Silvikk Highwind

Hawt

Silvikk was born in 3017 and apparently left at a monastery with nothing but an indication of her birth date and first name. The monks took her in and raised her to look after the monastery as well. They taught her important facts about her heritage (from a racial standpoint, not a familial one), science relating to the monastic planet, Sanctuary, and trained her in hand-to-hand combat. Silvikk found a peaceful existence caring for the planet and its few inhabitants, and it wasn’t until shortly before Arkturus Highwind, some loud-mouthed pirate or something, landed on Sanctuary that Silvikk faced any real conflict.

Something was clearly amiss when a taint came over the river that runs down the mountainside the monastery is built on. The waters ran dark, and it only took a simple divination to know that it was evil at work, and not some pollutant entering the river. Immediately before entering the catacombs that run under the temple, Silvikk was confronted by Arkturus and his crew, who grudgingly agreed to help her purify the waters and destroy the source in return for a place to stay freely.

One major plot spoiler later, Arkturus decided Sanctuary was not safe for them either, and he decided to set a course for Nexus, in an effort to lose his pursuers there in the city life. Silvikk asked to go along, and Ark agreed on the basis that she was “cute enough for free passage, anyway.” She wrote him off as incorrigible (look it up) and they made haste for Fuu’u'll (pronounced foo-ool). There Ark tried taking some local work to feed the crew and simultaneously remain relatively prudent in the vain hope that he might lose his pursuers there.

Silvie in NWN2

Silvikk found it a bit hard to adjust to a city lifestyle (after living with less than ten other people on your entire planet, who wouldn’t?) and wound up spending a lot of time with the other crewmembers so she could learn to adapt. Eventually she just started spending a lot of time with Arkturus, and the two would just leave some gal on the table with directions to a few nice restaurants and dine together in one that was not on the list.

He was loud, he was annoying, but she saw something in Arkturus, and it helped that he was proficient in both essentian magics and empathy, like her. The two eventually married and produced two children, which I’m sure I mentioned in Ark’s article so let’s skip it. Suffice to say they came out of her and she was all the happier for it.

In a purely usability standpoint, Silvikk initially appeared to have little. She could kill with her hands, but in a firefight that wasn’t much use. She had vows not to use firearms, so that was out. She had never been on a ship that she can remember, let alone know the functions of them, so any on-board option was out. They already had a negotiator, Tyrlionwe, and her loose grasp of politics outside Sincri made that a bad idea anyway.

It wasn’t until she was shot at that Ark knew what to do with her. Her training was mostly for self-defence, and the defence of the monastery. This wisely included how to deal with people not fighting unarmed. She could catch a blade with her hands, if necessary. She was fast enough to dodge or even catch bullets that came at her. Her armbands absorbed heat and made it possible to block accelerated particles (lasers, kinda) just with her forearms. The only weapons she had problems with were either really big or shotguns (too many pellets to catch, would rip through the heat sinks, nothing even the most experienced monk can do).

Naturally, these abilities put her at the front in the event that a job got too dicey, which before their marriage was just a fact of life for Ark, and after was a moral cataclysm in his eyes. Nevertheless she and the marriage survived his adventuring days, and after they settled down they remained living on the ship and quieter planets until they died, Silvikk going five years after Ark. After both parents passed, the ship went to their offspring, and Coral used it for a while before deciding to donate the ship to a museum of rare arts (one of a kind is rare enough, obviously).

Arkturus, Part 2

Arkturus, in all his business dealings, would bring whatever face to the table he thought his employer would wish to see. Most often he would be polite and direct, ensuring that nothing he said would be used against him. Sometimes borderline insulting for some less reputable clients. Most often, however, and especially with his crew he was snarky, quick-witted, and sarcastic, always having the comment that would give him a few laughs or a punch to the face. Even pushed to the brink of panic he would keep his cool and hide his true feelings.

All of this, naturally, concealed an almost broken mind. Ark was a genius by definition, his capacity for rational thought and mental processing were far above average, but unfortunately this also worked against him. Every comment would mask a feeling of hopelessness for his life ever becoming more meaningful than delivering cargo A to point B or shooting bastard C in the head.

It wasn’t until Silvikk discovered his affinity for empathy (emotion-based magic, completely separate from essentia) that he began to find a purpose in life. While Silvikk used the magic, it was almost uniformly abilities beneficial to others, like transferring pain from another person to herself, or improving someone’s mood by influencing their emotions. Arkturus, on the other hand, found that his own unstable emotional state provided alternative uses for the magic. He could crush enemies’ morale and even cause an emotional dissonance that could occasionally have actual physical effects.

As he and Silvikk got closer, his empathic abilities noticeably shifted, reflecting his own shift in character. Silvikk provided a positive influence, both empathically and without the need of the magic at times. By the time they married, Ark was a completely new man, happy with his life and more confident in his search for Paradeisos.

Arkturus Highwind

Arkturus Highwind

Arkturus Highwind is the far descendant of Eathanu, tracing the line back directly to the god nearly eighty generations back. He was born in 3022 on Nexus in the Fuu’u'll system and was twenty-five when Eathanu issued the dream-visits about Paradeisos. Eathanu, believing Arkturus might be the one to find it, told him it was his divine destiny to locate the planet (it wasn’t) and at first Ark was enthusiastic about it. He bought a cheap freighter and started transporting goods for people, looking out for clues on Paradeisos’ location.

For twenty-two years he kept his ears open and heard nothing that sounded like a reasonable theory to follow. In this time he became well-versed in essentian magic and discovered an affinity for empathy at as well. He also got a lot of practise with small firearms, mostly pistols, and developed a preference for energy-based weapons that draw on the user’s own essentia supply. Shortly after turning forty-seven, Ark sold his freighter and bought a new ship from a station orbiting Azureus. The ship, it turned out, was a completely unique model, resembling a common Lonnigan Shipyards Sparrow class, but the interior led to a pocket dimension. This gave the interior of the otherwise small ship spacious crew’s quarters and a cargo hold with enough space to comfortably fit three one-man shuttles (or fighters) inside.

The technology for that type of ship was advanced, but that prototype was the only one of its kind to be produced. The magical requirements were immense and the safety of several pocket dimensions flying around the galaxy was called to question after the first was built. The technology was scrapped and the ship became priceless. Ark got it for about six million gal of old family money (the entire Highwind family was loaded at that point, though that burnt through most of what Ark had). He named the ship the Excelsior after the airship Eathanu rode after attaining godhood, while he still lead the Dragoons.

After purchasing the ship Ark gathered a rather unorthodox crew through a series of events better left to book form, if I ever get published/write it at all.

Ahem. AFTER his various adventures with his crew he settled down with the beautiful monk Silvikk, whom he met on Sanctuary early in his adventures. The two had already married on Nexus before they settled down, forever wandering the galaxy aboard the Excelsior. They had two children together: first a girl, Sisay, who became a doctor, and second a boy, Coral, who became a specialist wizard in the element of fire and basically experimented with fire magics for a living.

Arkturus went through the then-uncommon experience of actually dying of natural causes at the age of 205, as did Silvikk five years later at the same age.

Eathanu Highwind

Eathanu Highwind

Eathanu is a name uttered by every adventurer following the Dragonian War at one time or another. Shortly after the war Eathanu became the first and only mortal to ascend to greater godhood. Even before the war he was quite a celebrity, a well-decorated military man praised for his efforts in leading the Dragoon corps to rival even the Paladins, who were at the time led by Anselm Skyerun.

Eathanu was younger than Anselm (only 47 at the end of the Dragonian war) and saw himself sort of as Anselm’s protégé, but he also led a part of the Emarion army, so they were equally as much rivals. Eathanu was always a little cocky, and always beaten by Anselm in competitions between the two, but he gladly accepted that image of himself, and even made it a running joke among the Dragoons and Paladins.

He joined the army young, at the age of 28, mostly because his father served in the Royal Guard, though he instead took to the Dragoons, preferring a front-line force over a personal bodyguard job. He met Anselm and the two became fast friends, with Eathanu often joining Anselm in his campaigns with the Paladins. On one adventure he and Anselm battled a fierce black dragon somewhere in the Abyss, and after countless hours they walked out weak, bloodied, and several priceless relics richer, including the spear Eathanu used during the War, Gae Bolg.

In ten years he was leading the Dragoons and in eighteen he was making history with them. During the war Eathanu fought alongside Anselm and later aided him in the negotiations with the Bangar and Aerai. For more details just read the Dragonian War article. No sense repeating the information.

After the war, he was not seen by anyone for several months. Most wrote him off as dead from some mysterious cause, and Gae Bolg was taken to his wife Amy, whom he’d married during the war. To make matters worse, she was visibly pregnant soon after his disappearance, and it became clear that Eathanu would have an heir, but that it would not have a father.

Eventually, Eathanu quietly returned to Azureus to his wife in their home in Port Avalon. She gave birth to their son Azreal and Eathanu reappeared to the world as their new god. Azreal grew up in a highly prosperous time and decided to join the military as well, effectively making it a family tradition. He joined the Dark Knights and over time actually made it a popular thing (badass knights in dark armour, basically). He easily ignored the corrupt influences of the dark sword and had his own adventures out in the world, getting a bit of help here and there by Eathanu, and a lot of help from Anselm, until he retired.

Eventually Azreal sort of dropped off the radar but evidently had several children with someone, branching the Highwind family line out and making it easy to avoid unwanted attention for the family from then on.

Anselm Skyerun

Anselm Skyerun

Few mortal men have been as revered within their own lifetime as was Anselm Skyerun. Anselm was raised by his Aerai mother and never knew his father until much later in his life. He was born in 83D and joined the Emarion army at the age of 35. In less than two years he had shown exceptional skill in combat training and leadership, and was given the chance to join the Paladins. He accepted, swore his oath of service to the gods first and the king second, and entered the Temple of Histan, and Bowed before the altar that held six swords, all different in form, but all enchanted with the same magics: complete holiness incarnated in a silver blade.

The altar had originally contained seven swords, the first being taken by none other than King Sirius Orillion himself. Every Paladin joining the service was sent into the sanctum to retrieve a sword, and if he emerged holding one it was taken as a sign that Histan wanted this to be his holy messenger. Anselm pulled one of the blades from the altar and looked into the face of Histan himself, who explained his duty as the leader of the Paladins and sent him out.

This understandably left people with high expectations of Anselm, and he lived up to nearly every one. Under his leadership the Paladins became the toughest part of the Emarion military, and he was truly put to the test in what became the most influential event in Emarion history: The Dragonian War.

During the War Anselm led the entire Emarion army, just barely holding the line against his foes. Eventually he was pulled from the front lines and sent as a diplomat to negotiate a treaty that would turn the war in their favour by gaining the help of both the Bangar and the Aerai. With the combined force of all three armies (though the Aerai didn’t have many soldiers, they were amazingly versatile and not at all easy to kill due to their ability to fly) the Emarions were able to push the Dragonians back all the way to their citadel on Mt. Hyjahl and eventually win the war. (more details will be provided in the Dragonian War article)

After the war Anselm continued to lead and train the Paladins for another seventy years. During the last twenty he did something unthinkable–he laid his sword to rest in the Alexandrian museum and picked up a dark sword. Going from a powerful leader of the Paladins to a Dark Knight, a smaller section of the army notorious for corruption caused by the fierce dark influence of the dark swords, understandably upset the king, the citizens, and the other Paladins, but yet Anselm still lead the Paladins as he always had.

Be it either by divine protection from Histan or simply his own inner divinity, Anselm conquered the darkness of his new sword and created a perfect inner duality of dark and light. He was once again revered by people and king alike, possibly even more so, and continued being a symbol of Emaria’s mighty Paladins until he retired at the age of 153. Anselm ascended to immortality twenty-four years later, leaving only one illegitimate daughter to his Aerain once-lover Dahlia Silinrius.