Telmaril Frostfall

Name: Telmaril Frostfall

Nicknames: Tel

Titles: Warrior of Light, the End of Ascalon, Dragonsong, Eikonslayer, blah blah blah.

Species: Elezen

Gender: Male

Age: 33

Telmaril is an Elezen, what the natives of Teragaia might term an elf, and a rather typical example of his species. He's nearly seven feet tall with the lean, athletic build of a man accustomed to a life on the move. His skin is the color of acorn shells, while his hair is dark auburn liberally streaked with white. The vast majority of the time it's pulled back in a braid or ponytail. His large, angled eyes gleam liquid gold. While Tel has a great many scars almost all of them are old and faint. The sole exception is a thin rope of scar tissue running diagonally across his left cheek. 

Tel's clothing is something of a crapshoot. He's been spotted in everything from plain white robes to rather intimidating golden armor and everywhere in between. The only constant is a pair of either goggles or glasses perched atop his nose or head. The particularly observant may notice a cluster of etched crystal medallions dangling from a leather thong around his neck.

Personality:

Reasonable above all else. Honest, though diplomatically so. Well-spoken with a knack for telling people what they want to hear. Socially aware and relatively socially adept. A genuinely friendly sort- gets along well with most folks and attempts politeness around those he doesn't care for. Possessed of a volcanic temper kept on a (sometimes brutally) tight leash. A healer at heart- cares deeply for those under his care, for those in danger, for those passing in the street, etc. Terrible at making those 'hard decision' calls, tends to agonize over them to a ridiculous extent. Still wants to save everyone even when he knows that's impossible. Tends towards idealism even when it isn't warranted. Remarkably self-aware; tends to use other people as a 'checks and balances' system to keep his self-sacrificing streak in check. Fully owns his faults and actively works towards eradicating them.

(More on this once I can words properly.)

Telmaril was the result of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story. His father, Tiberias de Durendaire, was the son and heir apparent of House Durendaire, in line to inherit the wealth and power of Ishgard's most powerful noble house. His mother, Amarielle, could claim no such noble bloodline. She was a mere commoner, raised to power by virtue of hard work and incredible skill with the lance. The unlikely couple first met on the lists at one of Ishgard's many trials by combat. In each other they found their unlikely and unexpected equal. Their first bout in the sword ring raged for nearly an hour, finally ending in an unprecedented draw. Rounds two through five ended the same way. Finally Amarielle declared she would throw the next match on one condition- Tiberias meet her for dinner once they recovered from their wounds.

Thus began a romance that left Ishgard's nobility whispering behind their fluttering fans. Tiberias and Amarielle were all but inseparable for close to five years. They attended balls together, entered into tourneys together, even sallied forth against the Dravanian menace as a team. The two likely would have continued their shocking affair had Great Houses Dzemael and Durendaire not come to an agreement. Tiberias, Durendaire's prodigal son, would benefit from an arranged marriage almost as much as House Dzemael's spitfire of a daughter would. What did it matter that both had longtime lovers they adored? Inter-house politics formed the basis of power in Ishgard, and they left no room for mere emotion.

A scant few months before Tiberias' unwanted wedding matters became even more complicated: Amarielle fell pregnant, and there was no doubt as to whom the babe's father was. With an arranged marriage looming large on the horizon the couple were forced to move quickly. Amarielle went on a five-year sabbatical from the Temple Knights and moved from her home under cover of darkness. The rest of her pregnancy was spent in a modestly-appointed house in the Pillars of Ishgard, a mere stone's throw from Durendaire Manor. Just before the snows of winter set in she gave birth to a premature but remarkably healthy baby boy the two dubbed Telmaril.

Telmaril's childhood might have been very different had the Dravanian menace not set its sights on Ishgard. While the dragons of Nidhogg's brood had always been a thorn in Ishgard's side, their harrying had slowly evolved into outright harassment. By the time the first leaves of spring emerged it was clear the Horde was gearing up for another assault on Ishgard. A city under siege was no place for a newborn, especially not one in as tenuous a position as Telmaril, and his parents both knew it. As much as it pained him Tiberias arranged for Amarielle and their son to flee the city with a trader's caravan. For once their plan went off without a hitch. Amarielle fled to distant Gridania with Telmaril in her arms, leaving behind the love of her life and the only life she'd ever known.

After the chaos surrounding his conception and birth Telmaril's early childhood was remarkably peaceful. He learned to walk beneath the lofty boughs of the Black Shroud, watched over by an indulgent mother, a fond aunt and a discreet retainer of House Durendaire. Letters arrived on a weekly basis, sent by a father who loved his son but could not be there to see him grow. As unconventional as his circumstances were, Tel thrived under them.

Time waits for no Elezen, though, and all too soon Amarielle's sabbatical came to an end. With a heavy heart she returned to Ishgard, leaving Tel in Gridania with his aunt and uncle. They raised Tel as their own, with all the loving discipline such closeness implies. Under their guidance he matured into a kind-hearted and quick-witted young man with an appropriately bright future ahead of him.

That future came into focus as Telmaril approached puberty. Magic had always run in the Durendaire family line, though its form was unpredictable at best. Some Durendaires, Tiberias among them, possessed just enough magic to fortify themselves in combat. Others grew into mages of legend- or, more rarely, of nightmare. Telmaril fell on the far end of that spectrum. Control over the elements came to him as easy as breathing, and the whole of Gridania took notice. 

On the eve of his sixteenth birthday a representative of Gridania's Conjurers Guild arrived at Telmaril's home. The Elementals had heard him, she explained, and the guild believed his natural talent could be honed to a razor edge. Would he join them in safeguarding the Shroud? Tel blurted a 'yes' almost before the representative had finished speaking. In a matter of days he was packed up and off on his next great adventure among the Conjurers of Gridania. There he stayed for close to a decade, training and teaching and growing as a person and as a magician.

Then the Garlean Empire rose from the shadows, shattered the Red Moon Dalamud, and turned the Dreadwyrm Bahamut loose upon the world.

What followed was less a war and more a slaughter. Tens of thousands perished on the battlefield, untold hundreds in ruined cities, and millions more faced starvation in the wake of the Red Moon's fall. For nearly five years Telmaril and the rest of the guild's graduates traveled the length and breadth of Eorzea, plying their skills wherever they were most needed. Amidst the blood and ashes Eorzea and her city-states were reborn. 

So was Telmaril, for that matter. 

It was on one of these sojourns across Eorzea that Tel's story took a strange turn. Strange happenings had been reported across Eorzea, running the gamut from sudden floods and insect invasions to the sudden uprising of the continent's beastman tribes. No one knew quite what had caused these disparate events, or how to deal with them, but the realm's various guilds were keen on finding out. Tel was among the conjurer's guild emissaries dispatched to parlay with the Amal'jaa beastmen in the desert region of Thanalan. 

Said parlay went pear-shaped in nothing flat. Somehow the Amal'jaa had managed to summon Ifrit, their patron Primal, right under the noses of the realm's defenders. The Lord of the Inferno was understandably less than thrilled to find his minions under 'attack'by Eorzeans. Half the Guild's representatives were slaughtered and the rest taken prisoner by the Amal'jaa. Lord Ifrit required more servants, more sacrifices, and the conjurers fit the bill. 

Tel himself has no memory of his rescue, or of how it occurred. He awoke some days after his capture with bandages swathed about his head and a plump Au Ra woman smirking at him like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. Beryl, as she eventually identified herself, filled him in in dribs and drabs. Tel, it turned out, was the sole survivor of the expedition. The rest of the emissaries had been tempered by Ifrit. They were little more than animate vessels of the Primal's will- or, rather, they would have been, had Beryl and her companions not slain the lot of them. The dragon-woman was a part of the so-called Warriors of Light, an agent of the mysterious Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and she had a vested interest in Tel. He had withstood Ifrit's tempering, had in fact shrugged it off entirely, and that made him uniquely valuable. 

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Tel soon learned, were tasked with defending the realm from the Primal menace. Ifrit was not the only beastman god to have stirred from restless slumber. Beneath the stone Titan roared rebellion. In the mountains Garuda spread wide her wings. Beyond the breakwaters Leviathan stirred. Eorzea's standing armies were of no use against these gods in the flesh. To approach a Primal was to fall under their sway, unless one possessed the mixed blessing called the Echo. Tel, it seemed, was one of those rare few. Presented with a choice between meekly returning to the guild and fighting the threat at his doorstep, Tel took the latter route and joined the Scions' chosen, the so called 'Warriors of Light'. 

The Warriors of Light honed Tel's already-formidable skills into something awesome to behold. When the next Primal arose he was among those to take the field against him. The Warriors laid low the mighty Titan, and Garuda, and Leviathan, though not without considerable losses. Tel played a peripheral role in most of their victories. His healing prowess made him more valuable behind the front lines than on them. 

That changed, however, when a Warrior of Light was accused of murdering Sultana Nanamo ul Namo. All at once the tide of public opinion turned against the Scions and their Warriors. Too many died in the resulting chaos, civilian and Warrior alike. The survivors scattered to the four winds, some never to be seen again. Through luck and happenstance Tel happened to escape the turmoil. Between favors owed and contacts previously made he was able to hunt down the surviving Scions, now numbering only three, and find shelter for them. With an entire city-state thirsting for Scion blood, they saw no choice but to flee to distant, snow-crowned Ishgard.

Perhaps predictably, chaos followed in their wake. There were more Primals to slay, a draconian invasion to fend off, deep-rooted corruption to ferret out. The Scions and their steadily-increasing troop of Warriors set about doing precisely that. Here Tel's race put him reluctantly into the spotlight. With the Dravanians at their gates Ishgard had long ago closed their borders to all outsiders. Who better to save them, to drag the isolationist city-state from its solitude, than Ishgard's prodigal son?

For some months Tel was kept in Ishgard's Holy See in a diplomatic capacity. He parlayed with the Great Houses while the Scions and other Warriors of Light took the fight to the Dravanians. In the end both were victorious; the Warriors of Light managed to stave off the Dravanians while Telmaril rallied the Great Houses behind them. With Ishgard united against the Dravanians Tel returned to the battlefield. In the months that followed he played an instrumental role in brokering a ceasefire between Ishgard and the Dravanians. That ceasefire nearly crumpled beneath an assault by Nidhogg himself, clad in the stolen body of a friend Tel had thought long gone. With the help of Hraesvelgr, Nidhogg's brood-brother, the Warriors of Light were able to put Nidhogg down. In the wake of his death the Dragonsong War finally drew to its long-awaited close. Dravanian and Ishgardian opened their eyes, opened their hearts, and emerged allied. 

In the month-long celebration that followed the peace treaty Tel's life took a turn for the absurd. Whilst walking home from yet another party he slipped on a patch of ice, grabbed for the nearest wall and found himself falling face-first into Teragaia. The rest, as they say, is history.

Warrior of Light - Hydaelyn's champions tend to be stronger, swifter and more resilient than their more mundane kin. Telmaril is no exception. 

The Echo - At base the Echo is a mishmash of past-sight, future-sight and complete immunity to mind-altering effects, all combined with a disquieting ability to catch glimpses of others' memories. None of these abilities are under Tel's direct control. His 'visions' come and go as they please, entirely without rhyme or reason. The act of channeling the Echo is physically and mentally exhausting, and typically leaves Tel weak as a kitten for several hours post-vision.

White Magic - White magic involves invoking the elements of earth, water and wind. As such, it is mostly a defensive magic, heavily emphasizing healing and shielding spells. Telmaril is an accomplished healer with a deft grasp of magical healing

Black Magic - Considered the yin to white magic's yang, black magic is wholly focused on destruction. It calls upon the elements of fire, lightning and ice to devastating offensive effect. When the need is dire Tel can invoke these destructive elements to burn, electrocute or freeze enemies. 

Elemental Attunement - Black and white magics have their roots in Eorzea’s elements. As such, their wielders develop an intuitive sense of the elements around them. Telmaril specifically is unusually attuned to the elements of wind and earth. Given time to acclimate to his surroundings he can ‘hear’ the voices of the world around him.