Introducing Forsetilafom (Fantasy Friday #11)

In time, even this character’s watchfulness couldn’t see every gradual corruption. As questionable magical activities came into vogue amongst this character’s peers, they almost fell to the same subtle spiritual disease as everyone else, almost found themself transformed into a wrathful brute. The nobility of their spirit wouldn’t allow them to trip over the line, however, and that drove them back into study. The loremaster’s smug grin as this character sheepishly came to the library after some years of frippery and social engineering was a bother, but a small price to pay as the pair’s research unearthed ancient secrets and a creeping spiritual rot. Strengthening all the spiritual purity they had, this character managed to throw off the effect and once more act as the Bulwark of Courtly Virtue to exorcise it, finally. The old Gold Dragon in Strength gives two tokens it doesn’t actually have to Intelligence.

This character’s incipient devotion to study was somewhat cut short as they were given an actual position, with power as well as honor, within the court. As High-Reeve, this character served to decide cases brought to the court in their host’s stead. Though young, they served well, with justice and supreme judgment as such until they decided to go adventuring. Despite some grumbling at their age, the sheer force and easy joy of their presence prevented anyone from moving against them. Nonetheless, they felt the need to prove themself and that was what brought them to travel the realm as High-Reeve Adventurer. The Silver Dragon in Intelligence gives one of its tokens to Charisma.

This character’s final ability score array thus comes out as:
Strength 8 [-2 points]
Dexterity 14 [5 points]
Constitution 15 [7 points]
Intelligence 13 [3 points]
Wisdom 15 [7 points]
Charisma 14 [5 points]
Constitution missed a 16 by one point, giving one point to Wisdom and one to Charisma. Similarly, Dexterity has one extra point, which trickles down to Intelligence.

We seem to have already determined a race and a homeland for this character ~ they are an asimar (yes, it’s spelt that way in my world) from Natsiyaasim. We should probably name them; I rather like the idea of naming them Forseti, after the most just of the Aesir. One’s noble house is important to most of Natisyaasim’s populace. Each raskokabajho who settled there with Blessed Imye gave rise to several such noble houses, each descended from that raskokabajho. Looking over my notes, I determine that Forseti is a scion of the raskokabajho Nosilebo, patron of Natsiyaasim’s various houses of carnal love. Taking a peek over at a Kushiel’s Legacy series wiki, I see that Namarrese houses include L’Envers, Fhirze, Le Blanc, Le Doux, and Lafons. (Namarre is the region of Terre d’Ange settled by Naamah, the equivalent to Nosilebo; the equivalent region of Natsiyaasim is called Nosleborre). Looking at the meanings of these names, I decide Lafons (http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Lafond) is the most appropriate for Forseti and remove the end to make the name work better with Natsiyaasim’s langauge.

In English/D’Angeline, their name would thus be “Forseti Lafo”, but in the language of Natsiyaasim, such a name would be constructed as a genitive phrase (Forseti of Lafo). I based the genitive construction in this language on that of Sumerian, so they are expressed as a single word constructed as follows: OWNED.OWNER.m. In this case, Forseti is the “owned” and Lafo the “owner”, so their name comes out as Forsetilafom, the asimar (a word that means “pertaining to that which is of the angel”, much like D’Angeline is an adjectival form of the prepositional phrase “d’Ange”).

As an aasimar descended from Nosilebo, Forsetilafonsom gains +2 Wisdom and +2 Charisma, some protection against negative energy, a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Perform (erotic arts), the ability to cast detect desires once per day, and darkvision. As to Forsetilafonsom’s class, well, that’s not nearly as obvious (this is an interesting inversion of Boanerges’s process!) I think looking through the book Heroes of the High Court might be a good place to start . . . . The biggest things that jump out at me from that book are a couple of spells (one far in the future, as its 6th or 7th level) that would seem to entice Forsetilafonsom into becoming a cleric, inquisitor, sorcerer, witch, or wizard. And the silksworn occultist. At first, I was ready to pass on the silksworn, as psychic powers are a Scarhasi thing, but the silksworn occultist’s spells are arcane! For the moment, that puts occultist in the front running.

Heroes of the High Court also reminded me of Ultimate Intrigue, so I’ll check that out now. And the dandy archetype for rangers wins the day! It’s absolutely perfect! Forsetilafom is officially a ranger (dandy). 6d6 roll a dead average 21, making them 41 years old (significantly younger than Boanerges). I’ve been thinking about Forsetilafom’s gender, and I think I really like the idea of them being genderqueer. I often feel myself as an inside-outsider in a society so heavily binarily-gendered and have found that such a position can be both quite revealing and very powerful. Perfect for Forsetilafom. So I’ll average the heights and weights listed for male and female aasimar. Again, the dice come out right in the average; in this case, it’s 2d8 and that gives Forsetilafom 5’10” of height. They’re just a tiny bit skinny, at 140 pounds.