App for LifeAftr

[gathersnomoss]

Player Information
Name: Stareyes
Age: 33
Contact: beccastareyes
Current characters: Isabella

Character Information
Name: Zelgadis Graywords
Series: Slayers
Appearance: image!

Zel's about a few inches below six feet. He's got metallic lilac 'hair' (actually metal wire stiff enough it can be used as a thrown weapon) styled in kind of a fluffy mess and gray eyes. His skin is blue stone, with patches of gray stone -- on his face, they surround his eyes and outline his jaw, but on the rest of the body they seem to occur at random. He does have pointed ears. He also tends to wear gloves, a full cloak, with hood, and a scarf covering his lower face to disguise the fact he can't pass for human at all.

Age: 20 or so
Canon Point: Post Evolution-R.
Canon History: History. The link mostly goes through Zel's backstory pre-canon, but doesn't include the material from the most recent season of Slayers.

When investigating the ruins of the kingdom of Taforashia, sealed away due to a plague, the group discovered that Rezo had found a way to seal his soul into a jar, with the hopes that he could fix his blindness by body-hopping. Once they located the jar, Zel had a confrontation with Rezo where Rezo admitted that there was no way for Zelgadis to go back to being human. Zel nearly killed Rezo (again) for that, but was interrupted when Taforashia's prince stole the jar and offered Rezo's soul his body to save the kingdom. Rezo did so, then there was another battle with Shabranigdo (who was sufficiently bound to Rezo's soul that he had come with him on this trip), and we got some sense that Zel has something like closure, if not a cure.

Personality: Zelgadis is a dour person and rather a pessimist. In a comedic universe, he can usually be relied on being the 'straight man', if he's not the butt of the joke. He's got a decent chunk of both intelligence and common sense, tempered with cynicism and downright ruthlessness.

In flashbacks, we see that Zel was a lot more optimistic and generally cheerful: he believed that Rezo the Red Priest (his great-grandfather) was a genuinely selfless person helping the poor and sick and blind, and that Zel's actions of robbing from bandit gangs to fund Rezo's activities helped not only directly, but to avoid tarnishing a great man's image with even the hint of foul play. Needless to say, when Zel discovered that he had been used as Rezo's guinea pig without a thought for his own wants or desires, this crushed out most of Zel's belief in other people. He only retained a small glimmer of faith in decent people because his own gang still treated him as their friend and leader, with two of them (Zolf and Rodimus) being willing to follow him when he finally turned against Rezo. It took years for Zel to warm up to his current friends in the same way, especially since both Lina and Zel can be ruthless in pursuit of their goals.

Zelgadis can occasionally be roused to almost manic bursts of activity, usually regarding his cure. He is quite willing to ignore his common sense, cynicism and sense of dignity when it means that he might have a chance of humanity again. Rezo and his situation is the one thing guaranteed to make him snap at someone. Finding Rezo's soul in a jar, years after Zel assumed the priest had died, was one of the few things that caused him to break with his friends over what to do about it. To be honest, Zel wasn't sure if he wanted to finish killing Rezo or beg him to fix Zel's body. Both Rezo's definite statement that such a thing was impossible, and Rezo's restoration and second death seemed to give Zel some sort of closure (judging from the tiny amount we see Zel in the finale), even if he's still fully working through the ramifications.

While he's self-conscious about his appearance and identity as a 'monster', Zelgadis is very confident in his abilities and will even show off. Zelgadis knows that he's a skilled mage and swordsman in a world where even being good at one is impressive, and that he has a number of useful skills and knowledge. He doesn't brag, but states things in a manner of fact way. This can even verge into the more useful aspects of his chimerism -- he will remind his opponents that you can't use a (nonmagical) sword on him. Zel can occasionally overestimate things like his ability to soak damage -- usually it requires magic to hurt him, but enough blunt trauma will do the job.

Zel's relationships with most people tend to be self-serving. He seems to take delight in being seen as a 'heartless sorcerer swordsman' and being distant, and he avoids cities when he can. Early encounters with the people who would later become friends often featured him going off on his own errands at inconvenient times. He still occasionally pulls such stunts, but has a better idea of what is and isn't acceptable to his friends. Zel also has some professional integrity on various mercenary jobs -- or at least the pragmatism to note that a mercenary that breaks contracts left and right will be unemployed.

Abilities:Zel has a number of skills. He's good with a sword, can pick locks, has used navigation instruments, seems to be a general font of 'things read in books' (for instance, knowing about gunpowder in a part of the world where it was a curiosity, rather than a weapon), and has a pleasant singing voice.

Zel is also a chimera, being 1/3 blow demon and 1/3 rock golem. His golem bits give him rock-hard skin that can turn blades and makes him hard to hurt without magic, wire hair (that he has used as a thrown weapon), and increased strength, endurance and weight (not so good for things like swimming, but you can't shove him around). His demon bits increase his speed, letting him occasionally get the drop on people, and his senses. He also has increased magical endurance (he can cast more spells before running out of steam).

In addition between his learning and enhanced magical reserves, Zelgadis can cast a number of spells. Astral shamanism is his primary area of focus, and he's able to cast the Rah Tilt, the most powerful spell in that school. Astral spells work through the astral plane -- they hit the target's soul first, then any energy that doesn't go into the soul can explode into the physical world

He also seems to know a few spells in the other schools of shamanism, including some seriously powerful earth and water shamanism, and some white and black magic (though he will not be able to cast some black magic away from his world: Zel can't call on the power of Dynast Grausherra if Zel is here and Dynast is in his own world).

Spell strength (estimated by the tabletop RPG) is noted, and wiki pages are linked. In the Slayers tabletop RPG, Zel could cast the strongest spells he knows over 10 times, if he wasn't doing anything else, but Zelgadis draws from the same pool of energy to cast spells. (Unlike a D&D spell caster, who can cast a 9th level spell a few times, then is out of luck, even if they are good for 0th through 8th level spells: the Slayers system is more of a Magic Points style thing. Novel canon even talks about having a pool of spell energy that one can increase with practice.). It would also take him at least a day to recover.

Power Guidelines
• 0: Spell is so trivial that Zel could keep it up all day.
• 1: Weak spell. It'll hurt about as much as a good sword blow if it's a damaging spell.
• 2: Medium spell. Likely to seriously injure a human target.
• 3: Strong spell. Likely to kill a normal/human target, or seriously injure something more powerful.
• 4: Very strong spell. Will kill even a strong target.
• 5: Most powerful spell in magic. Will kill most things that are not gods/powerful mazoku/etc.

Zel can pull his punches with magic to an extent -- if he needs the area of a fireball, he can cast it for less damage, which takes less energy.

Spell List

Spell	Power	Element	Description
Astral Break	3	Spirit	A damaging attack spell
Astral Vine	3	Spirit	Enchants weapon to do astral damage
Bephis Bring	2	Earth	Creates a hole in earth/stone
Blam Blazer	2	Spirit	A damaging attack spell. Does not explode, but may penetrate behind target.
Bomb di Wind	3	Air	A massive air burst, that is mostly used as an attack
Bomb Sprid	2	Fire	Creates a ball of fire that explodes on command. Weaker than Fireball.
Dam Brass	2	Earth	A ranged attack that creates high-frequency sound waves in a target, like a small concentrated earthquake. Useful for making holes in walls, as it has a tight blast radius.
Diem Wind	1	Air	Creates wind, which can be used to hold a human in place or deflect projectiles (even some spells)
Dig Volt	3	Air	Attack spell using electricity.
Dimil Arwin	2	Air	A weaker Bomb di Wind; often used to burrow into the ground and explode outward.
Dug Haut	3	Earth	Creates a number of stone spikes from the ground.
Dye	0	Earth	Changes color of material
Elemkia Lance	1	Spirit	A basic astral magic attack spell; usually will not do physical damage to a human, but will weaken them.
Fireball	2	Fire	The classic ball of explosive fire magic.
Flare Arrow	1	Fire	A basic fire spell.
Freeze Arrow	1	Water	A basic ice spell.
Goz Vu Row	3	Spirit	Summons a shadow, which attacks the victim's shadow, doing both spiritual/mental and physical damage.
Grey Bomb	2	Earth	Makes the ground explode.
Levitation	1	Air	Slow flight which allows hovering; other spells can be cast while using it.
Lighting	0	White	Creates light, either as a bright floating ball of it or as a bright flash.
Mono Volt	1	Air	When you touch a target, they get shocked and may be paralyzed/knocked out. Stronger if delivered with a metal sword or dagger (bypassing the skin).
Raywing	3	Air	Speedy flight in a protective bubble of air, even allowing underwater travel. Requires concentration. Also tradeoffs between weight and speed.
Recovery	2	White	Accelerates natural healing, healing wounds in minutes. Cannot be used on the seriously injured (who have no reserves to draw on), or to cure diseases.
Shadow Snap	1	Spirit	Cast on an object thrown at the victim's shadow, which pins the victim in place. As long as the shadow is present, the victim can't move (but can speak/cast spells).
Windy Shield	3	Air	Creates a barrier of wind that can protect against both spells and projectiles. Stronger than the one from Raywing. Does not extend below ground.
Big Spells
Spell	Power	Element	Description
Burst Flare	5	Fire	The most powerful of fire shamanism; covers an area with flames so hot as melt metal and powderize bone.
Elemekia Flame	4	Spirit	An attack spell that can completely shred a human's psyche.
Rah Tilt	5	Spirit	The most powerful attack spell of astral shamanism.
Van Rail	4	Water	Creates a spiderweb of ice on the ground; targets in the area are frozen into blocks of ice, injuring them and preventing them from moving.
Vlave Howl	5	Earth	Changes an area from earth to lava.

Inventory: Zelgadis, as a traveling mercenary, has a pack full of useful objects. A sword, a dagger, some coins, a bedroll, a sextant, paper and ink and pencils, lockpicks, a mess kit and some rations, a canteen, a map of the area he was in, and a minor magical item (a crystal that detects hidden doors),

Sample

Test Drive

Q&A:If you could give up all emotions, both good and bad, would you?
Interesting question. What counts as an emotion? You could get very broad, and say anything beyond the basic 'I'm hungry' is an emotion, and then, what good are you? So I'm not agreeing to that unless it's spelled out exactly what I'd be losing. And I know who is asking me and what they are gaining from it. Yes, I am taking this hypothetical question seriously, when it's probably just a party game: 'Hey, Zelgadis, which of these terrible choices would you make?' sort of thing.

Do you care about others, or would you rather let them fend for themselves?
Most people aren't worth caring about.

All right, fine, some people who are worth caring about, either can fend for themselves or have people who can fend for them. And they are also competent enough that you watch their back because you've learned that they will watch yours.

But I'm not the sort to think most people are like that. Most people look after themselves, their families, maybe a few neighbors or friends.

Is there anything you don’t like about yourself?
I could make a list, or I could just tell you that I've been physically transformed to have a body I hate and have spent the last few years looking for a way to fix that. So, go with 'every reminder that my body isn't human any more'. Yes, even the traits that occasionally come in handy.

What kind of impression do you think you give to others?
'That man is an exceedingly competent, dangerous person'. Well, or 'help, monster!'. The first is not bad; I work as a mercenary and people want someone who is competent and dangerous to whatever they want me to fight. The second is, because monsters aren't seen as things people can ally with or pay off, and only respond to force.

Is it difficult for you to trust others? If so, why?
You have got to be kidding me. I can't count how many times people take one look at my face and start screaming. Or the number of con artists I've run into who say they want to help me, but want money or favors or jobs done for something that is worthless to me. Or the fact that all of this wouldn't be a problem if my own grandfather didn't decide his only living relative would make a good test subject for his experiments, and phrased it as a way to help me out.

Yes, it is difficult for me to trust people. Because people are so damned untrustworthy.

Could you take a life if it was necessary? If so, what would “necessary” be defined as to you?
Usually it is because they are trying to kill me, or someone else I'd rather not be dead. I don't do assassinations, and the last time I was hired for a kidnapping, it was awkward and ended poorly for both myself and my client. That may have just been because my client was awful and I'd never work for Zoana again. Recently I've been doing bodyguard work when I'm working, and that has a certain clarity to it: people try to kill or kidnap you or your client, and you try to stop them with the minimal amount of force.

What are some regrets you have?
I really shouldn't have trusted my grandfather, but the only difference that would have made is how I felt about him; he could have done it without my permission. And it's not like I can change the past, no matter what I feel. There's certainly things I wish hadn't happened, but most of those are things I couldn't control.