Malphas

And here he is. I like the glowing horn effect. I'm still figuring out why the text doesn't indent properly on deviantart here. Next time, I may just have to type all of the text in manually on DA, rather than copy-paste it from a notepad like I did below. I'm still adding a bit more to the text, but this is good to go for now.  Yes, I used an argonian from "Skyrim" as a model for much of this, but he's still a dracon.

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Name: Malphas

Occupation: Sorcerer, adventurer, instructor.

Age: 30

Gender: Male

Height: 6'9 (6 feet without the horns)

Weight: 170 lbs  

Hometown: Naushindcalgoa (Naugoa for short)

Description: The most powerful sorcerer in a line of powerful sorcerers, Malphas is known for his unusually long, curved horns. Apart from that, there is little unusual about his appearance; his green skin, orange eyes, and sharp claws are all average for a dracon of his size and gender. For a male dracon, Malphas is unusually emotional and exciteable, and he is known for being something of a hedonist, although even he cannot compare with the greatest extremes of self-indulgence displayed by similarly situated female dracons. At his best, Malphas is playful, passionate, and engaging, but at his worst, he can be impulsive and brash. His signature horns mark him from others in a crowd: his large, gray horns glow white when he charges up magical energy, a testament to the great power contained within. Straightforward and yet laid-back, and powerful but unpretentious, Malphas gets along well with most adventurers he journeys with.

Background: Born ten years before Dememoras' return, Malphas lived a rather unusual life. His father, a sorcerer, had died not long before his mother laid his egg. His father, Damos, had died fighting a dragon that was threatening shipping off Naugoa's coastline. While Damos was rich, his estate was poorly managed, and Damos was known for his love of gambling and architecture. Part of the reason Damos had died in the first place was due to his need to sell his abilities as an adventurer for cash. If he had not needed the extra money, he would not have been on the boat when it sank. To make matters worse, Malphas was Damos' first and only child, so there was no other heir for the estate. Had Malphas been born a female, his mother would have lost the farm. As it is, when he was born, he was the legal heir, with his mother simply in custody of the farm until her son came of age.

Hatching into a world without a father is hard for most dracons. Although Malphas lived on an estate surrounded by luxuries, the income from the land he lived on were insufficient to maintain that lifestyle for very long, and he soon came to realize this. Thus, Malphas lived the life of a curiously impoverished noble. He had lands, he had status, he had a large mansion to live in, and yet he could barely keep the roof maintained, and there was no money for servants. While he had enough to eat growing up and there was just enough money to send him to school, the other children mocked him for his old clothes and second-hand books. His mother, Jerilla, was a female of little means and much piety, but she was also aware of her status as a "second-rate" female, given her very small dowry. While she could trace her lineage back to great wealth, her own noble family had also fallen onto hard times, apart from Damos' problems. Part of the reason she had married him was due to the fact that neither of them had a great amount of wealth, so they were among the only two couples of noble rank interested in each other. For her part, Jerilla brought in a small amount of money to the marriage, but Damos didn't care, as the marriage was for love, not political gain.

Growing up, Malphas displayed magical powers from a young age, much like his father before him. After it was clear he had difficulty controlling his spells, he had to be sent to a special school for youngsters with magical powers. Sent to the school with only one pair of robes and the same books his father had used as a child, Malphas quickly found that he had a hard time fitting in or keeping up with many of the richer students, but he made up for it with impressive displays of raw magic power. By the time he was a teenager, Malphas was the most powerful student in the school, but had some of the very lowest grades. He was able to just keep himself afloat academically, but he had little grasp of magical theory, technique, history, even writing skills. While he is not illiterate and can read and write when he has to, Malphas prefers to express himself using his spells. His grasp of magic is intuitive, not learned. He can throw energy around, but he doesn't understand it very well, nor does he care to understand it. Much like his father, Malphas has an affinity for spells and magics that revolve around heat, light, and energy projection.

But magic isn't the only thing he inheirited from his father. Much like Damos, Malphas is known to overindulge himself. While constant admonishments from his mother prevented him from developing gambling habits, he is unusually fond of food, mating, and relaxation for a male dracon. After leaving the magic school, Malphas returned to his family's estate. His mother had wanted him to go into the king's military or civil service, for surely such a position would bring with it wealth and social status, enough of each to bring back respectability to their family. Jerilla did not take it well when Malphas announced that he was going to join a group of adventurers. When asked why he would do such a thing, Malphas told her that he hated having his freedom taken away from him, and that as a court mage, he couldn't cast the spells he wanted to, or visit the places he wished to see. While he is still technically the owner of the estate, Malphas has hardly seen it in years. As a twenty-one year old mage, Malphas set out into the world with a band of adventurers. In the next five years, he proved himself an able combatant, albeit one who spent too much time in taverns between adventures. He also fathered a number of children during this time, mostly on dancers and barmaids of dubious virtue. While he is not aware of them yet, all of them have horns a bit like his own, and all have magical powers. This is most unusual, considering that sorcerous power does not normally pass itself down in a predictable pattern, and the odds that all the children of a sorcerer would have his powers as well is stranger still.    

When he turned twenty-six, Malphas began to settle down a bit. It wasn't that he didn't seek adventure or that he had no interest in traveling, but rather, he was tired of the same kinds of tasks he had to do as an adventurer. Even fighting a tribe of barbaric dracons gets tiresome if one has done it ten times before, and Malphas had done it no fewer than twelve times with twelve different adventuring parties. He currently lives in Minbenthac, where he works as an instructor for mages who are trying to master energy projections spells. He enjoys it because it gives him a legitimate reason to blast things without breaking the law or injuring anyone. If things keep going well, he might just open a magical firing range, which would be the first of its kind in Minbenthac.        

Family: Damos (father, deceased), Jerilla (mother)

Religion: Malphas worships the draconic deity Hlal, the goddess of stories. At first, this seems an odd choice. For a mage to worship a deity with such a seemingly limited portfolio is indeed unusual. However, Malphas considers the deeper aspects of Hlal to be worth more than her title as the patroness of tales and humor. Rather, Malphas was taken by her emphasis on free will and freedom of speech, as well as freedom from restraint, at least in the sense that one ought to be able to say what one thinks and enjoy free expression. He attends temple services to Hlal in a small fane in the neighborhood in which he lives. He doesn't go regularly, but this temple holds services every other day, so he has plenty of opportunities to attend it.

Abilities: Being a sorcerer, Malphas can cast a wide variety of powerful spells. His greatest emphasis is on those spells which deal with energy in its purest forms. Although there is no such thing as "pure energy" stripped out of a specific form, there are manifestations of magical power which Malphas uses to great effect, such as light energy or strands of pure arcana. He also enjoys using fire and heat-based spells. In a battle, Malphas unleashes beams of power from his hands, often in many different varieties. This contrasts greatly with many mages who use fireballs and magic bolts; the closest most mages come to a pure beam of energy is a lightning bolt, something Malphas uses only on rare occassions. As a teacher, Malphas believes very much is instruction by example. He was never one for books or lectures, unlike Vespion. While many of his own students are better read than he is, Malphas has a great deal of practical experience in the field of combat magic, and can teach well by showing others how to use spells most efficiently in a fight.  

Weapons/Armor: Malphas dresses in mage robes and a loincloth underneath. He fights unarmed, but his magic is enough for him to put up a formidable defense. He used to have a dagger, but lost it on one of his first adventures and never bothered to replace it. The robes has has on now are not the original ones he used when he first became an adventurer, but they are of the same blue color and plain style.  

Weaknesses/Limitations: For all his magical power, Malphas has some problems. First, his knowledge of magic is very deep, but not very broad. Put simply, he knows a great deal about certain kinds of spells, mostly having to do with energy projection, but he knows few other kinds of spells. He is also not very tough in a fight. While Malphas isn't fragile for a male dracon, his refusal to use armor coupled with his lack of protections spells render him something of a "glass cannon". In other words, he can dish out damage, but he has a hard time withstanding it. Of course, most enemies that try to harm him are likely to be killed or crippled by his spells before getting anywhere near him.

Malphas also has a tendency to burn himself out. Although he is a powerful sorcerer, even he has his limits. It can take him a few days to recover from overexertion from spellcasting, especially if he was tired or hungry before using his magic.

Spells: This is a partial list of the spells Malphas knows (mostly taken from Dungeons and Dragons.)

- Flare: Generates a small burst of light.

- Magic Missile: Fires a small dart of magical energy at a target.

- Scorching Ray: Blasts an enemy or a small group of enemies with intense heat.

- Fireball: Launches a single explosive ball of fire at an enemy or group of enemies.

- Lightning Bolt: Fires a single lightning bolt at a target.

- Wall of Fire: One of only a handful of spells that Malphas knows that isn't offensive, this spell creates a barrier of flames in a given location.  

- Fire Shield: Anyone trying to strike at Malphas through the shield will ge burned.

- Chain Lightning: Like a lightning bolt, but it strikes multiple targets.  

- Prismatic Spray: A multi-colored beam of light (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet), with corresponding negative effect (fire damage, acid damage, electricity damage, poison, petrification, insanity, and shifting to another plane).

- Burning Hands: A small cone of flames shoot out from Malphas' fingertips.

- Sunburst: A solar blast which does serious damage to most enemies.

Special Note: It is said that one of his ancestors mated with a dragon at some point, and that his unusual horns are the result of that lineage. Many dracons with recent draconic ancestry have more than two horns, but other manifestations of such a heritage are not unheard of. Also note that even if he were to lose his horns, his power would not significantly decrease. His glowing horns reflect his inner magical reserves, but they do not reside there.