#arnoss

Name: Arnoss Beldrun

Pronouns: He/Him

Species: Ghavalek (Gharial-inspired Amphibians)

Age: 32

Plane of Origin: Ocaleum (sub-oceanic fan plane)

First Planeswalk: Icalia’s Haven (fan plane)

Colors: White, Red, Green

Appearance and Art:

(art by @land-ofthebooty)

For scale, Arnoss is currently 9'5" when standing on his feet.

Backstory: His species is a rare one among an ensemble of them traveling together as part of nomad underwater caravans. He only met a handful of others of his species growing up, and never knew his biological parents, his egg being sold as is customary. He grew up in the love of his caravan, and trained to defend it of anything that would threaten it physically. As a trained ghavalek warrior, he’s already strong and dangerous to begin with, capable of handling terrible weapons at “normal” speeds underwater, and even faster on land despite his size. His back scales are thick enough to resist most non-piercing weapons, particularly underwater. On top of his physiology, he’s also enchanted to be stronger, faster and somewhat protected, and that enchantments strengthens with people around him needing help (see details below in Magic section).

His sparking… Wasn’t a joyous one. For a reason or another (he suspects it’s because of one of the caravan’s finds), Merfolks decided their caravan shouldn’t reach their next destination, and assaulted the people, killing them before they realized what happened to them, and before they could call for Arnoss’s help, not at first at least. They kept him for last to play with him once he awoke, and showed him the dead bodies of his caravan. He sparked as a result, finding refuge in Icalia’s Haven and feeling responsible for the death of his family. He didn’t stay long, and traveled the planes a little, until he found somewhere else where he wasn’t attacked on sight. He sometimes try to find jobs as bodyguard, but he doesn’t value himself too much after what happened to his caravan and the people he was supposed to protect.

Magic, gear and/or abilities: He carries around a large jagged sword (well, less large for him). Other noticeable elements include his pendant he keeps around his neck, enchanted to regulate his body temperature, since he’s cold-blooded.

Regarding his skills, he’s a dangerous warrior, especially underwater but he can fight on land as well. He’s scarily fast for his size (he’s used to fight underwater). He can breathe underwater in most normal conditions, prefers saltwater but can handle fresh water just fine.

His magic is very simple, he knows how to do a few cantrips but nothing impressive, his main magic is rooted in enchantments that were applied to him. They make him slightly faster, stronger and protect him more than he’d otherwise be, but it isn’t the core of it. He can feel around him people needing help, and his help in specific, and that needs strengthens his enchantments, even more so when the people needing help wants his in specific. In return, these enchantments shunt all magic he could have the potential to gather, and his only way to perform the simple spells he knows or to planeswalk is to use the magic that fuels the enchantment, making him weaker and more vulnerable when he does use magic, and significantly so after a planeswalk.

Card:

Origin cards take a while to design because they have a lot of moving parts and need a flip trigger that's flavorful, original but also happens just the right amount and at the right timing for it to not be awkward.

With that said, I do have some of those already made!

Sezashi's represent on the front his time with Adima, a Merge-Gate Keeper trying to balance traditional magic and new technology. He flips when the gate gets destroyed, and keeps going in the same way, honoring Adima after their disparition.

Arnoss has a mistake of a back side, but something I felt like experimenting with. A Planeswalker Creature interacts funkily with plenty of parts of the game, which his passives try to somewhat remedy. Other than that, the card is very simple, he flips as he did in his story, after his close family got massacred and he was the last survivor of it.

I've started on a Dancing-Hands origin card several times, but have scrapped all my attempts so far, they weren't satisfying enough. Instead, have a pair of creature/background for him, since I did experiment with those too.

Zarunpel's origin card was made as a part of a cycle along with all six of her sisters, all Legendary Creatures, so she matches them and has a legendary subtheme that's not present on most of her cards.

I find this question funny because of all my characters you could have picked, those are probably the ones that can strain their magic the least! So instead, let's talk about why they don't really do that, and we'll touch on the question! But I do appreciate the effort of narrowing down your questions to some characters for the copy-paste when it comes to my inbox, it hasn't gone unnoticed.

Most of the magic for Arnoss and Zarunpel is passive.

Zarunpel's "blessing" from the Wilds might not even function under the same rules as traditional magic, it follows more narrative rules. It affects her body and hair in many ways, but when it comes to the limits of it, it often is more about what would make a better story. She's stronger than someone that looks like her should be, but depending on what she has to do, the exact degree to which this is true varies. As long as it's somewhat reasonable, in important situations she's often just strong enough or almost but not there, depending which tells a "better" story. Of course, she has no idea how that works.

As far as her spellcasting, it's mostly temporary protection spells, they're more likely to be cast too late or not last long enough than to hurt her when she overuses them. Which means she or whatever she's protecting gets hurt the way it otherwise would have been. When the Urborg panther living in her shadow gets "killed" or banished in some ways, Zarunpel can also be left without a shadow for a time while Vel reconstitutes.

Similarly, Arnoss's magic is mostly passive buffing and reinforcing his scales, when it is overstrained, he gets hurt the normal way. However, it also depends on how many people need and want his help nearby, and in some cases that can be overwhelming to feel during major disasters in populated areas. So many people needing help and he can't help all of them. And he's found that when he tries to help all of them in a city when it's not a disaster, he exhausts himself going from one to the other for hours and days, there's always something in large population centers.

Sezashi has a hard cap on the number of spells he can maintain at once, at four, represented by the floaty objects that orbit him. While some are harder to maintain than others (maintaining multiple charges of the same nature on someone else requires concentration and effort), the failure point is usually just that one or multiple of the spells slip and come back to him, and he probably isn't in a state to reuse them just yet. With that said, premature failure of magic that can manipulate sizes and create duplicates is generally not a good idea, plenty of unfortunate timings possible. Also duplicates that are ended in this way don't fuse back as cleanly to the original, which certainly causes headache and can cause the loss of memories the duplicate had.

Dancing-Hands's innate telekinesis can be overpowered or overwhelmed, but it's very difficult, and it generally doesn't strain the kitsune much to use. Using it on non-physical things is more relevant here. It only works on nonliving elements. Using it on eldrazis, even scions and briefly, made him feel sick and gave him headaches, and he couldn't sustain it for more than a few seconds. He rediscovered how to use it on magical effects not too long ago, and that has taken a lot more out of him, and could potentially replicate or redirect harmful effects to him if he's not careful. The telekinesis itself is invisible if not for its effects.

Mother's day isn't for another few weeks.

-Dancing-Hands's mother was, in her younger years, an imperial guard as they were investigating the Kami rifts during the Era of Enlightenment with the Jukai's help. After the creation of the Merge gates, she married a kitsune of the Jukai she had worked with, who later became Dancing-Hands' father. She was the one to initially introduce Dancing-Hands to origami, but their relationship didn't fare too well along the years. His parents had very little authority on Dancing-Hands come his forties, and she regrets what happened to him. They've met again since and she knows he's alive, but it's been tough to rebuild things.

-Arnoss didn't have a singular "mother", that's not how the Family's typically raises children, he was under the care of all the adult Beldruns. As far as biological parents, he's never met his mother (at least he doesn't think so), his egg was bought from another family that couldn't support any more Ghavaleks. This is also not uncommon in the Family between caravans that trust each other.

-Nyrhen's mother was incredibly proud of her boy, even if he didn't do anything particularly glamorous or important. He was always Perfect to her eyes. Also she was a Lorwyn elf, so, y'know, the baggage that comes with that. Weapon-carver, some of which were deemed worthy of being used by Perfects.

-Farell's mom is Lady Leana Javori, born Bassola. She's cunning, positive, and confident. She's well-versed in politics and etiquette. She uses them as she needs to, but isn't fond of what comes with it, so she sometimes ignores convention when she thinks they're wrong.

Her birth name is an old, powerful and respected one on Fiora, and she very much married under her station when she did a newly ennobled merchant and had to give up her name for his when she did. She further mudded her name by carrying to term a bastard child from a shapeshifter who tricked her, and giving him her birth name. Despite the events of that night, she loves Farell just as much as she does her human children. She encouraged Farell into finding his own way, to be proud and keep his head high. The aristocracy may see him as lesser, but it's their loss if they underestimate her eldest son.

-Vaalin's mother was killed during the current phyrexian invasion, so he's still processing that, especially considering he had to keep working after learning of her death, alone in his head for long periods of time. She was a Vodalian merfolk from the Volshe caste, a mathematician, who had briefly studied at Tolaria (of the Depths). She joined a diplomatic mission to the surface world and met Vaalin's father, a human, there. She laid Vaalin's egg not too long after coming back from that year-long expedition. Knowing the xenophobic caste system underlying Vodalian society would be very harsh on a half-human, she sought refuge for her and her child in Tolaria's waters, where minds were more progressive.

Arnoss: Was on Ocaelum prepared to defend it from an invasion that never came. Now feels bad he did "nothing to help" during it.

Zarunpel: Worked alongside her sisters to keep her home and land safe even after the courts fell. The Alernis territory has the advantage of being closer to the Wilds and their influence, which the Phyrexians had a very hard time dealing with. It doesn't always make sense to Phyrexians which tend to be very scientific about things. Also, with the help of a couple of her sisters and borrowing her mother's sword, she fought @socialpoison's Traenor in his compleated arm and armor, and subsequently cut.

Ysara: She defended the Kaladesh village her home was nearby from. She died in the process, and left to her apprentice/assistant to clean up her skull and bring it to where she was from.

Farell: Heard about the troubles in Paliano, and couldn't resist coming to help Celin, the woman he loves. She was fine, though there was a lot destroyed. Also them being in contact again has led to exchanges about Farell's brother's death that makes everybody involved very sad, because they're living a tragedy.

Dolores: Thankfully her home on New Capenna was in the Mezzio, not on Park Heights. Her partner, @astrisjanus's Inza, stayed back on Capenna to fight the Phyrexians while Dolores herself took advantage of the chaos to go back to her home plane of Ferely. She was aiming to enact a vengeance there unnoticed. She was noticed.

Lhur: Recently consolidated his position on power and prepared his troops when he heard of what may be coming. When it happened, he saw no choice but to climb on his father's throne of shadows to coordinate actions and defense all across his country while channeling his own magic to limit the appearance of branches and portals over it. He emerged from the invasion exhausted, and then came the weeks more of exhausting work to manage the aftermath.

Jaspar: He was on Ikoria, in Indatha, trying to both survive and learn what he could of Nethroi and the Whispers. He fought how he could during the invasion and capped it off by using his magic through his Elderfang and spread over Indatha by Nethroi's whispers to call upon the echoes of Indath and essentially end Phyrexian (and some non Phyrexian) life in the area. He came back to Kaldheim to news of the death of his deity, Koma, and of the very foundation of Kaldheim. He doesn't yet fully accept the truth of that.

Alamir and Nksdv: They had been on New Phyrexia for intel and action for months by the time of the Invasion. Their last contribution to hinder the phyrexians was to remove their anti-planeswalker defense that scattered the assault team, before the Invasion even begun. It turned out to be a compleated planeswalker linked to Realmbreaker, @socialpoison's Ellidus. Alamir removed them and carried them away from the Tree, trying to reason with them and break through Norn's programming. Alamir knew what it was to be made and treated as a weapon and empathized with them. Seeing the planar instability before the end of the planar swap, Nksdv took them back to the Haven, and left Alamir to choose for themselves if they wanted to see the end of their world.

Sezashi: The orochi was fighting on Kamigawa, grown to oppose a compleated mech, and got stabbed by a branch of Realmbreaker in the back. He survived, and Norn's death rendered the oil inert before he could be compleated, though he might have a more metallic scar in his back now. While he was out, he received visions and ideas from the Myojin of Cryptic Dreams, but the Myojin is aptly-named, and he hasn't fully understood them yet.

Nyrhen: Fighting on another plane, then as soon as he got wind of the fact the attack was on every plane, went back to Eldraine to defend his Sanctuary in the Wilds. He killed a lot of Phyrexians that "happened" to find their way towards it.

The Cursetamer: She lost a lot of her collection of Apostates from Ferely on Innistrad and most of her planeswalking agents to compleation, and even she and her wife had trouble getting things under control after that. Her people actually helped her for once instead of the other way around, even if their home gave to Realmbreaker. Her latest Mana Core prototype was also lost, but that one self-destroyed before it could be compleated. Due to its nature, it had more safety features and contingencies than actual functions.

Kinahel: She was on Winrovah, fighting in a corner more desolate than average, in case she needed to use the Worldslayer or lose it into Void and hope for the best. Anything better than letting Phyrexians get their hands on it, even if she had no idea of the potential consequences. She burned herself out fighting and died as soon as she stopped (this is fine, she's a phoenix).

Something I’ve found very fun to do with my fanwalkers is giving them “reprints” of fitting, existing cards flavored around them. Some are easier to find than others, but overall it works pretty well!