User:Kitakaze Mugenkagami
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Kitakaze Mugenkagami is a Raen Au Ra from Othard and currently works as a member of the Astral Advent Free Company (formally Astral Agents). Prior to joining the company, he had fled Garlean opression in Othard and wandered Eorzea until settling down in Thanalan. With the recent liberation of Doma, he has now claimed a new home in Shirogane, though still works as part of the Astral Advent, traveling back and forth often.
Kitakaze bares an impressive physique standing on the taller side of most other Au Ra. Reaching a height of nearly eight fulms, he keeps his body in top physical condition. At around three hundred and eighty five ponze, it's clear that his powerful build is a result of years of vigorous combat training. Light caramel colored skin shows no signs of scarring, tattoos or other markings and is only contrasted by the light sandy colored scales he has as a result of being of Raen descent. His jet black hair has a myriad of amber highlights that appear to be natural. While kept short, he does have small braid, flanked on both sides by a pair of dark horns, that extends to his shoulder blades. The color of his eyes are equal in color to the highlights of his hair with black limbal rings accenting them; a prominent feature that conveys his emotions when his body language otherwise wouldn't. The tail he sports long, being able to rest on the floor even when standing. It's of the same color as the rest of his scales and has several sharp spikes at the end which can be retracted. Other than the hair on his head and eyebrows, he doesn't seem to have any other hair on his body; rather having scales covering locations where hair would otherwise grow. Meanwhile, his overall physique sports an impressive and prominent chest that is pierced by twin barbells, and muscled back which then tapers to a rather slim waist. His arms and legs are on the larger side which complements his overall frame that even clothed can be noticed as impressive.
Kitakaze demonstrates a rather militant air about him in not only his posture, but also his lack of frivolity. Not always knowing what constitutes a good time, he only finds pleasure in simple tasks such as bathing or even menial chores. Nonetheless, he does partake in good times with others and is generally approachable despite his standoffish appearance. He tends to wear tight dark leathers which provide enough protection and mobility for the tasks he's assigned to. When not in combat, the Raen wears rather loose cloths that barely cling to his form. In both cases, Kitakaze will always have his signature katana present on his person. Aspects That Stand Out:
Trained in combat from an early age, Kitakaze is always one to see things from a strategic perspective. Coming across as level headed and calculating, this is simply a result of years looking at the world through the eyes of a 'judge'. He does his best to refrain from frivolous activities when working, while also maintaining an analytical perspective on things choosing not to let emotions like anger or sorrow cloud his judgement. This also causes him to refrain from any profanities as well as any flirtatious nature. By contrast he was trained in the art of performing, taking in various styles from other performers that came to Doma as well as Hingashi. This results in him having almost a complete opposite nature, one that is flirtatious and carefree, though in general this is all a facade that he keeps as part of that particular line of work. As time has passed, Kitakaze has begun to let his emotions start to show in the presence of those close to him.
Dedication to his various crafts can be seen from the start of his day till when he retires to his bed. He holds his honor in high regard, and keeps to his word which has also gotten him into trouble at times. None can say that he isn't dedicated, spending hours upon hours to perfect what he is working on whether that is combat, subterfuge, performing, or new skills that he has only just started with. To him a jack of all trades style of life is best as he would rather not be dependent on others. Instead he uses his abilities who cannot help themselves so He is possessed of a fierce intelligence, strong in critical thinking, analysis, and problem-solving. When presented with a problem situation, he is tireless in his efforts to break the situation down and create meaningful and efficient solutions. Magickal studies are his forte, with a focus in the healing schools and general aetherology. N'hara is also very creative and adaptive, able to make strategic decisions on the fly and shift focus as any given situation demands. He's shown a strong aptitude to augmenting the techniques and skills of various combat styles and magick schools to better suit his needs and current skill level, creating a repertoire of abilities that would place him ahead of his peers. However, N'hara's is not without his flaws. His biggest is his poor self-image, seeing himself as beneath others in skill and station, and viewing his own accomplishments as insufficient compared to the unrealistically high expectations he has placed on himself. He also has a tendency to be overly hard on himself for failing to meet those expectations and has great difficulty forgiving himself. His poor self-image makes him prone to making decisions and taking actions in spite of any negative consequences to himself. He is also stubborn to a fault, unbending in certain matters, regardless of how illogical or self-defeating they might be. When his emotions run high, he also has a problem with poor decision making, not fully thinking his actions through beforehand.
N'hara was born to the Aldgoat Tribe on the isle of La Noscea and his very-early life possessed all the hallmarks of a young boy that would one-day grow up to be a Nunh. He was energetic and playful with the other kittens his age, going on mock adventures down to the ocean to fish or tending to the aldgoat and fighting the "monsters" that would threaten them. He showed good physical strength for a boy his age, a clear head, and a good heart, always looking out for the other kittens whenever they played.
Around N'hara's tenth summer, the tribe was being visited by traders and travelers and it was then that a young miqo'te girl stumbled on a rock and scraped her knee. Immediately looking to help the teary-eyed girl, he raced to her side and offered words of comfort before doing what many mothers did for children when they had small hurts: he gently blew on it. All present watched with undivided attention as the small, barely bleeding cut stitched itself closed. Though the day finally progressed as it normally did, the tribe nunh and the elders wished to test N'hara and see if he could perform the feat again. Sure enough, when presented with a small cut from a knife, N'hara blew on it just like before and sealed the wound closed. Those trained in conjury were tasked with fostering the boy's newfound skill and the hopes for the prospective Nunh only grew. However, it wasn't hubris but generosity that brought about N'hara's eventual downward spiral. Now knowing he could channel aether in order to heal others, he took it upon himself to tend to whoever he could. Whenever one of the kittens was hurt, he did his best to ease their aches. If a huntress came back wounded, he would assist with granting them succor. In his mind, it was now his duty to take care of his tribe as best he could and the more he thought of the well-being of others, the less he thought about his own. The stress of using his aether so much was wearing down on the young Tia and even when told not to, he still found time to ease the pains of others. His desire to help others eventually outstripped his body's ability to handle it and the hopes of him becoming a Nunh fell the day he lost consciousness while trying to heal one of the huntresses. All training and healing was to be immediately suspended and N'hara consigned to a bed to rest and recover. Naturally, he refused and would sneak out and into the healer's hut whenever he could. The strain and stress eventually reached a point where N'hara was unable to walk, and after pleading with the Nunh and elders, his mother secured passage for her son to be taken to Gridania to recover and learn to properly wield his magicks so that such an incident would never happen again. It was the first night N'hara spent in his room at the Gridanian hospital that he met with a fellow Seeker boy: X'ani, the red-head bandaged and limping, and neither able to sleep much in part due to a thunderstorm. Inviting X'ani to stay in his bed the night, the two talked and eventually found a kinship with each other. Though N'hara's care took longer to resolve than his new friend's, the two stayed with each other through the whole of it, N'hara even sneaking out from time to time to watch X'ani practice archery. When the two were healthy enough to leave the hospital, they were assigned a foster parent to live with, a miqo'te woman named K'ivara who worked to continue raising the two boys as her own. They lived with her through the Calamity, learning to weave to sew blankets and clothes for those in need, and when the worst had passed, used those skills to earn a little extra money for themselves. When N'hara's conjury training had eventually concluded and he was deemed fit to return home, N'hara offered to take X'ani with him, offering his best friend a home with him and his mother in La Noscea. The pair made their trip to Limsa Lominsa and eventually to N'hara's tribe where he introduced X'ani to his old friends and eventually his mother. She was the first to see the deeper attraction the two shared, gladly accepting the orphaned Seeker into her home. Their reunion was to be amicably short lived, as N'tala had worked in secret to ensure both her boys received a proper education. With the right people talked to, N'hara and X'ani were both accepted into the Arcanists's Guild and taking up work for Mealvaan's Gate. The two excelled in their studies with N'hara focusing a significant portion of his off-time recreating a selection of spells found in an arcanima text from the lost civilization of Nym. Although none of his work eventually bore practical fruit, his research was considered complete enough that his work was eventually published, a fact that he deeply loathes and laments.
Eventually, word began to spread that the increased tensions in the north, the Thousand-Year War that pit Ishgard's finest knights against the Dravanian Hoard was growing severe enough that the once closed-off city-state was opening its borders to outsiders. It was a combination of the call for medics and healers of all types and news of a new school of healing magicks that eventually convinced N'hara to finally part from X'ani's side and travel to Isghard to learn Sharlayan Astromancy. Upon arrival in Ishgard, N'hara was enlisted in an organization of healers that would offer emergency battlefield assistance after engagements with the Dravanians and further medical assistance upon return. Furthermore, he enrolled himself at the Athenaem Astrologicum as a student of astromancy and was given his first star globe and an astrologian soul crystal, though the nature of the crystal was not make clear by his instructors. In order to ensure his loved ones knew he was well, he began to send weekly letters to both N'tala and X'ani explaining recent events, declassified developments in the Dragonsong War, and the occasional rough explanation of his current astromancy studies. Combat engagements grew more dangerous as the war continued to wage and several times, N'hara and his group would need to be deployed to the field to recover wounded knights even before a battle was over. During these situations, N'hara accumulated seven confirmed victories over a dravanian in order to rescue a temple knight with several more instances of disabling or distracting one long enough to escape with his charge. Furthermore, such engagements helped to create a very efficient and fast casting style that allowed him to react quickly to emergency situations. N'hara's skill with astromancy grew quickly, helped significantly by his previous experience with healing magicks, and eventually he began to read into the higher levels of astromancy. During a dream that came to him after one such research sessions, N'hara learned of the power of Celestial Opposition and its capacity to halt time for an extended duration. inspired and horrified by such a power, he quickly began to develop a variant of it that allowed him to wield such a power at his current skill level, dubbing the new technique Chronostasis. This ability, he also decided, and Celestial Opposition as a whole had to be a secret he would take to his grave, as such a power falling into the wrong hands could cause unthinkable disaster. Meanwhile, N'hara's letters left with the same regularity they always had, yet while he received the occasional letter from his mother, he received no responses from X'ani. It wasn't until a year's time had past that he finally heard from his beloved; the package contained some kind of aetheric device that projected the image of X'ani in bed with-and wearing the collar of-another man. Heartbroken that his beloved had found another, N'hara grew distant and retreated into his studies and his work, doing his best to busy himself and his mind with his work and studies and ceased sending any more letters to the red-haired seeker. During a routine visit to Gridania for additional supplies for the Astrologicum, N'hara encountered Koh'li Delanoes, who had been briefly hired to help load the supplies into the wagon that N'hara was travelling with. The two opted to spend the remainder of N'hara's time in each other's company, talking about themselves and what they did. It was though Koh'li that the seeker learned of his free company, the Astral Agents, and it was the highlander that offered to help train N'hara's body to be physically stronger and healthier. When the Dragonsong War was declared at an end, N'hara accepted Koh'li's offer and left immediately for Ul'dah.
Sharlayan Astromancy draws its power from the heavens and its numerous celestial bodies and cosmic forces, allowing access to powers and spells far beyond what most other mages are capable of. Celestial Opposition is one such power and astromancers capable of wielding this incredibly advanced technique are rewarded with the power to halt the flow of time itself. The casting method for this spell is incredibly complex and the amount of aether required to power it is considerable for even the most accomplished practitioners; these costs only increase the longer one wishes to halt time. N'hara's soul crystal, able to see the vast well of aether within the miqo'te and finding an affinity with his desire to see the limits of astromancy, revealed this technique to him during his schooling. Unable to wield the magicks even at its most basic form, he instead took the technique and created a variant of it based upon his own style and preferences.
Chronostasis is the end result of N'hara's work: it functions as a scaled-down, yet significantly more efficient, version of Celestial Opposition. It requires no somatic actions or verbal incantations, able to activate as quickly as one's base reaction time allows., and the amount of aether required is significantly lesser but still costly. Most importantly, the duration that time is halted is limited to roughly one to two seconds. This makes Chronostasis mainly a defensive technique, used to provide N'hara precious additional seconds to evade incoming attacks and reposition. This technique was improved upon even further by fueling it with N'hara's naturally ice-aspected aether, attuned to the Spear from his training as an astromancer.
The technique known as the "Weave" traces its roots back only a single generation to a small branch of the C tribe from the Sagolii desert. Desiring a means for the tribe to defend itself, the acting nunh discovered a voidsent trapped in a magickal artifact that promised him power in exchange for freedom. The creature honored its promise by corrupting the tribe's aetheric channels, twisting them in a way that made normal aether usage difficult, if not impossible. However, the corruption also allowed the subject to channel their aether directly into their bodies, drastically increasing their physical might.
As N'hara's body is not physically capable of channeling aether as those of that small C tribe, he is incapable of using the Weave as it was intended. This is both a blessing and a hindrence, as while N'hara is incapable of achieving the same physical feats as one whose body has been modified to use the Weave, he does not suffer the same physical or mental damage that comes with using the technique. In order to make up for the reduced potency, N'hara paired the basic channeling method of the Weave with a monastic technique known as Body Activation. This new technique was dubbed Army of One, from the sentiment that the user could very well become as strong as a whole army, as it possessed no theoretical upper limit and no lasting drawbacks. This technique was improved upon even further by fueling it with N'hara's naturally fire-aspected aether, attuned to the Balance from his training as an astromancer.
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