Czernian Kovak

Name: Czernian Kovak
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Specie: Human
Magic type: Fire
Weapon of choice: His magic is his best weapon, but in times where that simply won't do he is exceptionally skilled with a heavily compounded bow designed for mounted use, and has novice skill with a shortsword.
Role: A Major of the Sudao army

Description: Czernian is fairly tall, but certainly not extremely so, perhaps just reaching an even two meters in height. He's muscular in a wiry fashion, capable but hardly imposing, the sort of man not heavy enough for a brawl or light enough for a sprinting match. His hair is dark brown, almost black, once cut quite short for easy handling and now starting to grow messily long, starting to fall over his forehead and cover the tops of his ears. His eyes are an unremarkable hazel and framed by short, thick lashes, capped by thin, heavily-angled brows. He has a straight nose, just slightly long for his face, and a brooding mouth that rarely changes expression except to tighten around the corners in suggestions of smiles or frowns. While he prefers to be cleanshaven, the rush of current events frequently has him simply forgetting such matters of maintenance and upkeep. He prefers to wear the military regalia and uniform, and otherwise wears battledress (as he does happen to see battle quite often). Life affords him little time to wear, much less be seen in, civilian clothing. All in all he cuts a remarkably plain figure physically... but this fact is very deeply offset by the inner force of his will, conviction and passion, which serve to make him an intense, sometimes abrasive presence, even in comfortable silences.

History: Czernian was born to an affluent family with a long, noble lineage of Umbrovian practitioners, but from the start he was... different. The boy was an accidental result of his mother's infidelity, and in a family of blonds, he stuck out like a sore thumb. That didn't mean he wasn't well accepted - his parents addressed the infidelity amongst themselves, and Czernian himself wasn't even told until his adolescent years.

He grew up among a brood of half-siblings, and experienced all the tumult of living in a large family- sibling rivalry, toddler food fights and screaming fits, pranks, wrestling, and all manner of hilarity. The matter of his difference was never much to his brothers and sisters, at least not until he started developing the inherent gift of pyromancy. Accidentally setting his sister's cat on fire likely wasn't the best foot to get off on in that matter, and the awkwardness didn't end there. While his siblings were learning the dark magics by rote, he was learning to control his element with a whimsical tutor that advocated trial-and-error learning, and suspiciously dangerous exercises of creativity. Under quiet urging of his mother, he did try to pick up the ancestral magic - but it just didn't stick with him, and left his mind feeling muddled and cottony. He would never make a dark warlock, and that seemed final.

In his prepubescent years, the family moved to the borderlands and a larger estate, which suited him perfectly. The family maintained an avid appreciation for horsemanship and mounted skills, and in that Czernian found his niche. He was a student of classical horsemanship and a lover of formal hunts, and went to extraordinary lengths to hone what skills he had. It was one of the few things he had in common with his warmly distant father, and it was also the catalyst which developed their bond and gave the youth his first desires to begin a military career. This desire was finally openly discussed and ultimately nurtured in his teens, when his parents (both grateful that the boy was showing aptitude in something that wasn't usurping an older sibling's inheritance) gladly obliged him a militant tutor. The tutor was a grizzled old earth mage, a decorated veteran with little in the way of means or family. The brusque elder was a firm guiding force in the young man's life, and instilled in him a variable of solemn values in addition to a battlemage's kneejerk reflexes, an incredible magical creativity, a respect for decorum, and an incredible hunger for formal power.

It wasn't until his mid-teens that he began to see the effect of the magical rift on his own family - his aging parents tense and terse, his siblings worried and distracted. The public argument was very nebulous for him even then - or was, until he discovered his youngest sister sobbing in a corner stall of the barn, mud-splattered and bleeding, victim of small group of ill-bred hoodlums. Luckily, that was almost the worst to befall their family, but it was more than enough to convince him that things had been stacked against the Umbrovian unfairly. So when he finally left the family for formal magical instruction, it was as the seed of his later self. He was sent, with full record of his past learnings, to train under the harsh tutelage of a dedicated guild of battlemages in a monastic and austere environment nestled in the mountain foothills. Under such constant pressures, the years went by all too swiftly. He achieved Vlaman status long before the official completion of his instruction, by which time he was twenty-two, and decided to stay on another three years for advanced education.

At twenty-five, the political situation of the world was dissolving into open warfare, and after a brief return visit home he joined the Sudao cause as a captain, and since has forcibly worked his way up the ranks. As an officer, he is tactically brilliant, and as a soldier he is ruthless.

Special points: Czernian craves responsibility (and thus power), and thus is very keen on taking dangerous, possibly disastrous, or seemingly impossible assignments - and making them work. He is also on the very brink of achieving a Burkhan's power. As such, certain things distract his attention more than they should: large fires, excessive heat, and most dramatically, the presence of any fire-oriented elemental or creature. The sensation, for him, is like that a snake shedding its skin experiences- uncomfortable, too-tight, occasionally maddening.

very nice.