User blog:Eureka Enderborn/Jaukoehai Sky'ki, the hero, the outcast, the paladin.

Quick history lesson: the downfall started a while ago. The 100 Year War started between Quinos (good guys) and Felkyah (bad guys). The clash quickly dragged others into it. They dragged others in, and before you knew it the entire world was at war. This war was costly, and many cities and civilizations and pieces of knowledge were lost. But it was nothing compared to what happened next. The Dragon God, believing it the right time, sent vast legions of Draconians and Dragons to destroy the world and recreate it in his image. The war that would later be called the Burning of the World destroyed nearly everything, and only the strongest bastions survived. But his army was defeated, and as the remains of his precious army fled back to the Skyfire Mountains in tatters, the Dragon God committed one last desperate act, and shattered one of the world's moons. The resulting tremor shook the Earth, and toppled even the ruins of civilization. This quake was later called the Great Cataclysm.

Many years later, civilization has climbed back through the ashes. Many peoples survived, though the world now has a mere fraction of the diversity and population it once had. However, there were those unique few who found the Great Tremor to be an opportunity. Namely, the Sarnakki.

The Sarnakki have been called many things. Honourable, civilized, intelligent, war-mongering, godless, and sometimes even downright evil. In order to better understand my character, you must understand the Sarnakki. First, an image of one.

they stand at about 7-8 feet tall, and their scales can be of many different colours, much like Dragons. In fact, they have a little bit of Dragon blood in them, allowing things like fire breathing and the ability to jump quite high. The horns protruding from the back of their heads can be of many shapes and designs. In an odd twist, female Sarnakki are, on average, bigger than the males.

The Sarnakki are, interestingly, an engineered species. A species unknown, presumably destroyed in the disaster period, used knowledge of magic and cellular structure to engineer the perfect breed of warriors to fight an oppressive empire. They hid this new species in stasis on an uninhabited island chain. Unfortunately, before they could be unleashed, the Hundred Year War and the Burning of the World occurred, and almost all knowledge of those who created the Sarnakki was lost. However, the Great Cataclysm, where it ruined other civilizations, awoke the Sarnakki.

They found themselves in a deep cave beneath an inactive volcano. By this time, the island had been inhabited by a species of tribal bird men called Aviaks. The Sarnakki attempted at first to live within the volcano with the Aviaks, in peace. But the Aviaks grew more and more paranoid, and eventually a group of vigilantes decided to take matters into their own hands, and they attacked the Sarnakki while they slept. Unfortunately, even with the advantage of surprise the Aviaks were no match for the Sarnakki. They defeated the vigilante group, then ascended through the volcano. It developed into a war of attrition lasting a few months, and ended when the Sarnakki broke into the nursery and stole the eggs, promptly using them as ammunition.

The Aviaks not only fled the volcano, but the entire main island. Within the volcano, the Sarnakki established a mighty fortress-city, one the Aviaks repeatedly tried and miserably failed to destroy. This city would be named Gorowyn, after the hero who led the assault on the nursery.

Accelerate ahead a century or so, and the Sarnakki have established bases and villages on all of the other islands in the tropical chain, and the Aviaks have become an endangered species, with only one holding left. The Sarnakki have made rapid advances in technology, even going as far as to construct a sort of steam powered spike thrower. Other civilizations quickly made to ally themselves with the Sarnakki. They allow any outsider to enter their city, so long as they don't cause any trouble. Those who do are usually burned until almost dead, then rolled down the side of the volcano. However, due to the fact that they only practice the darker, more evil side of magic, and are a generally war-like species, they are widely considered to be on the evil spectrum.

Now let's talk about their culture. Much like in feudal Japan, honour is everything, and they have a code very similar to the Bushido. Furthermore, basically everything in Sarnakki society is resolved through duelling. For example: if a prisoner wants to be freed, give him a weapon and allow him to fight another warrior to the death. If he loses, he obviously doesn't want to be free enough. Most duels aren't to the death, though. When choosing the new Arch-Lord, a sparring tournament is held. Only the strongest becomes leader.

A Sarnakki unlike in feudal Japan, being captured is not the worst thing that can happen. If you are captured, your battle brothers in arms will work continuously to save you, and you can then redeem yourself in battle. The worst shame a Sarnakki can suffer is deserting the military, or anything really.

Despite being such a wwarrior race, they hold knowledge and the advancement of knowledge to be just second to war. They appreciate knowledge because they started out with none, just a bunch of Sarnakki in a cave with no memory of anything before that. They have many branches of science. Furthermore, they have no religion. The closest thing to that is that they believe that whenever a Sarnakki dies, his spirit waits to occupy a newborn Sarnakki.

In terms of magic, they practice only the darker, more evil forms of magic. They believe that the nicer, more good magic actually weakens the form and the forms of those around you, and therefore practice of good magic is strictly banned.

To a Sarnakki, the bonds with your fellow soldiers/scientists/engineers is the closest you can have, closer than even your family. In fact, family bonds aren't really all that stressed in Sarnakki society. Your parents are simply those who spawned you. Once each Sarnakki turns two years old, they are sent to live in a larger abode with their future squad.

Marriage and love for Sarnakki is considered odd by most of the world. In their society, not only is there no sexism (females are considered every bit equal to their male counterparts), but females are in fact the ones who choose their mate. This can be accomplished in any manner of ways, though the most common is for the female to gather candidates and have them duel, and then chooses the best. They mate for life, and it is a very serious offense to leave your mate.

Ok, I feel like I've gone on long enough to be able to tell you about my character.

you see, after the Great Cataclysm, there was this hero named Jaukoehai Ironskin. Heroic guardian of Quinos, he was an impenetrable wall of steel between the innocent and those who seek to harm them. Beloved by the light and feared by the dark, he became a thorn in the side of the Overlord of Felkyah. So the Overlord went to his allies in the Sarnakki, and told them his plan. With their knowledge of how to magically engineer a person, they could make an evil version of Jaukoehai. So the Sarnakki invited Jaukoehai to Gorowyn, only to lock him in stasis and get some samples of his blood and skin. They then introduced it through magical means into a not-yet-born Sarnakki child. The idea being that this child would come out as big and as strong and as smart as Jaukoehai Ironskin. This child was given his predecessor's first name, and his father's last name. Jaukoehai Sky'ki.

Well, it worked. But it backfired. He was supposed to be able to do magic, thereby one-upping the hero he was based off of. But he couldn't perform magic at all. When he turned twenty, it was revealed why: Jaukoehai Ironskin was a little bit too far down the light path. Now, when Jaukoehai Sky'ki cast magic, it was only holy magic.

This, of course, was a huge blow to him. He tried to suppress it, but the old Jaukoehai manifested himself in other ways, such as an inherent valor and desire to protect the innocent. He couldn't hide this forever. The situation reached a climax when he broke his twin out of stasis. He was then exiled from Gorowyn, and from Sarnakki society. He was initially quite depressed, until his twin took pity on him, and told him to come back to Quinos and become a paladin.

And that totally worked... *cough cough*

He really didn't get along with any of the paladins, or Quinos, or anyone but his twin. He considered their ways to be weak and foolish and more complicated than necessary. He looked down his nose at basically everything, continually commenting on how Gorowyn did things better. Furthermore, he didn't really get the whole "protecting the innocent" thing. While the Order of Marr would go out and set up to defend a village, he'd go off on his own and lop the head off of whatever was attacking them. He has good in his heart, but he's really spiky on the outside.

Jaukoehai Ironskin felt pity for his twin, and went to Gorowyn. When he came back, he not only had all the materials to make his twin's quarters look like a room in Gorowyn, but he also brought a mercenary. Her name was Denva Loogei, and she was to become essentially Jaukoehai Sky'ki's paid squire. Only she refused to do squirely duties, and really the only thing she did was fight and gripe. She was a little slice of home, and Jaukoehai was forever grateful to his twin. And now, Jaukoehai finally had someone to gripe with instead of at.

Then came the fateful day when the last of the Dragon Emperors attempted to destroy Quinos, and Jaukoehai Ironskin was slain while delaying their army for three days and three nights. But we're not talking about him.

Jaukoehai Sky'ki was devastated for the second time. He and his twin had been like two sides of the same coin. The only steady point in his life at that time was Denva Loogei. She stopped asking for pay and started adventuring with him out of the camaraderie that Sarnakki soldiers have. So now he's in the only Sarnakki duo in a whole city, a city who's society he dislikes, who's been disowned by his species and had his twin, with whom he was so close they had a mental connection, taken from him.

And yet he perseveres, as a Sarnakki should. He continues to fight for the light, fight for justice and valor and the light. He even pays occasional respects to the Tribunal, god of truth and justice, and judge in the Court of the Gods. Constantly searching for some way to be accepted back into Sarnakki culture and find any signs that his twin, against all odds, is still alive...