ACTIVE Telanis

[Soran Nightblade]

1. Name: Telanis

2. Gender: Male

3. Race: Unicorn

4. Job/Class: Protector, Healer

5. Appearance: He resembles a flawless Arabian stallion, elegant and strong, standing 15 hands tall (5 feet at the shoulder). His coat is pure white with a silvery sheen. His mane and tail are long and fine, blowing easily in the wind. His neck is long and arches to where it meets his head. His face is elegant and curious with a dished nose and large, wide-set brown eyes. The horn that extends from his forehead is two feet long and resembles an amalgamation of gold and pearl intertwining to a fine point at the end. His legs are long and slender with small, cloven hooves surrounded by feathery white hair. Despite his size, he weighs very little and moves almost soundlessly through the forest.

Though he would never leave the safety of the Ashgrown forest except under extraordinary circumstances, if the need arises for him to conceal his identity, he can take the form of a human being. His human form is six feet tall with light skin, sharp features, a slim build, and long white-silk hair that falls around his hips. He has poignant, dark brown eyes that have a mysterious depth, wise and curious at the same time. His most conspicuous feature is a large, dark red star on his forehead that marks where his horn should be.

6. Abilities: He runs fairly quickly and can carry one person with slight impediment, two people with significant difficulty. He is very agile and durable, but not particularly strong. He has the ability to see to the true nature of a person’s soul and understand whether they are intrinsically pure or evil, as well as sense gut emotions such as distress, happiness or misery. He communicates with others through telepathy, but can not read minds unless mental communications are directed at him intentionally. His strongest powers are those of healing, both of body and soul. Those with pure hearts often say they can feel a sense of serenity around him, though calming magic only affects those who do not reject it. He lives continuously in sync with the forest, and can not be killed by old age or disease.

Telanis also has a powerful ability that can be used only once in the utmost emergency. If he should deem someone worthy, he can restore the life of a newly-slain being by giving him/her half of his soul. The sacrifice for using this power is to lose his immortality and slightly dull his powers. In addition, his soul will be permanently bound to the one he has saved, and when one perishes, the other does as well ((think Dragonheart, if you’ve seen it)).

7. Weaknesses: Telanis is extremely gentle and has no intuition for battle or offense. In fact, he is physically weak against the presence of blood, and becomes dizzy or even paralyzed around it. He is also vulnerable when taken outside of his forest. It is the source of his magic and he will very slowly weaken if he leaves it. He can heal his own wounds at a moderate pace, but his flesh is mortal and a very severe wound can potentially outpace his healing abilities, particularly if it detaches his head. His horn is the focal point of his power and provides magical energy that he needs to live, like a second heart. If it were removed or destroyed, his life would slowly end.

8. Personality: Telanis is gentle, protective, wise, and surprisingly curious, but above all, reclusive. Time and countless headhunts have taught him to avoid humans or humanoids at all costs, remaining safe within the depths of the forest and never allowing himself to be spotted. His intuition for people’s true natures, however, may sometimes lure him into humanoid presence, for his protective instinct compels him to go to the side of those who are without hope.

9. Biography: Telanis is a sacred being, born from the spiritual essence of the forest. In his first years he was extremely curious and would venture into human territory to explore or to aid young children in need of hope and safety. Soon, however, rumors spread about his magic. Some said that his horn held the secret to immortality, while others feared him as a powerful being sent to punish humans for encroaching into the forest. Eventually, his strength waned as he remained too long in the human world, and he had to return to the forest. Several disappearances of livestock and outbreaks of disease coincided with the unicorn’s disappearance, and when he did not come to heal the dead, the relationship between Telanis and the humans became one of distrust and greed.

Humans hunted him as the greatest possible trophy, seeking the horn that could give immortality. Others hunted him out of revenge for those he failed to save. Telanis quickly learned to keep his distance from humans and remained in the safety of the forest, protecting the wild things that lived there and seeking solitude. He has remained this way for hundreds of years without attempting to approach humans again, often having to evade their more persistent searches and hunts. He is approximately three hundred years old.