Fictus Rigelian

## A Slave's Beginnings

Fictus Rigelain’s first memories are not of family or home, but rather his captors. At the age of six he was ripped from his home by some unknown assailants and sent on a journey that would scar his mind forever.

Five years; five long years of being dragged about the world, five long years of changing hands, five long years without a name but a number.

From the shores of Haven to the ever-dangerous Leviathan waters in the Krackenal Expanse just off of the coast of Kivath, Fictus (known at the time as #4281) eventually found himself standing once again in the trade hall, presented in his tatters to hundreds of buyers.

Some made small bets, never reaching the asking price, except for one.

A man, standing almost at the height of a giant stood from his seat. Dressed in a fine black suit that clung to his thin, lanky body that was stained around the collar, the man held a price, holding up his fan. Ten Thousand gold.

## The First Encounter

The man’s features, ever foggy in Fictus’s mind, held nothing but notable aspects.

First was his spectacles, shining white and always refracting the light that would come upon it, hiding his eyes.

Second was his nose, abnormally long and pointed like a crow’s beak.

Then came his hands; large, thin, with long fingers that were always curved at the 3rd set of joints upon his fingers like the talons of a predatory bird, with nails that were chipped and dirty.

Finally was his smile. He was always… smiling, no matter the situation. His old face, covered in wrinkles and crow’s feet, was always contorted in an unnatural smile, showing his yellowed teeth that would shine almost golden in the light.

Fictus’s memory of the man eventually fell out to the point of where he only retained the nickname: The Smiling Man.

He never was able to get a name anyways, as The Smiling Man never talked.

## The Smiling Man

The Smiling Man never really attempted to communicate with Fictus for the first two years, never expressing any sort of positive or negative emotions. He never struck Fictus himself, instead letting his other servants consistently beat and rip Fictus’s scales from his body using hammers and chisels.

Fictus never really could figure out what The Smiling Man wanted from him, never ordering him to do anything, never asking of his services. For long periods of the day, The Smiling Man would just stare at Fictus, his eyes hidden behind the spectacles.

This changed when Fictus decided to look back into the eyes of The Smiling Man.

Time became irrelevant, thoughts became putty. Small images of the following years burned into his memory but never given context.

Fictus remembered some small fragments, sometimes waking up on a surgeon’s gurney, his innards pulled and tacked against a table.

Sometimes he would wake to watch the Smiling Man work, using a small set of pliers to pull scale by scale from Fictus’s body. Sometimes, The Smiling Man wanted more.

One memory stuck out beyond many.

Fictus was laying on his back, eyes held open by some strange clamps upon his eyelids. There was no pain, only discomfort. The smiling man, after what seemed like hours, would step over Fictus. Wearing that same smile, that same suit, and those same spectacles. Then, came the needles. The Smiling Man would take the time to show Fictus a sewing needle and thread, held carefully in his multi-jointed fingers. The needle came closer, closer to Fictus’s eye. Until a wet noise pierced through Fictus’s skull as the needle went into his pupil, the feeling of the cold metal scraping along the inside of his eye and socket and beyond the eye itself fading as that memory went to black.

Time passed, an unknown amount of time.

## The Birth of Freedom

One day, Fictus… woke up. The memories of everything done to his body, as hazy as it was, flooded his senses all at once. Like a floodgate burst open, each feeling, each emotion all came upon Fictus’s senses.

The Smiling Man watched over Fictus’s cage, watching, waiting. After a few moments, he grabbed a book from his side and placed it into Fictus’s cage, before opening the cage itself.

It took Fictus a moment to realize that he wasn’t in the laboratory anymore, but rather out in a vast grassy planescape, the moonlight shimmering down upon his head for the first time in what felt like centuries. Before he could even speak or move, the Smiling Man was gone.

The book in front of Fictus was a tomb, wreathed in skin and scales. The spine made from interwoven bone and the leather binding decorated with teeth. Upon the front of the book was an eye of amber, forever open and somewhat deflated from being dry. The book’s pages were slightly red in colour, parchment that was slightly hard to the touch. The contents were… familiar, a wizard’s spellbook. The contents were known to Fictus, yet the memories were not there.

Most of the pages were blank, but there was a note on the final page. “I will be watching.”

## Appearance

Fictus is a Silver Dragonborn with a heavily scarred body, was about six feet tall and has cold and piercing amber eyes, with a pair of rather large, leathery wings and a lithe build.

One scar runs from the top of of his right eye, down his cheek before it would bolt up a bit and then shoot down to the left side of his chin. Down from his throat to his hips was a long, thick scar that would go over his breastplate and stomach, with one scar forming from armpit to armpit over his sternum and another going from side to side at his hip, interlocking with the longer scar.

A lot of his scales seem to be younger than the others, seeming to be regrowing from possible damage done years beforehand, with the older scales being chipped and damaged from some form of abuse.

His attire is generally shoddy and lackluster, resembling several burlap sacks repurposed to be clothing, sewn haphazardly over his body with holding pins sticking out everywhere. It would be uncomfortable for most, given that the pins would constantly be poking the body, however the Dragonborn’s scales easily kept them from poking at the flesh below.

His posture is typically tall and proud, his steps carrying a jaunt and a grace of that of either an acrobat or a dancer.

## Personality

Contrasting what might be expected, Fictus seems to be rather sane and in fact he is surprisingly outgoing and friendly to those he meets.

He is quick to learn and often strives to create a good impression, treating everyone - especially those who most would consider rabble or nobodies -  with respect.

Were it not that the means he uses to remain effective in his studies, he would surely be considered a pious-like figure in the community, at least disposition-wise.

## Enemies

The Smiling Man - Not much is known, but his presence always seems to be close by.

## Aspirations

Fictus has a goal that borders the cliche of most necromancers; his long term goal being the ascension to lichdom. However the means of reaching that goal are more noble than those who wish to ascend to lichdom for immortality at the cost of the harrowing journey and the loss of humanity.

His desired path is to form a society where the living are free to follow their own aspirations, leaving the husks of the dead to perform the mundane labors.

With this process in kind, the need for slavery and indentured servitude would become obsolete with the only request being that when those who reap the benefits of such a society perish, that they allow their remains to contribute towards the future. The end result borders on the primal fear of death, and the longevity of life through unlife.

The process will be beyond harrowing, so to make efforts to maintain his love for life he plans to make his phylactery the forest and wildlife around the society that he would create. This would create an ultimatum, for if he ever stopped caring for life and allowed it to wither outside his shell, then he himself would die as well.