Mich A'El Nachtaugen

Mich A'El is a Paladin/Ranger/Sorcerer played by Mikel Barrenechea.
== Intro ==
It was quite a frightening sight, seeing that man walk through those doors. The guards would have nearly attacked him on sight, were they not shaking in their boots and soiling their breeches at the mere glance at his fierce mien.
A strange dark shell-like growth had covered all but his mouth, the only portion where others could see his sickeningly gray skin, forming themselves into two pairs of menacingly curved horns. In the center of where his brow would be was a dull purple gem; those that had the courage to stare at it swore they could see forms shifting within it.
It made it no easier for me to stomach his arrival when I realized he was approaching me. I hadn't noticed it then, but as I could feel his gaze bearing down on me, the gem on his forehead began to glow ever so slightly.
He stopped in front of me, his head locked onto mine, and simply stared at me. Silence fell over the whole room, and my thoughts began racing.
And then, he spoke. I, as well as the other patrons beside me, were more than stunned to hear him talk in fluent elvish.
"You are a medium, yes?" he asked, never turning his head away from me.
I replied with a simple, shaky nod.
He stayed silent for a moment, as if thinking to himself. Seeing him that close, I had felt a new air about him; one of sadness.
"Then, please, help me find her."
Just as I was about to ask who, he held up a hand to silence me. He bowed his head ever so slightly, and began softly speaking in a tongue I'd never heard of. I would've thought it gibberish until I noticed that with each phrase, the gem on his forehead grew brighter and brighter.
Suddenly, when he finished his chant, a small tongue of purple flame emerged from the gem in his head; growing and shaping itself into a form of a woman. I can't put my finger on it, but somehow seeing that figure felt, familiar. The man must have seen that as well, considering how he smiled in relief, if not for a brief moment.
"So, your soul does recognize her then?" he asked, his ominous aura all but gone now, "Please, if you know anything..."
For one reason or another, my thoughts suddenly drifted to four months prior. Of a normal day of prayers and hearings. A trip to the market during my break. The scent of the fresh fruit. I tried to shrug these thoughts away, but they kept going back to that market; to that fruit stall. Suddenly, like a bolt of clarity, I take notice of a certain cloaked figure shuffling in my memory's peripheral.
I don't know what prompted me to do that, neither do I know why or how I came about doing so. But I told him what I somehow knew; I saw Ruien, whoever that was, four months ago in an outpost beside Mulmaster.
He smiled once more at the mention of the name Ruien. He clapped me on my shoulders, the metal of his armor felt heavier than it looked and had an unearthly chill to it. With that, the figure of the woman disappeared, and he turned to face the door.
After he left, the air of fear was still heavy in the room, yet soon after that all the other patrons had simply gone back to murmuring and whispering; now all about the man who had just come and gone.
== Description ==
=== Appearance ===
Majority of Mich A'El's face is covered by strange growths, leaving only the lower part of his face exposed. The growths on his head are colored like blackened bones, forming themselves into two pairs of twisted, gnarled horns.
A small purple gem is embedded into his forehead. Unbeknownst to most, he keeps a small fragment of the soul of a woman named Ruien within it. It glows whenever he approaches an elf.
=== Personality ===
Mich A'El is ambitious and proud of his heritage as a Netherese citizen, even if that pride was not shared by his former countrymen. After a mishap sent him into the Shadowfell, Mich A'El had to survive with barely any portion of his own soul left after he had split it into ten different pieces. Ever the fall of the Netherese empire, he felt it was his duty to not only serve as a reminder of his kingdom's former power, but to be a herald to usher in the age of the Netheril once again.
== Biography ==
=== Life In Thultanthar ===
He held on tightly to his notes, his feet carrying him on with nothing but the euphoria one feels when on the verge of a breakthrough. His horns had nearly caught on a few of the scones, and he could feel the judging gaze of the others around him.
"No matter." Mich A'El thought to himself, "Those close-minded fools will beg for my audience sooner or later."
This would be the fifth time he'd have approached the enclave of Thultanthar with his project. It would also be the fifth time he would be sent away with murmurs and whispers behind him. His enthusiasm did not waver even as he could already see the disgusted looks of the other council members.
"You come forth once again. Unannounced, might I add." one of the council exclaimed, crossing her arms.
"Are we really going to tolerate more of this madman's suggestions?" another one interjected, addressing the others in the room.
"The only madmen I see are those who refuse to see past their silly tomes!" Mich A'El replied, not turning his gaze away from the notes he began setting.
"You dare barge into our chambers and call us the fools!?" shouted another, "Take your scraps and leave, before I make you."
A small ball of arcane energy coalesced in the angered council member's hands, the hum of magical energies bringing Mich A'El's gaze back up.
"Do you truly not see any merit to this?" Mich A'El sighed, "We've merely touched what we can do with souls-
His words caught in his throat as he felt a sharp pain in his chest, as black wisps began emanating from it. Buckling to the ground, he looked up to see the black tendrils flowing into the hand of another of the council members. Just as he was about to pass out, the council member relaxed her hand, and Mich A'El felt his energy returning to him.
"We've mastered what can be done." she said sternly, "You, on the other hand, believe in something that should not be done and cannot be done."
Clutching at his chest, Mich A'El pushed himself up off the floor and glared at the council.
"Your family name can only get you so far, Nachtaugen." the woman continued, "This will be the last time we discuss this, demon."
Gritting his teeth, Mich A'El picked up his notes from the ground and stormed out the room. He could hear the faint laughter and sighs of disappointment from the council as the doors closed behind him. Awaiting outside the doors was a thin elvish woman.
She had pale white skin stretched thin across her gaunt yet beautiful face, which had a look of worry on it.
"I'm sure they will come around to it soon, Mich." the woman said, shyly approaching him, "They're just need some more time to-
"I do not want to hear it." Mich A'El interrupted, glaring at the elven woman.
Noticing her flinch, Mich A'El shook his head slowly.
"My apologies, Ruien." he replied, "Dealing with fools seems to have been more stressful on me than I thought."
The woman named Ruien smiled softly in reply.
"It's fine, I know how the council can be." she stated, letting out a soft sigh, "Oh, I've readied your papers for you."
Ruien hands out the bundle of papers she had been clutching close to her chest. The small bundle of papers are riddled with inked notes all over its face. Eyeing the bundle, Mich A'El notices small tabs on each of the pages.
"Ah, you've organized them as well?" he asked, reading each of the flaps, "You have my thanks."
After taking a quick look over the notes, he turned in the other direction; not taking notice of the small smile forming on Ruien's face.
=== Fortune... ===
Ruien walked in on Mich A'El working tirelessly at the instruments in his lab. The whirring of arcane contraptions had become normal to her, but even she could tell that Mich A'El was close to a breakthrough of sorts.
"Ah, perfect, you've arrived." Mich A'El stated, keeping his attention on his machines, "Quickly now!"
Ruien hurriedly walked over to a console on the other side of the room, watching as Mich A'El began fastening bands around his limbs.
"Wait, are you planning on trying this on yourself?!" Ruien asked, pausing from what she was doing.
Mich A'El silently continues fastening himself into the strange contraption. Ruien rushed over to his side and reached out to begin undoing the binds.
"Are you insane?" Ruien exclaimed, "We only recently began tests on animals, and they've all died!"
Mich A'El stops tightening the bands, not turning his gaze towards her. A moment of silence passed over them, until Ruien continued attempting to undo the binds Mich A'El had fastened. He quickly swatted her hand away.
"I said quickly." he stated, "If they refuse to see my work as valid, then I will make them see it myself."
Ruien recoiled slightly at Mich A'El's harsh tone. She stared at him for a moment, before she continued to undo the binds against his wishes.
"I said: Activate." he repeated, this time turning his gaze towards her.
His black eyes glinted with arcane energy, and suddenly Ruien found herself obeying his orders without question. The room was filled with the sound of grinding metal and crackling energy as the strange mechanism in the lab began to move. While Ruien controlled the console, a needle-like extension was positioned over Mich A'El's chest. A few moments later it began to glow a sickly green hue as tendrils of energy stretched out towards him.
In a quick motion, the tendrils dug into his chest, sending waves of pain awash over him. His screams melded with the loud whirring of the machines around him as more and more mechanical noises began echoing around the room. In its crescendo, a faint, pale light began emanating from Mich A'El's chest before it became a blinding beacon in the center of the room. Then in one final coda, the pale light burst into a blinding flash and the room fell silent.
When Ruien's vision returned to her, she could see a strange white mote of light floating above Mich A'El's chest. Staring on in awe, she rushed towards the silent Mich A'El, quickly undoing the binds on him. A few more moments of silence passed on, the two of them simply staring at the strange orb in front of them.
"We...We did it." Ruien said, almost to herself, "We...We've actually done it."
Mich A'El simply remained silent, extending his hand to touch the strange light. Cupping it in his hand, he felt it slowly settle into his palm, the feeling of a weight resting in it surprising him. A small smile began to form on his face as he turned to look at Ruien. He opened his mouth to speak, but just as he did, he felt his world flip upside down as he collapsed onto the lab floor. His vision slowly began to fade as he saw Ruien's panicked face contort in horror.
When he came to, he found himself lying in his bed. Ruien was asleep on a chair in the corner, holding a small mechanical globe with the same white light contained inside it. Mich A'El found his eyes strangely attracted to the small orb.
Was this truly a piece of his soul? Had their work finally come to fruition?
These thoughts spurned him on, forcing him to weakly stumble out of his bed and towards Ruien. Carefully removing the globe from her grasp,he stumbled out of the room, past the hall and down towards a door reinforced with a strange black metal. Weakly tracing an arcane symbol into its face, the door began to part, revealing the dark room within. Taking shaky steps into the pitch black darkness, the small orb of light within his hands providing the only source of light. He stops in front of a strange console at the end of the room, and activates whatever machinery it controls.
Suddenly, a large capsule begins rising from the floor. Inside it was a horned figure floating in a clear liquid with multiple wires connected to its body. Feeling around the capsule, he finds a circular slot that has a similar shape as the globe he is carrying. With renewed vigor, he quickly slots it in the recess.
The globe of the light slowly began to fade, leaving the room dark once again. A few moments pass, nothing but the soft hiss of the machinery that were in the room. Suddenly, the capsule begins glowing faintly and a faint heartbeat filled the room.
The figure in the capsule stirred slightly, and the heartbeat became louder. Watching on in the dark, a large smile had formed on Mich A'El's face.
"Finally..." he whispered to himself, running his hand gently along the metal capsule, "...My legacy..."
He gently placed his head onto the machine, still smiling to himself as the glow began to grow brighter.
=== ...Fame... ===
Mich A'El snapped back from his reflections, the sound of chatter and muffled murmurs reaching his ears. It was a noise he had become accustomed to, even more so now after the side-effects of his experiments. The four horns that adorned his head have began growing much more pronounced; curling into a crown of sinister spires. His skin had began to lose its color, and his body felt like a corpse to the touch. He now wore a gray circlet with a dull pink gem embedded in the center; a contraption he created himself, which houses a small portion of his own soul as a reserve, in case his body suddenly succumbs to its current state.
He slowly gathered his notes back up, turning his cold gaze towards the other researchers who cowered away from him.
"This is all for the kingdom..." Mich A'El told himself, "Forget those fools, they will never understand..."
It had been only a four tendays since Mich A'El's breakthrough in his research; he had successfully split his soul without destroying it. In truth though, this was just the first part of his research. The second part involved imbuing the fragment into a vessel; a living phylactery. After his first success, he had split his soul again multiple times, ending with a total of ten fragments for ten different vessels. Of the ten vessels, one was shown to the council; a vessel named Illua.
Illua was one of the earliest vessels Mich A'El had created and was often mistaken for an automaton or golem, much to her chagrin. Most onlookers she caught staring would often be quickly berated by a disembodied voice, if not threatened by a show of magic.
She was waiting outside the lab standing beside a large pile of papers suspended in midair. With a quick flick of her wrist, the pile began trailing behind them as they walked down the hallway.
"Lady Schicksal has received more missives." Illua stated, bringing out a paper from the pile, "It appears to be more letters against your research."
Taking the paper from her hands, Mich A'El read the words scrawled onto the parchment with unseen eyes, disintegrating moments later in a puff of purple flames. He contorted his mouth in disgust turning his gaze to the large pile floating behind Illua.
"You would think the council would have better things to do than send letters like peasants scared of the unknown..." he stated, not turning his attention from the paper pile. A few moments small tongues of purple flames burst all around it, reducing the papers into nothing but black ash a moment later.
"Even the council has stooped to their level it seems..." Illua added, dusting off some stray ash from her porcelain shoulder, "Ironic, considering none bat an eye at Lord Hazirawn's incident."
"They exalted that one mind you." Mich A'El complained, raising his voice enough to have it echo down the hallway.
People would peek through closed doors and curtained rooms to see the "Souless Demon of Thultanthar", only to quickly shield their vision from his fierce mien. Paying no heed to them, both Mich A'El and Illua continued down the hallway, past the glares and stares. When they finally reached the end of the hallway, they were confronted by numerous armed guards blocking the door.
"Mich A'El Nachtaugen, by order of the council of Thultanthar you are hereby banned from entering the Arcanum Erebus." said the guard, slowly raising his weapon's edge towards Mich A'El, "You are to take your belongings and contraptions post haste, or they will be incinerated; your golem included."
As the guards approached Mich A'El, Illua stepped in between them, conjuring a bow from thin air and aiming it at the head of the guard in the center.
"Take one more step and this golem will end each and every one of your miserable-
Suddenly, Illua felt her arm go limp as the bow she conjured up disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. She saw Mich A'El tap her shoulder with a smile on his face, much to her suprise.
"Very well, I can't just resist one of the orders from the council, now can I?" he said calmly, "Though I suppose that means you lot will assist me, right?"
The guards remained silent, glancing at each other nervously as Mich A'El continued his approach.
"Come, my lab is not far from here. It would go by much faster if-
Mich A'El stopped his sentence midway when he felt the tip of one of the guard's weapons poking dangerously close to his stomach. In front of him was the head of the guards, shivering nervously as Mich A'El drew closer.
"St-Step back, demon!" the guard shouted, his grip on his sword tightening, "Your foul experiments may be allowed, but I will not have any of my men become one of your test subjects!"
A frown formed on Mich A'El's face as he held the edge of the sword in his hand.
"Really now? Who says I need my equipment to do just that?" he stated, crushing the sharp blade in his hand.
The head guard stumbled back in fear, watching as the small gem embedded in his forehead began to pulsate a faint purple glow, its rhythm almost matching, to his fright, his own heartbeat. The guard then felt something tugging at him from within, he frantically gripped at his chest while his subordinates and the other civilians around could only watch on in utter horror as his chest plate began to bend, as if some unseen force was pulling at it.
While panicked citizens fled the scene and the remaining guards who mustered enough courage surrounded Mich A'El, the head guard could only see Mich A'El glaring at him above the chaos, even as he was pinned down by his men. It wasn't until one of his guardsmen delivered a hay-maker that the strange force pulling at the metal subsided, as Mich A'El lost focus on whatever it was he was doing.
With a loud crack, more punches and kicks followed, the head guard staggering to his feet while watching his men beat down on Mich A'El. All the while, the head guardsman could only hear one thing, not the sound of fists cracking against bone, or the surprised screams of his own men as they all began to faint one by one; it was the sound of Mich A'El's laughter. When the last of the guard's had either fled or fallen unconscious onto the ground, Mich A'El was laying on the floor; battered and bruised but laughing all the while.
He slowly pushed himself up to his feet, his gaze focused on the head guardsman. With a bloodied grin, Mich A'El staggered over to him and placed a shaky hand on his shoulder as he leaned in close.
"You'll...have to try...better than that..." Mich A'El said, almost whispering. He motioned to Illua to come closer, and as she slid herself under his arm to support him, he resumed his weak laughter as the two of them walked away.
=== ...Failure ===
"You...Do you know what you are asking for?" Mich A'El inquired, turning his attention away from his desk.
Talking to him was Ruien Schicksal, his assistant in his research as well as his lover. She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at his question.
"You're worried now?" she mocked, pointing at the circlet on his head, "I didn't see you so concerned when you forced me to do the same to you."
She slammed a stack of papers down onto his desk, motioning for him to read them. Quickly flipping through them, a frown began forming on Ruien's face as Mich A'El furrowed his brow, letting out a soft sigh as he set aside the papers.
"It is too risky; we barely know the nature of your soul as it is." Mich A'El replied, almost to himself, "We can't begin to imagine what sort of effect the procedure would have-
"We didn't know what would happen back then, yet you went through with it!" Ruien interrupted, "And if it worked for you, then surely it should work on me."
Mich A'El remained silent, staring at the stack Ruien placed in front of him.
"The others have already awakened. Hell, they're already progressing faster than we anticipated thanks to Illua." she added, a hint of relief in her voice, "There isn't much else for you to worry about."
== Relationships and Affiliations ==
=== Ruien Schicksal ===
A Shadar-kai who was Mich A'El's partner. They had met during Mich A'El's days as a student in the numerous colleges of the arcane arts in the enclave of Thultanthar. She took an interest in Mich A'El's line of study, the nature of souls, and wanted to test the limits of its potential. After the accident involving splitting her soul, she and Mich A'El were separated when they were both sent to the Shadowfell in the aftermath. Mich A'El has been on the search for her ever since, using the sole fragment of her soul he possesses.
Mich A'El was reunited with Ruien after an encounter with X in the jungles of Chult. During a quest to stop the emergence of the Dendar the Night Serpent, he found her in X's possession. After being offered Ruien's life for another, Mich A'El struck against X, and used the ensuing chaos to rescue Ruien. 
=== House Nachtaugen ===
Unknown to most that encounter them, those that bear the name Nachtaugen are simply living phylacteries that house a portion of Mich A'El's soul, the original and only current surviving member of the Nachtaugen house after the fall of the Netherese empire and the destruction of Thultanthar.
=== The Shade Enclave ===
Upon discovering the Shade Fanatics, a group loyal to Thultanthar, Mich A'El saw it as an opportunity to not only rebuild Netheril in his image, a Netheril where all were accepted; he saw them as resource he could use to help restore Thultanthar and potentially find his living phylacteries.
== Character Information ==
=== Current Tier: 4 ===
=== Magic Items ===
* Ruinenkönig (Rod of Lordly Might)
* Pearl of Power
* Belt of Storm Giant Strength
* Nachtaugen Crest (Shield +3)
* A large collection of books (Tome of Understanding, Tome of Leadership and Influence, Manual of Bodily Health, Manual of Iron Golems)
=== Feats ===
* Mobile
=== Class Abilities ===
(You can write some information about your character's build, like what makes them special)
==== Class1 Features ====
* Feature 1 from Class 1
* Feature 2 from Class 2
==== Class2 Features ====
* Feature 1 from Class 1
* Feature 2 from Class 2
=== Quotes and Moments ===
Spoiler Warning:
* DDEX3-16 - He openly announced his plans to kidnap one of Grazz't's children to their nursemaid. 
* DDAL07-18 - Mich A'El was reuinited with Ruien in the jungles of Chult after dealing with the imminent threat of Dendar. He allied with Rhaugilath when the lich offered to help him rebuild Netheril.
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Category:Characters