Florian

First Florian reference - Artist: wrathes

Florian is a crow spirit and one of the three immortal Incarnations. He is one of the three deities of the Children of the Flame, along with Freya and Kerosyn.

Physical description¶

Florian is an extremely tall, pale skinned man with a very lanky build. His arms and legs are almost too long for the rest of his body, giving him an almost unnatural look. His wide, piercing eyes are bright yellow, and have a black sclera. The upper portion of his face is covered by a large and severe burn scar, and the skin is almost entirely missing, but only his forehead and ears are bandaged. He also has pointed and jagged teeth.

His arms are covered in iridescent black feathers, and his fingers are also primarily feathers, though they can still grab and hold things without issue. These feathers are also capable of hardening and sharpening at will, allowing him to use his fingers as incredibly sharp knives. An inky black smoke pours off his arms at all times and rises from his sleeves and collar. He seems to be capable of altering the rate of this process along with the consistency of the smoke, but cannot stop it.

The Brand is burned into his chest in white, glowing so faintly that it’s only noticeable in the dark, making it quite difficult to see against his colorless skin. His skin is cold to the touch, rough, and incredibly thick and durable. His whole abdomen is wrapped in bandages, except for the area displaying the Brand, and aside from himself, Freya, and Kerosyn, nobody knows what’s under them, only that he’s always bleeding. He apparently changes them frequently though, as he is only rarely seen with bloodied bandages.

Despite what his slim frame may suggest, Florian is actually extremely heavy. His weight comes from having supernaturally dense skin, muscles, and bones, along with having a significantly higher mass of blood in his veins than their total available volume should be capable of containing.

Clothing¶

Florian wears a tattered black cassock with an open front, dark red stains on the bottom, and the Brand emblazoned on the back in red, along with a black clergy shirt with an open front and no collar, black trousers with a red belt, black high-heeled boots, a black flat top hat with a very wide brim and a red band, and a pellegrina made of black feathers with red fasteners.

He claims to own other clothes, but nobody can tell if that’s true since he always seems to be wearing the exact same thing. Particularly observant individuals have claimed that sometimes he has worn boots with slightly more or less heel, a cassock with slightly different stains, or even slightly fancier trousers, leading some to believe that he simply owns a whole wardrobe of identical outfits. Of course, he is extremely reluctant to even entertain the thought of trying something new, and isn’t even willing to remove his hat most of the time.

Special abilities¶

He wields Attunement to its fullest potential, able to do quite literally anything short of a feat of creation on his own, but when he, Kerosyn, and Freya work together, they become seemingly omnipotent, capable of reality-altering feats of unknown magnitude. The three of them also seem to share some type of telepathic link, which allows them to always know each other’s location and to share strong feelings, but does not allow them to communicate directly. Finally, his Alignment gives him the ability to directly perceive the current health of all living things, as well as psychometry and the ability to immediately understand what a living thing is feeling on a primitive level through physical contact. Interestingly, that’s all it gives him, as he experiences no other effects of the condition and cannot directly perceive Mystic Matter itself.

The obvious manifestation of his power is the inky black smoke pouring off of him, but that’s only the visible result. That smoke is actually caused by his blood boiling in the veins of his arms. His body produces such an incredible amount of blood that it becomes thick and very dark, and the pressure rises to such extreme levels that boiling occurs. To control the flow of that smoke, he actually changes the flow rate of his own blood, which is his signature use of power, blood manipulation. Should he wish to, he could slow or stop the flow of blood in another being with a slight gesture, control a body like a marionette by pushing and pulling on its blood, make himself look larger and scarier by drawing out his own blood and shaping it into things like giant wings, and so on. He can also use the smoke from his arms to influence the health of other living things by allowing it to be inhaled, or by allowing his blood to be consumed. He draws his own blood out primarily from underneath the bandages on his abdomen.

As an entirely immortal being, he cannot die. His body is frighteningly, unnaturally durable, but he is not completely invulnerable. Should one somehow manage to injure him, they will find that his blood explodes out of him at an extremely high pressure and temperature, only to stop after the wound closes mere seconds later. Lost body parts can be reattached in seconds or grown back over varying periods of time, and it’s seemingly impossible to decapitate him. An interesting side effect of his blood being so hot is that his core body temperature is just below the boiling point, but the incredible thickness of his skin keeps all that heat contained and leaves his body cold to the touch, so cutting him will most often do more lasting damage to his attacker than it will to him.

Personality¶

Florian is a highly eccentric and passionate man with an immense ego and the attitude of a fanatical preacher from ages past. This is largely a result of his total devotion to his ambition leaving him isolated and disconnected from the wider world for most of his life, which has also seriously stunted his social skills and ability to understand or empathize with others, and left him extremely reluctant to accept help from anyone with anything.

He carries himself with a strict, antiquated type of grace that would have seemed a bit pompous even several centuries ago. Despite that, he also has a number of strange quirks in his behavior, like constantly muttering to himself (or animals… or plants… or even books), using extremely exaggerated hand movements when speaking, frequent fidgeting with his hands and eyes, having a less-than-sane looking grin, and an unfortunately devilish laugh.

He takes himself far too seriously, and is very quick to turn zealous in discussions he has an vested interest in. He maintains a quietly restrained voice most of the time, but when he feels the need to speak up, he can get very loud and will talk over others. Especially in arguments, which he tends to see only two sides in, and often ends up starting one way or another. He is very unapproachable and difficult to get along with, but he doesn’t mind that. For the few who do manage to approach him though, he is also quite susceptible to being manipulated through flattery and praise.

However, beneath the scary face, that bravado is only an act, one that he’s only capable of maintaining around people he isn’t close to that aren’t confident enough to stand up to him. Beneath the act, he is actually a quiet, meek, deeply compassionate person who wants nothing more than the best for the world and those living in it, despite his difficulties with empathy and understanding. He cares deeply enough for living things that he will go out of his way to spare the life of the smallest insect and the frailest flower, and will always treat people as innocent until proven guilty.

Part of what drives his compassionate side is a looming sense of guilt, because Florian believes that he is responsible for the existence of the concept of death. He considers the death of every person a failure on his part to save them. Because of this, he goes very far out of his way to be close to the dying to do everything he can to ease their suffering, as well as to attend funerals and wakes to offer condolences and comfort to the friends and families of the dead. He has otherwise fully devoted his life to studying mystic matter, biology, and the medical field with the ultimate goal of ending death forever. He works alongside the Children of the Flame frequently to further his research, and whenever their goals are otherwise aligned. He has little interest in anything else.

Split personality¶

Florian struggles with a split personality that troubles him greatly. On occasion, in moments of extreme stress, anger, or frustration, he becomes someone who goes against all of his ideals. He becomes loud, aggressive, and hateful, with an especially vocal resentment of humanity. He may slam doors, hit tables and walls, and throw things, but can usually stop just short of causing harm to another person. Unfortunately, if there was enough stress or anger beforehand, he can become violent enough to be a threat to the lives of those around him. These flare-ups are uncommon and short-lived, but a deep and long lasting depression follows when he comes back to his senses. Exactly what causes this is unclear, but Florian claims to know exactly what it is, though all he has ever shared about it is that it’s not psychological. Kerosyn and Freya also claim to know, but have never spoken about it.

Fighting style¶

Florian is not a fighter at all and instead relies on cheap tricks to gain the advantage. He strongly prefers to avoid violence in the first place, and will always choose to either diffuse the situation or flee the scene if he does not believe his opponent deserves to die. But if he does believe that, he will look for the perfect opportunity to land a killing blow, no matter how dirty it may be, often allowing the opponent to hit him first so he can shrug it off and impale them with his arm. Despite his distaste for violence, he revels in the deaths of his enemies.

Relationships¶

Having spent close to their entire lives together, Kerosyn, Freya, and Florian are family in all but blood relation. Florian is the middle child of the three.

Florian sees Kerosyn as an annoying younger sibling. He finds them to be quite irritating, but cherishes them nonetheless and tries to be there for them. He is happy to teach Kerosyn whatever they want to learn from him, but Kerosyn’s short attention span makes it difficult and sometimes leads to fights. The fights tend to be short lived, and despite Kerosyn’s obliviousness, they tend to be first to apologize, and Florian is quick to forgive them. Usually.

He sees Freya as a sister, but they treat each other more like workplace colleagues most of the time due to their very different personalities and interests. While they may not be outwardly close, he will still defend Freya from anything. In theory. In reality, she’s the one who stands up for him, because he can’t come close to matching her absurd levels of confidence. Of course, she also enjoys picking on him frequently because of that, much to his chagrin, but he’ll always laugh about it later.

The relationship between these three can sometimes appear more parental than that of siblings due to Kerosyn’s childlike nature, though they all vehemently reject the idea of that.

Despite being in regular contact with The Sixth Storyteller, and often in close proximity as well, Florian calls him an ally, but not a friend. They work together on many things, but Florian feels that there’s something off about him and ignores his attempts to be friendly. Proximity to the Storyteller also means being close to Leon Van Wolfe and Mae Seraphine Walker, both of whom Florian is on much friendlier terms with.

Affiliations¶

Being one of the three deities of the Children of the Flame, Florian is very strongly affiliated with them. He revels in the ego boost of being worshiped, so he frequently works closely with the organization and even reveals himself to the regular members freely. He is in frequent direct contact with The Sixth Storyteller.

History¶

Some of Florian’s history during Era Dira is described in The Account.

Trivia¶

• Florian actually has quite poor vision and hearing even by regular human standards, but his sense of smell is impossibly sharp.
• Florian has an eidetic memory. He’ll still find a way to forget faces anyway, but he never forgets something he sees that has value to him, even if only a glimpse. He could safely perform open heart surgery with his eyes closed because of this.
• Florian doesn’t need to eat or drink to survive, and for that matter has trouble keeping food down. But he does still require sleep. He can, however, survive on much less sleep than a human.
• Florian has a stutter and an eye tic, both of which get worse with stress.
• Thanks to Kerosyn and Freya, despite his resistance, Florian is a skilled musician. However, while those two can play pretty much anything they want well, Florian can “only” play instruments in the violin and keyboard families. He claims to have no favorite.

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