Sigurd Rainecourt

Sigurd Rainecourt
Nearsighted Thaumaturge
Gender	Male
Race	Hyur
Clan	Midlander
Citizenship	Ul'Dah
Nameday	32st Sun of the 6th Umbral Moon
Age	25
Height	5 fulms 11 ilms
Birthplace	Eastern Thanalan

Character

Appearance

Sigurd prefers to wear half-robes and tunics. Long or short, it doesn't particularly matter as long as it doesn't have a hood. He claims hoods tend to get in the way of his visual lines when casting magic. Truthfully, he simply doesn't care for them and prefers to wear them down or not at all.

As Thanalan is often hotter than hell during the day, Sigurd tends to wear lighter colors, preferring beige, white, and similar shades. Underneath the tunic, he often wears tights to keep warmer during the cool evenings. He pulls his two-toned hair, cutting the sides very short to keep cool.

Sigurd's most noticeable feature is his bright eyes. While much of his family has blue or green ones, he has bright orange eyes. His family claims it's his connection with the aether which he uses in his thaumaturgy as he is the only one in his line to practice the art.

Personality

Sigurd comes off as relatively easy going, usually calm and collected. Not much seems to get under his skin, though that's simply the outward impression he gives. He'd grown thick skin from working in his family's trading business year after year, dealing with people from across the continent who were tired of the heat or just plain rude. Underneath, Sigurd is a very passionate and ambitious man, genuinely concerned for those around him. He wishes for the well-being of Thanalan and wants to do whatever he can to help prevent another Calamity. Becoming an Adventurer was a step in the right direction for him, drawing him to Ul'dah and eventually taking him to far off lands.

Being taught to read and keep complex business records at an early age, Sigurd is highly academic. He tends to stick his nose in books and read the things cover to cover whenever he can. He often keeps small books in his pockets when traveling long distances. Despite never receiving a day of formal education, Sigurd knows a wide span of information, mostly by talking to others and reading whatever books he could get his hands on.

With his work with the family tradepost, Sigurd has gotten to know a wide variety of customs from various races. He is accustomed to being surrounded by people and thrives in crowds. When alone or simply not traveling with other people, he has a strange tendency to talk to himself, particularly when sarcastically remarking on the current situation.

Being a desert boy, Sigurd doesn't thrive well in other lands. He has a bad tendency to get sea sick and prefer land travel, by foot or chocobo, if at all possible. While he hasn't yet gotten air sick, he isn't quite fond of the form of travel, though it certainly is much faster than traveling by land. Traveling to Limsa, he found himself sea sick. Traveling to Gridania, he'd never seen so many trees in his life. And it rains there. A lot.

Family

Sigurd comes from a rather large family. 5th borne, he's nearly the middle child of 8 kids. His family runs a tradepost along one of the main trade routes near Camp Drybone in Eastern Thanalan. The post offers a place out of the sun and a refuge when sandstorms would blow across the desert. The post sells various items made by family members. While Sigurd isn't good at any hand crafts, he is good at math and writing, leaving him to keep the books. While the tradepost still stands after the Calamity, his family was thinned out by the Lambs of Dalamud.

Trivial information

• Aldgoat steak is his favorite dish, though he is preferential to any sort of grilled meat. His travels have introduced him to grilled dodo. Sigurd's favorite snacks are ginger cookies and pretzels. His least favorite food is raw oysters.
• Sigurd has a bad habit of chewing on the arm of his glasses when he's reading. While he generally wears his glasses, he doesn't need them for reading or anything close. In fact, he didn't know he needed them until one of his guildmasters realized he couldn't read the tapestries on the far end of the building. Sigurd had believed things were blurry in the distance for everyone and never thought anything of it. The guildmasters then sent him to the goldsmith's guild immediately to get glasses. On occasion, he forgets to wear them.
• Sigurd prefers two-handed staves and will only use a one-handed weapon at last resort.
• Sigurd experiences visions, thanks to the Echo, on a rather frequent basis. His first vision probably saved his life, though at the expense of several innocent ones. The visions didn't start back up until recently. He passed it off as aether sickness or heat exhaustion many times, but the experiences drove him to become an adventurer and hopefully help to make a difference in the world.

History

Before the Calamity

Sigurd was born into a trading family. The family owned a popular tradepost where they would sell wares and food to travelers wishing to seek solace from the sun or harsh weather. It was also a popular place traveling merchants would trade and sell stock as well. Growing up, Sigurd quickly learned he wasn't adept at any of the tradecrafts, making poor leathers and even poorer food. While all family members could read, Sigurd was particularly adept at reading and math at an early age and kept the books for the family.

The first good few years of his life were the typical life of a trader, involving manual labor and bookkeeping. He began gathering supplies as a hobby, trading extra supplies for books with traveling merchants. Sigurd studied any books he could get his hands on, his favorites were books about thaumaturgy and other magical arts. His older sister fashioned a staff for him, and at 15 he learned to cast his first elemental spell, fire. It was an unusual talent for the family, as no one in the known history was ever a mage of any kind.

While old enough to venture on his own and start his own life, Sigurd chose to stay with the family and the tradepost while venturing out. He took to travel, delivering messages and supplies around the area. He was drawn to Camp Drybone, seeking out the Aetherite crystal. He was certain the thing was talking to him, but he brushed it off as heat exhaustion. Returning home, he arrived just in time to help fend off a small band of Amalj'aa who had ventured near the outpost. It was his first true battle, and it was exciting as he used his fire magic to do good.

For the next five years, whenever Sigurd visited or passed by Camp Drybone, he swore the crystal was speaking to him. While he couldn't quite understand the words, he knew it was speaking. One day, he finally approached it again, staring up at its tall towering height. It sure was a pretty thing, filled with that aether which fascinated him greatly. As he reached out and touched it, he was struck with a vision.

In the past few months, the Lambs of Dalamud had been busy. Sigurd's mind was filled with memories of a nearby band of Lambs passing through the Camp. He saw the Lambs draw people away from their homes, claiming they had lost their children and needed help. The Lambs were dressed like ordinary people, nothing particularly discernible about them other than the haunting aura they carried with them. They had been busy, sacrificing the people they lured away, claiming that it would bring Dalamud power and cause the moon to fall to the land. Dozens of sacrifices haunted Sigurd's mind until he finally collapsed.

Several days later, he awoke at the local inn. After warning the local flame sergeant of what he saw, he quickly returned home to learn his mother and two of his siblings had been lured away, their bodies found mutilated just the day before. Distraught, he stepped outside for some air and saw what the Lambs had spoke of in his vision. Dalamud fell to the earth.

The New Era

After the threat of the Lambs and Dalamud had quieted, the world busied repairing itself. A year later, Sigurd decided that he wanted to leave the family business, taking to Adventuring. He wanted to make a difference somehow, though he wasn't entirely sure how he could do so.

For four years, he ventured from place to place, helping people out in Eastern Thanalan and attempted to refine his Thaumaturgy. He found himself having difficulty with the refinement. Hearing of the Thaumaturgy Guild in Ul'dah, he caught a lift from a merchant's cart to Ul'dah, offering the driver some odd items he'd collected around the area as payment for his troubles. For the first time in five years, Sigurd experienced another vision. This one wasn't bloody and horrifying like the last one. Instead it seemed like another world, pitting him against some masked man. Shaking it off, passing it off as aether sickness, he continued on his way, joining the Thaumaturgy and the Adventurers Guilds.

Soon, he came to realize that the crystals really had been talking to him since Camp Drybone 10 years ago when he was hit with another vision out in the desert. It was then he seemed to adopt his own personal stalker, Thancred, who seemed to arrive just at the right time.

(more to come soon)