Tavi of Calderon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
student_of_impossibility) wrote2013-09-05 04:34 pm
student_of_impossibility) wrote2013-09-05 04:34 pm
Entry tags:
[Ataraxion] Application
P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Lee
OOC Journal:inlovewithwords
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope, quite over.
Email + IM: fractaldawn [at] gmail [dot] com; AIM: fractaldawn
Characters Played at Ataraxion: None!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Tavi (Gaius Octavian)
Canon: Codex Alera
Original or Alternate Universe: N/A
Canon Point: Captain’s Fury, Chapter 60 (one conversation away from the end)
Number: 008
Setting: Codex Alera at Wikipedia
My huge, tl;dr, mostly spoiler-free pre-canon setting information
An approximate hypothesis of the timeline
History: (with many, many spoilers)
Fifteen year old Tavi of Calderon grew up an apprentice shepherd on his family’s steadholt. An orphan, he was raised by his uncle Bernard, aunt Isana, and Fade. He knew only his mother’s name and nothing of his father, in all likelihood one of the legionares killed during the Battle of Calderon. Already small for his age, he had no parents, magic, connections, or advantages save a brilliant mind and the drive to use it to make a life despite his handicaps, preferably by studying at the Academy in the capital.
Once again the Marat threatened to invade, this time at the invitation of one of the traitorous High Lord and Lady Aquitaine. Thrown into events by chance, Tavi was captured by the Marat, but impressed the clan leader Doroga. When he saved the life of Doroga’s daughter Kitai (in course of accidentally bonding to her spiritually, something Tavi did not find out for two years), Doroga honored the obligation he felt by leading half the Marat against those already attacking, effectively allying with the Alerans. Tavi’s diplomacy and integrity ended up forging the beginning of peaceful relations between the two nations for the first time in history.
During the battle, Tavi briefly carried the seal proving the High Lord Aquitaine was involved, and Fade the slave protected Tavi from a swordsman previously unbeaten by all save Araris Valerian with shocking ease. They lost their proof, but Tavi’s performance was so outstanding that Gaius Sextus came to Calderon and personally offered Tavi patronage to the Academy, provided he prove himself a hard worker. Tavi agreed readily, departing for the capital with Fade in tow.
However, when forging the alliance, quite by accident Tavi woke the queen of hive-mind killer insect-creatures called the Vord sleeping in the creepy Wax Forest in the Valley.
Two years later, Tavi was performing brilliantly in all his classes, and was page to the First Lord. On top of his duties and advanced course load he trained to be a spy. He made friends with the other three trainees, particularly the mousy Ehren and Antillar Maximus, the illegitimate son of a High Lord. The boys became staunchly, unquestionably loyal to Tavi, even as he got on the bad side of some of the highest nobility simply for class, crafting, and political differences.
Usually appearing weaker than his fellow spies-in-training, he was actually the most deadly. Despite his furycrafting handicap, he was already fully capable of killing even a High Lord with the element of surprise and some careful planning.
At Wintersend, the First Lord overstretched even his remarkable limits and worked himself into a coma. Tavi functionally took charge of the situation, finding the head spy and the captain of the palace guard to run day-to-day affairs until Sextus woke. To ensure Sextus’ absence wouldn’t be noticed, he called Fade in to stand bodyguard and Max to impersonate the First Lord for major functions.
Together with help from Ehren, Kitai—hiding in the city as a cat burglar no one but Tavi ever managed to apprehend—and Varg, the ambassador of the Canim, Tavi held things together through an attack by the Vord on Sextus. (He also had to break Max out of the super-max prison, but that was almost incidental and not intended in the original plan.)
During the attack Tavi pulled rank on Fade, or rather Araris Valerian in hiding, forcing him to fight to keep them all alive. Though they successfully protected Sextus, Tavi’s aunt Isana was forced to accept the aid and alliance of the Aquitaines to save both Sextus and Calderon Valley—which was attacked by the Vord at the same time.
Three years later, Tavi was assigned to spy in the newly formed First Aleran legion as the lowest-ranking commissioned officer, under the pseudonym Rufus Scipio. Max and Ehren were also in the area, and Kitai followed not long after of her own accord. However, the Canim invaded (not coincidentally concurrent with one of the High Lords rebelling), and a precision strike with their blood magic killed off the entire officer corps—except, that is, for Tavi, who had been running late to the meeting.
Over the next few days Tavi took command of the untrained, unblooded Legion and—despite an inferior position, severe losses, and generally being all but screwed—held off the invasion of sixty-odd thousand and personally killed their leader in combat. He even had his men build what was functionally a death ray to do it. It helped him come to terms with the reality that while he couldn’t craft, he honestly didn’t need to craft to be invaluable to his people. No sooner had he come to terms with it, however, than his talents at last began to emerge—five years after he had left home and Isana’s overprotective care. (Kitai also started crafting—the first Marat to ever develop it, due entirely to her bond to Tavi.)
For two years Tavi commanded the First Aleran as Rufus Scipio, training his crafting in secret. At one point the Canim tried to assassinate him, and Araris—now no longer hiding behind the mask of the half-wit slave Fade—rejoined him to stand bodyguard. Around this time, unbeknownst to Tavi, rumors started to circulate about a shockingly talented and charismatic commander, very nearly the spitting image and manner of the long-dead Princeps Septimus, and guarded by a man very likely to be Septimus’ personal guard and friend.
After two years commanding the First Aleran, Tavi found himself in the distinctly unfortunate position of answering to a commander he loathed: Senator Guntus Arnos. Arnos was a crony of the Aquitaines’, who Tavi has a long-standing grudge against personally along with the more impersonal political opposition due to his association with Gaius. Arnos did everything he could not just to undermine Tavi’s—or rather, Captain Rufus Scipio’s—authority, he tried to set Tavi up to be punishable for insubordination. However, he did so by ordering execution of civilians on a technicality of treason. While Tavi tried to find a way around it, he made contact with the enemy commander to try to work out a truce, rather than see Arnos sacrifice all the men he commanded, along with any helpless civilians caught in the middle. However, that gave Arnos grounds to arrest Tavi for treason. Tavi let him. Because, you see, Araris had finally told Tavi the truth:
Ten months before First Calderon, Gaius Septimus had married Isana—totally legal and binding. He was murdered by Alerans under cover of the battle, which was arranged by several treacherous High Lords. Septimus sent Araris with the heavily pregnant Isana and her sister Alia. Alia took an arrow in the battle, and died helping Isana deliver baby Octavian within hours of his father’s death. Fearing for her son’s life, Isana hid Octavian from everyone, and at first accidentally and later deliberately stunted his physical and furycrafting growth by watercrafting him in his baths. While he lived under her care, she kept his talents from showing. Araris Valerian disguised himself and sold himself into slavery to Isana to stand silent watch over his young lord. Gaius Sextus has been grooming Tavi since the day they met to one day take the Crown.
Armed with the knowledge of his identity, Tavi broke the Canim leader out of the supermax-prison (now including Tavi’s own improved security measures, not that he let that stop him), brought him back, and negotiated a peace. In the process he declared himself openly to be Princeps Gaius Octavian, killed one of the best swordsmen in Alera, and politically discredited Arnos (who died, but that wasn’t Tavi’s fault). Now he just has to hope Sextus is in a forgiving mood.
Personality:
The single word summary would be ‘complicated’; to describe Tavi in a dozen words would be brilliant, compassionate, courageous, charismatic, passionate, manipulative, determined, cold-blooded, idealistic, deadly, debatably sane.
Tavi is a genius. Flat out, undeniable genius—and multi-talented, too. Tavi was taught the basics of academics as a child by his family, and read as much as he could. He was the kind of boy to read at night with a stolen furylamp hidden by blankets. He also taught himself a lot of mathematics quite by accident. As a result, when he got to the Academy, between hard work, his accidental self-preparation, and native intelligence, Tavi aced a highly advanced course-load. His performance under pressure—breaking into the super-max prison (twice, once around his own security), holding off an unprecedented invasion, figuring out who needed to run an empire while Gaius was out, building a death ray, and more—has only served to underline his talent and intellect. He’s a high-fantasy version of a tech geek, down to the academics, adoration of gizmos and gadgets, small size as a child, and getting bullied.
Always under-sized and furyless, as well as being an orphan, all his life Tavi has felt like an outsider and usually treated as less than those around him. This only increased once he began attending school, and it pressed heavily on him. Frequently humiliated by those around him, he struggled for years to come to terms with his lack of crafting, and to understand that he didn’t need crafting or connections to be both competent and crucially useful to his lord, Realm, and people. He did finally make his peace with it—just as his crafting finally started to bloom. As a result, the internal struggle has turned into one of his expectations for himself and trying to hold himself to what might appear an impossible standard.
Of course, that is part and parcel with his intense drive and unbreakable will. He devoted extra hours to training physically to keep up with his classmates and ended up in some ways exceeding them; he performed so diligently in classes that he was at the top of his class in advanced courses. Even when convinced that his lack of crafting is a handicap that will always leave him at a disadvantage anyone else can simply stomp on him for, he refuses to give up or actually believe he has no chance of winning. It may look like he doesn’t, but his strength (or possibly pig-headedness) means he never, ever gives up. That drive is the one which spurred him to succeed at the Academy and to protect his people and Realm with every inch of his soul, and sometimes drives him into foolhardy acts.
Tavi has a powerful natural charisma which lends itself to not only making friends, but impressing people with his integrity and goodness. During Second Calderon it gained him the respect and friendship of an enemy race of Alera, effectively making him the original negotiator of an eventual alliance. This charisma also manifests in apparently peculiar ways, as he sometimes acts as though he were pulling rank when he has none to back it—but people listen to him anyway, from his close friends to teachers and servants of the First Lord himself. He has pulled rank on the captain of the palace guard, on the palace security, on the disguised bodyguard of the dead Princeps, even on political power in general when he declared Kitai to be the Marat Ambassador. Much to Tavi’s surprise, Gaius Sextus upheld that declaration—though for more reasons than simple political advantage.
One of the qualities besides his sheer intelligence which consistently impresses those he meets is his compassion. Tavi has strong opinions on equality and justice, and is almost unique to his world in holding the lives of both Alerans and her enemies to be of equal importance. He likewise has a passionate hatred of slavery and disparity in treatment of different socioeconomic classes or between genders, and will generally fight for that equality whenever possible.
As a rule Tavi’s family is incredibly precious to him. He will go to great lengths for them, and firmly believes that while anger fades, love does not—even at his own mother who manipulated and deliberately handicapped him. And for his closest friends, close enough to be family in all but blood, he can and has arguably broken Crown law for them. His emotions run high: he has been known to use them deliberately to all but knock a strong empath unconscious from the storm. He is in general intensely passionate—but he keeps them under powerful control. When he loses that control, the results are usually even more terrifying.
Even when a child Tavi could hide his emotions from his aunt, a powerful empath, but since entering his training as a Cursor (Crown spy) he has become even more adept at controlling not only his emotions but his expression. His sheer brilliance has been tempered to a far more analytical and calculating mind, and from his natural practicality a cold-blooded pragmatism surfaced. He has gone from being merely clever and full of cheeky ingenuity to being incredibly analytical and detachedly strategic at times. He can be brutally direct, and can step back from the emotional overload of a situation to examine it impassively. He has also learned to be highly manipulative. For all that he genuinely likes people and cares about general people and individuals deeply, at some level for anyone he meets he will subconsciously start thinking how he can use them—even his closest friends. His drive is being directed now with those qualities to protect Alera.
That drive is only helped by his courage—or possibly recklessness, one or the other. Tavi has been known to rush in without thinking, or to think twice, realize it’s insane, and jump in head-first anyway. Between that courage and a creativity outside of what most Alerans have, due to not having crafting to rely upon, it frequently seems as though Tavi is more than a little mad, and friend, family, and everyone else around him comments on this with some frequency.
For all that he is creative, Tavi has more or less no poetry in his soul. He’s far too hyperlogical for it, and while his adoration for history and literature is well informed, he has exactly no appreciation for the arts. Not only that, but for all his love of family and friends and the depth of his connection to Kitai, with whom he now shares a deep empathic bond, Tavi actually has very little skill with interpersonal relationships and can and will destroy them unintentionally.
A core aspect of his personality, however, is his instinct and insight. Growing up on the harsh frontier he learned to pay attention to those instincts, though he only recently learned they might be more than they seemed. He doesn't trust those instincts absolutely and will back them up with observation and logic, but he pays attention when analyzing information and sensory input. Nonetheless, that helps him analyze and manipulate people as he comes across them--and to help him plan his next moves.
And all of this is ultimately focused toward one goal: protecting Alera. Even before learning his heritage, Tavi had begun giving everything to protect his Realm and People. Turns out that nearly inhuman, nearly insane devotion he will give is a trait of his father’s family.
BONUS: As for reacting to the new world he finds himself in, Tavi will be wary, fall back on compulsive secret-keeping and information-trawling modes, and then discover things like mathematics and science and history and so much to read. He will just become the biggest geek in fairly short order, and try to learn everything he can about everyone else and their worlds. It’s what he does.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Mundane abilities:
- Genius intellect. No, really.
- Highly trained, highly talented swordsman (one of the best his age)
- Slightly less skilled with daggers than sword, and less again with staff and an undescribed form of basic martial arts, but he is trained in them. Nodding familiarity with bows, other basic Roman weapons.
- Highly familiar with his own world’s history and literature; generally a skilled academic (see ‘genius’)
- Skilled at reading people’s faces, tones of voice, intentions, etc, and frequently manipulating them
- Trained spy and assassin, highly expert: opening mail, forging, tailing without being seen, losing a tail, lock-picking, burglary, etc.; even more expert to being elite at intelligence analysis and strategizing
- Notable weakness: he will be totally baffled by technology and need a lot of help/trial-and-error to make it work. Some things he may catch onto quickly—programming computers he might learn well, it’s all just logic and language and mathematics, and that he can handle. Modern science will be harder.
Furycrafting and its weaknesses, in-game:
AKA Elemental Spirit Magic, AKA Not Actually Avatar-world Bending
The full list of potential capabilities
At the moment, Tavi’s crafting is not fully developed; he is only capable of the internalized functions. Even so, he’ll need the elements to be present, so the ship will provide a buffer of sorts naturally. Even if he is canon-updated to his full crafting power, that buffer will keep him somewhat in check. There is the ‘talk to local great furies’—spirits of major landmarks, basically—‘and get them to do stuff’ ability, but that’s at the mercy of the setting. That can’t be accessed unless physically standing next to or in line-of-sight of such a landmark.
Also, both projective and receptive empathy only work in the physical presence of the people in question. Seriously, no vid-mind-reading going on.
Special Snowflake:
- Tavi has a powerful empathic bond to his lover Kitai. If she is ever in game, they’ll be approximately perpetually aware of each other; until then, it’ll serve as something of a weakness as he will constantly feel like a part of him is missing. It will be an almost physical ache.
- Tavi is canonically able to block almost all empathic scans and low-level telepathic scans. As a rule he tends not to project his thoughts (years of training), and if he’s actively shielding then there is almost no empath who will be able to break through. This includes knowing if he’s telling the truth or not (he’s been lying to walking polygraphs since he was eleven). Telepathy he’ll have more of a problem with, but he will feel the intrusion.
- Preternatural intuition. It’s sketchy and rarely implemented, but he does sometimes get flashes about people, the world around him, or even on rare occasions the future. It’s described as simply knowing: “I know it like I know that water’s wet. That two and two is four. There’s no malice or fear attached to it. It just is.” (Cursor’s Fury, Chapter 3) It’s rare that he takes such notice of it, or that it is specific. Usually it’s just uncanny intuition which he usually can justify to himself as simply being perceptive or making logical leaps. On the rare occasions it comes up, it’s pretty vague, too.
Inventory: (aka so many sharp pointy objects)
- (1) gladius
- (1) longsword
- (1) dagger small enough to be tucked into a boot-top
- Armor (would easily fit in the locker), Roman-style
- (small handful) Roman-esque coins, slight differences to the trained eye. One has Gaius’ Sextus’ profile and is his ‘phone home’ coin, sadly inoperative in-game. One’s an ancient silver bull (mark of a Cursor)
- (1) dagger: There’s a seal carved into the red-and-blue gem in the hilt, an eagle in flight.
Appearance:
Tavi is tall—probably at least 6’4”—broad-shouldered, and lean. After years of wearing 80 pound armor every day his muscles are fairly well-developed. Popular consensus says he looks almost exactly like his father, described as ‘thin-feature, stark, handsome.’ He’s got a scar high along his left cheek, and several others over his body. He tends to move with an almost wolfish quality, when not deliberately trying to appear non-threatening. His eyes are a vibrant, memorable green. For PB I use Raoul Bova.
Age: 22
AU Clarification:N/A
ETA: Revisions
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Tavi had always expected, when he was a boy, that somehow learning about his father would immediately and concretely change everything in his life, probably for the better.
At the moment, as he unrolled the much-used and wearing thin bedroll on the floor of his new command building, he wondered what childhood delusion ever brought about that idea. Besides the obvious—that declaring himself publicly had left him the single best target for every cutter in Alera who needed work—so far his new position hadn’t really changed anything. He was still in command of the First Aleran, he was still on the front lines facing the Canim, their surrender notwithstanding. Being the Princeps did not mysteriously make his bedding more comfortable, and nothing but time would reverse his mother’s interference with his crafting.
In fact, other than a change of address and the knowledge that sooner or later he’d have to face the First Lord’s almost-certain ire, so far very little had changed. Every way that his declaration would alter his life had to wait for the future—a future which relied heavily on Alera surviving the Vord.
(Of course, that was not entirely accurate. Once word got out about his existence, everything he did would be steeped in politics. He wouldn’t even be able to do what was necessary to protect Alera without fighting self-important, power-hungry, arguably treasonous slives every step of the way. This simple fact of Aleran politics still frustrated him, even though Arnos himself was now dead. The man was only a symptom, after all.)
But for now, life was oddly… familiar. Command had become such a routine, these past two years, that it was almost relaxing in a strange way. Energizing might be the word, Tavi mused, even as there was a knock on the door. “Come in!”
“Ca—Your Highness?” Centurion Schultz poked his head in before throwing a sharp salute. The Battlecrows had taken over their self-appointed duties guarding him almost as soon as the duel was over.
“As you were.” He rose to his feet, brushing his hands. “Kitai’s back?”
Schultz nodded, and Tavi felt as much as saw the hint of surprise mixed with expectation at his knowledge. Internally, Tavi smiled wryly. He’d felt her satisfaction; if he’d won the coin toss to hunt down that rogue Tribune he might have feared for his life. “And headed this way, sir.”
“Good. Gather the other officers for the debriefing. Twenty minutes.” Schultz saluted again and hurried off to find everyone. As he did, Tavi glanced outside to gauge the time. The ash in the air the past few days still made the weather hard to read, but after four days it was starting to clear. He should be by soon, Tavi thought to himself, thinking of his grandfathe’s continued absence. Unless things went worse than I imagine.
But that could wait. For now, he had some paperwork to finish before this meeting.
Comms Sample:
[Tavi has done more than a little research before actually making this post. So many years as a Cursor have bred certain things into him, among them to do his research. And without his usual complement of capable Cursors to do the research for him, and with time on his hands… well, it’s refreshing to do the legwork himself.
Even better, ‘legwork’ doesn’t leave him belly-down in the grass and covered in dirt. Also, this place has showers. As such, when he finally makes his post, he is clean.
Once the video feed is clicked on, it shakes a little as he adjusts it. Yes, he got someone to explain it first. At least, a little. He smiles faintly at the camera; despite this, his green eyes are almost unreadable.] Well. As far as unnecessarily exciting situations go, this one has certainly earned a special place in my list. I might even need to start a new one and label it ‘bloody inexplicable madness.’
[He leans back in his chair, making a little more of him visible: he seems to be wearing a Roman-style tunic. For all that he’s still smiling, the edges are slightly sharper now.] What little explanation I’ve received has been more than a little unenlightening. Counterproductive, even.
I would sincerely appreciate more information, whether about this technology, our location, or how the bloody, blighted crows we were pulled here—and if there is anyone responsible, who that might be.
If you are the one responsible—I’d like to talk at earliest convenience. [His convenience or theirs goes unsaid.]
Your Name: Lee
OOC Journal:
inlovewithwordsUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope, quite over.
Email + IM: fractaldawn [at] gmail [dot] com; AIM: fractaldawn
Characters Played at Ataraxion: None!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Tavi (Gaius Octavian)
Canon: Codex Alera
Original or Alternate Universe: N/A
Canon Point: Captain’s Fury, Chapter 60 (one conversation away from the end)
Number: 008
Setting: Codex Alera at Wikipedia
My huge, tl;dr, mostly spoiler-free pre-canon setting information
An approximate hypothesis of the timeline
History: (with many, many spoilers)
Fifteen year old Tavi of Calderon grew up an apprentice shepherd on his family’s steadholt. An orphan, he was raised by his uncle Bernard, aunt Isana, and Fade. He knew only his mother’s name and nothing of his father, in all likelihood one of the legionares killed during the Battle of Calderon. Already small for his age, he had no parents, magic, connections, or advantages save a brilliant mind and the drive to use it to make a life despite his handicaps, preferably by studying at the Academy in the capital.
Once again the Marat threatened to invade, this time at the invitation of one of the traitorous High Lord and Lady Aquitaine. Thrown into events by chance, Tavi was captured by the Marat, but impressed the clan leader Doroga. When he saved the life of Doroga’s daughter Kitai (in course of accidentally bonding to her spiritually, something Tavi did not find out for two years), Doroga honored the obligation he felt by leading half the Marat against those already attacking, effectively allying with the Alerans. Tavi’s diplomacy and integrity ended up forging the beginning of peaceful relations between the two nations for the first time in history.
During the battle, Tavi briefly carried the seal proving the High Lord Aquitaine was involved, and Fade the slave protected Tavi from a swordsman previously unbeaten by all save Araris Valerian with shocking ease. They lost their proof, but Tavi’s performance was so outstanding that Gaius Sextus came to Calderon and personally offered Tavi patronage to the Academy, provided he prove himself a hard worker. Tavi agreed readily, departing for the capital with Fade in tow.
However, when forging the alliance, quite by accident Tavi woke the queen of hive-mind killer insect-creatures called the Vord sleeping in the creepy Wax Forest in the Valley.
Two years later, Tavi was performing brilliantly in all his classes, and was page to the First Lord. On top of his duties and advanced course load he trained to be a spy. He made friends with the other three trainees, particularly the mousy Ehren and Antillar Maximus, the illegitimate son of a High Lord. The boys became staunchly, unquestionably loyal to Tavi, even as he got on the bad side of some of the highest nobility simply for class, crafting, and political differences.
Usually appearing weaker than his fellow spies-in-training, he was actually the most deadly. Despite his furycrafting handicap, he was already fully capable of killing even a High Lord with the element of surprise and some careful planning.
At Wintersend, the First Lord overstretched even his remarkable limits and worked himself into a coma. Tavi functionally took charge of the situation, finding the head spy and the captain of the palace guard to run day-to-day affairs until Sextus woke. To ensure Sextus’ absence wouldn’t be noticed, he called Fade in to stand bodyguard and Max to impersonate the First Lord for major functions.
Together with help from Ehren, Kitai—hiding in the city as a cat burglar no one but Tavi ever managed to apprehend—and Varg, the ambassador of the Canim, Tavi held things together through an attack by the Vord on Sextus. (He also had to break Max out of the super-max prison, but that was almost incidental and not intended in the original plan.)
During the attack Tavi pulled rank on Fade, or rather Araris Valerian in hiding, forcing him to fight to keep them all alive. Though they successfully protected Sextus, Tavi’s aunt Isana was forced to accept the aid and alliance of the Aquitaines to save both Sextus and Calderon Valley—which was attacked by the Vord at the same time.
Three years later, Tavi was assigned to spy in the newly formed First Aleran legion as the lowest-ranking commissioned officer, under the pseudonym Rufus Scipio. Max and Ehren were also in the area, and Kitai followed not long after of her own accord. However, the Canim invaded (not coincidentally concurrent with one of the High Lords rebelling), and a precision strike with their blood magic killed off the entire officer corps—except, that is, for Tavi, who had been running late to the meeting.
Over the next few days Tavi took command of the untrained, unblooded Legion and—despite an inferior position, severe losses, and generally being all but screwed—held off the invasion of sixty-odd thousand and personally killed their leader in combat. He even had his men build what was functionally a death ray to do it. It helped him come to terms with the reality that while he couldn’t craft, he honestly didn’t need to craft to be invaluable to his people. No sooner had he come to terms with it, however, than his talents at last began to emerge—five years after he had left home and Isana’s overprotective care. (Kitai also started crafting—the first Marat to ever develop it, due entirely to her bond to Tavi.)
For two years Tavi commanded the First Aleran as Rufus Scipio, training his crafting in secret. At one point the Canim tried to assassinate him, and Araris—now no longer hiding behind the mask of the half-wit slave Fade—rejoined him to stand bodyguard. Around this time, unbeknownst to Tavi, rumors started to circulate about a shockingly talented and charismatic commander, very nearly the spitting image and manner of the long-dead Princeps Septimus, and guarded by a man very likely to be Septimus’ personal guard and friend.
After two years commanding the First Aleran, Tavi found himself in the distinctly unfortunate position of answering to a commander he loathed: Senator Guntus Arnos. Arnos was a crony of the Aquitaines’, who Tavi has a long-standing grudge against personally along with the more impersonal political opposition due to his association with Gaius. Arnos did everything he could not just to undermine Tavi’s—or rather, Captain Rufus Scipio’s—authority, he tried to set Tavi up to be punishable for insubordination. However, he did so by ordering execution of civilians on a technicality of treason. While Tavi tried to find a way around it, he made contact with the enemy commander to try to work out a truce, rather than see Arnos sacrifice all the men he commanded, along with any helpless civilians caught in the middle. However, that gave Arnos grounds to arrest Tavi for treason. Tavi let him. Because, you see, Araris had finally told Tavi the truth:
Ten months before First Calderon, Gaius Septimus had married Isana—totally legal and binding. He was murdered by Alerans under cover of the battle, which was arranged by several treacherous High Lords. Septimus sent Araris with the heavily pregnant Isana and her sister Alia. Alia took an arrow in the battle, and died helping Isana deliver baby Octavian within hours of his father’s death. Fearing for her son’s life, Isana hid Octavian from everyone, and at first accidentally and later deliberately stunted his physical and furycrafting growth by watercrafting him in his baths. While he lived under her care, she kept his talents from showing. Araris Valerian disguised himself and sold himself into slavery to Isana to stand silent watch over his young lord. Gaius Sextus has been grooming Tavi since the day they met to one day take the Crown.
Armed with the knowledge of his identity, Tavi broke the Canim leader out of the supermax-prison (now including Tavi’s own improved security measures, not that he let that stop him), brought him back, and negotiated a peace. In the process he declared himself openly to be Princeps Gaius Octavian, killed one of the best swordsmen in Alera, and politically discredited Arnos (who died, but that wasn’t Tavi’s fault). Now he just has to hope Sextus is in a forgiving mood.
Personality:
The single word summary would be ‘complicated’; to describe Tavi in a dozen words would be brilliant, compassionate, courageous, charismatic, passionate, manipulative, determined, cold-blooded, idealistic, deadly, debatably sane.
Tavi is a genius. Flat out, undeniable genius—and multi-talented, too. Tavi was taught the basics of academics as a child by his family, and read as much as he could. He was the kind of boy to read at night with a stolen furylamp hidden by blankets. He also taught himself a lot of mathematics quite by accident. As a result, when he got to the Academy, between hard work, his accidental self-preparation, and native intelligence, Tavi aced a highly advanced course-load. His performance under pressure—breaking into the super-max prison (twice, once around his own security), holding off an unprecedented invasion, figuring out who needed to run an empire while Gaius was out, building a death ray, and more—has only served to underline his talent and intellect. He’s a high-fantasy version of a tech geek, down to the academics, adoration of gizmos and gadgets, small size as a child, and getting bullied.
Always under-sized and furyless, as well as being an orphan, all his life Tavi has felt like an outsider and usually treated as less than those around him. This only increased once he began attending school, and it pressed heavily on him. Frequently humiliated by those around him, he struggled for years to come to terms with his lack of crafting, and to understand that he didn’t need crafting or connections to be both competent and crucially useful to his lord, Realm, and people. He did finally make his peace with it—just as his crafting finally started to bloom. As a result, the internal struggle has turned into one of his expectations for himself and trying to hold himself to what might appear an impossible standard.
Of course, that is part and parcel with his intense drive and unbreakable will. He devoted extra hours to training physically to keep up with his classmates and ended up in some ways exceeding them; he performed so diligently in classes that he was at the top of his class in advanced courses. Even when convinced that his lack of crafting is a handicap that will always leave him at a disadvantage anyone else can simply stomp on him for, he refuses to give up or actually believe he has no chance of winning. It may look like he doesn’t, but his strength (or possibly pig-headedness) means he never, ever gives up. That drive is the one which spurred him to succeed at the Academy and to protect his people and Realm with every inch of his soul, and sometimes drives him into foolhardy acts.
Tavi has a powerful natural charisma which lends itself to not only making friends, but impressing people with his integrity and goodness. During Second Calderon it gained him the respect and friendship of an enemy race of Alera, effectively making him the original negotiator of an eventual alliance. This charisma also manifests in apparently peculiar ways, as he sometimes acts as though he were pulling rank when he has none to back it—but people listen to him anyway, from his close friends to teachers and servants of the First Lord himself. He has pulled rank on the captain of the palace guard, on the palace security, on the disguised bodyguard of the dead Princeps, even on political power in general when he declared Kitai to be the Marat Ambassador. Much to Tavi’s surprise, Gaius Sextus upheld that declaration—though for more reasons than simple political advantage.
One of the qualities besides his sheer intelligence which consistently impresses those he meets is his compassion. Tavi has strong opinions on equality and justice, and is almost unique to his world in holding the lives of both Alerans and her enemies to be of equal importance. He likewise has a passionate hatred of slavery and disparity in treatment of different socioeconomic classes or between genders, and will generally fight for that equality whenever possible.
As a rule Tavi’s family is incredibly precious to him. He will go to great lengths for them, and firmly believes that while anger fades, love does not—even at his own mother who manipulated and deliberately handicapped him. And for his closest friends, close enough to be family in all but blood, he can and has arguably broken Crown law for them. His emotions run high: he has been known to use them deliberately to all but knock a strong empath unconscious from the storm. He is in general intensely passionate—but he keeps them under powerful control. When he loses that control, the results are usually even more terrifying.
Even when a child Tavi could hide his emotions from his aunt, a powerful empath, but since entering his training as a Cursor (Crown spy) he has become even more adept at controlling not only his emotions but his expression. His sheer brilliance has been tempered to a far more analytical and calculating mind, and from his natural practicality a cold-blooded pragmatism surfaced. He has gone from being merely clever and full of cheeky ingenuity to being incredibly analytical and detachedly strategic at times. He can be brutally direct, and can step back from the emotional overload of a situation to examine it impassively. He has also learned to be highly manipulative. For all that he genuinely likes people and cares about general people and individuals deeply, at some level for anyone he meets he will subconsciously start thinking how he can use them—even his closest friends. His drive is being directed now with those qualities to protect Alera.
That drive is only helped by his courage—or possibly recklessness, one or the other. Tavi has been known to rush in without thinking, or to think twice, realize it’s insane, and jump in head-first anyway. Between that courage and a creativity outside of what most Alerans have, due to not having crafting to rely upon, it frequently seems as though Tavi is more than a little mad, and friend, family, and everyone else around him comments on this with some frequency.
For all that he is creative, Tavi has more or less no poetry in his soul. He’s far too hyperlogical for it, and while his adoration for history and literature is well informed, he has exactly no appreciation for the arts. Not only that, but for all his love of family and friends and the depth of his connection to Kitai, with whom he now shares a deep empathic bond, Tavi actually has very little skill with interpersonal relationships and can and will destroy them unintentionally.
A core aspect of his personality, however, is his instinct and insight. Growing up on the harsh frontier he learned to pay attention to those instincts, though he only recently learned they might be more than they seemed. He doesn't trust those instincts absolutely and will back them up with observation and logic, but he pays attention when analyzing information and sensory input. Nonetheless, that helps him analyze and manipulate people as he comes across them--and to help him plan his next moves.
And all of this is ultimately focused toward one goal: protecting Alera. Even before learning his heritage, Tavi had begun giving everything to protect his Realm and People. Turns out that nearly inhuman, nearly insane devotion he will give is a trait of his father’s family.
BONUS: As for reacting to the new world he finds himself in, Tavi will be wary, fall back on compulsive secret-keeping and information-trawling modes, and then discover things like mathematics and science and history and so much to read. He will just become the biggest geek in fairly short order, and try to learn everything he can about everyone else and their worlds. It’s what he does.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Mundane abilities:
- Genius intellect. No, really.
- Highly trained, highly talented swordsman (one of the best his age)
- Slightly less skilled with daggers than sword, and less again with staff and an undescribed form of basic martial arts, but he is trained in them. Nodding familiarity with bows, other basic Roman weapons.
- Highly familiar with his own world’s history and literature; generally a skilled academic (see ‘genius’)
- Skilled at reading people’s faces, tones of voice, intentions, etc, and frequently manipulating them
- Trained spy and assassin, highly expert: opening mail, forging, tailing without being seen, losing a tail, lock-picking, burglary, etc.; even more expert to being elite at intelligence analysis and strategizing
- Notable weakness: he will be totally baffled by technology and need a lot of help/trial-and-error to make it work. Some things he may catch onto quickly—programming computers he might learn well, it’s all just logic and language and mathematics, and that he can handle. Modern science will be harder.
Furycrafting and its weaknesses, in-game:
AKA Elemental Spirit Magic, AKA Not Actually Avatar-world Bending
The full list of potential capabilities
At the moment, Tavi’s crafting is not fully developed; he is only capable of the internalized functions. Even so, he’ll need the elements to be present, so the ship will provide a buffer of sorts naturally. Even if he is canon-updated to his full crafting power, that buffer will keep him somewhat in check. There is the ‘talk to local great furies’—spirits of major landmarks, basically—‘and get them to do stuff’ ability, but that’s at the mercy of the setting. That can’t be accessed unless physically standing next to or in line-of-sight of such a landmark.
Also, both projective and receptive empathy only work in the physical presence of the people in question. Seriously, no vid-mind-reading going on.
Special Snowflake:
- Tavi has a powerful empathic bond to his lover Kitai. If she is ever in game, they’ll be approximately perpetually aware of each other; until then, it’ll serve as something of a weakness as he will constantly feel like a part of him is missing. It will be an almost physical ache.
- Tavi is canonically able to block almost all empathic scans and low-level telepathic scans. As a rule he tends not to project his thoughts (years of training), and if he’s actively shielding then there is almost no empath who will be able to break through. This includes knowing if he’s telling the truth or not (he’s been lying to walking polygraphs since he was eleven). Telepathy he’ll have more of a problem with, but he will feel the intrusion.
- Preternatural intuition. It’s sketchy and rarely implemented, but he does sometimes get flashes about people, the world around him, or even on rare occasions the future. It’s described as simply knowing: “I know it like I know that water’s wet. That two and two is four. There’s no malice or fear attached to it. It just is.” (Cursor’s Fury, Chapter 3) It’s rare that he takes such notice of it, or that it is specific. Usually it’s just uncanny intuition which he usually can justify to himself as simply being perceptive or making logical leaps. On the rare occasions it comes up, it’s pretty vague, too.
Inventory: (aka so many sharp pointy objects)
- (1) gladius
- (1) longsword
- (1) dagger small enough to be tucked into a boot-top
- Armor (would easily fit in the locker), Roman-style
- (small handful) Roman-esque coins, slight differences to the trained eye. One has Gaius’ Sextus’ profile and is his ‘phone home’ coin, sadly inoperative in-game. One’s an ancient silver bull (mark of a Cursor)
- (1) dagger: There’s a seal carved into the red-and-blue gem in the hilt, an eagle in flight.
Appearance:
Tavi is tall—probably at least 6’4”—broad-shouldered, and lean. After years of wearing 80 pound armor every day his muscles are fairly well-developed. Popular consensus says he looks almost exactly like his father, described as ‘thin-feature, stark, handsome.’ He’s got a scar high along his left cheek, and several others over his body. He tends to move with an almost wolfish quality, when not deliberately trying to appear non-threatening. His eyes are a vibrant, memorable green. For PB I use Raoul Bova.
Age: 22
AU Clarification:N/A
ETA: Revisions
S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Tavi had always expected, when he was a boy, that somehow learning about his father would immediately and concretely change everything in his life, probably for the better.
At the moment, as he unrolled the much-used and wearing thin bedroll on the floor of his new command building, he wondered what childhood delusion ever brought about that idea. Besides the obvious—that declaring himself publicly had left him the single best target for every cutter in Alera who needed work—so far his new position hadn’t really changed anything. He was still in command of the First Aleran, he was still on the front lines facing the Canim, their surrender notwithstanding. Being the Princeps did not mysteriously make his bedding more comfortable, and nothing but time would reverse his mother’s interference with his crafting.
In fact, other than a change of address and the knowledge that sooner or later he’d have to face the First Lord’s almost-certain ire, so far very little had changed. Every way that his declaration would alter his life had to wait for the future—a future which relied heavily on Alera surviving the Vord.
(Of course, that was not entirely accurate. Once word got out about his existence, everything he did would be steeped in politics. He wouldn’t even be able to do what was necessary to protect Alera without fighting self-important, power-hungry, arguably treasonous slives every step of the way. This simple fact of Aleran politics still frustrated him, even though Arnos himself was now dead. The man was only a symptom, after all.)
But for now, life was oddly… familiar. Command had become such a routine, these past two years, that it was almost relaxing in a strange way. Energizing might be the word, Tavi mused, even as there was a knock on the door. “Come in!”
“Ca—Your Highness?” Centurion Schultz poked his head in before throwing a sharp salute. The Battlecrows had taken over their self-appointed duties guarding him almost as soon as the duel was over.
“As you were.” He rose to his feet, brushing his hands. “Kitai’s back?”
Schultz nodded, and Tavi felt as much as saw the hint of surprise mixed with expectation at his knowledge. Internally, Tavi smiled wryly. He’d felt her satisfaction; if he’d won the coin toss to hunt down that rogue Tribune he might have feared for his life. “And headed this way, sir.”
“Good. Gather the other officers for the debriefing. Twenty minutes.” Schultz saluted again and hurried off to find everyone. As he did, Tavi glanced outside to gauge the time. The ash in the air the past few days still made the weather hard to read, but after four days it was starting to clear. He should be by soon, Tavi thought to himself, thinking of his grandfathe’s continued absence. Unless things went worse than I imagine.
But that could wait. For now, he had some paperwork to finish before this meeting.
Comms Sample:
[Tavi has done more than a little research before actually making this post. So many years as a Cursor have bred certain things into him, among them to do his research. And without his usual complement of capable Cursors to do the research for him, and with time on his hands… well, it’s refreshing to do the legwork himself.
Even better, ‘legwork’ doesn’t leave him belly-down in the grass and covered in dirt. Also, this place has showers. As such, when he finally makes his post, he is clean.
Once the video feed is clicked on, it shakes a little as he adjusts it. Yes, he got someone to explain it first. At least, a little. He smiles faintly at the camera; despite this, his green eyes are almost unreadable.] Well. As far as unnecessarily exciting situations go, this one has certainly earned a special place in my list. I might even need to start a new one and label it ‘bloody inexplicable madness.’
[He leans back in his chair, making a little more of him visible: he seems to be wearing a Roman-style tunic. For all that he’s still smiling, the edges are slightly sharper now.] What little explanation I’ve received has been more than a little unenlightening. Counterproductive, even.
I would sincerely appreciate more information, whether about this technology, our location, or how the bloody, blighted crows we were pulled here—and if there is anyone responsible, who that might be.
If you are the one responsible—I’d like to talk at earliest convenience. [His convenience or theirs goes unsaid.]