Saamil Ayani

> *"Once again, let's see if I have time... because I've borrowed so much already."*
>
>

Saamil Ayani (*He/They*) was a Titan artillerist artificer. As a guest character, Saamil is played by Jonathan Mendoza in The Second Stranger SYOS Series.

Spared from an early death by a third party on behalf of the The Raven Queen, Saamil was a gigantic mage artificer who used their unexpected gift of a long life to further the creation of a weapon that could harness and use the power of the draconic mages against them. As a Titan, he lived during the time of The Thousand Year War, nearly ten-thousand years prior to the events of The Second Stranger.

## *Description*

### Appearance

Saamil was an older Titan person with dark sangria-red skin. Tracing lines across his body were three or four dully-glowing indigo tattoos that slowly shifted across their skin, one of which seemed to brighten and dim in conjunction with their breathing. They had luminous golden eyes with black sclera, and burnt orange hair with streaks of white running through it. He also had "an excuse of a beard" that had been roughly shorn away as if out of irritation than fashion. Saamil wore simple, practical clothes when not wearing more militaristic garb as a member of the gigantic army, but it was clear that fashion was a distant afterthought at best to anyone who knew them.

Their eldritch cannon was made of burnished steel, covered in turquoise runes, and mounted on four articulated legs. While smaller than the typical cannon, it was large enough to act as a sort of shoulder-mountain weapon. Saamil often kept it under their cloak at rest, with the cannon crawling up his arm to rest on his shoulder in combat.

### Personality

Saamil was a curmudgeonly, distant, and often frustrating individual whose cranky, icy exterior belied an insightful and perceptive core. A meticulous artificer and craftsperson, Saamil came alive when speaking about his work, though considering the focus of his creative energy this could often come across as more disturbing than endearing.

A devout worshipper of the Raven Queen, Saamil's worship of her intensified to zealotry in the wake of the event that would spare their life. They devoted their being to preserving life through the art of violence by crafting weapons of war, and hoped to spend their borrowed time extending the time of others. At heart, Saamil was a contradiction who held a determinist view of life and death yet strove to ensure that his allies could take as much time as The Raven Queen would allow him to give, betraying a hidden loyalty to their comrades and a concern for their wellbeing (if not their opinions of him).

## *Biography*

### Backstory

Saamil was born in what would later come to be known as Blackspire, in a family with no house or pedigree to speak of. Disabled from a young age with a congenital disorder that affected their lungs, Saamil's life began difficult and only worsened over time as their malady grew steadily worse.

Over a hundred years prior to the events of Till Death Do Us Part, Saamil lay on their deathbed but was saved due to the intervention of an Orc Titan artificer - known only as The Medic - who installed artificial lungs of steel and glass. In the moments after The Medic left, Saamil sensed the shadow of The Raven Queen's flock passing over them, and swore to devote their life to saving others: to extending the time others might have if She so granted. It was then that the first of their four shifting tattoos etched across their skin, as their body attuned to the magic item that would sustain it for years to come.

### Campaign

#### SYOS 2022

##### Till Death Do Us Part

> *"Queen of Ravens, Watcher on the Blackened Spire, Lodestar of the Longest Road I’ll Ever Walk:* *A dedication of our breath / To the goddess of our birth and death. // In life, we scatter. In death, are one. / Let this borrowed clock be now undone."*
>
>

Saamil was stationed at an outpost south of Nitbuza's Teardrop near the end of the Thousand Year War. They were present alongside Coria Nepos, Lorra Samson, Rafael Balmoor, and Captain Luo when Abiku Ishtar's relationship with Xunyi was revealed, and thus also present when Luo read Abiku's mind, hearing Queen Undu speak about the Titansbane Curse and the Queens' plan to end the Thousand Year War in mutual destruction. After Xunyi revealed that the draconic Orders were planning to banding together to unleash a full siege on The Iron Citadel, and Abiku and Xunyi proposed attempting to convince the leaders of the gigantic and draconic factions to engage in peace talks, Saamil was initially only curious as to whether Abiku had a plan for if the Queens executed them for treason preemptively. When Abiku declared that they did not, Saamil agreed to join the attempt to bring about peace talks, stating that "if Abiku had said they had a plan, I'd be worried."

During the eight-day siege of the Iron Citadel by draconic forces, Saamil assisted the artificers and engineers creating and maintaining the gigantic armies weapons; what free time they had, however, was devoted to the creation of a prototype Dragon Wing Bow, a weapon that used the magics of draconic mages. Stymied initially during past attempts by the need to work with a living draconic mage to understand the complexities of their magic, Saamil found unexpected assistance in the form of Xunyi, who assisted him with this project using their own skill and magical essence. In the brief moments before the attack on the Vault of Banou, Saamil completed their work by delivering the bow to Xunyi, that the draconic mage might return Abiku's marriage proposal.

When the gigantic and draconic mages meet in the Vault of Banou, Saamil joined their comrades in the brief cease-fire to entreat their leaders for peace, saying they had seen The Raven Queen "taxed" and "take many on a road that most will not return from," and that they "create for a world where that road is empty, for as many days as possible." After the cease-fire comes to a tragic end with Xunyi's murder at the hands of Tiran, Saamil entered the fight against the draconic mage leader with their unit. As the battle raged, Saamil was flash-frozen by Tiran's ice breath; in the brief moments before they were frozen, however, Saamil reached for the Weave and undid the enchantment on his artificial lungs with ***Heat Metal***, rendering the artifice unstable. The resulting explosion noticeably injured Tiran, though Saamil himself was disintegrated completely. As what remained of their shredded soul dissipated, Saamil beheld The Raven Queen manifest in the Now as a flock of birds - no eyes, no beaks, only wings - before they finally disappeared, presumably to the After.

Gallery pending.
## Trivia

* Saamil's lineage more specifically is a mix of fire genasi and shadar-kai.
* Saamil's glowing tattoos are a visual indication of their magic item attunement; the number specifically references the artificer's 10th-level Magic Item Adept ability, which allows them to attune to four magic items at once rather than the usual three.
	+ The single tattoo that brightens and dims is the tattoo that signifies Saamil's attunement to the artificial lungs that The Medic gifted them, and is the tattoo they have had the longest.
* Saamil is aromantic and asexual.