Strithac the Archivist

Strithac the Archivist is a dragonkin of the Dactyl faction who spends the majority of his time observing the universe through scrying; recording the history of the current cycle in specially made orbs (similar to the one used to record the Wise Old Man's robbery of Draynor Bank) which are stored in his great archive. His self-proclaimed duty is to maintain records on the dragonkin race through his archive, which is located and hidden somewhere deep within The Abyss. Played by Raltin Avarr.

“	Paper rots, stone crumbles. For knowledge to persevere, it must be preserved on something permanent.	”
–Strithac, on his orbs.

History[]

Overview[]

Strithac's days started on the dragonkin homeworld before its destruction at the hands of the Elder gods, where he proudly served as a scholar and scientist, which all changed by the cruel hand of fate when his world was brought to an end. He escaped the destruction of the homeworld by fleeing to The Abyss, as did others, but this journey did not come without its scars; as his own daughter died from complications soon after the escape, and without access to medical equipment she passed away in his arms. He went on to survive without her in the detritus of The Abyss, and when the other remaining dragonkin sought out Jas for retribution or mercy, he was cursed along with the rest of his race. Thousands of years have passed since then, and he has made many attempts to find a way around the curse, with no success. As time passed, he returned to the scholarly duties he preformed before the revision, and began recording the history of the new cycle.

Besides keeping records of the history of his own race, he began to record the history of the new, young races he encountered. His interest in cataloguing the life of the current cycle soon became an obsession; as he started to collect specimens and add notes about each new race he encountered to his laboratories. These notes end up being stored in a large laboratory he built in The Abyss, named "The Archive", which is his main laboratory and where he keeps records on nearly every subject that he deems of interest. The way he stores these notes is with special orbs made from orikalkum (dragon metal), rimmed with dragonkin runes and glowing like a warm fire with the magic contained inside.

Despite his scholarly interests, he has not forgotten about his duty to contribute in finding a way past Jas's curse. Unlike other Dactyl, he has not taken a biological approach to the issue, but instead attempted to create artificial progeny, such as golems and other constructs, and imbue them with dragonkin memories. When those efforts were met without success, he began turning towards the idea of using divine energy to literally create new dragonkin, which thus so far has been met with failure yet again, although it has managed to produce some very interesting results that he has continued to experiment with.

The Archives[]

For a more in-depth view of his history, from a first-person narrative perspective, click here to view his archived journals and notes.

Minor History[]

This section contains small pieces of history which were not large or important enough to be added to the main section.

Strithac tracks down Lothorian Foryx, nearly killing his mate Allisa Foryx with a fireball, in retaliation for his stealing of a recording orb from his observation outpost on Gielinor. He threatens the vampyre and Lothorian is forced to watch over the outpost as a guardian.
- Strithac nearly catches Arachnea and her daughter in his outpost under Morytania as he arrives for a short visit.
- Confronts a Mahjarrat named Penindisan after she stumbles upon his outpost under Morytania: after giving her a warning, and after some debate, he challenged her to create something that would impress him. She has yet to finish the challenge.
- After about a year and continued intrusion of his Morytanian outpost, Strithac abandons the small observatory and releases Lothorian from his service.
Strithac kidnaps Ptolemos when he had memory loss as Ptolemy Dean, blaming the fallen Mahjarrat for the death of a dragonkin, and sets him free with the promise to return when he remembers who he is.
- Strithac does just that and after some conversation: grants Ptolemos amnesty in exchange for him collecting the lost memories of Lashual.
Recovered an artifact that was previously thought to be lost, but it was uncovered by an icyene named Lidrana Hadriel during an accidental voyage into the abyss. After forcing her into an illusion world, placing her into a stasis tank, and recovering the artifact, the icyene managed to break the illusion and discover where she was. After a short conversation involving her fate if she went back to Gielinor (the elder cycle), she chose to go back to Gielinor, and Strithac teleported her back to the world after inducing amnesia on her (with the promise that her memories would return roughly a month before the elders awaken, giving her time to gather loved ones and wait out the storm in the abyss, while the memory loss lets her live her life as if the meeting with Strithac never happened, up until the awakening).
Strithac begins observing the Fremennik through scrying after the death of V, to watch for any signs of active aggression. After discovering that a small group of them had knowledge of bane ore, and had started a journey into the Trollweiss to collect some, Strithac took action. After they reached the bane ore mine, Strithac incapacitated the group with a fireball, and took them back to his laboratory in The Abyss. Along with his associate Karsith, the two dragonkin purposely let knowledge slip about the differences between the Dactyl and the Necrosyrtes, in a gambit to direct the Fremennik against their rivals. After informing them of this, the two dragonkin erased the knowledge of the bane ore mine from the Fremenniks' minds, and released them into the woods outside Rellekka.

Characteristics[]

Personality[]

Strithac, like other Dactyl, is not one to leave home very much at all, and prefers to stay in the safety and solitude of his laboratories and hidden dwellings. He is melancholy at best, but is not one to dwell in self pitty, preferring to busy himself in recording history and tinkering with technology. He is quick to anger when disturbed, and does not easily let grudges go. He does not have much emotion besides anger, and often keeps his feelings dulled to maintain an intellectual demeanor; being straight forward and bluntly to the point in conversation, as is common for his race, not that he talks very much. Although seemingly healthy mentally, the death of his daughter left him with some emotional and mental scars, as she was very close to him. As another dragonkin, Kerapac, directs his entire focus to curing the dragonkin of Jas's curse and their fertility issues as a coping mechanism to said curse, with each false user motivating him and hardening his resolve; Strithac has his own ways to cope as well. Strithac's obsession with artificial progeny is part of a desire to bring his daughter back, and his recordings of history and specimens within his archives gives him a sense of purpose and normalcy that he lost with the destruction of his homeworld; both of these things help him cope and deal with life on a daily basis.

Abilities[]

Strithac could be devestating in combat as other dragonkin can be, having all the power and destructive abilities that is standard with his race, but as a Dactyl faction member he refrains from doing so; preferring to remain hidden and make his own advances in the fields of magic and science instead. He is a great thinker and technological genius, and has mixed many aspects of magic and science together in the majority of his experiments; his archives being a prime example of this. He is not much of a genetic researcher, and has not produced any biological creations worthy of note. While he is not much of a geneticist, he has skills in biology and anatomy, aiding him as a healer, and is an admirable architect. He possesses an aptitude for illusion based magics, allowing him to fool others and helping him get in close when he needs to be somewhere in person.

Other Information[]

He maintains hidden observation outposts on nearly every world he has knowledge of, with his Gielinorian outpost being located (formerly) under Morytania. Although he may spend days at a time in these outposts, he always returns to his archive in The Abyss.
He enjoys preforming dissections, and in rare cases he will preform vivisections (dissections in which the dissected are still alive).
Although dragonkin do not often like to mince words in conversation, he has always had a bit of a flare for the dramatic, his work as a scholar being a contributor to this, and so sometimes he is a bit less blunt and a bit more eloquent with his words than other dragonkin.
He keeps specimens of almost every race stored in suspension containers in his laboratories: trapped for all time. He also keeps plant specimens and seeds, but he prefers to collect fauna rather than flora, and it is on living creatures that he experiments the most, not plants.

Trivia[]

The concept for this character has existed for quite a long time, but was withheld due to lack of lore. The recent lore has allowed the character strong foundations and was then brought into actual development, and was brought into full swing as a temporary antagonist for Ptolemos.