Darrow - concept art 1

This is Darrow, an original character for an RPG tentatively named "Chains of Eternity" ~altairabove and I are working on. He is from Aleris, an empire that at its peak, held nearly all the territory on the second largest continent. But the empire has since been in decline, and its borders have been shrinking due to war and foreign influences. It has been the second largest world power for a very long time, mainly because the first largest world power has failed to eliminate it and most of the lesser governments aren't organized enough to become a significant threat.

Aleris is ruled by the Order, which is made up of six houses of Mages: Light, Dark, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Mages are believed to be blessed with extraordinary magical talent by the gods. Since magical talent is hereditary, bloodlines are very important to the six houses. Most Mages are born into their role, and only a few commoners ever display sufficient magical talent to be elevated to the ruling class. Mages are responsible for the defense of Aleris, law enforcement, spiritual/religious functions, and for many civic duties. It's a lot of power and responsibility to hold, and it is often abused.

Oh, another random thing: Alerians doesn't believe in using "unnatural" materials or processes, which basically means no technology based on electricity, no plastics, etc. They get along well enough with some basic wind and water power, and magic helps quite a bit. They have things like aqueducts and sewage systems, so it's not as bad as the middle ages.

Aleris was originally formed from people scattered all over the world. Each of the six houses blessed with magic came from tribes of different ethnic and cultural origins that had to unite to preserve the magic family lines. And while the Mage classes have maintained their original ethnic lines (magic being hereditary and all, you're encouraged to marry within your house and it is your civic duty to have children to keep your house strong), most commoners have intermarried making most of the population people of mixed ethnicities. Aleris is very rich in history and culture, and many different architectural styles can be seen across the empire.

In this pic I was pretty lazy with the background. It was more of an afterthought, but I used it as an excuse to play with a few ideas. This is a nicer part of Aleris (the capitol city. Aleris is both the empire name and capitol city name) during the summer. I figured I'd throw in something colorful and a bit Roman/ancient Greek in style with that temple-ish thing in the background. The wall looks pretty standard medieval, but as I said... I was lazy...

Darrow is really the focus of the picture, which is probably obvious in the level of detail... I've been trying to draw the characters for a while, and I spent a long time trying to get Darrow right. He is supposed to be 28 years old (though if he looks a little older, that's fine, just so long as he doesn't look like a teenager or someone in their late 30s/early 40s). Like most commoners, Darrow is a mutt. If he looks like an Asian-Caucasian mix, then I did something right. He's not supposed to be terribly attractive. I was going for "decent looking." Someone you could easily overlook but who might start looking attractive once you got to know him.

Darrow is a nice guy for the most part. He's a great sword-fighter, very charismatic, and good at talking his way out of trouble. He grew up in a farming village in the northern region of Aleris where conditions were favorable to grow a very profitable ice-plant whose fruit were sought after for wines, herbal remedies, various delicacies, and for its properties as a mild opiate. Those in the town had a great standard of living (compared to other farmers) because of their near monopoly of the ice-plant. It was quite dangerous to farm it, since it only grew far north where some pretty nasty predators lived. These predators had a taste for human beings, but would also settle for the occasional pack animal. Basically this farming village would not exist if it weren't for an unusual arrangement with some vampires. These vampires kept the local populations of predators down in exchange for a safe haven during the day and some occasional blood donations. This arrangement had been going on for nearly two centuries by the time Darrow was born.

Like many in the village, Darrow looked up to the vampires. They were respected elders, and could recount histories farther back than anyone else alive in the village. Of course to the rest of Aleris, vampires were considered dangerous, evil, murderous creatures that were especially harmful because they could spread their corruption to others by turning their victims into vampires. In reality, vampirism doesn't make anyone good or evil, but an evil vampire is so terrifying to deal with that vampires were bound to get a bad name.

Anyway... one day some young Mages came into town ready to slay the vampires rumored to live there. Young Mages typically go out and do a few good deeds (killing monsters, helping victims of natural disasters, etc) before they enter real positions of power, and usually questing Mages are greeted happily. But that wasn't the case this time. The villagers tried to get the Mages to leave, and tried to hide the location of the vampires. The Mages were shocked that people would help vampires, and figured the villagers must have been corrupted somehow by the vampire's evil sorcery. The Mages expected that once they killed the vampires, the villagers would come to their senses again and praise the Mages for freeing them. Of course this wasn't the case...

After a nasty battle during the day, one of the Mages was killed and the two vampires had been dragged into the sunlight to burn. The eldest vampire was still alive, and she burned in agony for minutes before finally dying. Most of the villagers, including 17 year old Darrow and his younger sister (age 14), watched in horror. Some tried to cover the vampire with blankets to shield her from the sun, but the Mages kept everyone back. And really, commoners stand no chance against the Mages. All a Mage needs is one good spell to hurt or kill many people.

Once the vampires were dead, the Mages were shocked to find out the people were still upset about the death of such monsters. The Mages began to believe the villagers were insane or corrupt. When the Mages asked for assistance preparing funeral rights for a Mage that had died fighting the vampires, they were horrified and insulted that the villagers were more concerned with burying the remains of the vampires. The Mages were quite angry and started demanding things from the villagers (primarily supplies and other goods as "payment" for the Mage's services in killing the vampires). Many villagers reluctantly gave in, but others refused. Darrow's family were amongst those who refused, and Darrow's father said quite a few nasty things about the Mages. The Mages weren't happy about this and decided to take Darrow's sister as payment. Darrow was furious, so he drew his sword... and was hit by a fire spell which nearly killed him. After that, no one in the village dared to oppose the Mages.

Long story short (ha, like I ever write anything short), the villagers were forced to leave since they couldn't defend against the local predators themselves and the Mages sure as hell weren't staying around. Darrow's family had to leave sooner rather than later to try to get medical/magical treatment for Darrow. Darrow survived, but has disfiguring scars on most of his right arm and right side from the burns. He's very self-conscious of the scars and always wears covering clothing, even in the heat of summer (plenty of people go around topless in the hot months, even women since Alerians don't have issues with nudity). Darrow's sister is presumed dead.

Darrow and his parents ended up in Aleris, capitol, working as farmers on the land of a Mage lord. Darrow had far too many problems working for a Mage, and got in trouble frequently. Darrow's parents tried to embrace their new life, and even had another child. To Darrow it seemed like they were trying to replace his sister. With everything at home reminding him of how he was powerless to save his sister, Darrow leaves. He's poor for quite a while, but ends up finding work guarding merchant shipments, working for tavern owners to break up fights and to kick out troublemakers, that sort of thing. Darrow eventually joins a group that opposes a controversial tax the Order has in place, and the group commits various illegal acts to hinder the collection of this tax.

Overall Darrow is well liked amongst the commoners. His hatred of the Mages is seen as a bit extreme, but not that odd given the current political situation. The only really strange thing about Darrow is his view of vampires, and he only talks about that and the tragedies of his past after he's had quite a few drinks. Those closest to him don't really hold it against him, because what are the odds they'd have to deal with a vampire in the capitol? Darrow's great in all other respects, and rather good at convincing people to join the fight against the Order's unjust tax.

But as fate would have it, Darrow meets a vampire named Lynn at the beginning of our RPG. It's very fortunate for Lynn, since most people want her dead. It's both bad and good for Darrow, but that is another story....