Onei'a Talnahri

GENERAL
•   name:  Onei'a Talnahri
•   also known as:   Lysses Selemnos
•   age:   44 (born 1535 6E)
•   gender:   He/Him
•   orientation:   Bisexual, Polyamorous
•   people:   Keeper of the Moon
•   trade:  Sorcerer, CuratorPHYSICAL TRAITS
•   eyes:   Golden
•   hair:    Black, white-streaked
•   height: Approximately 1.85 metres
•   weight: Approximately 95 kg
•   build:   Swimmer's figure, tight-corded musculature
•   skin:   Coal darkSPIRITUAL TRAITS
•   alignment: Neutral Evil
•   elemental aspect:   Water
•   patron:   ThaliakCHIEF ATTRIBUTES
•  PRIMARY:   Intelligence, Charisma
•  SECONDARY:   Dexterity, StrengthJOBS
•  master: Red Mage
•  expert: Black Mage, White Mage
•  journeyman: Arcanist, Astrologian
•  apprentice: Rogue
•  novice: -•  misc. skills:  Linguistics, languages (many, living and dead), esoterica and arcana of all kinds, aetherology, history, politics, religion, athletics (swimming), acrobatics, alchemy, botany❝ COMBAT STYLE - Battle-Mage | Abjurative SupportOnei'a is skilled enough in close quarters combat, but his true danger is in his magicks. Decades of study and understanding of the fundamentals allow him the spinning of aether with deft precision into all manner of magicks, for weal and for woe. He favours the methodologies of Red Magic over the high magicks of White and Black, which he employs only seldom in favour of the measured, targeted displays of power inherent in the vermillion craft; he will not cast Firaga when Fire will do, or even a simple cantrip well-aimed.

TASTES
•   likes: magic, languages, history, politics, high literature and poetry, dramaturgy, adventure, dragons, power, intelligence, curiosity, forthrightness, ambition, drive, nonconformity, intrigue
•   dislikes: animals, powerlessness, resignation, stupidity, ignorance wilful or not, barbarism, goblins, conservatism, prudishnessBACKGROUND
•   birthplace:  Dravania
•   current residence:   An apartment seldom used in Ul'dah; is otherwise on the move often
•   nuclear family:   T'mei, chief partner. A natural son and an adopted daughter.
•   extended family:   Nestor Selemnos, adoptive father
•   pets:   None
•  partners:   Several❝ + VIRTUES : Formidably intelligent; cultured and erudite in a great many subjects of high learning. Indomitable and defiant in the face of the direst adversities. Shrewd in his dealings. Pragmatism tempered by judiciousness. Greatly prizes balance in approaching the use and application of power, even as he has no complexes about its employ.❝ - VICES : Deeply embittered toward the world. A militant cynic and misanthrope. Will go to all lengths imaginable to never be powerless or bound again. Ruthless and callous. Impatient with those he deems fools and swift in discarding them. Has few scruples about engaging with the forbidden; indeed is drawn to crossing taboos in full spite of all conventions. Prejudiced toward the 'beast tribes', turning powerful and virulent when it comes to goblins in particular.❝ - CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS AND INTENDED VIBES :DR. STRANGE - Marvel
CAPTAIN NEMO - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Jules Verne
JACK SPARROW - Pirates of the Caribbean
ODYSSEUS - The Odyssey
TYRION LANNISTER - A Song of Ice and Fire, G.R.R. Martin

Lost in the wilds of Coerthas as a babe, Onei'a - would come to be named Lysses Selemnos - was found by a roving botanist and raised in the Dravanian colony of Sharlayan in Eorzea. Steeped in the scholastic traditions of the island nation, the young Keeper found ready cultivation of his immense arcane talent and a deep, long-abiding love of language and magic in all their myriad expressions. He would come to see in Archon Louisoix Leveilleur the epitome of courage, and would go on to follow him and his ideals in defiance of the Forum's neutrality toward the Garlean invasion.In many ways he was far the greater extremist than Louisoix ever was. A number of direct affronts to the Forum afforded him exile from Old Sharlayan and its territories altogether, along with a reneguing of his Archon credentials. He would go on to adopt Limsa Lominsa as a second home, wherein he gained fame and great fortune as a pirate, smuggler and curator of artifacts arcane and proscribed, leading his own private war against not only Garlemald, but Sharlayan itself.Leviathan would prove to be the end of his personal empire. The loss of his ship, much of his personal treasure and his entire crew led to a precipitous downfall that cascaded across his interests and connections, casting the once-influential man unto a mire of indigence. For years after he was but a wandering wizard, a shadow of his former self, aggrieved and embittered.The ensuing years have proven little reprieve. With one final renunciation of his past, he claimed his birthright as the first son of Onei of the Talnahri, in the wake of an investigation and an adventure in the very depths of the Shroud. He had found love as well, after much heartbreak in his past, and was preparing himself to build a new life, away from the hauntings and the failures of his past. Tragedy struck as his beloved was slain in battle with an eldritch entity he could do nothing about.This proved the final straw. Whatever remained of the man's sense of idealism broke. One defeat too many, one heartbreak too many; declaring the world rotted to the core, he abandoned his every outward pursuit to take shelter in the boughs of the Deep Shroud, wherein he largely lingers now, nursing a lifetime of pain and sorrow. What will come of him now, none can truly say.

❝ 1 - Non Doh [Name Forgotten]
It was with much awe and surprise that Nestor Selemnos, botanist of St. Mocianne's Arboretum, found a Keeper newborn abandoned in the woods of Dravania under the watch of a wounded white dragon. Struck with pity for baby and dragon alike, the man saw to both their needs to the best of his meager ability, which amounted to little more than alchemic ministration. Touched by the man's selflessness, the dragon relaxed her guard over the infant and allowed Nestor to assume the child as his own. Named Lysses, he would go on to hear many stories of his finding in the wilds, stories that would wake in him a deep love of dragons, their language and the lore of all speech.❝ 2 - Ohleh Kohl Hess [Seeking of Knowledge]
The youth could not have had a more idyllic childhood. Raised in the heart of Eorzea's greatest place of learning, he found himself flourishing in the placid nurture of his adoptive father. Gifted with a ferocious intellect and boundless energy, young Lysses devoured every book in his father's house and all that he had access to with a voraciousness to challenge even the Great Gubal Library's bookwyrms, a hunger that would prove his constant as he furthered his study. It did not keep him from physical pursuit, much to the chagrin of his elders; the miqo'te allied his qualities and natural vigor with a vicious penchant for mischief, becoming a terror whose name was spoken of in exasperation - a tension with figures of authority that would only exacerbate as childhood mischief gave way to adult iconoclasm. A formidable talent for magic saw him rise swiftly in the estimations of his peers and, at twenty two, he was among the youngest in Sharlayan's history to have earned himself the Archon's tattoos for his work in the linguistics of spellcraft and Dragonspeak.❝ 3 - Wohr [War]
Garlemald's invasion of Ala Mhigo put a definitive end to the budding scholar's career. Outraged at the reluctance of the Forum to respond in kind and aid Eorzea in challenging the invasion, Lysses was at the fore of the most strident protests and agitation movements of the time, a dissidence that would cost him direct censure. Mere weeks after, he was caught in a scandal involving the passing-on of forbidden secrets to the Grand Companies. His status as an Archon was revoked and he was officially exiled from Sharlayan in punishment, narrowly escaping execution for a sentence. It would not be the end of his associations with other dissidents; he joined the Circle of Knowing under Archon Louisoix, and went on to further the interests of the group in his adopted home of Limsa Lominsa.

❝ 4 - The Sorcerer-Captain
If Lysses' thirst for knowledge had flourished in Sharlayan, his passion for freedom and rejection of authority found a kindred zeitgeist im the City of Sailors. His education assured him a career start in the Maelstrom as quartermaster in the Flightless Moon, a vessel he would come to captain the very same year in a disastrous battle against the Garleans, which claimed the lives of captain and first mate alike. The man's charisma, verve and magical ability turned the tide and won him the loyalty of the crew. He would go on to captain the ship for many years after, cementing his fame not as a reaver of riches but as a purveyor of rare magical knowledge. Many were the adventures and the shores seen, many the secrets gathered, and in time he would become one of the wealthiest privateers in the Maelstrom by sheer information brokering and curation of artefacts.❝ 5 - Leviathan
It would all come to a head in the final days of the Sixth Astral Era. Time and again the Sahagin would summon the Lord of the Whorl, costing Limsa Lominsa the lives of her best soldiers. In a bid for a diversionary maneuver, the Flightless Moon, along with several other vessels, were dispatched to intercept the primal out at sea. All were lost, many with all hands, his ship sunken in the Indigo Deep with all his treasures and his vast collection. What few survived were tempered by the monstrosity; all but Lysses, within whom was awakened the Echo in the wake of the disaster. Broken by the experience, the man would go on to not take up another captainship, casting himself into the world as a sorcerer vagrant, his small empire of connections and contacts fraying to nothing in the absence of his prior wealth. His friends in the Circle of Knowing took the ailing captain under their wing to employ him in their efforts to forestall the Seventh Umbral Calamity, whereupon he would find renewed purpose.❝ 6 - Non Saih [Name Chosen]
The campaign would prove a failure. Dalamud fell despite all effort, and Archon Louisoix perished in attempting to keep the devastation from ruining the world. Many were his adventures in subsequent years - he was there for the founding of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and their trials and tribulations, participating as one of their many unsung members. Their disbanding and scattering at the end of the Final Days marked his final contribution.In the wake of this he has given himself to a life of adventuring, gathering again what motes of his former wealth and knowledge he can. He has discovered some of the secrets of his roots, and has taken up the name and clan of his mother - he is the first and only son of Onei Talnahri, a clan ragged to tatters by hardship upon hardship. There is power in the choosing and relinquishing of names. It is his hope that it will prove to be the start of a new page in his story.

▍ ❝   1 - Storm-Captain of the Maelstrom
Known the most for his many years as a captain in the Maelstrom, he will be recognised easily by any Lominsan with passing interest for the exploits of privateers. The man stood out among the others for his mastery of the mystic arts, being one of the chief contributors of the arcanists' guild in donations of coin and tome.▍ ❝   2 - Curator of the Forbidden
Seeking to learn of magicks forgotten and lore proscribed? Have you an artefact of magical or archaeological significance to sell or have evaluated? Look no further. The man is a known presence with the Adventurers' Guild, offering his services as a mage of considerable skill. He might even take up apprentices, should they prove keen of mind and guile enough to capture his attention.▍ ❝   3 - A Lover in Every Harbor
From Kugane to Tulliyollal, from Thavnair to Old Sharlayan, none is the port city in the world wherein this man's dashing manner and lothario pursuit hasn't won him a lover. From the minor trysts that are his preference to involved (and summarily dropped) romances, he has left such a prolific amount of hearts broken in his wake that he is bound to come across one out there, to say nothing of the children he has sired, witting or not, many of whom now of an age enough to seek him out and demand answers. He has mellowed out from former antics considerably in the past handful of years, but one may always reap what was prior sown.

▍ ❝   4 - Talnahri Reclaimant
His newest development has come in the shape of his Keeper name and the discovery of his roots. Having become deeply involved in the affairs of the Deep Shroud, Onei'a has taken up a mantle of responsibility with regards to a clan in tatters after a revanchist uprising's failure to uproot the more deeply-established and Gridania-allied Nahvare. Now a bridge of communication between Nahvare and Talnahri, the outsider mage is focused on restoring his mother's clan to some semblance of wholeness and to the bonds of kinship it once shared with its neighbours.▍ ❝   5 - The Seventh Dawn
Many were the men and women who, in the shadow of anonymity, laboured intensely under the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in pursuit of the star's benefit and protection in the wake of the Calamity. Onei'a was one of them. Blessed with the Echo, he was among the few capable of facing off the primal threat whilst the key Scions were busiest elsewhere.▍ ❝   6 - The Ewer Brimmeth Draconic
Cast the man away from Sharlayan and forcibly tear his Archon's brand if one must, but one cannot tear Sharlayan from the man. Before he was a captain he was a scholar of promise and renown in the old colony, dragonlore his chief concern and pursuit. Even now, the magicks and mystique of dragons are alluring in the extreme, and he will go to many a length to secure even slivers of dragonlore or language hitherto unknown.