'Divus'

"Divus", as the mage calls himself, is a rare kind of man. He's doubtlessly sinister and no one who entreats him could possibly miss an eerie suspicion about the man's serpentine gaze. But despite that, this man is the kind of villain who can cause even his most steadfast critics to waver under his stare.

He moves with purpose- with drive- even carrying himself with charisma. Divus doesn't seem to ever be lost or without cause, even when he truly is. While the grin of his grey lips is rightly unsettling, it is also somehow certain, casting a quiet certainty about him that is powerful. While just a human... this hooded scholar exudes more presence than his just about average frame would normally allow, indicating his intense individuality.

Divus is driven by a wealth of iniquity: greed, depravity, aggrandizement and avarice are the ambrosia of his life. But despite these baser cravings, he's a man of stunning principle. Divus swears off frivolity and ill-spent luxuries; his modest home is sparse, and the man lives almost like a monk! And in some ways, he truly shares with the clergy: he has the same intensity of devotion as fanatics, except he is devoted to a different cause than religion- Divus lives for magic.

If you were to ask Divus about sorcery, he'd tell you it's the future and essence of mankind, it's why we can perceive the universe and are able to expand in our indefinite potential for technology, science and culture. All these things- they serve magic, and our yet undiscovered role in wielding it. But all of these things... are lies. Divus uses magic for himself.

Divus has a sociopathic delusion that he was somehow willed into the world by the arcane, that he is a consciousness meant to serve as messiah for all who are called mages. He thinks he is meant to topple the kingdoms of the world under sorcerous disasters and instigated wars- so that a thaumocracy, a government ruled solely by magisters and the most potent wizards, could take its place: a one-world order ruled by magic.

But in truth, Divus only ever sees himself at the center: at the core of his dreams, in the heart of the world he wishes to make, and even in the ploys of fate. He has grown from a troubled and tumultuous young life into a vengeful adulthood spurred by the envy, hate and harshness of the young life he endured in Akiraka: his ego, his malice and his cold-heartedness are all evolved features which for better or worse have enabled him to thrive as a reputable mage.

From a distance, you could mistake Divus for a monk. He wears very simple attire- just a hood, cloak and some very tattered robes of frayed black threads.

Just as well- everything he wears is dyed an inky midnight black, a plain color favored by priests and monks who choose to live in solemn poverty. Except, closer-up, it becomes apparent this is not the case; Divus' arms, chest and abs are exposed in a blatant show of his flesh, the taut and toned muscles of which give shape to his otherwise pale, all but unearthly form.

Streaked over much of his skin are arcane tattoos: these are not of mere ink, but some kind of liquid silver, written into his very skin. The glyphs and sigils they form are advanced transcriptions of the spells Divus uses. Very knowledgeable magic users could possibly read these to know the magic Divus wields- although it would take at least a quarter-hour to decipher even a single silver-ink spell from the mage's skin.

Divus' robes and cloak have many crow feathers sewn into them. His robes, while torn, hang in heavy and numerous strips over his legs, reaching as far as his sandal-wrapped ankles. His simple footwear appears to just be braided burlap threads woven into sandals, which are beaten and faded with the length of his travels.

In Akiraka, food is plentiful- the people are many- and the shelter of a vast army provides a cradle in which you'd think the most ideal civilization in all the world could grow from.
Seren Weiss, a mere seven-year old boy, thought that too.

Seren's father was thrown into a debtors prison early on; he was a mere yeoman farmer, growing on borrowed land. But his creditors had high demands on his labors- sometimes expecting as many crops to return to them as seeds planted across the lands of the Weiss farmstead.

Unable to meet the overbearing demand for crops, Seren's father fell into very bad debt and was torn from home to spend time rotting in a cell and performing civil labor without pay as an inmate. Seren would never see his father again: he died falling from a tower window, in an attempt to escape imprisonment.

The farm declined greatly and Seren's mother seemed unable to provide. Blight struck several large plots of corn, and Seren had to work in the fields all day- sometimes into the night. It became impossible to live off the farm, so he had to take at pick-pocketing too, scrounging together a life on the street while his father was in jail and the family farm was failing. Without upbringing, Seren would raise and discipline himself for the next four years, barely managing to keep the farm afloat.

Seren's mother however had better fortunes. She was rich in beauty despite her husband's poverty, and married a wealthy minor noble after being widowed since her son's seventh birthday. For a time: Seren knew a piece of this sudden wealth, too, but having lived so independently he found it hard to live with pretentious nobles and their spoiled children. Seren often had light fights and spars with his step-brother, and never managed to win the family's approval. By the age of twelve, they were already trying to send him to the military...

Through the ties of the nobility, however, Seren came to meet a handful of court mages and old wizards retired from the military. He found that magic was inexplicably his passion: an otherworldly power, it seemed, beyond the mundane and unable to be understood by 'stupider people' as he called them. Seren was all but lovestruck with magic. He stole scrolls and a grimoire, and took several whippings for his pursuit of knowledge...

But it paid off quickly: by the age of fourteen, Seren was performing prodigious acts of magic, and showed an incredible talent for the dark arts. While his affinity for magic definitely leaned towards the unsavory... Seren's apparent talent, his sole redeemer in the corrupt society to which he had been born, saw him to a new life away from a home he was unwelcome in.

Taken in by a court wizard, Seren was trained by the elderly mage and his peers quite strictly, though he relished his training- even at its worst. Seren's use of magic took a tax on his body: by eighteen, the adverse backlash of overusing the dark arts made him mortally sick, and it seemed he was going to slowly die of a fever. His hair fell out, his breath was cold, and his eyes turned a slow, mystified red as if changed by staring into his impending death...

But Seren, whether as a prank of fate or by a sheer willingness to cling to life, survived his illness and recovered from occult consumption to become a full-fledged, capable mage. He was an intelligent scholar, too- it was hard to keep him out of libraries, even private ones! To avoid charges of trespassing, Seren began to dress as a monk, and claimed he had pure-hearted and religious purposes in seeking knowledge... sometimes, the dupe worked.

Other times, he had to take lashings or pay fines.
It mattered not: his knowledge grew ever more.

Yet, when his mentor fully retired- Seren was still but twenty-one,  and suddenly found himself with his master's possessions. They weren't luxurious: barely commerical, enough to entertain noble's courts, but not really to go to war. Seren spent his modest savings to improve his equipment and gather some arcane materials, performing entertaining demonstrations of the dark arts to impress the tradesman and dignitaries of Akiraka's cities in exchange for coin. Living this way, he could survive... but he desired so much more!

By twenty-four Seren had something he never possessed before: a reputation. One as a powerful, potent mage, who could impress and mystify. He was almost a stage performer- ... and he loathed that comparison, using magic for entertainment, but now he begun to advertise his talent for real tasks. Sometimes, secretive ones sold on the underworld. He wove curses, he disenchanted items, he even tortured brigands for the government to extract knowledge of bandit operations using horrible, painful hexes no man could endure sanely for long.

As his trade increased in value and his name grew- Seren finally came to an awakening: he imagined a world ruled by magic, and thereby eligible to be ruled by him. So in love with this daydream, it grew wildly into an ambition, for which Seren redoubled his efforts in pursuit of magic. He scoured all the grimoires of his mentor- then all the tomes he could buy, dig-up or steal- and declared himself under a new name, swearing off his surname and worldly self.

He was to be Divus.
A name fitting for his design... a role to play.

And with his sights set on acquiring the most powerful magic on Abraxas- to use toward his great design of expelling all magicless peoples, and toppling all modern governance into anarchy so that sorcery could rule in a new age- Divus packed up his belongings, and set out on rampant adventure to hunt down the arcana and ancient knowledge of more powerful spellcraft.