Karu L. Pop

Karu L. Pop (Karu ɛl. pɒp) The inter-dimensional traveller, searched for an end to his nightmare. This search ultimately claimed his own life as a price to cease the dream.

Appearance
A 5'9, fair skinned male with the appearance of a human in their early twenties, built with a v-shaped athletic body and a round face, Karu is of the mesomorphic somatotype. His skin itself is smooth and spotless, pale as if from cold yet warm to the touch. Almond shaped expressive eyes peer out the colour of the deep ocean abyss with flecks of clear crystal present in his iris. They are few in number and not dissimilar to slithers of broken glass. Messy klein blue hair falls quite nonchalantly about his features, slicked down a little forcibly with a modicum of resistance. Pale, evenly sized lips are often dotted with cuts where bitten or chewed in anxiety, the only mark on his body to be found.

Plainly attired in fitted plain black traveller's pants bound tightly at his waist by a silver buckled white belt, Karu dons a sleeveless black shirt rimmed in blue, bodied in black and made of leather to offer some light protection. The leather itself features a design of silver thorns across the entirety of it. This is worn over another sleeve shirt of the same blue it is trimmed in, made of fabric for comfort. Over this a long black military style coat is worn, the right side intended to be the overlapping side with the fabric cut in a steep diagonal gradient to overlap, fastened with white buttons and fold downwards on the outside as a preference. The thick fabric coat is patternless, the inside lined in white fur to stave away the cold on long journeys and loosely fitting around the torso and shoulders to allow more freedom of movement. As a result of this the sleeves of the jacket reach to cover most of his hands and the main body of it to beyond his waist, ending halfway down his thighs. For footwear Karu chooses to opt for typical, plain black leather boots, laced in white with feet bound in bandages as opposed to socks in preference, finding socks restraining.

Personality
-Loyalist

Holds strong allegiance to of the ideals of his people and their leaders. As a result he will rarely disobey orders in the slightest manner though is prone to suspecting others of flawed loyalties to the true intentions of said leader as a result of his reverence of this figure as an icon of the village's will itself. Any allies that he comes know and trust over time will also become subjects of his deep loyalty, though it is uncertain if they may even come to supersede his devotion to the Elementals in certain situations. Beyond these wishes Karu can be found to be sternly devoted to his own ideals, often set in his own mind as only appropriate if aiding his people as a result or side effect. This loyalty will also carry to anyone who has contracted him at the time regardless of his like or dislike to their personality. Naturally when given his own free time outside of his people or a gap emerges he will immediately begin to pursue his own ends.

- Lateral Thinker

Very much so a creator of abstract and sometimes far-flung solutions, Karu often takes a creative, unconventional approach to a problem or in constructing them. This type of thinking concretes his loyalist nature with a reinforcement that the majority i.e. the rest of the world is not to be trusted in most matters. In all of these matters however the output is rooted in experience and deduction based upon experience. This quality makes for him to function as something of a capable consultant on various matters, often producing a wide range of conceptual solutions.

- Heart on his Sleeve

Arguably an asset and a weakness this function of his personality exposes Karu's opinion on all things at large in the world from people to ideas, concepts and even nations as a whole. As such this micro to macro scale of expressiveness and sensitivity stems from his passionate nature, though he himself attempts to suppress the feature of himself in fear of repercussions. This feature also leads to it being relatively easy to offend Karu over some subjects, though he has learnt a degree of resilience to a point where when a minor accident occurs he is capable of dismissing it. This sensitivity has also lead to the conclusion it is better to spare a life than take it away, regardless of if the opponent is criminal or not.

- Paranoia

Suffering paranoia due to the events of his life, Karu's other great weakness is the ease of which anyone can shake his trust in individuals through psychological warfare. This is especially the case with acquaintances where their own loyalty has been questioned by any party. The only notable exceptions to this condition is in that of a fellow Elemental. The paranoia when attached to his opinion of an individual will likely stay deep rooted until confronted or proven wrong.

History
In a time of war in a world where magic, technology and religion bare fangs and clash against one another a simple unguarded nation of peace was left to be set upon, holding the only ground for miles upon miles amidst the great world ocean spanning across the centre of this world.Hailed as a bountiful paradise with plentiful resources, rich soils and hard working citizens the advocates of this long war soon turned eyes towards this island nation in greed to fuel their endeavours, essentially viewed as the asset that could turn the tide of war in favour of any of these forces.

It was also known that this nation possessed it's own ties to the arcane and technological fronts with even some mildly practised religion centric about the very ocean they lived amongst. As such, they had for the duration of the war gladly circulated trading routes with all of the nations and held no judged quarter. When the trading ships returned pillaged, crew slaughtered, full of pirates, this was when the peace-loving people began to fall to dust. In single year that followed the majority of the port towns and flotilla cities were stolen or cast to the waves, mines appropriated and honest workers enslaved. Only in the inland capitol did the remnants of the free leaders call for a new master to guide them. One who would put use to the remaining magic and technology left at their disposal.

Such a leader then rose, the symbols of peace cast aside for the consuming tides of battle to quell the flames of war. Demanding of the Archmages of the island to unseal and study the archives sealed long since the abandonment of war this man then set forth to train warriors and oversee construction of ruthless machines made to harvest life as easily their crops, sailing through blood as easily as water. In the gruelling times that followed many more died on the sides of all nations with the ex-peaceful island producing the advantage of animated beings crafted from the elements themselves to construct and maintain their cities and machines once liberated. As the invaders were pushed back to their fleets moored in the flotilla cities it became apparent that the blood price paid had proved too harsh a price. This ambitious leader observed the destruction of his landscape and ordered a solution from the intellectuals and the spellweavers of his parliament. It had become apparent that the zealous nation's fleet had interecpted that of the magic-wielders in their transit to seize the island with vastly expanded forces yet a technological slaughter was marching across the waves.

In the months that followed for the first time in over one hundred years the arcane university sat silent. In exchange for the souls of the magic wielders and the few precious archmages of parliament a great army of the animated elements was to be raised from the waters, the wrath of the ocean itself hidden in a humanoid form as opposed to the first generation of menial workers. Born battle-ready with knowledge of magic and blade they were outfitted in weapons befitting personifications of wrathful waters and ordered to finish liberation of the island, sink the fleets coming to further ravage the lands and secure the flotilla cities stolen from their shores. Of course they were also imbued with magical forms as their predecessors were to be more appealing to the vain humans if not without markedly noticeable differences to easily identify their species.

Within a month the army was prepared, by the second washing away the invasion of their land underway. It was the fifth month after their creation that sufficient transport and bunkered shores set ready to shatter the oncoming fleets. It was a further five years before the ocean siege would be broken and the cities not yet stolen away reclaimed in their entirety. Chasing the thieves back across to corners of the world the fragmented and pilfered cities were eventually returned, the victorious fleet sending on ahead their most proved to bring news of their glorious return.

Of these, Karu was one. On this day the homeland that he and his people had always dreamed of returning to, dreamed of restoring the glory of peace to, demanded they turn back and seize the lands of their attackers in vengeance before they dear set foot on their shores once more lest they be struck down by marriage of magic and machine, blessed by cardinal transcendence. It was quickly agreed that this betrayal must be tended to. The wrath of the ocean fell against port towns and flotilla alike, searching for these machinations and warmongering priests who had appropriated the gap in the state left by the mages for their own purpose. For all their might and skill the water elementals managed only to destroy the most outlying factories producing these machinations and seizing only one of several flotilla cities.

Most of their numbers were vanquished, thousands strong reduced to hundreds with barely a handful of ships remaining. At decree of their leader the elementals fled with their prize city, their proclaimed piece of peace from a nation corrupted by spite and madmen under the guise of prophets. Enshrining it in their magic the city was bound together and sunken to the bottom of the ocean, the secret home of their people.

Once finally repaired and made comfortably habitable it was decided that half of the survivors should spread across the world nomadically to accumulate what information they could to determine the future of the species through learning all they could of world in the hopes of finding their own semblance of the peace foretold to them. Karu was one of the first to leave the submerged city, seeking an answer to many personal questions stemming from the betrayal of his people by their own creators and how the actions they set them out to sever the possibility of positive relations with the entirety of the world. His one hope was that on this journey not only can his questions be answered but some way to right the wrongs would arise.

Eventually his travels though rich and plentiful dragged him through the dimensions to a crossroads or worlds, seeking to escape the influence of the nightmare plaguing his world. Working in co-operation with a scholar of some renown, he came to run an arena in a city of time to gather friends for the last ditch effort to vanquish the horror or worlds.

Ultimately, Karu fell to his own blade in the hand of his sister, slaying the nightmare and claiming the soul of a wanderer far from home.

Powers and Abilities
Aquagenesis: The first stage of casting a water spell without a source, Karu forms one to four orbs of water of an initial 30cm diameter within 50cm of himself. As a visualiser and gesturing mage at this point he requires free movement of at least one hand and visibility of enough space to produce the orbs with the process being relatively quick. As conversion and creation of matter is more complex than simply control, each casting of this will provoke a minor but noticed drain roughly equivalent to one twentieth of Karu's overall magic stores. It will appear as two disembodied micro-whirlpools opposing each other and meeting in the centre, the centre mass growing to the mentioned size. The origin point of these whirlpools will not appear any further away than the edge of the diameter of the end result.

Aqua Flexibus/Kinesis: This is the act of manipulating a source of water freely. This will be used to immediately levitate generated water upon creation. As a being of water himself Karu is essentially familiar with the machinations of the substance itself, capable of doubling or halving a trait per casting excluding quantity unless drawing more from the source. These traits include the density of the water, temperature and the flow (speed and direction change). By compressing the arcane aspect of the spell the mass of the water in it's current shape can be halved to shift into a luminous blue body of pure aquatic magic that will detonate when willed to do so or on collision. Water must be within eight meters (ten with the White Coral Blade, thirteen in Amorphous Form Shift) to be manipulated and initially is limited at 120cm maximum diameter worth of water upon initial casting. This size gains 120cm per reinforcement of the spell though as is to be expected requires more concentration to achieve this full size each casting. Once it leaves this field it continues along the path set until either it collides or loses momentum and disperses.

Aqua Uitta: Karu's personal choice of aquatic magic, infusing an amount of this magic with his own material body to form three ribbons of aquatic magic to stem in the spacing and spacing of a fan's ribs from an amorphous point at his lower spine reaching up to 70cm and a standard of 6cm width. This spell is continuous and is often not used outside of combat or fair company to avoid issues. In terms of casting speed this takes little time with the only waiting time essentially being the few seconds growth of the ribbons. As magically induced entities they are capable of handling as much as a standard limb with full flexibility of standard ribbons and durability of human muscle to prevent tearing however they are not resistant to being severed or countered with other magic, suffering the same effects as Karu and unfortunately slowly conducting the magic to his body until the source is balanced or dispelled. If the spell is lingering or continuous the tenta-ribbons themselves must be dispelled or balanced before regularly reusable. Karu can move these as freely as the flexibility allows with a degree of swiftness.

Amorphous Matter Shift: Drops away his magical binds to his more mortal form, dissolving into a dark blue translucent, amorphous figure vaguely resembling his standard self. By expending the section of his power reserved to maintain that form the restriction of damage to himself are removed and he can fully focus on spellweaving, actively halving spell cost. This form whilst more physically resilient is also in turn more susceptible to magical attack and significantly slower. Another benefit of this gelatinous form is the ability to progressively shift along surface he would normally be unable to traverse such as walls or ceilings, though this slows him even more. The single instance of agility in this form is when submerged in a body of water. The physical items Karu dons and keeps are sealed into a glyph reminiscent of a snowflake upon the back of this form, rendering them and their effects unreachable and useless. To compensate for this Karu is capable of manipulating this form to a degree as he might water, his gelatinous body capable of altering internal and outer layer density and temperature to trap objects inside or permit them to pass through altogether, albeit only if adequately aware of the attack and prepared for it. This change itself takes a handful of seconds to perform and must be done within reason so as not to disassemble himself or boil himself away.

This form shift consumes one quarter of Karu's magic and requires an extended rest before re-usage.

Equipment & Items
White Coral Blade: A refined, aqua-elemental enchanted coral straight blade of 90cm length. With an 18cm dark red leather wrapped handle to accommodate a two handed grip and a red oval guard of 2.5cm at the widest point fashioned after waves crashing against one another. The blade measures 70cm in length and 4cm width, pearl white in colour with a vein of red colouration running the middle length of the blade as a result of the refining process. This is a blade gifted to Karu upon his departure from the secret city of his people serving to him as a reminder of loyalty and origin. This is sheathed in a wine red hardened leather sheath gilded in silver and kept at the left of his waist. When questioning why it was bound in red he was told that it was to mirror both the ominous result of forging such a tool designed for bloodshed and to reflect the blood yet to be spilled. This notion of conflict weighs on his mind each time he stops to maintain and ponder the blade.

Acts as a mild catalyst for his magic enabling Karu to cast it across a greater distance. (+2m) On blade contact will also release a small burst of aquatic magic.

Red Coral Knives: Twin 20cm knives. With 10cm flat handles wrapped in black leather leading to unguarded 10cm crimson blades at mild curves these blade are sheathed in plain hardened black leather sheaths. The reasoning behind this was given that the blades were forged to reflect what they shall only ever know, clad in funeral colours to warn all of their purpose. Compactly sheathed against what Karu presumes is an arrangement of slats to make them difficult to remove. This was allegedly to the end of active discouragement of murder even when no other option would seem to present itself, forcing a calm mind so as not to break the blades and be prepared to deal with the consequences and mental burden.

Flute: An ornate crystal flute in a faded hardened black leather box.

Cookbook: A green hardback notebook filled with recipes from each location of his travels.