HOME | DD

Description
This is a study from a role-playing game I was involved in, many moons ago. The character I was playing, Quint, was an elementalist mage. The tattoos on his back are meant to indicate his level of skill -- the swirly pattern on the right shoulderblade is a rune of Air, indicating that he's a bare novice in his craft (only knowing how to manipulate one element). The stylized wing on the left side is a clan marking, indicating his bond to the others who bear that symbol.

Storywise, the wing marking is a magically-imbued tattoo that allows the people so marked to know generally where the matching mark is (direction and very rough distance -- here, near, far). The ritual to place the marks declares that the bearers are kin, regardless of parentage -- brothers chosen by fate, rather than birth. It allows one so marked to stand in for any other in all important ways. In fact, in cases where one Marked dies with no heir, another Marked may father one with his widow, and for all legal and social purposes, the child is considered to have been fathered by the departed spirit, using the other Marked as a conduit.

Quint's people are a vaguely Viking group of loosely affiliated villages. Among them, only divine magic is accepted -- magic that doesn't come from one's deity is considered an abomination, evidence of demonic influence. Essentially, if you just do it, instead of praying and ritualizing for it, you can be banished, even executed. Thus, Quint's elemental magics are very bad news for him.

Quint's family was trapped in a burning building, causing his elemental magics to manifest and quell the flames. Though he saved their lives, by the cultural standards of his people, doing so in such a manner was beyond evil. Only because he saved lives was his execution avoided. Instead he has been banished forever from his home, family, and people. So, naturally.. he's got kind of a love/hate thing going with his magic. (Actually, mostly just hate -- he gained one thing, at the cost of everything else he held dear.)

Description
This is a study from a role-playing game I was involved in, many moons ago. The character I was playing, Quint, was an elementalist mage. The tattoos on his back are meant to indicate his level of skill -- the swirly pattern on the right shoulderblade is a rune of Air, indicating that he's a bare novice in his craft (only knowing how to manipulate one element). The stylized wing on the left side is a clan marking, indicating his bond to the others who bear that symbol.

Storywise, the wing marking is a magically-imbued tattoo that allows the people so marked to know generally where the matching mark is (direction and very rough distance -- here, near, far). The ritual to place the marks declares that the bearers are kin, regardless of parentage -- brothers chosen by fate, rather than birth. It allows one so marked to stand in for any other in all important ways. In fact, in cases where one Marked dies with no heir, another Marked may father one with his widow, and for all legal and social purposes, the child is considered to have been fathered by the departed spirit, using the other Marked as a conduit.

Quint's people are a vaguely Viking group of loosely affiliated villages. Among them, only divine magic is accepted -- magic that doesn't come from one's deity is considered an abomination, evidence of demonic influence. Essentially, if you just do it, instead of praying and ritualizing for it, you can be banished, even executed. Thus, Quint's elemental magics are very bad news for him.

Quint's family was trapped in a burning building, causing his elemental magics to manifest and quell the flames. Though he saved their lives, by the cultural standards of his people, doing so in such a manner was beyond evil. Only because he saved lives was his execution avoided. Instead he has been banished forever from his home, family, and people. So, naturally.. he's got kind of a love/hate thing going with his magic. (Actually, mostly just hate -- he gained one thing, at the cost of everything else he held dear.)