Save the Earth: Application

[singleconstant]

OOC Information:
Name: Enzel
Are you over 15? yep!
Contact: aim: Terra in Pyjamas. PMing this journal works too.

IC Information:
Name: Rhys Osman (originally Rhys Khevran/Kaeryn)
Canon: Original 
Age: 34 (physically 34, over 30,000)
Preincarnation Appearance: Feel free to just link to an image.
Any differences: Nope!
Preincarnated History: Rhys was originally a boy named Kaeryn, born on a planet inhabited by a humanlike species that had evolved to survive in a hostile and poisonous environment. However, their planet wasn't always that way--it used to be lush, green, and full of life. The magic that the people used sucked the planet dry of resources, resulting in constant conflict over the little that remained. Kaeryn had innate magical talent, and attended an academy that shaped young people into warriors. His twin sister Arra accompanied him, though her skill was with the sword.

Before either of them could come of age, war reached their city, and razed it. The twins survived, as well as a handful of students and teachers, cast out into the harsh wilderness. After weeks of wandering with little food or shelter, one of Kaeryn's old professors proposed using a forbidden spell to escape their predicament.

The spell worked, but of course, its cost was steep. It destroyed the souls of almost everyone in the group to fuel itself, leaving the survivors twisted and warped. There were only four--Kaeryn, his sister, the professor, and his baby daughter. The latter two escaped through the portal the spell had created, into another world. When the twins came to, they followed.

The world they discovered was covered in deep jungle and completely devoid of civilization. Kaeryn and Arra managed to survive for nearly a decade on their own, hacking out a new life for themselves, but miserable from isolation. Then one day, a strange woman found their camp and attacked them. Their first contact with another sentient being in years, and it turned out to be the old professor's daughter. The portal had delivered them to different times, and in that span she'd grown into an adult as her father wasted away. After his death, she set out on her own. 

A misunderstanding arose--the young woman, Maea, blamed them for her father's death. The aftereffects of the spell had slowly eroded his health and sanity, and he believed his old pupils had sabotaged it somehow. The twins fought her off, loathe to take the life of the only other person for thousands of light-years. But Maea refused to give up on revenge, and eventually, during one of their fights, she and Kaeryn struck fatal blows. They both died, leaving Arra alone.

Not for long, however. The very same spell that had killed everyone else had given all three of them a gift--and a curse. Their souls were now "constants", points of energy that could neither fade nor be depleted. If their mortal bodies were killed, their souls would go on to inhabit a new body, reborn, their memories sealed within. That is, until some sort of intense trauma caused all those lifetimes to come flooding back.

The universe is a vast place, but every few hundred years, at least two of them would meet again. The experience of lifetime after lifetime gave Maea the grace and kindness to forgive, but it drove the twins apart. And for Kaeryn, it was a nightmare. He quickly learned to hide his recollections, knowing no one would believe him. The combined strain of hiding the truth and outliving all those he grew to care for began to take its toll. Several hundred lifetimes in, he began to take his own life the moment he remembered. This continued for some time, until the futility sank in. After that, he devised a spell to seal his memories permanently.

Like all things, it didn't last. The three of them weren't the only powerful creatures in the universe. A demon learned of their existence and decided to trap one of their souls to use as an eternal energy source, using it to lure the other two in as well. Kaeryn managed to evade detection, but he was stuck in the body of a young teenager, unable to use his magic without alerting the creature. He attempted to live a normal life, but was eventually discovered, and his adoptive mother was killed. 

After turning the demon's own trap against it, with Maea's help, the two of them traveled across the planet  for some time. However, Kaeryn's grief over his mother's death (and his guilt at being unable to stop it) drove him away. He used the very portal spell that had warped his soul in the first place to escape to yet another world, and leave his bad memories behind.

It was here, in the unlikeliest of places, that he found a kindred spirit. The planet he stumbled across, Astreos, held a civilization recovering from the brink of collapse, and he settled in to help. Greeted at first with suspicion, his magic (once destructive, now powered by his soul) proved to be a blessing for the people there. And in the ruins of the city's old castle, he met Kyran.

Kyran was the guardian of a nearby planet, a world called Pristerra. The natives of Pristerra had split in the distant past; originally they resembled winged humanoids. The technology they developed began to poison their world, much like Kae's home planet. Those who clung to the old traditions of living in harmony with nature took to the stars in spaceships, looking for another home. Those who remained lost their wings and relied on the regulated environments of domed cities to survive.

Kyran was once a winged native, part of an expedition from the new colony back to Pristerra. But the wingless ones no longer saw the colonists as kin, and attacked them instead. In the struggle, Kyran was left behind, and taken in as a scientific curiosity. He was subject to multiple experiments using planetary energy, and since his genetics were pure, the planet eventually chose him as its new guardian.

The scientists who held him had no idea of the significance of this, having lost the old ways. Pristerra was dotted with cores, places where energy gathered, that when polluted would corrupt the land around them. A guardian's job was to take the pollution into themselves and process it, purifying the cores. But Pristerra hadn't had a guardian since the last group of natives left, thousands of years before. With the new powers the planet bestowed upon him, he broke out of the lab, killing many of the scientists, and went into hiding. Eventually he tried to flee the planet, and found his way to Astreos.

Unfortunately, as a guardian, it caused him physical pain to be far from his planet for long. Eventually he had to return and do his duty, or a biological imperative would take over and do it for him. Kaeryn waited for him faithfully each time, usually with a pile of new books to show him every time he returned. Over time their friendship became something deeper, and they made a vow: every time Kaeryn was reborn in a new body, Kyran would find him. When the time came, they parted and met again as promised. This continued for several thousand years, until by chance, Kae was reborn as a child on Pristerra itself--a child named Rhys Khevran.

As "Rhys", he grew up experiencing firsthand the ignorance and carelessness the natives treated their planet with. They feared Kyran, considering him a monster--or at best, a lab specimen to be dissected. Hoping to change things, Rhys went into the field of planetary energy research, looking for a way to purify the cores without the need for a guardian. However, the entire idea was considered laughable, and he was never able to obtain any research funding. Frustrated and growing increasingly bitter, with the planet's terrible condition starting to affect Kyran's health, he began to fall into despair. Soon enough only one solution seemed to present itself:

Kill the planet itself.

As a guardian, Kyran couldn't be separated from it while they both lived. The pollution crippled him, the people hated and feared him. To Rhys, releasing him from what seemed like a living hell was a gesture of mercy. He devoted his research to hastening Pristerra's death instead, too far gone to realize Kyran knew exactly what he was doing.

In its death throes, the planet granted its guardian a final wish. Kyran chose to stay with Rhys, and be reborn as he was. Several years later, a little boy was born on Astreos, the spitting image of the old guardian. Rhys kept his distance, too crippled by guilt to approach him, but as the boy grew he chose to seek him out instead. That was his wish, after all.


Reincarnated History Rhys is of mixed Turkish/Iranian heritage, though both sides of his family have been in the U.S. for at least generation or so. He was raised Muslim but hardly practices anymore, though he does if his parents are visiting. Born in 1979, he grew up with a younger sister, Nia, three years his junior. His childhood wasn't particularly remarkable, though he was bullied in school for his family's heritage and religion on more than one occasion. Growing up in a predominantly white suburban area of New Jersey didn't help.

His father is a doctor, or was--he recently retired. He put a certain amount of pressure on Rhys to follow in his footsteps, but his son was far more interested in physics. He struggled a little in school, especially thanks to that teenage phase of rebellion and alcohol, but managed to get into a decent university. His main interest was in developing clean energy. However, after graduation, even with a Masters, he couldn't get any research grants and turned to teaching instead. He moved to Locke City as a professor at the local university a few years back, after a breakup. His parents were a little too invested in him getting married, and neither he nor the woman he was seeing were really interested in commitment.

First Echo: What caused their first Echo, and what did it give them? Players may choose events from the timeline or a canon reoccurence.

Preincarnation Personality: At first glance, Rhys seems friendly and relaxed, unfazed by almost anything. But there's an instability about him, and a profound sadness. He has a tendency to ramble without thought for his surroundings, or company. He has difficulty being straightforward, and will usually talk around a subject rather than about it. This vagueness can border on irritating sometimes. He doesn't seem to care about other people's feelings very much, since he's aware it has that effect on them. Though it should be noticed that he doesn't do it specifically to get on people's nerves, it's more of a side-effect.

He also has a bad habit of unconsciously flirting with people, from a lifetime of turning up the charm to get what he wanted. It's usually meaningless, just something that's been ingrained into his speech patterns. He gives off the air of being distracted and unfocused, and his smiles are hardly ever genuine. He tends to refer to people by their full names, even if they insist on a nickname, but he will use condescending language without remorse on someone he thinks can't keep up with him. This arrogance is something that's been with him from the beginning, but was tempered and hidden for a long time, and only shows now because he's more or less fed up with those around him.

One thing that remains constant for "Kaeryn" in all his incarnations is a thirst for knowledge. In fact, if something new and exciting appears, he'll pretty much drop everything to study it. He doesn't go full-on Dr. Evil, but he does push ethical and moral boundaries sometimes. (and ask invasive questions.) He's very unlikely to restrain someone against their will, but he'll dig up any secrets he can. That said, deep down, he genuinely likes people. He's just been burned so many times, seen so much death and ignorance, that he's tired. He doesn't give anyone chances until they've proved themselves first, and even then he'll hold himself at a distance for a very long time. Even if they're a worthwhile person to know, to befriend, he's only going to outlive them--so why bother? So at the core of what was once and still could be a very kind person is a deep, weary bitterness. He knows how to deflect people from this, however, whether it be with words or looks, or even to the extent of distracting them with his own body.

The aforementioned kindness, while not immediately apparent, is the entire reason he's in this state. Because he cares, because he tried to give people chances and was disappointed, he's all the more bitter for it. For a long time, he saw his life as less valuable than others, because they would die forever but he would just be reborn. But at the moment he's beyond caring. He has the chance of returning to the way he used to be, but it would take a lot of healing. He has to relieve that deep, slow-burning anger toward injustice first, but that won't happen easily.
 

Any differences: Rhys isn't quite mild-mannered, but he's fairly laid back--especially for a college professor. He's friendly and is the type to ask his students to call him by his first name. He lacks the profound weariness of who he used to be, and is a genuine flirt instead of a deflecting one. Unfortunately, this means most of his relationships have been short-lived. His biggest vices are the occasional cigarette, drunken Friday night, and lying about stupid things to make himself look better. He's slightly self-conscious in the sense that he lives to impress people--he's definitely an extrovert. He could use a better fashion sense, though.

Abilities: His magical ability is innate, connected to the soul and not the body. Therefore, "Rhys" has access to all of Kaeryn's power, and the knowledge of how to use it. He’s nowhere near the level of a god or divine being, but he is powerful for mortal standards. He can't just snap his fingers and make anything happen; whatever he wishes to apply his magic to requires effort. That said, it's very versatile.

In order to accomplish something--say, for example, opening a locked door, he would first need physical contact with the lock. Technically he could do it from a distance, but that would require more concentration and effort than would be practical. By placing a hand on the metal, he can use the material as a conductor, sending his power into it and more or less feeling out the mechanics on the inside. He can use this to construct a mental picture of it, figure out which tumblers to turn, and then move them by sending magic into them. This method can be used to do nearly anything he puts his mind to, from building a sandcastle to healing a wound. How well or quickly the task is completed depends on how much physical material is involved, and the precision required. Healing a living thing is much more difficult than messing with an inanimate object. This also counts for using magic against magic, though that becomes a direct battle of strength between him and the other magic user.

He also uses his power as a sort of sixth sense. This is an unconscious action; he’s been doing it for so long it works in his sleep as well. Since it’s relatively passive, it barely uses any of his strength. What it does is tell him the age and composition of any material he touches, and if he reaches further, anything in the immediate area. He can also sense living things in a certain radius around him (50 feet or so, up to several miles if he concentrates hard enough), which makes him very hard to sneak up on.

Everything he does is by using his internal energy to directly manipulate atoms. Basically, it looks like hocus-pocus, but he can't create something out of nothing--he has to work with what's there. When making a shield, for example, he can use raw magical energy, which would tire him very quickly, or he can rearrange air molecules, which puts significantly less strain on his body. Healing involves rebuilding the body's cells back to the way they were before the injury. He's spent so long studying matter that he can do more or less anything with the right materials, but it also makes every magical working he does more complicated than it would usually be, since he has to keep track of every single bit of matter his power touches.

He can sense magic itself, usually even if the type is foreign to him, and with enough time he can sometimes determine what it can do/what it’s used for/how powerful it is. This ability comes from lifetimes of studying magic, which is pretty much the only thing he gets excited about anymore. The limits to this are physical ones--though he technically has enough power in his reserves to accomplish more or less anything, it puts strain on his body. Any great use of magic will physically exhaust him, and it takes at least a day, sometimes more, to recover, depending on severity. If he tried to do something large-scale, like stop a bomb explosion, for example, he'd probably just kill himself outright.

To those with the ability to observe souls/magical energy, he's like a beacon at full strength, though he usually keeps a conscious damper on it to appear as less of a threat. Aside from that, he's physically a normal human being. He's in good shape/has a decent amount of stamina, and is competent at hand to hand and staff fighting, as well as having a decent knowledge of many other weapons. However, he hasn't been in a physical fight for some time, so he's a little rusty. He's also more likely to do things the normal way, and leave his magic for things he can't accomplish with his own two hands. As a side note, most diseases have no effect on him unless they're particularly dangerous. His power works in tandem with his immune system and gets rid of things pretty fast. However, poison is a different matter and must be dealt with on a case by case basis.

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