Gryffon Mikes

Name: Gryffon Mikes

Nickname /Alias: Often called griff by his friends.

Occupation: Blacksmith's Reflection

Age/Birth date: 1 week (He has the maturity of the 25 year old he was the reflection of, but was only summoned a week ago)

Apparent Age: 25

Gender: male

Race: Nonbeing Sentinel

Race description: reflections of humans given life by dark magic. The magic that fuels their existence is evil, and so they have access to dark powers, even if they are not evil (which is rare). They appear to be humans with inverted color eyes, though most of their body is normal colored.

Height: 7 feet 4 inches

Weight: 179 lbs

Eye Color: black whites and blue eyes

Hair Color/Style: he keeps his hair in a blonde braid that reaches his waist. The rest is basically how you would expect with all of it in a ponytail. Come on, you’ve seen woman with ponytails before.

General Appearance: Griff wears baggy, but thick dark brown trousers and an unattractive lima bean green tunic over a sweater the color of aged parchment. He wears brown wyvern hide boots. His hands are rather meaty. His neck somewhat thicker than average and his nose is a bit small. His eyes are medium size, but he wears a blindfold over them to hide the inverted color. He enchanted it with his mirror magic so he can see even while wearing it, so he rarely takes it off even when on his own. He keeps his long blonde hair in a neat braid.

Weapon(s): The finest craft the man he was a reflection of ever made was a long blade made of dragon bone with a copper hilt guard that curves up slightly at the ends, but is mostly straight. It has a single piece of quartz embedded in the hilt guard. The edge of the blade is razor sharp, but the center has a grainy texture. The handle is an unremarkable but strong piece of oak wood with blue ribbon wrapped around it and a rounded rock bolted to the bottom to make sure it doesn’t slip, as well as help the balance. It was called Fayng. Its reflection came with Griff out of the mirror, and is just as deadly.

Armor: a wolf hide leather cuirass is often worn under his normal clothes. It is rather tough for wolf hide, but is no where near as hard as steel. It is a black color from being a bit burnt.

Carried Possessions: a small locket with a drawing of a woman in it. Gruff has no clue who she is, but he thinks he could find out more about his identity if he finds this woman, who was obviously important to his origin form.

Powers/Magic/Skills:
FIREBALL: he can fire balls of black fire which can set even water on fire (the water doesn’t literally set on fire, but gets coated in the dark magic. Everything he uses it on gets coated in the same way, but it usually sets on fire from the coatings heat.). But the more powerful they are the weaker he gets physically. They may cause him some memory loss if too powerful.
BLINDFOLD SPECIAL: He can see even with his blind fold, but not nonbeing sentinels.
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Because he is a Nonbeing Sentinel Griff has dark magic protecting him. And because magic knows other magic and sometimes reacts specially to it his power is able to take some of the energy out of blows caused by magic and channel it into the ground as heat. This sometimes results in the ground being burnt or even set on fire. He can deflect 25% of any magic fueled attack back towards the ground, be it lightning or a rock hurled by a psychokinetic master.
Limits:
FIREBALL: his fireballs don’t affect light mages, dark lords, or undead.
BLINDFOLD SPECIAL: his blindfold won’t let him see other nonbeing sentinels (which are rare, but do exist).

Side-Effects: When he uses his fireballs he sometimes suffers memory loss if they become too powerful.

Battle Strengths:
-physically pretty strong thanks to his blacksmith origins. A good comparison is a modern day bodybuilder.
-his special circumstances gives him some magic
-Magic resistance: Because he is a nonbeing sentinel his dark magic protects him from hostile (or friendly) magic. When an attack done either through magical energy or composed of it touches him, about 25% of the energy (be it kinetic from magic flying boulders or thermal like a fireball) is sent into the earth as heat, sometimes even enough of it to set fires.

Battle Weaknesses: he wears little armor and what he does wear is light. He always fights honorably and this can be a weakness. He only uses his magic when necessary because he has problems controlling it, and only has a slightly stable control on his fireballs, other dark magic is unpredictable. This is most likely because he doesn’t have enough darkness in his soul to wield it easily.

Other: - N/A

Personality: He is often the silent type, but this isn’t because he doesn’t like to talk, he is often thinking about who he might be. When he does talk he isn’t antisocial at all, and is a fairly likeable guy. He is always trying to find out more about himself, or rather, who he was made out of. He sometimes feels like he should not exist, and other times he feels like his summoning was meant to be.

Likes: magic, fighting, rainy days, learning about his past form.

Dislikes: people who have no honor, nonbeing sentinels, and way too hot days.

Fears: nonbeing sentinels, shades, being forced to return to nonbeing

Virtues: honorable, intelligent, always wants to learn

Vices: often distracted, insecure about whether he was really supposed to be "born", distrustful of magic

History: The blacksmith Garoff Michael lived a hard, but good life. He was born in Kenith village. His father constantly made sure he always had more work to do, and as a result he was always three steps ahead of the other children. He kept on learning for 17 years, and became far more talented then the other villagers. He then set up his own shop. They say he was a far better blacksmith than even the elves with metal magic, as they only trained for a few months at using it for smithing. The magic gave them an advantage, so there weapons were almost as good as his. But no standard weapon, elven or no could compare with his masterwork. It was not the most powerful or well known of special weapons, but was far better to have on your side than any common weapon you would give to a simple soldier. He named this weapon Fayng.


Garoff eventually married a young maiden named Dialatia Makorette. They tried for years to have a child, but it turned out she was unable to do so. They considered having someone bare the child for her, but they decided it would be better to simply live without. Garoff's weapons sold for high prices, and he was able to keep his wife happy. That was more important to him than his own happiness, and so he work hard for days and nights straight until he was finished with weapons so incredible that if one sold them they could go weeks without work. But he never did, he worked hard. After one was completed he took half a day to rest, then got back to work.


One day he needed to deliver a weapon to a customer in Shadowcrest township. This happened to be when he made Fayng. It was never delivered though. On the way there he was captured by dark mages, and he was carried into an elven ruin. He tried to use the blade to fight back, but was quickly overcome. They never took his blade away, either because they did not believe he would be hard to stop, or so his mirror form would keep it. They then brought him to a large room with a pool of water in the center. It was clear enough to see his reflection in. they let him go, but he thought they probably would kill him if he tried to run. He was a pretty good fighter, but had no chance with these guys. They began to chant in another language "speculum somas liquidus". This meant "mirror body flowing". He tried to run, then, as this spell probably would kill him anyway, but found he was paralyzed. A form began to arise from the water. He realized almost immediately that this was his reflection, but rather morphed and different. His life force began to flow out, and into his reflection, and he left with the hope that his reflection would be a good one.


Gryffon Mikes woke up two hours after this. He could barely walk, and did not remember anything. After a few days, he began to remember some of his old form, especially how he met his end. He only had a vague idea of what his name was, so "Garoff Michael" ended up "Gryffon Mikes". He soon regained his physical abilities, though lost some of his smithing skill. He also found he had gained a bit of skill in combat, and could perform some magic. Although he remembered the last moments of Garoff's life, he felt like a distinctly different person. Although they shared the same life force, they each had their own soul, that is, if nonbeing sentinels even have souls.

Good evening, 1Gannon1, my name is Drammor and I will be helping you with your character's approval process. I'm looking forward to seeing you join the other writers in Crossroads, so let's get started.

For now, this profile is very difficult to read. Before we cover any revisions or clarifications that need to be made, I'd like you to separate the major sections by a line, so that there's some space between your paragraphs and entries, and then bold the name of each field (name, race, weapon, history and so forth).

Get that taken care of for me, and then we can come back to the rest. Thanks in advance!

Hey Gannon, I'll be taking over for Drammor here. :}

*cracks knuckles*

Alright, so first thing's first, I want you to copy and paste this profile into a word document that has spell check. If you don't have Microosft word, try open office. It's a free word processing program that has a decent spell check system. Look for anything that has a red squiggly under it and try to fix it.

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Height: 7 feet 4 inches

Weight: 149 lbs

He's a little light for a 7 foot tall guy, I think. Looking at this he'd seem rather lanky. Since he's also physically strong, he's going to have some muscle mass which would add some weight to him.

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Hair Color/Style: a blonde braid that reaches his waist

Is that all the hair he has? Does that mean the rest of his head is bald? If it is, please say so. I can't really tell what the rest of his hair looks like from this description.

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Powers/Magic/Skills: he can fire balls of black fire which can set even water on fire. but the more powerful they are the weaker he gets physically. he can also see even with his blind fold.

Okay... sets water on fire? It... just doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe if the fireballs had an oil or something in it that made the fire float on top of water, that would make more sense, but it's just impossible for water to catch fire. It would evaporate first.

Also, how far can he fire these fireballs, how does he actually "fire them", and is he accurate with them? Does it take time to create larger fireballs, or is it instantaneous? The more details, the better. I'd even recommend giving his powers their own subcategories with their own descriptions, like this.

Fireballs:
*description here*

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Side-Effects: inverted eyes and some loss of memory

These side-effects just don't make sense to me. How is inverted eyes a side-effect? I'm assuming it's a side-effect of his ability to see through his blindfold, but... according to the rest of his profile his eyes are inverted because he's a Non-being Sentinel.

Also, loss of memory I'm assuming is tied to fireball, but you've gotta describe this better. So the more he uses the fireballs, the more of his memory he loses? Sounds cool, but make sure that it's described in full so it makes more sense to the reader.

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Battle Strengths: He is physically pretty strong, and his mirror form gives him some magic and some resistance to it. He is rather cunning when he needs to be.

I'd like more info on this, if possible. How strong is "pretty strong" compared to an average human? Also, how is he resistant to magic? There are a lot of different kinds of magic that do a number of different things in the BA. Some throw rocks at people, so I'm not sure how he's resistant to rocks getting thrown at his body. Describing the way his magical resistance works would be nice. :}

Originally Posted by 1Gannon1

Battle Weaknesses: he wears little armor and what he does wear is light. He always fights honorably and this can be a weakness. he only uses his magic when nessecary because he has problems controlling it, and only has a slightly stable controll on his fireballs, other dark magic is unpredictable. This is most likely because he doesnt have enough darkness in his soul to weild it easily.

You should put a lot of the weaknesses of his fireball ability in the fireball's description itself under "Powers/Magic/Skills" so people just reading that part of the profile can grasp the idea faster.

Alright, after these changes it should be ready for approval. It's key that you run this through a spell check, though. I also recommend reading it out loud when you're done so the sentences all make sense. Some of the profile was hard to understand when reading straight through. Reading it out loud helps a lot.

Alright, good luck editing it! Hope you have fun doing so and will join the rest of us in the BA before long!

Alright, it's much better.

You seem to have gotten rid of all your bold tags, though. You should go back and put all the categories in bold or underline text or something. It makes it easier for someone skimming the profile to instantly pick out certain sections.

FIREBALL: he can fire balls of black fire which can set even water on fire (the water doesn’t literally set on fire, but gets coated in the dark magic).

I'm still not quite grasping how this works. So does it cover water the same was gasoline would, then ignite? That would mean staying underwater, someone would be safe, correct? That's fine, but just make sure that it's easily understood.

Battle Strengths: He is physically pretty strong, and his mirror form gives him some magic and some resistance to it. He is rather cunning when he needs to be.

You didn't change anything here. More detail on how strong he is, and how he's resistant to magic. How much can he lift? How exactly is he resistant to magic? Is he just resistant to magic that affects his mind, or is his body somehow extra durable when making contact with harmful elements?

Once these are changed, it should be ready. :}

FIREBALL: he can fire balls of black fire which can set even water on fire (the water doesn’t literally set on fire, but gets coated in the dark magic). But the more powerful they are the weaker he gets physically. They may cause him some memory loss if too powerful.

You still didn't describe how it sets water on fire. It coats it in dark magic, but why? Why doesn't it coat other things this way? It still doesn't make sense to me why this water thing is so important anyhow.

Battle Strengths:
-physically pretty strong
-his special circumstances gives him some magic
-Magic resistance: When an attack done either through magical energy or composed of it touches him, about 25% of the energy (be it kinetic from magic flying boulders or thermal like a fireball) is sent into the earth as heat, sometimes even enough of it to set fires.

Alright, you still didn't add any detail to his physical strength. How strong is “pretty strong?” How much can he lift, or how strong is he compared to the “average” human being?

Also, his magic resistance still doesn't make sense. You didn't really change anything, you just added more to it. You have to keep in mind that this isn't an RPG video game and that things don't just rely on stats. If someone uses magic to launch a boulder at someone, that person can't just ignore the boulder's effects. If it hits them, it would be just like someone threw a boulder at them. You can't really be resistant that way unless he had some sort of magical shield or something. It's just not something you can be immune to naturally. That's like saying I was born with a natural immunity to being punched in the face. Punches just glance off me and I don't feel them, but throwing rocks works.

A fireball or something I guess could make a little more sense, if you explained why he was immune to it. Like... I dunno, his skin being made of some sort of fire retardant synthetic material or something? There's no explanation for why he's immune. Is it a magic spell? If so, does it take any of his energy to use?

(note to Quark: Its because of his mirror body like I originally said about his magic. It deflects a bit of the magic off and turns it into heat which reaches the ground. Maybe humans arent born with abilities like this but remember his body is fueled by dark magic. Also it sounded like you didnt quite understand the kinetic energy and how it could deflect that. Let me know if you you just dont understand what that is, but I'll assume you understand that. It just removes the kinetic energy.)

Okay, but I didn't really get that from reading his profile. Describe what you told me in the actual profile. We need to know why he's resistant to this stuff just by reading the description of the magic resistance itself. Some people aren't going to read the whole profile, despite that being recommended. They might just want to know about certain powers individually.

Also, if his body is resistant to kinetic energy, wouldn't it also just be resistant to all kinetic force in general? It doesn't make sense that he can be resistant to a rock thrown at him with magic, but not a rock thrown at him by hand. If it was resistant to both, I'd think he'd need some sort of energy field (whether visible or not) that repels this kind of thing. Maybe the nature of his mystical resistance is of a higher power to the point it knows when something is cast magically or physically, giving it reason to deflect one and not the other. That's just an idea, though.

How I understand it, Griff is resistant to magic because of his nature as a Nonbeing Sentinel. As I also understand it from reading his profile, he appears to be a human for the most part, and IS aside from being a "clone" of sorts. Also, he's been imbued with dark forces that give him special powers. This allows him to fire his dark fireballs and be resistant to magic energy.

If you clearly describe the source of his magical resistance, and give a valid reason as to why his resistance includes resistance against physical objects generated or thrown by magic, then I might be able to approve him... but the whole physical resistance thing is a bit of a stretch for me, particularly because it's your first character.

Once you describe how he's resistant to these effects better, I'll hopefully be able to approve him.

Also, I think his magic resistance should be added to his skills section as it appears to be far more significant than a mere strength.

Good luck and have fun in the BA!

You can remove that note to me now, though. xD