"Madness is genius taken to its natural end."
Name: Zilocke Solomon Thane
Titles/Nicknames: The Mad Alchemist; Sol, Thane
Age: 26âThough admittedly people tend to guess a bit high on that one due to his looks if not his demeanor.
Gender: Male.
Sexuality: âOh definitely.â
Role: Exorcist. Yep, believe It or not, this guy has some serious talent. âŠHe wouldnât blame you for not believing it.
Appearance: He looks a bit like a highwayman or a pirate or some kind of similar low-class scum, actually, not to mention a magpie. His clothing is unnecessarily ornamented, what with the buckles and the belts and fastenings and bellsâyou read correctly, the man wears bells. Oneâs braided into a strand of hair near the front, and heâs got more around his wrists and ankles. This is in addition to the two bandoliers criss-crossing his broad chest in an âXâ shape and the leather belt at his waist, to say nothing of the bandages always over his left eye and the fact that heâs usually wearing spectacles anywayâpurely for show, you understand. The clothing underneath is in dependable, durable material, mostly black and white, though heâs made a habit of finding brightly-colored strips of fabric and tying them to his arms as he pleases. Magpie.
Heâs got a pretty honestly fantastic head of hair, actually. Flame-red, to his mid-back, thick, soft, and shiny. If he had a point of obvious vanity, that would probably be it, only he doesnât seem to do anything terribly special to it; in fact, a closer guess would be that he keeps it so long because heâs too lazy to cut it. His goateeâs a little more maintained, probably to keep it out of the way more than anything.
His build is perhaps not what you would expect of someone called âThe Mad Alchemist.â Heâs no half-starved, decrepit old man, anyway. Quite the opposite, rather. Tall, well-built, and at the peak of physical fitness, there could be something intimidating about Thane, if he bothered to try. If one is easily intimidated, there might be anyway. That said, heâs usually sporting a half-cocked grin and a mischievous twinkle to his visible citrine-colored eye. The other one, hidden always under the bandages, is a vibrant, backlit blue-violet.
Also of note is the fact that the majority of the skin of his arms, back, chest, and legs is covered in black-and-red-inked tattoos, the designs swirling, exotic, and strangely geometrical. Theyâre actually transmutation sequences, the ones he uses most often or finds most important. Having them there saves him from needing to draw them every time he wants to use them.
Personality: In Zilocke, genius is well hidden, elusive beneath a practiced veneer of shallowness and play. Heâd as soon have you believe that heâs an eccentric or harmless fool than understand the true depth of his knowledge or talent, because people want things from geniuses, and expect things from them, and heâs frankly done with that, thank you very much.
His masks come in many varieties, and the man who is at one time a flirting drunkard with wandering hands is at another a half-wild homeless vagabond with sticky fingers or a slack-jawed country bumpkin gawking at all the fancy glitter and pomp of the city. Or he might be a hardened criminal, wearing a deadly smirk and dragging a spear-point through the dirt as he might drag it through someoneâs gutsâit all sort of depends on the situation. He wears a thousand faces, and most of them nearly flawlessly. The only one he seems not to favor is his own, but if pressed, he can don it, too.
Under the theatrics is a calculating intelligence, capable of a great deal, both good and bad. Potential swings both ways, though somewhere in there with all the useless trinkets and false faces is a heart made of, if not gold, at least silver. The tarnish can be polished out, if the occasion calls for it, and heâs actually a really nice guy, especially when kids are involved. Even at his core, though, eccentricity resides. It would have to, else he might not be able to stand wearing so many guises.
Vigorous, energetic, and quick to smile, thereâs a certain sense of invulnerability about Zilocke, though itâs not the silent, untouchable kind. More like the kind thatâs been battle-tested down in the muck with the regular folk, but come out without much damage for all that. The world can pull a 180, and the smart bet would be that he wouldnât change much at all. Though maybe that depends on who you think he is at the time, no?
Abilities:
Physical CombatâHeâs not bad with his hands and feet, and actually pretty well-trained with polearms. Mostly, his advantage is just in being really fit and incredibly hard to predict.
AlchemyâThaneâs form of exorcism actually involves alchemy. Itâs not holy magic, per se, nor does it carry the same touch of the divine as that of most exorcists. Rather, his scientific mind and careful research have allowed him to understand the difference between âpeople stuffâ and âmetapeople stuffâ and he is capable of selectively banishing the metapeople stuffâby using alchemy to reject its existence on this plane. Alchemy as he has come to understand it is best represented by the triangle, each vertex a different aspect of the craft. Note that alchemy is limited by the alchemistâs need to draw a circle for every spell performed, unless of course they already exist, say on paper (or in Thaneâs case, tattoo ink!)
-Alchemic Vertex I: Creation This is honestly the part heâs not quite so good at. Theoretically, an alchemist can fudge the edges of equivalent exchange, but only with a lot of careful work and very complicated circles that take way too long to draw and donât make very much at all. Heâs largely content to leave the creating to other beings, thanks. Also under this label are certain bioalchemical abilities like accelerated healing, which heâs a bit better with.
-Alchemic Vertex II: Transmutation The bread and butter of the Alchemistâs trade, transmutation is the act of turning one substance into another, or altering the material structure of something already there. For example, Zilocke might form a hunk of metal into a sword, or freeze water, or redirect an electrical current, or change the surface of his skin from flesh to stone (something heâs become quite practiced at). The majority, though not all, of the tattoos on his body correspond to the circles required for self-alteration such as this.
-Alchemic Vertex III: Destruction Slightly misnamed, destruction refers to the decomposition of matter, usually achieved by the breaking of chemical bonds. This breaks down material into its component parts. Itâs easiest with simples like large quantities of a single element or relatively uncomplicated compounds, like stone. Much, much harder with organic matter, and slow enough to be basically useless on something as complicated as a human being. It is, however, surprisingly easier to do with Wraiths and the like, and represents Zilockeâs unique method of exorcismâhe breaks down the composition of the wayward being and banishes the particles back to the other side of the body, where they reform and can then be destroyed by an angel and sealed in by a demon. Other than that or breaking through a wall, though, this skill actually isnât all that useful.
-Unique Ability: Eye of Ra Nobodyâs quite sure what the Mad Alchemist did to his eye to give it its supernatural propertiesâthereâs a rumor going around that he killed a demon and removed the organ, which he then transplanted to his own head (totally false), but whatever the case may be, it allows him to work transmutations over great distances. When Thane uncovers the Eye, he is able to see beyond the limits of ordinary sight, and can, by activating a circle immediately in front of him, cause that circleâs effects to take place somewhere else entirely. He needs a focus point, something to seek with the eye; a person heâs seen before would work, or a place heâs been, or even a large concentration of some alchemic ingredient (say sulfur if heâs trying to find a volcano for whatever reason). Incidentally useful for long-distance monitoring or spying, but he doesnât really feel the need to use it for that.
Bio: Zilocke is the child of minor provincial nobility, if one goes in for that sort of thing. He doesnât, really, and generally spent most of his early years being exactly the kind of child his parents didnât want. He was the second of three anyway, and his older brother was the heir while his sister was the coddled baby, so it took a while for him to find his niche. Seeking to help but mostly just get rid of him, his folks sent him away to an alchemist for apprenticeship, since that at least is a useful talent.
Turns out, he was a prodigious talent. Go figure, right? Of course, when people found out about this, it was all of a sudden like heâd had all these friends all along who were now asking him for personal favors and trying to marry him off to their noble daughters and so on and so forth. He developed an array of personalities, both suited and decidedly inappropriate for polite company, to deal with this, but truthfully, it wasnât worth whatever benefit his modest title earned him, and he decided he was done with it around age twenty of so.
He moved away from his home region, set up shop in the city, and took to research and supporting himself by plying his trade, passing himself off as a decent if not remarkable alchemist who occasionally got stupidly lucky and stumbled upon something brilliant. To keep people from looking too closely, he also chose to act like he was nuts, most of the time, which was how he earned his rather colorful moniker.
