Post by Zahur on Aug 23, 2013 8:54:20 GMT -5
Zahur Shukura Rashidi El Seba
"There is more than one possible outcome for this dialogue…
or is it just that you don’t wish for another one than this one?"
"There is more than one possible outcome for this dialogue…
or is it just that you don’t wish for another one than this one?"
NICKNAMES: // None.
AGE: // 24 years.
DATE OF BIRTH: // June 21st.
GENDER: // Male.
ALIGNMENT: // Neutral.
OCCUPATION: // Alchemist of Atlas Academy.
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Blood loss is inevitable
This clothing I cannot enjoy
This certainly makes me feel unhappy
Clothing variations…uncertain
HEIGHT: // 1.69m
WEIGHT: // 53kg.
EYE COLOR: // Blue.
HAIR COLOR: // Dark blue, close to black.
PIERCINGS: // Two earrings.
TATTOOS: // He carries his command seal on his left hand. It is shaped like a star consisting out of three parts.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: // His blue eyes in contrast to his dark skin color.
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- Neutral
- Oh well, you may not believe that Zahur is actually a human, when you meet him for the first time. He always seems to hold his own composure and always manages to appear like the outside world has its influence on him. He doesn’t laugh when in public, fear seems like a word he doesn’t know and even the biggest mistakes or problems aren’t able to concern him. That’s at least what he wants people to think when facing him. After all he was raised to be as absent from the world as possible and not to show any weakness. Otherwise other people could find their opportunities to exploit his behaviour and especially his weaknesses that would be presented very openly. Maybe he is a little bit paranoid, however he always treated everyone around him, may those people be close to him or complete strangers, like enemies. The only times when he lightens up a little bit, are those when he figures out that such actions are really necessary. If not, he will be cold as ice.
- Well calculated
- The trait that makes the most sense, considering the way he was raised and the things he is interested in. Not only that he acts like that when working, no he always calculates everything and thinks about every step he does, no he even takes a short time of calculation before opening his mouth, hoping to always find the perfect reaction on everything said and everything done around him. As his wish to survive and have the best possible outcome for any situation. However it doesn’t seem to work out that perfectly in most situations as he sometimes lacks the ability to put human emotions and non logical reactions into account. The worst problem about this trait of his, is that it makes him seem quiet inhuman, so that many people tend to dislike it, which isn’t anything he wants to achieve. But what way is there to change that fact? It seems kind of impossible for him to understand this kind of human reaction.
- Observative
- You may consider this trait of his was a logical one, when looking at the other important factors of his behaviour. He isn’t the guy to just jump into the spotlight or present himself in public. He doesn’t even go directly at people, but is always held back, sitting down and watching what the others are going, while not even thinking about starting interaction. Since he entered Lucca it got even worse. Now he doesn’t even enjoy leaving his home or talking to anybody on the streets. He just tends to sit down and watch what is going on, never closing his eyes, never opening his mouth and never letting his attention lose its’ focus. This may be a point that could help him get close to the grail, as he is not the man of action, many of the Masters are, yet someone to watch everything and then maybe give the ideal command to strike.
- Straight forward
- Something pretty obvious! But well, Zahur hates explaining things or even talking for a long time. He rather takes every opportunity to express his opinions and thoughts, without hesitating for once. He won’t stop talking unless he said what he had to say, not trying to decorate the said words by using rather beautiful expressions. That may also indicate that he isn’t good at giving catchy speeches, or even speeches to remember. Lying is something he typically doesn’t do, unless the situation requires such an action. Those situations, however, aren’t occurring that often, as he always is looking for a way to prevent those from happening. Of course this may be seen as another effect of his mother’s teachings, which it is in some ways. She just didn’t think highly of lying or betraying people and preferred going into every conversation with her head held high while speaking honestly deep to her heart’ content.
- Old fashioned
- That may be something many Magi have in common. While the ordinary humans are an always evolving society, the Magi are not going to follow these trends, as they’re strongly tied to the past. Zahur is one of those people, that doesn’t enjoy modern values or modern technology, or even the modern society. He prefers the things he experienced during his life, the old science that he learned from his ancestors and the theories of Atlas, instead of what the ordinary people would call science. Especially modern devices like televisions, airplanes and even streetlamps are nothing he enjoys but something he really hates. Behaviour may not be left out in this case. Nowadays people tend to forgot about respect, about believes, about the appropriate way to dress themselves, about the value of life and even the value of simple things, like the nature and good old handwritten books. What did happen to all of this? What did progress do to this world that once ago was such a great place and is now turned into a cultureless place ruled by the demons of new developments?
- Mama’s boy
- Well, Zahur was always around her, so guess what it made him become. He is pretty much addicted to his mother’s love and protection, even though that woman died a long time ago. He just can’t stop thinking about her and what she would do, if she was in his position. However she always was a good role model, as she was a really skilled Magus, always capable of handling every situations she was confronted with. Shukura never seemed to be weak, no matter what challenge was ahead of her. In the end she really was some kind of heroine in the eyes of Zahur, also giving him all the love he needed to grow into the man he is right now. Even now he longs for a way to make her proud and also for a way to reach her abilities, in order to prevent the one thing she couldn’t. Her spirit is all that is left to him, the thing that makes him move on and the only thing that could always uncover his human nature.
LIKES: //
Old books
The stars
The sun
Sand
The desert
Tales of the past
Knowledge
His mother
Rules
Gold
Alcohol
Victory
DISLIKES: //
Europe
Modern technology
Humans
Winter
Cold weather
The Holy Grail War
Chocolate
Ignorance
His future
Killing
Death
Ponies
Fighting
Violence
Teddy bears
Clothes
STRENGTHS: //
For Zahur it isn’t really important what his own strengths are made of and what skills he is born with. He rather considers them as a small part of a big equation, which is more focused on his weaknesses anyway. However one thing about his strengths is that he was actually equipped with a superior brain, having an IQ of 172, which would allow him to perform good brainwork even without Magic strengthening his brains abilities. On the other hand it is given that his physic also gave him some certain advantages: He is a pretty agile guy, being capable of moving fast while having the possibility of a flexible body that allows him to move elegantly in many situations. Maybe that’s also caused by his body’s nature of being pretty slim. The more you think about it, the weirder it seems that he is actually not a person that would fail when being alone, even though he doesn’t handle his life like ordinary people do. This originates from a certain thing he was born with: Survival abilities. Those give him the possibility of even surviving while walking through a desert when only having little water with himself, or even without food for many days. However even though he is capable of enduring such a horrible condition, that doesn’t make him escape those without suffering or experiencing harm to his very own body. Maybe that will help him stay away from the dangers of public. The final advantage that he has is again something considering his mind and something he always had, ever since he was a small child. It is his ability to focus his thoughts attention on something, no matter what may come. So whatever will happen around him, or whoever will talk to him, he may answer but never loosen the attention a task gets. So distraction will be something that won’t work that easy on him, a pretty powerful advantage, may it be in battle or outside of it.
WEAKNESSES: //
Nobody is perfect. If Zahur was, he wouldn’t be trying as hard as he does. The first thing that takes away the perfection from him is his lack of intuition and belief, which pretty much take a big advantage away from him. That is given, because he sees every event in numbers, ever possibility and ever goal, not with the eyes a normal person would, that wouldn’t stop fighting or wouldn’t try to change reality. In most occasions, even though he is looking for a way to survive, he doesn’t use his heart or act in a not logical way, like trying to fight against someone that he wouldn’t stand a possible chance against or trying to endure an impossible task, which could be fulfilled by pure willpower. Also he doesn’t really have a kind of intuition, as all he does is calculating, not really something where you consider feelings. Another weakness of Zahur is his incapability of working with illogical events. This means that every time he is confronted by actions that are breaking all rules of his own logic, he will be left with confusion, despair and a small amount of doubt within himself. Those feelings don’t only appear in battle, but also in many different situations, like playing board games, card games or even watching movies with certain plot twists. In the end, when experiencing such things in human behaviour or even in nature, he is struck to his knees and his mind seems to go blank, just looking for an explanation, which is impossible to find, as all of this just doesn’t make sense. All in all he seems to be someone that lacks some of a human’s basic abilities, which – in his case – are even turned into weaknesses, however there is another thing that would make him experience weak moments. Children are dangerous for him. Being confronted with them or their suffering is what hurts him the most. He just can’t stand it to see them endangered or to be the one to danger them. It makes him angry, makes him cry and make shiver. There is no way out then. This is what you may call, defeat. Oh and there is something that should not be overseen: Zahur’s body is pretty fragile, even though it may be able to resist the environments vicious games, it can’t stand direct hits, cuts or everything else that would hurt pretty much. So hit him a few times and he will be down.[/font][/ul]
Once upon a time there was a pupil of an astrologist carrying the name of the El Seba family, studying the teachings of an old master in Egypt about more than a century ago. He loved the stars, believed in all the teachings he was given, so that his only wish was keeping them like treasure. His only dream was for those after him, his children and their children to be taught all those lessens he enjoyed during his life. And so he did. His son inherited his love for the stars and so he learned everything his father learned. He continued his studies and learned how to write, since his father was never able to. The books he wrote became the physical form of the families treasures and by that something that was given from generation to generation, from father to son. No son ever rejected it, even though that was to be expected. Their lineage wasn’t really special during the first half of their existence, so that they, even though they were scientists, they were never treated like anything special or extraordinary.
About 500 years ago magic entered their blood, when the families heir married a woman coming from a place called Atlas. Of course the families children joined the hidden group of Magic hiding in the mountains and studied the Academy’s teachings, while still following their own. They became alchemists, as well as their abilities in the regards of alchemy began to grow, due to the things they learned over there. Just within a few years they grew that attached to Atlas that they decided never to betray the Academy and especially their goal, which has become the second most important thing in their lives, the first one still being their tradition of passing their teachings on to the next generation in order to have them expand everything by new revelations.
By using the new possibilities given by magic, they tried creating their own Magic Crest, which was indeed a success. 200 years ago it was created, carrying the ability of becoming a magical hard drive to carry all the old notes created by the ancestors and also every conclusion they ever made. Another attempt to secure their heritage was creating a Mystic Code, the pendant Irt Aqd, which ended up turning into a weapon killing its own creator and being sealed away by his sons who were to scared to every touch it again.
For centuries the family was only lead by men, however one day the only possible successor turned out to be a girl, named Shukura, the daughter of Rashidi, who wasn’t able to make another child, so that he had no other choice than passing the crest on to his daughter before dying. The girl wasn’t expected to be strong or talented, even for a part of their lineage which was never that strong to begin with, comparing them to other Magi around the world. Yet this particular girl managed to become the most outstanding person to be ever born into the El Seba family. Her skill and knowledge about astrology and other methods of prediction based on Laplace’s Demon, together with her outstanding ability to use the alchemistic skills of Atlas were above average and should turn her name into the most important of the family’s own history.
However one of her predictions made fear grow within her own heart: The death of her only child and the end of their lineage and teachings seemed to be inevitable. Now everything is left to him, Zahur Shukura Rashidi El Seba, the last son of the family and by that the only living heir. Will he alone be capable of changing destiny?
In the end the family already experienced a lifespan of about 10 generations of Magi. Some of them were able to enjoy long lives, the most however died earlier than usually expected of a true Magus. Their average circuit quality is at 4 PrC while enjoying a quantity of about 8 circuits, which is still above average, yet those numbers seem to have started decreasing already.
Also the family’s Crest enables the user access to the family’s stored knowledge, as the information stored in it is sent to the brain as soon the Magic Circuits of the user are activated.
MY HISTORY: //
Born as the only son of Shukura Rashidi Masud El Seba, Zahur was meant to become a great man from the first day of his life on. Even though he had a mother, he never experienced the benefit of having a father and never gained his name, instead he was given the name of his mother, the only person related to him. He never understood why, but that woman had something weird about her, something that impressed him even when he was born. She raised him alone, thought him everything there was about the family’s knowledge and the knowledge they achieved in Atlas. As he born in the Egyptian mountains, he was meant to become an alchemist of Atlas from the beginning, like his mother was. However that woman never enjoyed staying at one point, so that Zahur was forced to travel around the African mountains quiet a bit. He saw many things, slept in the nature and watched the clear night skies whenever it was possible.
His youth was never that entertaining. It always consisted out of – what many Magi had to experience – learning and discovering new things while working on his own alchemistic abilities, which had to grow for the El Seba’s heritage’s sake. Shukura was a harsh teacher, seemed distant, was yet close to her son. She never smiled or even hugged him, though she always wanted him to enjoy the good things the world had. Some secrets were kept from him in order to protect him from fear and despair, like one of her first prophesies. Whenever they talked, she always tried to keep her son away from finding out about things he should not know. Their bond was strong, that needed to be said. The time they spent together was long. Her lectures seemed to have effect on the boy, while he also enjoyed the teachings of the Atlas’ professors. It was not a miracle that he grew into a decent man with decent abilities, maybe even surpassing his own mother’s. At least that’s what was expected of him. He never was capable of fully understanding his mother’s method of prediction, so that he was never able to surpass or even reach it. For some this failure could have been depressing, for Zahur it was only logical that he – even if his alchemy skills were superior to hers – would never be as gifted as she was. And of course he obtained the crest, very early in his life.
One of their travels led them to the top of one of the highest mountains in the north of Africa. There they sat down to watch the stars. One of the only memories Zahur enjoys even today. Only the two of them sitting there, watching the stars and trying to predict what was ahead of them. The beautiful eyes of his mother, glowing, only once it seemed like she was smiling, while he was talking about his assumptions. Were thy good? He was never sure about that. Then she told him something, that he should keep in mind. Some day he would have to look out for a book, written by her alone, hidden somewhere in a small mountain village. There he was meant to find something she called “the truth”.
When he reached the age of 19 she died, knowing already about the exact time of it. It was nothing special, just a disease, which killed her, like many of heir ancestors. Zahur was left alone, it was painful. Nobody saw him for months, he hid himself in the family’s house, studying and trying to overcome the pain. How many words were there to describe his feelings? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Tears were unusual for him, yet even he couldn’t escape loosing them. Alone he was. One day he decided to look for that book his mother told him about that night. He found it, it wasn’t easy. The things written in there were of importance, though only about her own discoveries made during her life. One prediction was described, only in a short way, yet enough to impress him: He would die at the age of 24, young and very soon. She was hiding it from the beginning and now left him with the task to prevent this event. But how? Nothing was written about the circumstances she saw, only his age, not even a date.
Sadly it happened. Somehow he was chosen to participate in a competition of Magi in Europe, a so called “war”. The moment that mark, the Command Spell, appeared on his hand, Atlas Academy decided to send him there, in order to fight for their wishes sake: Saving the world. It was funny, that he was 24 years old when he arrived in Europe, in the city of Lucca, right into the heart of the Holy Grail War, as one of the Masters of Atlas. So will this be his death? Or is there really a way to avoid the predicted dead end? It may be, no prediction can be a 100% accurate.
MY GOALS: //
Zahur’s worst problem is the fact that there is not only one goal he is following. The first one is the Atlas Academy’s wish to save the world from the once predicted end, as it may seem that the Holy Grail could perform said miracle. However the other goal, which he just can’t deny, is preventing his own death, which was predicted by his mother when he was born. So, which goal is he going to achieve? Or will he just fail, like all the other Masters?
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Zahur’s weapon of choice would be his Mystic Code Ird Aqd, which he inherited from his mother (more about that later). However it isn’t the only thing he uses for self protection. Another thing he is fond of, is his pair of knives or rather daggers, hidden underneath his clothes. They were manufactured by a blacksmith in Egypt, only having the purpose to cut flesh and hurt others. But even though their quality isn’t bad, the users’ abilities of dagger usage are also important. And well, those are very slim. Zahur never learned how to use them correctly or trained with them, so that he can only perform simple standard strikes that won’t harm anyone who is prepared.
EQUIPMENT: //
A true pro has got his own equipment with him, like Zahur. He tends to carry around everything that may be seen as useful in whatever task he has to fulfil. So there are his books, all of them very old and very thick. They all contain knowledge about past predictions, knowledge about the star patterns and everything else necessary for astrology. There are also some books about magecraft and some notes he made throughout is life. Just everything he needs, stuffed into the biggest suitcase he could find. On the other hand there is also his special equipment, like a telescope chalk and – believe it or not – some big pieces of gold, which are meant to be exchanged into money for the usual payments. What else? Clothes? He hasn’t taken that many with him, there was just a lack of space in his luggage.
RANK: // 3rd.
ELEMENT: // Earth.
EXPERTISE: //
Future Prediction
Zahur’s family always tried to understand the universe and its’ ways, in order to predict events of the future. In the end they really found their way to do so, when entering the Atlas Academy. There their traditional astrology, the science of observing the stars and trying to figure out the connection between events happening in the space and those happening on earth, was combined with the teachings of Atlas. Like many of his ancestors, Zahur learned the relations between all the events happening in space and on Earth, the relation between the movements of each particle and force in the universe and so a way to put all the information into calculation, which could make it possible to predict the future. However this skill needs lots of details obtained by observation. However this may not be treated like an easy skill, that can be performed instantly. At first you need information, like people’s behaviour, their birthday, the movement of the stars and even the surroundings, as well as the movement of the skies. The calculations needed in order to sum up all the cases aren’t easy as well. Thanks to his by alchemy strengthened brain he is capable of performing the otherwise impossible calculations very fast, yet not absolutely perfectly, as the more detailed and accurate predictions will need lots of time and brain capacity which could only be offered by a gigantic super computer. In the end Zahur is not capable of predicting exact dates or even times, but rather some happenings and possible outcomes. The closer those things are the easier will it be for him to calculate, however there is always the possibility to be wrong, as no prediction can be 100% accurately. Especially if there are more possible outcomes, making predictions becomes more difficult, even ending up becoming impossible (like predicting the winner of the Holy Grail War).
This can also be used in confrontations, after observing another person’s actions. The simpler the personality of a person, the easier it will be to predict their next movements or the right way to work against it.
Alchemy
A man coming from Atlas, that doesn’t use alchemy? Not going to happen soon. Well, Zahur learned everything every other member of the Academy had to learn, too. He didn’t enjoy most teachings that much, though the basic tricks of working on your own brain. He even became obsessed about being good at splitting his own mind and accelerating his thoughts, so that he tried working very hard on it, which ended up turning him into one of the better users of that ability, so that he pretty much specializes into its usage. Well, he also knows about the other basics of alchemy and can work around them, not on the level of true master, but he isn’t bad at it either.
Quick combat
In these days you won’t see a Magus that doesn’t know any kind of fighting style, may it be the usage of a bow, a sword or the classical fists. Well, Zahur enjoys a fighting style brought to him by his own mother, as she thought it would always be useful for a Magus especially an alchemist, to at least be able to defend himself when unarmed. The fighting style itself is built to make use of the body’s ability to move quick and skilfully. Its’ user is always meant to move as fast as possible, when trying to for see the enemies attacks, until he starts striking. When attacking the user aims at the enemy’s weak spots, uncovered during defending themselves or just the typical ones of the human body. All in all the whole style he is using is quiet simple: Trying to evade as many physical contact and damage while waiting for the perfect openings to attack in a fast and brutal manner. However this style of fighting is only suited for quick combat, as it is very exhausting for its’ user, who at times is forced to move like an acrobat and not really comparable to true martial arts.
MAGIC CIRCUITS: // He has got some in stock, actually 9, holding a quality of 4Prc, which gives him a full amount of 36 prana. On the other hand, the influence given by his Magic Crest, gives him additionally 3 circuits, which gives him 48 prana in total.
SPELLS: //
[Thought Acceleration] ([None])
Rank: [None]
Cost: [None]
Range: [Self]
Effect: One of those skills that are proof enough for you being a member of Atlas Academy. Thought Acceleration is a spell created by the alchemists of Atlas and used by them in order to make their own brains work much faster than ordinary ones and by that get through every task in absolutely little time. It’s also the reason for why the alchemists of Atlas are capable of performing high speed calculations. Simply put: The baseline for every super computer like brain.
[Memory Partition] ([None])
Rank: [None]
Cost: [None]
Range: [Self]
Effect: Most alchemists of Atlas know to use that skill. It allows them to split their own mind into several autonomous parts, which kind of resembles a computer. By that they gain the ability to focus their minds not only on one task, but on many tasks at the same time. Calculation grows into a simple task just like everything the mind has to do, as nearly everything can be dealt with like a computer would do. Zahur is pretty much skilled at this ability, so that he can split his own mind into five parts, which marks him as one of the spells top users.
[Ird Aqd] ([Mystic Code])
Rank: [ B ]
Cost: [2pr per second]
Range: [25 meters]
Effect: The Mystic Code created by Osahar Niu Tau El Seba is a small pendant contained a blue gem. It’s purpose was to become the storage for the family’s obtained knowledge of astrology as well as for all knowledge his and his sons’ memory contained. The idea was simple: The user used magic to fill the jewel with coded memories – the code was one that only he and his sons were able to read. In the end, when channelling magical energy through the pendant, light would be emitted similar to a flashlight by the gem. By using the information carrying character of light, the information would be sent to another person’s brain while through their eyes. The brain itself could just read all of the information given and by that earn all the stored knowledge, just in the coded form, so that only certain people could access the El Seba’s secrets.
When trying to access the saved up data for the first time, a problem appeared. Once looking at the light the brain will get flooded with information in an uncontrolled way. Only after one glimpse it would be enough for most humans to endure, especially when being confronted with codes. A person would not be able to work through all of that information and the brain itself will reach its limits, so that your head will start to hurt and your brain feels like it is torn apart. At first there will only be a devastating headache, however the longer you are receiving the seemingly endless mass of instant information the more it will affect your brain, until it forces it to shut down, which means death, just like it happened to Osahar.
Of course there are limits to the light’s power. The less light you are to experience, the less information will be caught, and by that the whole effect will be weakened (When outside the said range of the Mystic Code, its’ effect will be far too weak to hurt you). Also reflections of the light can be able to be used for information transfer, however the effect will be weakened, too. After one second of direct contact you will suffer an incomparable headache, which will most likely bring an average person to their knees, three seconds are enough to force a person to loose their strength and seven will mean death. It doesn’t matter who you are, even the user himself will suffer the same way any other person would. Only a spirits like Servants could endure the light’s effect as their brains are already superior to the humans’.
Even though the weapon was sealed away by the sons of Osahar, Zahur’s mother Shukura freed the pendant and took it as her own means of protection, thinking that she would be able to control it. In the end it seemed to work out, so that the feared failure turned out useful. After his mother’s death it was Zahur’s turn to carry it.
FACE CLAIM: // Yukihina from Code:Breaker
OTHER CHARACTERS: // Wolfgang Heinrich Steiner (W2) and Celtchar mac Uthechair (W2).
MISC. INFORMATION: // Not sure about my Mystic Code and Magic Crest.
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