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Description

_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

Rashan
__________________________
Houndoom :: Occultist (Spirit Medium)
24 :: He/Him :: Flash Fire
:: Destiny Bond - Rashan communes with a departed spirit, either to speak and hear it himself, or to channel it through himself. While Bonded with a spirit, it can also communicate with others present.
:: Will-o-Wisp - Rashan summons lesser spirits to his aid, which can light the area or burn a target.
:: Odor Sleuth - Rashan’s special blend of incense clouds an area, making it possible to identify and target ghosts and ghost types.
:: Feint Attack - Rashan summons an aura of darkness around his fist to fuccing deck a man

_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

✥ Personality:
     ✓ Passionate | Friendly | Perceptive | Fun-loving | Self-sacrificing | (Perhaps surprisingly) Religious | Gentle
     ▪︎ Impartial | Amoral
     ✖ Hedonistic | Impassive | Blasé | Disobedient | Self-sacrificing
✥ Story:

From the moment Rashan was born, he walked with death.
If the young houndoom’s family was strange, he did not notice it. He had a mother who cooed over him, a father who was glum and stoic, grandparents who nagged about the world today, and siblings who never seemed to stop wailing. What did it matter that they had no home, and lived on the street? Maybe people did, even if they were considered unfortunates. The people of his small village were close-knit and distant all at once. It was customary to be wary of outsiders and to keep one’s head down in their own affairs, but that did not stop the odd vendor from having mercy on the homeless child. Rashan had no memory of how he survived before, but from what he could recall, most of his meals came from charity. His mother only cried over how skinny he was, and his father would turn his eyes away, but their failure to provide only made the boy more protective of them, and determined to meet his own needs without troubling them, however he must accomplish it.

It never occurred to him to think it strange that his mother or sisters never ate, just as it never occurred to him to bring food back for him. It was simply how things were done.
Rashan did not realize that he had no family at all until he was nine years old. That was when a young man stepped up to him on the street and, without pramable, sprinkled incense at his feet. In an instant, Rashan’s ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘grandparents,’ and ‘siblings’ were gone. Rashan did not even have a chance to catch their eyes one last time.

He sat, shell-shocked, haunted eyes staring at where they had been, before turning to look up at the young man above him. ‘Haunted’ is exactly what he’d been, the stranger explained brusquely. And the ghosts must have been clinging to him for some time, he continued, because they were almost tangible to his eye.

‘Almost tangible,’ Rashan wondered somewhere within the distant ringing of his ears. What about them was ‘almost?’ His mother was so warm when she held him at night, and his father would ruffle the shock of hair between his horns on the rare days he smiled. His sister would kiss him on the cheek before running off to play.
“Well, you’re safe now.” He was safe before. “They won’t trouble you any longer.” They’d been his family. “I’ve never seen so many spirits latch on to one person before...In any case, run on home now.” It was his home the stranger had just destroyed.
Then, as suddenly as he appeared, the young man left. Rashan followed. He had nowhere else to go, and in lieu of one broken home, he clung to the one who dispersed it. He slunk after the young man, staying out of sight until he came to a strange home. Only then did the young man notice his tail, sputtering indignantly before inviting him in.
The young man—barely fifteen—introduced himself with bewilderment as Aram, and he was a spiritualist. Or his teacher was. Technically he was an ‘apprentice spiritualist,’ and his master had ordered him to go out into the village and do good works. Rashan did not know what a spiritualist was, ‘apprentice’ or otherwise, but the works Aram had done had not been good for him. This seemed to give Aram pause. He asked if Rashan had really been able to physically interact with the spirits, and if they’d really been around so long he confused them for a family? Rashan could not say anything else, except that they’d been the only world he knew. At that moment, Aram seemed to come to a decision, and told Rashan that he should stay.
The ‘strange house’ was a small temple, the size of a single room with most of the space taken up by bookshelves and a workbench. Its master, a chief priest, was away at the moment, but Aram insisted he would want to meet Rashan, and probably train him if he was lucky. If ‘training’ meant food, Rashan would happily study under a camerupt. Though the offer was made, it was four months before Aram’s master returned home from performing an exorcism in a distant city. In that time, the apprentice showed Rasham some basics, and tried to learn more about the houndoom child’s unusual nature.
He soon discovered that Rashan was like a lure, or tether, for spirits—a medium dons called them. The boy could call forth spirits with such clarity that they could touch him, speak to him, were entirely like real people to him, even if Rashan was the only one who was sensate of their presence. Unfortunately, the affinity went both ways; some spirits were also compelled to seek Rashan out, and would not leave him in peace until forced. His ‘family’ had probably been such spirits, seeking the boy out like a light in the darkness. Aram theorized that each of the spirits probably had a lingering wish that related to family, or caring for a child. Staying with Rashan fulfilled those dying desires, but while their intentions had been nurturing, not all of the shades pulled in by his presence would be so friendly. Aram taught Rashan about a selection of herbs and crystals that could keep most spirits at bay, others that would dispel them if they did latch on, and most of all—what it meant to be able to see and hear the dearly departed, and the weighty responsibility that laid on the boy’s narrow shoulders.
Eventually, Aram’s master did return, and so Master and Apprentice became Master, Apprentice, and Apprentice’s Apprentice. They lived that way for years. Rashan learned not just how to force the spirits that perched on him away, but also how to rid others and places from them, the applications of hundreds of herbs and crystals, and other forays into the world of the occult.
Before Rashan was eighteen, Aram’s master passed away, leaving just the two of them. Apprentice and Apprentice’s Apprentice carried on as they had been before, but things were different now. The temple had always been small, but now it felt empty. Cold. When they studied a new tome, they sat closer together. When Rashan was brought to tears by his connection with a grieving spirit, all of its sense of fear, loss, and hopelessness flooding into him, Aram held him until his eyes dried. And when Aram was called away to perform an exorcism in Ezra or Falione, Rashan would jump into his arms the moment he returned to greet him home. Until, on one reunion, Rashan kissed him, too.
The world froze in that moment, and then sped up very quickly into laughter, smiles, and not a few tears. Neither knew what they were doing, but they _did_ know that the world was a very strange, sometimes frightening, place, and in the midst of all the death and mysteries, they had each other. Strangest of all was how easily things returned to normal after that. The only changed seemed to be that, instead of Apprentice and Apprentice’s Apprentice, they’d become equals in their esoteric art. They traveled for work together, researched together, tended their small herbalists’ garden together, and understood that the other was one of the few people in all the world who could see the things they’d seen. It was liberating and cementing all at once, and in a world of half-seen things all around Rashan, Aram was the only thing that was real.
But death followed Rashan everywhere. It seemed that not even that which he loved most was immune.
Aram was killed. Somewhere far from Rashan, quelling a dangerous spirit in a ruin lost among the godsforsaken sand. Rashan hadno confirmation except for a sickening sensation in his stomach lasting two months, until a knock came on their small temple door. It was the explorer who hired Aram to quell the poltergeist, ringing his hands and seeking ‘next of kin.’ He wanted to report that the spiritualist he employed had failed, and was looking to inquire if another remained to finish—
Rashan slammed the door in his face, only to slide down against it, holding himself. He knew it, could feel the truth of it vibrating in the darkness that always churned around him. And yet, if Aram has died, why hadn’t his spirit sought him out? Had he passed on, without finding Rashan to say goodbye? Or could be be trapped somehow in the ruins with the spirit he’d died trying to pacify?
Rashan flung himself feverishly into research. Dusty tomes long forgotten in the dark corners of their dusty temple piled high around him, he scoured for a way to not just summon or dispell a spirit, but to _commune_ with one. One last time, he just needed _one last time_ to speak to Aram, to say goodbye. Sleepless days bled into sleepless nights beyond Rashan’s counting. When their master’s books proved fruitless, Rashan was left with no choice but to invent a way.
Spells to summon a spirit, circles to hold them; herbs to appease them, crystals to anchor them—and blood to give them enough life to remember who they had been. With these instruments around him, Rashan sat, wrist bleeding, in a circle on their temple floor, casting his soul out as he’s never endangered it before.
And there he was. A gentle hand caressed his cheek. Rashan opened his eyes, and seated across from him—as he sat for over a decade before—was Aram. He looked exactly the same, skin flush and warm, no signs of what trauma killed him. In hindsight, it made Rashan realize that his ‘family’ of old had been more fragile in comparison. As a child, he simply accepted their sallow and wane forms, but they were like gauze compared to how vibrant and _alive_ Aram seemed now. Except, when his palm smoothed over the side of Rashan’s face, it felt...off.
Once, a young Rashan had spend a hungry night running his fingers over the flame of a candle. The strange sensation distracted him from his rumbling belly. Above the wick and flame, the _heat_ if the candle had a presence, both physical and immaterial at the same time. He felt his fingers break though solid tension, yet nothing was there.
That flame-heat is what Rashan felt now with Aram’s hand against him. When he surged forward with a sob, he was able to cling to his friend, teacher, lover, but it felt like hugging a person surging with electricity. Aram looked at him with a sad smile and held Rashan in return.
Rashan knew in that instant that if he were to die now, he would be able to pass on with Aram, to stay by his side forever. Without hesitation, he grabbed the knife he’d cast aside earlier, and drew it across his neck. Before he could sever anything in that precious column, however, a hand wrenched his wrist away. Grief, bordering on anger, clouded Aram’s face. He tried to grab the knife away, but phased through it. He did, however, seem able to grab Rashan’s hand, which he drew close to him, trying to staunch both the wound, and two breaking hearts.
“You have to live, Rashan. You were always meant to live.”
So he did. Rashan has been able to say goodbye to Aram, but he could not stay in the temple. Alone now, he had at least a new skill to offer the world. If Rashan could channel spirits and _hold_ them, not just dispel or attract, then surely there would be other people in the world who could use their last farewells. Gathering up the most valuable books and tools, Rashan took only what he could carry and left.
Eventually, he found Kismet. The Oasis jewel was both bustling enough to be a ready distraction, and steeped enough in her own mysteries to keep Rashan’s attention. Finding his own tiny home, but by no means settling down, he now offers his services as a medium, while keeping his own spirits at bay.
_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

✥ Likes / Dislikes:
      ✓ Coffee | CHOCOLATE | Interesting Research | People | Long Conversations | Short Conversations | Any interactions with people really

      ✖ Boring Days | Sitting still too long | People who don't believe in an afterlife | People who speak ill of the dead
✥ Additional Info:
     • Rashan has a thin scar running across his neck, covered by his tattoo there.
     • The ‘gold’ lines running across his body are not gold ink, but veins of magma (a reference to mega-houndoom’s dex entry, “Its red claws and the tips of its tail are melting from high internal temperatures”). The lines can be seen in the dark, emit a faint glow, and are uncomfortably warm to the touch. When he’s channeling a spirit, they glow a ghastly purple
     • The incense burner Rashan carries keeps spirits at bay, though has no affect on Ghost-types that are still living. It might cause them some small adverse reactions like sneezing, however.
     •
     •

Description

_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

Rashan
__________________________
Houndoom :: Occultist (Spirit Medium)
24 :: He/Him :: Flash Fire
:: Destiny Bond - Rashan communes with a departed spirit, either to speak and hear it himself, or to channel it through himself. While Bonded with a spirit, it can also communicate with others present.
:: Will-o-Wisp - Rashan summons lesser spirits to his aid, which can light the area or burn a target.
:: Odor Sleuth - Rashan’s special blend of incense clouds an area, making it possible to identify and target ghosts and ghost types.
:: Feint Attack - Rashan summons an aura of darkness around his fist to fuccing deck a man

_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

✥ Personality:
     ✓ Passionate | Friendly | Perceptive | Fun-loving | Self-sacrificing | (Perhaps surprisingly) Religious | Gentle
     ▪︎ Impartial | Amoral
     ✖ Hedonistic | Impassive | Blasé | Disobedient | Self-sacrificing
✥ Story:

From the moment Rashan was born, he walked with death.
If the young houndoom’s family was strange, he did not notice it. He had a mother who cooed over him, a father who was glum and stoic, grandparents who nagged about the world today, and siblings who never seemed to stop wailing. What did it matter that they had no home, and lived on the street? Maybe people did, even if they were considered unfortunates. The people of his small village were close-knit and distant all at once. It was customary to be wary of outsiders and to keep one’s head down in their own affairs, but that did not stop the odd vendor from having mercy on the homeless child. Rashan had no memory of how he survived before, but from what he could recall, most of his meals came from charity. His mother only cried over how skinny he was, and his father would turn his eyes away, but their failure to provide only made the boy more protective of them, and determined to meet his own needs without troubling them, however he must accomplish it.

It never occurred to him to think it strange that his mother or sisters never ate, just as it never occurred to him to bring food back for him. It was simply how things were done.
Rashan did not realize that he had no family at all until he was nine years old. That was when a young man stepped up to him on the street and, without pramable, sprinkled incense at his feet. In an instant, Rashan’s ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘grandparents,’ and ‘siblings’ were gone. Rashan did not even have a chance to catch their eyes one last time.

He sat, shell-shocked, haunted eyes staring at where they had been, before turning to look up at the young man above him. ‘Haunted’ is exactly what he’d been, the stranger explained brusquely. And the ghosts must have been clinging to him for some time, he continued, because they were almost tangible to his eye.

‘Almost tangible,’ Rashan wondered somewhere within the distant ringing of his ears. What about them was ‘almost?’ His mother was so warm when she held him at night, and his father would ruffle the shock of hair between his horns on the rare days he smiled. His sister would kiss him on the cheek before running off to play.
“Well, you’re safe now.” He was safe before. “They won’t trouble you any longer.” They’d been his family. “I’ve never seen so many spirits latch on to one person before...In any case, run on home now.” It was his home the stranger had just destroyed.
Then, as suddenly as he appeared, the young man left. Rashan followed. He had nowhere else to go, and in lieu of one broken home, he clung to the one who dispersed it. He slunk after the young man, staying out of sight until he came to a strange home. Only then did the young man notice his tail, sputtering indignantly before inviting him in.
The young man—barely fifteen—introduced himself with bewilderment as Aram, and he was a spiritualist. Or his teacher was. Technically he was an ‘apprentice spiritualist,’ and his master had ordered him to go out into the village and do good works. Rashan did not know what a spiritualist was, ‘apprentice’ or otherwise, but the works Aram had done had not been good for him. This seemed to give Aram pause. He asked if Rashan had really been able to physically interact with the spirits, and if they’d really been around so long he confused them for a family? Rashan could not say anything else, except that they’d been the only world he knew. At that moment, Aram seemed to come to a decision, and told Rashan that he should stay.
The ‘strange house’ was a small temple, the size of a single room with most of the space taken up by bookshelves and a workbench. Its master, a chief priest, was away at the moment, but Aram insisted he would want to meet Rashan, and probably train him if he was lucky. If ‘training’ meant food, Rashan would happily study under a camerupt. Though the offer was made, it was four months before Aram’s master returned home from performing an exorcism in a distant city. In that time, the apprentice showed Rasham some basics, and tried to learn more about the houndoom child’s unusual nature.
He soon discovered that Rashan was like a lure, or tether, for spirits—a medium dons called them. The boy could call forth spirits with such clarity that they could touch him, speak to him, were entirely like real people to him, even if Rashan was the only one who was sensate of their presence. Unfortunately, the affinity went both ways; some spirits were also compelled to seek Rashan out, and would not leave him in peace until forced. His ‘family’ had probably been such spirits, seeking the boy out like a light in the darkness. Aram theorized that each of the spirits probably had a lingering wish that related to family, or caring for a child. Staying with Rashan fulfilled those dying desires, but while their intentions had been nurturing, not all of the shades pulled in by his presence would be so friendly. Aram taught Rashan about a selection of herbs and crystals that could keep most spirits at bay, others that would dispel them if they did latch on, and most of all—what it meant to be able to see and hear the dearly departed, and the weighty responsibility that laid on the boy’s narrow shoulders.
Eventually, Aram’s master did return, and so Master and Apprentice became Master, Apprentice, and Apprentice’s Apprentice. They lived that way for years. Rashan learned not just how to force the spirits that perched on him away, but also how to rid others and places from them, the applications of hundreds of herbs and crystals, and other forays into the world of the occult.
Before Rashan was eighteen, Aram’s master passed away, leaving just the two of them. Apprentice and Apprentice’s Apprentice carried on as they had been before, but things were different now. The temple had always been small, but now it felt empty. Cold. When they studied a new tome, they sat closer together. When Rashan was brought to tears by his connection with a grieving spirit, all of its sense of fear, loss, and hopelessness flooding into him, Aram held him until his eyes dried. And when Aram was called away to perform an exorcism in Ezra or Falione, Rashan would jump into his arms the moment he returned to greet him home. Until, on one reunion, Rashan kissed him, too.
The world froze in that moment, and then sped up very quickly into laughter, smiles, and not a few tears. Neither knew what they were doing, but they _did_ know that the world was a very strange, sometimes frightening, place, and in the midst of all the death and mysteries, they had each other. Strangest of all was how easily things returned to normal after that. The only changed seemed to be that, instead of Apprentice and Apprentice’s Apprentice, they’d become equals in their esoteric art. They traveled for work together, researched together, tended their small herbalists’ garden together, and understood that the other was one of the few people in all the world who could see the things they’d seen. It was liberating and cementing all at once, and in a world of half-seen things all around Rashan, Aram was the only thing that was real.
But death followed Rashan everywhere. It seemed that not even that which he loved most was immune.
Aram was killed. Somewhere far from Rashan, quelling a dangerous spirit in a ruin lost among the godsforsaken sand. Rashan hadno confirmation except for a sickening sensation in his stomach lasting two months, until a knock came on their small temple door. It was the explorer who hired Aram to quell the poltergeist, ringing his hands and seeking ‘next of kin.’ He wanted to report that the spiritualist he employed had failed, and was looking to inquire if another remained to finish—
Rashan slammed the door in his face, only to slide down against it, holding himself. He knew it, could feel the truth of it vibrating in the darkness that always churned around him. And yet, if Aram has died, why hadn’t his spirit sought him out? Had he passed on, without finding Rashan to say goodbye? Or could be be trapped somehow in the ruins with the spirit he’d died trying to pacify?
Rashan flung himself feverishly into research. Dusty tomes long forgotten in the dark corners of their dusty temple piled high around him, he scoured for a way to not just summon or dispell a spirit, but to _commune_ with one. One last time, he just needed _one last time_ to speak to Aram, to say goodbye. Sleepless days bled into sleepless nights beyond Rashan’s counting. When their master’s books proved fruitless, Rashan was left with no choice but to invent a way.
Spells to summon a spirit, circles to hold them; herbs to appease them, crystals to anchor them—and blood to give them enough life to remember who they had been. With these instruments around him, Rashan sat, wrist bleeding, in a circle on their temple floor, casting his soul out as he’s never endangered it before.
And there he was. A gentle hand caressed his cheek. Rashan opened his eyes, and seated across from him—as he sat for over a decade before—was Aram. He looked exactly the same, skin flush and warm, no signs of what trauma killed him. In hindsight, it made Rashan realize that his ‘family’ of old had been more fragile in comparison. As a child, he simply accepted their sallow and wane forms, but they were like gauze compared to how vibrant and _alive_ Aram seemed now. Except, when his palm smoothed over the side of Rashan’s face, it felt...off.
Once, a young Rashan had spend a hungry night running his fingers over the flame of a candle. The strange sensation distracted him from his rumbling belly. Above the wick and flame, the _heat_ if the candle had a presence, both physical and immaterial at the same time. He felt his fingers break though solid tension, yet nothing was there.
That flame-heat is what Rashan felt now with Aram’s hand against him. When he surged forward with a sob, he was able to cling to his friend, teacher, lover, but it felt like hugging a person surging with electricity. Aram looked at him with a sad smile and held Rashan in return.
Rashan knew in that instant that if he were to die now, he would be able to pass on with Aram, to stay by his side forever. Without hesitation, he grabbed the knife he’d cast aside earlier, and drew it across his neck. Before he could sever anything in that precious column, however, a hand wrenched his wrist away. Grief, bordering on anger, clouded Aram’s face. He tried to grab the knife away, but phased through it. He did, however, seem able to grab Rashan’s hand, which he drew close to him, trying to staunch both the wound, and two breaking hearts.
“You have to live, Rashan. You were always meant to live.”
So he did. Rashan has been able to say goodbye to Aram, but he could not stay in the temple. Alone now, he had at least a new skill to offer the world. If Rashan could channel spirits and _hold_ them, not just dispel or attract, then surely there would be other people in the world who could use their last farewells. Gathering up the most valuable books and tools, Rashan took only what he could carry and left.
Eventually, he found Kismet. The Oasis jewel was both bustling enough to be a ready distraction, and steeped enough in her own mysteries to keep Rashan’s attention. Finding his own tiny home, but by no means settling down, he now offers his services as a medium, while keeping his own spirits at bay.
_______________________________________❖★❖_______________________________________

✥ Likes / Dislikes:
      ✓ Coffee | CHOCOLATE | Interesting Research | People | Long Conversations | Short Conversations | Any interactions with people really

      ✖ Boring Days | Sitting still too long | People who don't believe in an afterlife | People who speak ill of the dead
✥ Additional Info:
     • Rashan has a thin scar running across his neck, covered by his tattoo there.
     • The ‘gold’ lines running across his body are not gold ink, but veins of magma (a reference to mega-houndoom’s dex entry, “Its red claws and the tips of its tail are melting from high internal temperatures”). The lines can be seen in the dark, emit a faint glow, and are uncomfortably warm to the touch. When he’s channeling a spirit, they glow a ghastly purple
     • The incense burner Rashan carries keeps spirits at bay, though has no affect on Ghost-types that are still living. It might cause them some small adverse reactions like sneezing, however.
     •
     •