Rihzome, The Masked

by **Rihzome** Fri Jul 29, 2016 12:38 am

Personal Info
Name: Rihzome
Alias: The Masked
Age: 26 years
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Personality: An intellect first and foremost, many of Rihzome’s interactions with others are coloured by this. Often preferring a cold and methodical approach to social activities, he usually judges many he meets as lesser beings, or rather, less intelligent, until proven otherwise. Almost emotionless on the surface, and often outright rude and insulting, this frosted demeanour serves to drive away many others he meets before they have a chance to learn about him, or him about them. Those who get past this barrier find a much different personality underneath.

Still as cold and calculating, the personality that Rihzome shares with those he deems as friends or acquaintances is quite different from that which is displayed to the general public. Usually undirected, he will happily perform any of a variety of tasks asked of him. In addition to this, his emotions are vastly less hidden around those he trusts, often speaking his mind and voicing opinions about any subject that is brought to his attention, still from a purely intellectual point of view, rarely getting emotionally attached to a subject. As a pastime, he also enjoys challenging those he knows to various mind games and games of skill, a favoured pastime and boredom killer. It is also the company of friends that several of his darker, personality traits crop up, albeit rarely.

Over his life, the matter of Rihzome’s sanity has been brought into question several times. Often keeping his darker traits heavily repressed, his bouts of insanity often arise with little or no warning. The less destructive manifestation of this insanity is Rihzome’s tendency to summon his Shadow Twin and engage in long and often extremely in-depth conversations, the topics usually centred around death and ruination. More hidden than this, Rihzome also has an extremely strong attraction towards violence, almost sadistic in its nature. He enjoys watching others, humans especially, in either physical or mental pain. Never seen in any civilised setting, Rihzome only reveals this trait when a safe distance away from any tribal territory.

Although he will never admit it, not directly at any rate, Rihzome is deathly loyal to both Firewings and Nightwings, owning his life to the former and being one of the latter. This loyalty is extremely strong, and always existent, present even behind his cold façade. Interestingly, his loyalty is stronger to Firewings than his own kind, due to his habit of spending long periods away from Nightwing territory with a Firewing correspondent.
Interests: Rihzome enjoys both manipulating others and mind games, both pass-times that he finds extremely enjoyable, usually both intertwined. The study of magic is of particular interest to him, especially the magic that grants Gods their power, and was abundant during Shardas’s life. Additionally, he also a penchant for seafood, practically squid, vastly preferring it to land dwelling creatures.
Dislikes: Being brought into conversations that really don’t interest him, extremely damp and/or humid climates, outright rudeness or insults, forced flight and those with overly-friendly personalities.
Fears: Rihzome has two main fears, the first of which is confinement in any enclosed space. It reminds him of his capture and subsequent attempted breaking at the hands of humans, a process in which he acquired many of his wounds, and would much rather forget, if a thing seared so well into a mind could be forgotten like that. The second fear he holds is that someone, by any means, manages to uncover darker parts of his past. Not a saint by any means, there are events in his past that could see him hunted down and killed.

General Appearance
Height: 47 feet, 45 while relaxing.
Scales: Rihzome’s scales seem, at first glance, to be a single shade of black, nearing on dark violet, which could not be further from the truth. His scales have a soft colour gradient, beginning at almost midnight black around his head and upper neck, which slowly lighten, almost undetectably, to dark purple. While the overall change is minor, it can easily be noticed if one were it examine his head and the lower end of his tail exclusively. The only parts of his body that don’t follow this patter are his underbelly, which is a much softer hue of purple, and the scales that cover the base of his left wing, which are marginally lighter than the rest around the same area.
Eyes: A mesmerising colour, a mixture of silver and gold, akin to starlight, which constantly shifts when looked at, giving the feeling that Rihzome is hiding something when making eye contact.
Appearance: A European dragon, Rihzome stands tall in the presences of others, holding a crooked grin and untrustworthy eyes that make it seem like he knowns something others do not, and has something to hide. Very little in the way of head adornment, he has two small horns which curve, almost in-noticeably together, both several inches long, situated just above and behind his ears, seemingly fragile, with an appearance much like black glass. Along the back of his neck resides a line of evenly spaced spines, each roughly 6 centimetres apart, wickedly sharp and slightly curved, facing backwards, away from his head, with the same coloration and appearance as his horns. At the base of his neck, these spines quickly devolve into think, almost plated, scales, additional protection for his spine, which forgo the fragile appearance to mimic the colouration of his scales. This extra plating extends to the base of his tail, where it disappears, only to be replaced by an incredibly sharp and slightly curved spine, close to 10 inches in length and 1.5 in width, easily able to slip under scales and pierce vital organs.

His talons, once an area of pride, were shattered by humans during his capture by them years earlier in his life. Only recently beginning to regrow, they are almost useless in their current state. The jagged edge of the shattered claws are extremely sharp, easily able to pierce skin and inflict large gashes, but are severely hampered by only being a few centimetres long, and thanks to the uneven surface, unable to puncture any deeper than skin depth, nor between scales.

By himself, he seems to slouch down, the stiffness in his step literally gone. Head down, staring towards the ground, he can often be heard mumbling and talking to himself, often with very little notice of anything around him.

Tribe Information and Status
Tribe: Nightwing
Inheritance: Purebred Nightwing
Rank: Scholar, with some healer training (Post wing break)
Family: As far as Rihzome is aware, both his mother and father are dead, murdered by humans. In regards to siblings, he only had an adopted brother, who met an unfortunate end.
Mate: N/A
Hatchlings: N/A

Skills and Abilities
Strengths: A lack of physical strength and conniving mind lead Rihzome to be something approaching a master in the field of psychological warfare. Never to approach a battle on even ground where it can be avoided, he utilizes his abilities and any strategic advantage to confuse, misdirect and disorient his foes, turning his enemies mind into their worst enemy.
Special Abilities: Shadow Twin and Telepathy. The first, and arguably most strategically useful ability available to Rihzome is his Shadow Twin. By focusing his magical energy, he can create an incredibly lifelike double of himself, down to the voice. Incredibly useful for distraction in a fight, or just to scout an area, it requires very little energy to create or sustain. It’s effective range is close to a kilometre, with Rihzome’s degree of control lessening after 200 metres. Thanks to his telepathy being mimicked, the shadow twin acts as an extension of Rihzome’s senses, being able to hear, see, smell, taste and touch things it does, although at a cost. While the Twin is made of magic, it’s form is mimicked. As such, while it cannot hurt anything, nor be hurt, the pain of any damage done to it is transferred to Rihzome. As far as he is aware, there is no upper time-limit on this ability, the longest it has been active close to 24 hours, only being dispelled after he entered deep sleep.

His second, and more personally useful skill is Telepathy. Able to communicate mind-to-mind via distances of almost 50 kilometres, this ability again has several drawbacks. Unless the target Rihzome wishes to communicate with has allowed or previously allowed him access to their mind, their thoughts are extremely faint and blurred, almost unreadable, only the odd word or image identifiable. Even with targets who have previously allowed him access to their mind, they can simply deny him access to their mind by mentally disregarding him. Even if they do accept the connection, only information willingly shared is transmitted to the other, but if someone is holding back information, it can be detected, as a faint feeling that something is missing, or wrong.
Weaknesses: Rihzome has sustained several injuries of varying severity in the past, some more recent than others, that serve to severely hamper his physical prowess, making him marginally weaker, with far less endurance, then another Nightwing of comparable age and size. The first of these, and in most cases the most apparent, are his talons. Broken shortly after his capture by humans, they have only recently begun to regrow, leaving him with drastically shortened albeit incredibly sharp claws, close to useless in any sort of physical confrontation. In addition to this, during his escape from captivity, his left wings humerus was shattered by a ballista bolt. With no formal medical training of his own, he was forced to let the bone heal largely by itself or risk further damage. Unfortunately, the bone healed out of alignment, thanks to the impact that initially broke it. This has drastically limited his flight time, only able to stay in the air for two hours before pain forces him back to land, and this is with wind conditions in his favour and the odd updraft. During any kind of strenuous aerial activity (manoeuvring, aerobatics, etc.) this time is reduced again, to bare minutes.
Combat Style: Ideally, Rihzome would aim to avoid a confrontation, as any battle which he is not in a position to end extremely quickly or efficiently would quickly physically wear him down, especially against an opponent who specialises in aerial combat, or worse, likes to engage in talon-to-talon combat. In that sense, he prefers to attack from the shadows when his target is distracted, or otherwise occupied, utilizing the wicked spike on his tail and teeth rather than his claws, targeting veins, arteries and the head, in a bid to quickly kill or disable. Of course, against anything larger than a medium sized Ice wing, this strategy is extremely dangerous and can easily backfire, especially if he targets the head.

Background
RP Sample: It was with a sigh of relief that Rihzome finally felt solid ground beneath his paws. While the swamps and marsh that his kind inhabited did have their merits, he often found himself craving solid earth and a break from the constant damp that had destroyed so many of his books. Letting a rare smile break out on his face, he nodded at the extremely well camouflaged Guardian that stood to his right, his thoughts revealing his position well before he was close enough to see. A chance encounter with an old friend, a rouge in fact, had given Rihzome an incredibly rare opportunity. Apparently, the rouge in question had stumbled across an old and decaying temple to Shardas, well into human territory. Of course, it had probably been looted generations ago, either by rouges or humans, but what he hoped to find was much more hardy than some simple relics. He had heard many rumours, nothing more, about the ancient wisdom and spells woven into the bedrock of many of Shardas’s temples. Even a shred of the magic or wisdom held back then could be extremely powerful in the right hands, namely his own. Needless to say, a deal had been struck between the two of them, and the rouge was due to meet him in a clearing just past the Nightwing boarder, a guide of sorts to the temple.

Lost in thought for the hour or so it took him to reach the area, forgoing flight as a precaution, he almost missed the large Firewing that was awaiting him. Smiling, at both the thought of untapped knowledge and at seeing his old friend alive, he nodded for his friend to lead on, still incredibly close to the Nightwing border. Nodding back to him, the Firewing turned and leapt into the forest, an adept at moving through the towering conifer forests, and incredibly agile, for such a large creature. Throwing out a telepathic anchor, Rihzome found his mind, already hundreds of metres away and moving quickly. Grinning, he left into the forest after him, the expedition started in earnest.