Tallheart

Tallheart - portrayed by @AceAximeck on Twitter; commissioned by Roguish

Tallheart is a cervidian smith.

## Appearance

Tallheart has short brown hair, large slate gray eyes, and a stern face with a well-defined jaw. He stands out in any crowd due to his cervidian nature, as he has large multi-point antlers on his head. He wears full plate full-time.

Tallheart is a taciturn person, but shares his dry humor with the rare friends he makes. He dislikes beards.

## Background

Tallheart was born on the 3rd of Frostfall in 3032.

He was once married to the adventurer Snowlilly, and they lived together in Bellost, the big continent east of Ekrustia, which was also their birthplace. They lived in a community of cervidians: Tallheart's parents were Oakheart and Imbara; his uncle from the mother side, Ogara, was an unawakened smith. Snowlilly and Tallheart were the only ones who escaped Adamantian hunters. They lived in the wilds, survived and got stronger, and then used a teleport platform to Ekrustia in 3050 , where they made it their mission to attack the Empire at every chance they got. Snowlilly was the fighter while Tallheart fabricated their equipment. In 3052, Tallheart and Snowlilly liberated Proudrock from an Adamantian border village. In the Empire, Tallheart earned himself the designation *Vileheart*.

They clashed several more times with the Empire, but eventually retired to a secret community of cervidians in Ekrustia, where Snowlilly and Tallheart served as protectors, rested and strengthened themselves. Tallheart forged his armor and in 3058 they set out to delve again to gain levels, but chose a lair too powerful for them: They made fine progress, meeting only little trouble, until encountering the final boss. Snowlilly sacrificed herself to the dragon so that Tallheart could narrowly escape with his life.

After losing Snowlilly in 3058, Tallheart met Jamus, whom he began considering a friend after Jamus helped him. Tallheart settled in a shack in the woods near Fel Sadanis, about an hour of a walk from the city walls.

Tallheart met Rain in late autumn 3060, and quickly grew tolerant towards the weird human after Rain helped him out in several ways. Rain introduced an increasing number of friends to Tallheart's clearing of solitude: first Val and Ameliah. Together with Carten, they all checked out the darkness lair, captured Stint and escaped Velika Vekuavak. Tallheart created Rain's first suit of armor (and the following ones) and the Malleable Ring, to balance his built. Tallheart returned to his spot in the forest only to be discovered by Staavo next, shortly before the barrier stone was activated. Tallheart, Jamus and Staavo fled the Empire's presence, but returned when Ameliah found them. Tallheart and Staavo created a primitive generator and the first lightbulbs of the world, while camping outside the barrier. After the barrier dropped, Tallheart became a founding member of Ascension and was responsible for building and maintaining the forgewagon.

In Vestvall, Tallheart convinced Rain to go delve the depths after Rain and Ameliah were nearly killed by the Crimson Swords. They explored the Ashen Jungle and the Sparkscale Deep. The trio returned from the depths in triumph, with much higher gear crafted by Tallheart below, and became much closer friends, now considering each other family. Tallheart now no longer refused to craft gear for the general use in Ascension, accepted Ellis as his apprentice and also made a Malleable earclip for Jamus.

In Spring 3061, at the Salt Flats, Tallheart, Staavo and Ellis made a formidable steam/combustion/electricity-powered Forcewagon thanks to Rain's otherworldy knowledge. Tallheart named the house-sized landship Subtlety. This facilitated their travel across the plains/salt flats, but they still arrived at Three Cliffs after it had been attacked by the Fist of Progress. Tallheart was again invaluable in freeing Lellermen Green, protecting Ascension from people like Argle Thrast and in repairing the Fist of Progress which he renamed Temerity. Tallheart was able to heal the bad wounds of Halgrave with his smithing skills, when the gold-level guild fighter was fully transformed into living armor and had to fear living as a cripple.

## Skills / Build

He is absurdly strong, but apparently didn't invest all his attributes in a monolithic Strength-based build - only most. His ability to move incredibly silent comes from a skill-accolade he uses, and lots of practice with it.

Known named skills include: Malleability, Planarity, Order of Metal, Mana Manipulation, Energize Runes, Soul of Metal

He does **not** have Heavy Armor Inventory, a hidden skill which requires 50 ranks in the Heavy Armor tree and 50 ranks in the Equipment Use tree and which allows dematerializing a donned armor into a magical inventory, and rematerialize it when needed. However, together with Snowlilly, Tallheart worked out how to produce the rune for this skill and used it on his helmet, which he can materialize on his head, slowly depleting charges, that can only be recharged using Gran tel, with the Energize Runes skill.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 19
2. ↑ Chapter 22
3. ↑ Chapter 253
4. ↑ Chapter 55
5. ↑ Chapter 110
6. ↑ Chapter 60
7. ↑ Chapter 200
8. ↑ Chapter 48
9. ↑ Chapter 138
10. ↑ Chapter 179

Tallheart had Point of View paragraphs in the following chapters: #29, #60, #69, #87, #100, #122, #138, #145, #146, #152, #166, #170, #178, #181, #190, almost all of #194, #221, #223, and #230. That makes him the third-most often portrayed character after Rain and Ameliah. All of Chapter #48 was also dedicated to his character's PoV, which made him the third character (after Jamus and Val) to be given that kind of prominence. (Full list of chapters includes PoV breakdowns)