A Tale of Scales: Character Profiles
Author's Note: Apologies to any strange formatting or some such. I'm still unfamiliar with how things work here on FanFiction. Hopefully, things 'll become neater as I use the site more and more. Also: Expect a long read for Sarn; He's a complicated fella! Apologies in advance if my more detailed descriptions are a little unclear. Some of it is hard to put into words.
Sarn
A little bit about the creation of Sarn: As you can guess, my profile name is derived from Sarn. Sarn is my second character created in the Elder Scrolls universe, and he is probably the most complex, in my opinion, for one particular reason (Which will be talked about later). Sarn is the only vampire in the group, and the first vampirical character I've ever created. I've always been intrigued by vampires, and so when thinking about the group, I knew one of them had to be one. When creating Sarn in Oblivion, he started off as an assassin, but after becoming a vampire, I decided to start using magical skills. Over time, I began relying less and less on my stealth skills, and more and more on my magical abilities. By the end of the game, I had decided being a mage fit Sarn much better than being an assassin, however, I intended to keep his time as an assassin as an important part of his personal story. When talking about the origin of Sarn's name, I can honestly say it came out of nowhere. When I first created him, I had no idea what his name would be, and as I was sitting there at the naming screen, the name Sarn just randomly hit me. I mulled it over a bit, and decided it would do. Later on, I decided that as Sarn is an ancient vampire, he should have a lesser known, but more grand name, and so his full name became Sarnyroth, though most characters will simply refer to him as Sarn.
Physical appearance/attributes: (Sarn went through a lot of changes during the events of the group's time in Cyrodil. For the sake of simplicity, this will be a description of him as he is at the start of A Tale of Scales, though his old appearance may be mentioned at some point)
Sarn stands at 6 feet, and 3 inches. His scale coloration is a pale gray, with tinges of black along his chest and face. Sarn has two very small lines of horns that travel from the top of his skull down to the back of his head, right above the neck. Normally, Sarn's eyes are like orbs of milk; completely white with no defined pupils or retina at all. They change often however, and the reason why will be talked about later. Sarn is not very strong when it comes to physical strength, but being a vampire has added a bit to his physical power, and so he can usually hold his own in a physical confrontation when need-be. Sarn's age is never clearly defined, though many assume that is at least a couple hundred years old.
Background/History: Sarn is an extremely complex character in that he has, in a way, lived three lives.
His first life, as a normal, mortal argonian, which is almost never mentioned, and very little about it is known by anyone besides Sarn himself.
His second life, as an ancient vampire, hungry for power, infamy, and magic. He constantly clashed with Laerak, along with Vaex. He was the terror of Cyrodil for an extended period of time, constantly attacking towns and cities and causing havoc wherever possible. He was the second-most wanted criminal in Cyrodil, wanted for just about every crime. It is wondered by many people why the heroic figures of Vaex and Laerak would work with Sarn, with very few buying the excuse that they shared mutual goals of stopping the Oblivion invasion. Some would even blame Sarn for said invasion, but Vaex and Laerak have put those rumors to rest, for the mostpart. After the Oblivion crisis, Sarn kept in touch with the group only lightly, preferring to keep to himself as he plotted various attacks against different factions of Cyrodil. He had very close ties to the Dark Brotherhood, as he worked as an agent of theirs for a long period of time before he became a mage. For about a span of three years after the Oblivion crisis, some would say Sarn ruled Cyrodil. Every Lord and Lady was constantly paranoid of the possibility of him coming to their city next. The Imperial Legion was powerless against him, as his magical abilities had progressed so much that he could easily wipe away half an army within a matter of seconds. The mage's guild had neither the resources nor the numbers to make any large effort to stop him.
Eventually, though, Laerak decided enough was enough. He began pursuing Sarn with the help of Vaex, and eventually, they finally confronted one another. Sarn had just finished finally "going over" as Laerak called it. He had finally let his power take control of him, and he had demolished the city of Cheydinhal. They battled for hours on end, Laerak's power being fueled by the Divine's, and Sarn's by his own dark magic. Eventually, Laerak managed to beat back Sarn's attacks, and he began what is now known in Cyrodil as "the Purging of Sarnyroth." Laerak forced out Sarn's emotions, his hunger for power, his knowledge of daedric magic, and the twisted nature that had taken control of him. For a week afterwords, Sarn was in a deep sort of sleep, and when he awoke, he was near robotic in his thought process. Never once did he show any signs of intense emotion, and only really remembering that he was allies with Vaex, Laerak, and Farrak. This would be the beginning of Sarn's third life.
The three of them then took time to explain to Sarn who he used to be, and what he had done. Sarn, now only able to think logically, decided that he needed a way to limit his own power, since Laerak was unable to actually fully get rid of Sarn's magical abilities. The group contacted a friend of Laerak, another argonian named Gixlyr, who was skilled in the art of magicl runes. Together, Gixlyr, Laerak, and Sarn created a set of eight magical runes, which they tattooed onto Sarn's arms, so that when his palms faced upwards, so would the runes. Each symbolized a different element of Sarn's magical abilities.
Starting with his left arm and going from the palm down, up to the elbow, are Light, Life, Water, and Wind. On the right are Darkness, Earth, Fire, and Storm. To describe the appearance of each:
Light is symbolized as a bright white sun. Life, a small green leaf. Water, a bright blue, tear-shaped drop filled with a small spiral. Wind, three gray lines that run parallel to one-another, and spiral off at the end. Darkness, a black-purple crescent moon. Earth, a "dented", deep brown circle. Fire, a bright orange-red tear that, instead of being tipped like water, is topped by a series of "spikes" like the tongues of a flame. Lastly, Storm, a bright yellow lightning bolt.
How these runes work, is that Sarn is able to "tap" into one element at a time and wield it to his full potential, but only that one element. Sarn's argument for this was that if he were to somehow become corrupted again, he would only be able to fight with one element of magic at a time, and so any skilled mage would be able to counter whatever element he used.
By the start of A Tale of Scales, Sarn has begun to try and help rectify some of the destruction he had caused over the years. He has given away large portions of his collected wealth to help re-build Cheydinhal, and he returned all stolen items he possessed. Sarn retreated to his hidden home deep in the swamps on the border of Blackmarsh, as he knew that no matter what he did to help, he would not be forgiven for his crimes. While in his home, he trained and willed himself to no longer need to divulge into his vampiric nature, eventually reaching the point where he was no longer dependent on blood to survive and be healthy.
Personality: As stated earlier, Sarn has little to no true "personality" after the purging. He thinks solely based on logic and common sense, and shows little to no emotion on most subjects. The only relatively "emotional" subject he feels for are his loyalty to his friends and allies.
