him and the fact he could never see his twin sister, the person he would always be closest to, because of the Lister’s power and threat constantly weighed on him. That was what started the first turnings of the storm that is Chris Sonom. Add in the fact he wasn’t allowed to leave the brothel for thirteen years, felt trapped in the city that had taken everything from him, then was forced to rule that same city, lost his sister to a force that had power from the god he put everything into worshiping, and now is on a journey to save the city he never wanted, Chris is a roiling tempest ready to lash out with wind and lightning at any grievance. His anger is more like a storm than a flame, however, he doesn’t flare up in his anger, it seethes and waits and piles up. The only reason it hasn’t burst yet into the full hurricane it promises to be is through what outlets of violence he can find. He took up bar fighting to hurt people he had access to when he couldn’t hurt the people he wanted, and now he uses it as small bursts of his anger to relieve the pressure. One day, his anger will likely become too much for him and it will burst from the container he keeps it in but, until then, he manages it with a carefully level head and cool precision. His anger is a fuel for his analytical and tactical side. He lets it out in measured increments as the situation calls. His analytical side is in everything he does, for while he is bursting with anger, it is heavily tempered by patience and the recognition that acting hastily will get yourself and others killed. Chris spent five years building up the fall of the Listers, waiting for the perfect catalyst to bring about their end. He looks at a situation and decides the most favorable short-term outcome to enable a chance for the long-term. While he’d prefer to keep his pride intact for any of these decisions, he’s not afraid to sacrifice it in favor of the outcome he wants. Pride can be salvaged, lives cannot; as a death cleric, he knows the weight and irreplaceable value of a life. The downside of his tactical games is that he can very easily end up manipulating the people around him, whether he means to or not. He manipulated the Guardians of Melavaunt to his goals by playing on their good nature to help save the city, even though all he really wanted was his sister safe and the Listers dead. He plays the same angle now as the group is adventuring, using his noble name and heritage to play up the ‘poor destroyed town’ angle to get help when all he wants is to break his old god’s new playthings. As much as he might deny it on a surface level, vengeance is a big motivator for him. This isn’t to say he’s not a good person, he became a cleric for more than power, he did so to help people and the spells he prepares each day are often skewed more towards aiding others than hurting enemies. Even though he never cared to be a noble or a leader of a city, he’s actually fairly good at it, from a functional standpoint. He knows the ins and outs and he knows how to be a noble and a leader because that was how Ivaline raised him, she wanted him to take back his position and rule some day. Where he’s lacking in the leadership department is more on his charisma: he’s not good at softening words or telling lies. He says things as they are (sometimes brutally so) and, in fact, has a million little tells that would give any lie he tries to make away from the start. What he has makes him a good leader, but a terrible politician. One of Chris’ best traits is his confidence. At this point in his life, thanks to the support of the people he had around him when transitioning from Chrystal to Chris, he has full confidence and pride in who he is. He knows what he’s about and isn’t ashamed of it. Anyone who has an issue with him, he’s more than happy to talk to with his fists. He knows he’s attractive, he knows he can flirt and fight and hold his own in a drinking contest, and he knows he’s got more wisdom than some people do in a lifetime. He also knows the difference between his wisdom and another’s intelligence, Chris’ intelligence isn’t especially high, he’s not well-traveled or well-read, he knows facts about his city, the gods, and medicine, and that’s about it. Luckily, he’s confident enough in the rest of his skills, that this isn’t a sore spot for him, he’s happy to learn new things and expand his horizons. He knows he’s learned things that no book can give him and he holds that close and values it. His experiences are his own and he’s learned enough through them to be fairly self-aware of his actions and motivations and even of the anger he outwardly denies. What gets in the way of his wisdom is his inability to communicate. Again, he’s a good leader, good at making decisions and plans and enacting them, but he’s not great with expressing what he’s feeling if it can’t be said simply. On top of that, he’s very much the type to hold onto unsolvable problems until they become too much for him, rather than asking for help, as was the case with his crisis of faith. No one else in his immediate group is religious and none of them liked the fact he followed Bane, so instead of seeking help or advice, he bottled up the issue until it nearly got him killed. Beyond issues with communication, his other reason for not reaching out to his friends for issues with faith is that his faith is both highly important and intensely personal for him. He was inspired by Kallian’s devotion to Bane and decided to take a risk putting his faith and efforts into an unseen being he had no proof even existed. Not just anyone who prays to a god gets an answer or is gifted with magic that is an extension of that god. Chris was one of the lucky few, something in him (he now knows it was his anger and passion for vengeance on the tyrannical Listers) made him attractive to Bane as a cleric and he always took pride in that fact. He thought it was a sign he was on the right path and never wanted to take the god’s gift for granted. That intense faith was shaken and then broken as he realized Bane had only used him for the power games he enjoys with mortals and it left a scar on Chris’ heart. That scar almost kept him from following the Raven Queen, were it not for her own acceptance of him. Chris needs his faith, however, he would have chosen a death god eventually, now that he’s opened himself up to faith, it’s become so intrinsically tied to who he is, that he can’t imagine being anything besides a cleric; now that he is a cleric to the Raven Queen, he would do absolutely anything for her in his loyalty to that idea of her and, by extension, himself. Powers and Abilities: Chris is a Death Cleric, so he has access to all of the cleric spells of 6th level or lower (about 36 of them) but can only have 17 of them prepared each day. Mainly, his magic focuses on necrotic (dark) magic like Inflict Wounds and some healing magic like Cure Wounds and Restoration spells since he’s the main caregiver to his friends. More powerful spells like Revivify (a resurrection spell), Create Undead, and anything to do with other planes won’t be available to him due to nerfing. Inventory: > Chris’ spectral scythe > Holy Symbol of the Raven Queen > Clasp of the Raven Queen Samples: TDM 1 TDM 2 |
