Dorian Blackwood

Dorian Blackwood, (A.K.A. Jett Kuroi, A.K.A. Jett Nightmist, A.K.A. Rat Bastard), is a Half-Human, Half-Elf thug who has made his life on the streets. From a family that has not shown love or a care for him, and have actually shown hostile intent to kill, he left his original home due to a massive fire and attempted to make his life on his own. For a time, his sister was the only one to show him any care, but their ways parted due to happenstance regarding others of their family. Since the age of 17, he has been alone, till joining with an organization simply called, The Nightmist Clan.

## Personal Backstory

Dorian is the 5th of 5 children born to Liam and Jillian Blackwood. While there was love between his parents, their marriage was one of arrangement. The Blackwood family, and Jillian's family, the Gwennods, were both well known and well feared crime families. There was history of conflict between the two, and their marriage was not favored but agreed upon as a means to sow some kind of truce and alignment between the two families. For 12 years, all went well. With three sons and one daughter, the couple was appeasing both sides of the family. While the Gwennods would have preferred more daughters, there was at least one, so that their ways could be taught to a new daughter, and the Blackwoods could teach theirs to the sons.

Dorian never knew the specifics, but upon his birth, there were complications and Jillian did not survive. Dieing while giving birth, Liam was inconsolable, and in turn, he blamed Dorian for it. He treated Dorian poorly, not looking after him, not feeding him, and often even being hostile and violent. Dorian's sister, Rhea took care of him. She did what she could, and secretively. Or at least, as secretively as a 6 year old girl could be. For the attention she gave to Dorian, she too received mistreatment, punishment, rebuke and abuse. As he grew older, he grew bolder. Dorian tried to defend his sister, but he was the youngest and the weakest. Soon, he learned to keep his animosity and reprisal silent and to not act.

When he was 8, and Rhea was 14, Dorian happened to enter the basement of the Blackwood house and witnessed a rather brutal example of the treatment his sister received for her care of him. He does not know what happened next, to this day, and all he can remember is a description that he often reflects on, and sometimes tells in story to someone else:

> *Red brick walls; not able to reflect much, but nevertheless, in them I see the light from a raging fire. I have no idea how it started. I have no idea how it came to this point, for I remember nothing from the previous moments. No longer being beaten, my sister now kneels at my side, her arms around me. The fire that rages is uncontrollable, yet somehow, a dome of wind is buffeting it away from us. And then, an explosion. One of the walls burst open. Our uncle, father's brother, storms into the place with help and we're dragged out. The rest is more of a blur, but still, I remember sitting in the grass outside, watching the house collapse and thinking that father and our brothers never emerged. I never saw them through the flames. We were free, essentially. Rhea wanted to go with Uncle Damian, but me... I simply wondered where he and the others had been all this time. So we fled and squatted in abandoned household after abandoned household, stealing our bread from the merchants, and snatching coin for all our other needs.*
>
>

From the age of 8 to the age of 17 (Rhea 14 to 23), the two lived out of abandoned buildings, constantly fleeing to a new one to avoid pursuit by all the merchants, officials, or other people of importance they had to steal from in order to survive. Rhea made suggestions often to go the other family members, but again and again Dorian spoke out against such. He knew nothing of it, but she stayed with him and agreed with him simply so they would not be seperated. She did not want him to think she'd betray him. But, for all his rebuke of the idea, soon enough, his opinion would not matter.

They had another uncle. Loghain Gwennod was their mother's brother. At the order of his own mother, he made the efforts to round the two of them up and bring them to the Gwennod home. He brought peaceable words of care and protection, which made no sense in the moment, as they had believed their father and brothers dead in the fire. However, soon enough, these interactions led to Loghain and Liam meeting up again. Now, Dorian and Rhea were clued in to the fact that Loghain sought a Gwennod family heirloom that Jillian supposedly had. Their mother, Kara, desired to have it back, so it could be passed on to Jillian's sister. Liam refused to relinquish it. This brought about a fight between Loghain and Liam that could have ended all of it on that day, but Dorian was pissed; about many things. Once again, however, his memory lapses over the details of this fight. He simply remembers getting involved in it and at some point passing out. He woke up several hours later, still in the streets where this fight took place, but Loghain was gone, Liam was gone, and most importantly, Rhea was gone.

### How the Story Continues...

Here, my rp takes place, dependant upon what continuity I play in. However, there have been some cases, where I actually begin his RP a few years later. But, where his first RP ever picked up, was in a situation where he had done some horrific and damaging things after this altercation, and he wished to make up for it. This role-play introduced him to a bunch of people calling themselves *The Nightmist Clan*, played by a bunch of people I interacted with in that initial rp and have become background NPCs for any RP I've done with him since.

## Continuity

Originally, Dorian was my first D&D character, made when I was 10 years old. The only concept of his story, then, was that he heard voices in his head, had done bad things, and was trying to make up for them. He was not my first character in the AOL/Rhy'din RP world, but he was eventually added and brought into a series of interactions with a group of people who had created the Nightmist Clan there. They introduced me to systems other than D&D, mainly World of Darkness (Vampire the Masquerade). I played Dorian with them into my high school years. His story did not change much till I started trying him out in other continuities, with other groups of people, and of course, in role-play outside of the AOL sphere.

#### AOL/Rhy'din:

It was in the role-play in Rhy'din that Dorian met with the group the Nightmist Clan, and more specifically, with the woman known as Rosalinde. With her, there was a deep love, though it always went unmentioned, as there were also mental issues on both sides that caused arguments back and forth. Nevertheless, with her, they had a child. The RP did not develop much beyond that point as that was essentially the point where AOL stopped holding the monopoly on internet connection, and people spread out over other accesses to interactivity online. I lost track of the people in the Nightmist Clan, and moved on to RP in other places.

#### Modern/Paranormal:

I have been a part of a few small forum-based groups that catered to role-play in a modern/paranormal setting based off the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry book series by Laurel K. Hamilton. There, his story remained mainly the same. He was of course human instead of half-elf, it was more magical based rather than just being a street thug with a tiny bit of magical ability, and it was in this realm where I dabbled in attempting to identify the mental condition he suffered from. I still do not have a hard answer though on what it would be and remain convinced that he actually has a blending of things due to how difficult it is to label.

#### Video Game Renditions:

I role-play my characters in every game I play, even in single-player games. So, Dorian made it into worlds like The Elder Scrolls, X-Com, etc., but I also played him in multi-player games, and so there were various continuity shifts for when I played him as a comic book super hero in City of Heroes, or a Blood Elf Rogue in World of Warcraft. There was even a rendition of him in Final Fantasy XIV.

#### New/Recent D&D:

Since 2018, I've been back into Dungeons and Dragons, and have had more ability to get involved in D&D. I also run my own campaign at this point, thus extending the role of NPC to Dorian. The campaign I run is set in the Elder Scrolls world, so it just involved taking my Skyrim representation of him and bringing that into the campaign.

In 5th Edition, my current view of Dorian is as a Arcane Trickster Rogue multi-classed as a Bladesinger Wizard. There is a very specific campaign I played him in as that build and now I just see him as that no matter what. That has changed multiple times in the past, so I'm sure it will happen again, but as things stand right now, that is my view of him.

#### The Misfits

In this campaign, I began his story some 10 years after the disappearance of his sister. At this time, he has had his run in with the Nightmist Clan, has had his relationship with Rosalinde, his son has been born, and his son is living in secret out of the many Safehouses of the Nightmist Clan. He has been raised by many of the members alongside Dorian. He has hunted down his father and killed him, but his brothers are alive and out there.

The eldest brother Mathias is attempting to reforge some acclaim for the Blackwood family, building up his own crew of people.

The middle brother died in the fire back when Dorian was 8.

The youngest brother, Harald, has gotten invested in business, shady and otherwise, and has married into an entirely different crime syndicate in the world, run by an elderly goblin woman simply known as The Emerald Lady.

Mathias's efforts eventually involve dealing with members of The Emerald Lady's organzation that are not to pleased with serving a Goblin. While it pains Dorian, he has to refrain from dealing with Harold, but takes all due eagerness in killing Mathias. Amidst these escapades, some other dangers arise.

Kara Gwennod, Dorian's grandmother, has revealed that the family heirloom is not a physical object, but the magical talents shared by those of the Gwennod line. Dorian has inherited those skills, and when he is unwilling to serve her with those skills she reveals that Kalline, Dorian's son, has also inherited those skills. She attempts to kidnap Kalline from one of the Nightmist Safehouses, single-handedly killing many of the people there, and forcing others to flee. Kalline is spirited away from the safehouse to Dorian. The Emerald Lady witnesses this excursion and gives Kalline an Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location, further garnering his refrain from killing his other brother, because of his ties to her daughter.

Kalline is rushed off from this point, to a different safe location, where an Orc friend by the name of Lugr will watch over him while Dorian takes a more active role in things. His grandmother is not alone, however, having ties to the Elven monarch who has married into the royalty of the Kingdom of Drakos. During a tournament in a festival in town, a Dragonborn Knight and a menagerie of Chromatic Dragons, all pledging fealty to Tiamat lead an attack on the city. The Royal family is overthrown and the family of the Elven monarch's wife are killed or chased out of town. A green dragon, specifically, mentions Kalline by name and that he is aware of his scent.

Dorian and a party of fellow adventurers begin touring the lands of Drakos trying to find remnants and refugees to gather together a resistance, and in the process, they track down the green dragon in a canyon. After a protracted fight, the dragon is killed and Dorian takes a spear, planting the Dragon's head upon it, and puts it at the top of a mountainside on the north end of the canyon, facing the capital city of Drakos.

Amidst other travels, a group of minions to the Elven kingdom and the servants of Tiamat engage the Misfits, and in the fight, things turn dire. Dorian, and one other fall in the fight and as a result, he dies. A mask he wore, enchanted with magic, is instantly transported to Kalline with a note for Lugr. While there is aide from Clerics to bring the two back, Dorian still feels the need at the end of this battle to abandon the group. With the aid of a Wizard friend of another of the Misfits, Dorian teleports out to Lugr's home and retrieves his mask and his son. Departing swiftly, they find an isolated location, where the Wizard begins teaching both Kalline and Dorian more magic.

This is where the campaign dropped off. It has been a while since we last met, and I do not know if it will ever be continued, but his future would be in learning the magic the Wizard would teach him, and he would end up specializing in becoming an anti-mage mage. With magic being a heavy focus of the Elven kingdom in the story, and his grandmother and her family, it seemed the obvious focus for him to try and dismantle all of it.

## Appearance

Name: Dorian Blackwood

Height: 5'6" (167.64 cm)

Weight: 177 lbs (80.3 kg)

Age: 28 years

Known aliases: Gravedigger (much to his dismay), Nightshade, Jett Nightmist

Build: Bearing some muscular definition, his body is still rather slim, and only partly due to lack of regular nourishment. He has an athletic build, catered to ease of movement and of course a desire to not be to weighted and causing unecessary noise when moving.

Tattoos & Scars: Having lived a life of crime, he has spent his fair share of time behind bars. And where there are bars, there are also instruments of torture when jailors desire information. As a result, there is a messy sea of scars on his back as evidence of multiple applications of whipping. Old and new, healed and unhealed, it is a mess.

On his chest, is a tattoo of a dragon taking flight, wings outstretched, tail curling below in a knotwork design. On his arms, are serpents, winding around the whole of his arms, with the heads of the snakes upon his shoulders, with their mouths agape, fangs bared at his throat.

Jewelry: He has no piercings, but does wear a couple of rings. Mainly, they function as magical foci, but one is a mark of the Nightmist clan; a silver band with a pair of raven wings, very small settings placed within the wings. There is also a necklace he wears, nothing elaborate. A simple silver chain, with a signet ring hung from it. The ring has a bloodstone setting and functions as a reminder of Rosalinde.

## Family

At creation, Dorian was the 5th child to Liam and Jillian, and that was the extent I knew of his family. Over the years, I defined who the siblings were, and as D&D campaigns or story progression in other RP dictated, I expanded on parent's siblings, parent's parents, and more. Something that emerged, was a trend that has, in a way, replicated in other characters I will discuss on other pages, and that is, having large family trees that at times connect with other families I've created. Not saying all my characters are, in some way, related to each other, but some of them have extensive family trees that connect to other characters I've played.

Names listed above are the main names I use, and refer to, as they were in the original concept of the Dorian character. Over the years, however, and dependant on what continuity they were included in, some of the names had some slight variation. When I originally wrote the character, I had not, yet, read any of Tolkien's books, and it was not until my high school years that I started using some Elven names taken from the languages he created. Also, some continuities were set in a modern, real world setting, and as such, Dorian and none of his family were Elves. And then there are entirely different continuities, like playing Dorian as a Zabrak in the Star Wars universe, while Rosalinde was Chiss, making Kalline a half-Zabrak, half-Chiss character.

In this case, I have not played all the characters in Dorian's family tree. In fact, the only characters I have made any effort to play as, other than Dorian himself, have been his sister Rhea, and his son, Kalline. So, the extended family has just been there as background/NPC characters brought about from the development of backstory, and brought about by DMs to sow some discord into Dorian's life (like he didn't already have heaps of it).