Lux Ivory

Lux doesn’t know the circumstances of his birth. All he knows is the circumstances in which he was found: abandoned in Secomber’s local cemetery, he and his swaddle slathered with soil as if he had just risen from the grave. The undertaker who found him thought he might’ve been an apparition, and it wasn’t until Lux coughed (for even as a baby, he hardly ever cried) that he realized that the child was, in fact, real. In his little hands, Lux clutched a strange token to his chest—an empty canopic jar, its lid carved to resemble a deer—that he cradled like a rattle. It was his only possession, though try as the local authorities might, they couldn’t identify where the baby had come from.

Lux was handed over to the Secomber Orphanage, where he was bestowed with the name Lux—so given for his silvery-blonde hair—and the surname Ivory, as was randomly dictated by the government. The orphanage, while not overtly cruel, was not able to provide an enriching life for all of its children. Lux often went hungry, and overworked staff frequently scolded him. He developed into a quiet, serious boy who took solace in the natural world. He had a fascination for collecting insects and plants, as well as tearing them apart to see how they ticked.

Ever since he can remember, Lux has been plagued with terrible nightmares about dying. He feels—or rather, he knows—that he is the one dying in his dreams: he remembers the feeling of teeth around his neck, of the air leaving his lungs as he was drowned and suffocated. He believes the dreams to be memories of his past lives. He has learned, over the years of dealing with different cultural funerary traditions, that the souls of Elves are reincarnated, and that they consort with their past selves during their trances. Lux believes that his nightmares are a punishment of sorts for being born a Half-Elf and possessing a half-molded Elvish soul. All he remembers of his past lives are his deaths, as it is all he believes he deserves. He wonders if his canopic jar has something to do with this—if his parents perhaps knew he was half-formed and prepared for his funeral early—but he can only speculate. These dreams only fostered his interest in death.

During his childhood, Lux forged a kinship with his orphaned siblings. Despite keeping to himself, one of the more exuberant orphans, Damien Serpentspine, swooped Lux and a handful of other children up in countless misadventures. Damien, the self-proclaimed leader of the party, decided to give the ragtag band of misfits a name: the Skull-Sworn, so named because a young Damien “thought it sounded interesting”. The group would stick together, make up stories, get into trouble, and generally harass the other children, staff, and anybody who dared to cross them. Lux thought of the Skull-Sworn as the closest thing he had to family.

Damien Serpentspine: Human boy, tall and handsome, black hair + tannish skin. A loud character who would often act out for attention. (Would later work on the docks.) 3 years older than Lux.
Bramble Pottinger: Halfling girl, stout and chubby, brown hair + caramel skin. A kind mediator, but often nosy and clingy. (Would later work as a cook.) 1 year younger than Lux.
Wulf Stonechip: Human boy, broad and strong, red hair + fair skin. A simple boy of few words, kind but lacking common sense. (Would later work on the docks.) 4 years older than Lux.
Lily Grove: Human girl, beautiful and curvy, curly black hair + dark skin. A sweet but snarky character, often getting into mischief. (Would later work as a florist.) 2 years older than Lux.

Lux was the closest to Bramble and Lily. Bramble was close with everyone, but his relationship with Lily was unique. Lily was a spitfire, often matching Damien in terms of sheer wild imagination, but she had a soft heart she spared for Lux. She enjoyed listening to him talk about his fascination for biology, as well as watching him sketch his bugs. She made him feel listened to and valued—in contrast to Damien, who frequently bullied both him and Wulf.

The Skull-Sworn remained close, even after they left the orphanage to integrate as well as they could into common society. Since they were all poor, they decided to live together in the same squat little hobble. Lux often dreamed of becoming a doctor, but he lacked the schooling necessary to take up the career, having never received a formal education. Instead, Lux pursued the closest available option and took up an apprenticeship with the local mortician. Death had never bothered Lux due to his nightmares, and he instead found it intriguing. He learned all sorts of funeral practices for different cultures, as well as how to embalm and preserve the remains of the dead.

As the years passed, Lux grew closer and closer to Lily. He couldn’t place his finger on when exactly the feelings started to change, but when he reached nineteen, he realized with the utmost certainty that he was in love with Lily. He loved how she made him feel: she was the only person who truly looked at him, listened to him. He had always felt ostracized due to his strange interests and his Half-Elf heritage (even in his group of friends), and Lily was the only one who made him feel accepted.

Lux wasn’t the only one who felt for her, though. Lily had also always shared a relationship with Damien—and as Damien too grew older, his childish vies for attention developed into demands for it. Damien felt like he was owed Lily, and he did his best to monopolize her time. Despite that, Lily tried to split her attention between Lux and Damien equally, making both men bitterly jealous of each other. (Lux was never sure if Lily loved him, Damien, neither, or both. He never found the opportunity to ask.)

The jealousy and tension between the two of them came to a peak on a hot summer’s night, while the rest of their makeshift family was asleep. Lux arrived back home after a long night’s work and found Damien in their living room, clutching a bouquet of flowers that Lux had left for Lily that morning. Damien began berating Lux, enraged that he continued playing for Lily’s affection despite Damien’s own feelings for her. The discussion devolved into a spiteful argument, wherein Lux finally admitted the anger he harbored for Damien after years and years of torment. Damien admitted, too, that he had had hatred for not only Lux, but Lily as well. He believed that Lily felt for Lux more than she did Damien, and Damien couldn’t cope with it.

The argument soon developed into a brawl. During the scuffle, the two men knocked over a burning candle, and were too preoccupied with each other to notice how easily the shabby wooden house caught fire.

Damien, having spent his adult years working down by the docks, was physically stronger than Lux. Damien easily overwhelmed him, pinning him to the ground and throwing punch after punch. He fought like a man possessed, and Lux knew, then, that Damien was aiming to kill. The memories of all of Lux’s encounters with death flashed before his eyes—his past lives, the embalmed bodies sweaty beneath their grieving loved ones, and the stories of him crawling out from his grave—and he realized that he wasn’t ready to die. With a surge of sudden magical energy, Lux gripped the sides of Damien’s face. From the canopic jar he always kept on his person emerged a swarm of ravenous fleas and cockroaches. They latched onto Damien and wormed their way under his clothes, burrowing beneath his skin. He screamed and clawed at his eyes and his hair, desperate to bat them away, but he couldn’t—and Lux only watched as the insects devoured his meat to the bone.

Before he had time to come to terms with what had happened, the now-raging fire suddenly caught his attention. He had been so hypnotized by the horror of the fight, he hadn’t noticed that the fire had spread, and the better part of their house was already engulfed. Knowing the rest of the family was asleep, Lux forced his way through the burning flames and attempted to usher them out of the house. However, the smoke was suffocating, and the three were unconscious. As he was searching through the house, he managed to stir and rescue Wulf and Bramble. However, when he came to Lily’s room and found it fully consumed by smoke, he realized that the flames had already taken her. Even still, he fanned the fire away and took her into his arms: her skin had peeled back, leaving her an unrecognizable, blackened corpse. He pulled the mangled remains out of the building, suffering horrible burns as he did.

The fire was uncontrollable, and it leapt from their house to the next, on and on until the entire neighborhood was up in smoke. Many people lost their lives, and countless more lost all of their possessions. The authorities were on the scene, and the Secomber guard, having a rigid judicial system, demanded to know who was responsible. Lux knew that they wouldn’t be satisfied until they had someone to prosecute. Thinking on his feet, Lux mentioned that his brother, Wulf, often left flames unattended, despite Lux’s warnings (that, in fact, was true). He told authorities that he had just arrived home from his shift at the mortician’s office and found the house already ablaze.

Lux was more well-spoken than Wulf—and Wulf, being dim-witted and trusting, was himself convinced that he had set the flame that burned down the house. He was overcome with grief, feeling himself responsible for so much destruction, not to mention the deaths of Lily and Damien. Satisfied with that conclusion, Secomber guard detained Wulf for arson, and he was sent to the gaol on Lux’s behalf.

Bramble was the only Skull-Sworn who yet remained. After the fire, something in Bramble broke; she became prone to tears, and she clung to Lux religiously. She followed him everywhere, even into private moments, out of a desperate need to not be alone. Something in Lux, too, broke. Bearing the responsibility of his love’s death, Lux’s heart grew calloused. The gentleness of his youth was chewed away by bitterness, sharpness, and cruelty.

In addition, Lux became obsessive. He kept Lily’s corpse, mummifying it in all the ways he knew how. However, now homeless, he had no way to keep her properly; therefore, in order to keep her close forevermore, he carefully removed her charred organs. Specifically, he kept her withered heart, finding a home for it under the lid of his canopic jar. If he listened closely, he swore he could hear it beating.

Yet embalming was not enough. Lux was distraught. Magic had awoken in him that day, though he didn’t understand its depth. However, magic made his mind wander, and he began to wonder if it was possible for someone of greater magic to, perhaps, restore what was lost. Desperate for closure, Lux researched all he could about great mages and sorcerers, until he stumbled upon the legend of the Great Wizard Wizerra Windleglow, supposedly dwelling in a secret ruin deep a desolate forest. He pursued the lead out of Secomber, Bramble in tow.

Lux alone was, of course, little match for a monster-infested dungeon. His presence, though, managed to capture the attention of Wizerra—for while she was used to seeing gung-ho adventurers traipse through her lair, she had never encountered someone so obviously out-of-his-element. She decided to summon him to her personal abode—her library, deep within the ruin—and asked what it was he was looking for. Lux explained that he wanted to bring his love back to life.

Wizerra felt pity for his turmoil, but she explained that such necromantic art always came with a grave price. Lux paid little attention to her warnings and became desperate and demanding. Realizing Wizerra wouldn’t listen to his plea, he decided that he would try a different course of action: he told her he understood and that he would be on his way, but not before stealthily pocketing one of Wizerra’s spellbooks. Wizerra, not being a fool, realized he was trying to steal from her, and, in a fit of rage, decided to punish him. “You should’ve cherished what you had before you lost it,” she said, and she polymorphed the straggling Bramble into a fitting pet for him: a cockroach the size of a cat.

Lux was out of options. He had lost everything and everyone. His heart hardened, and his mind and morals became distorted. Not knowing what to do with himself, Lux returned to Secomber with his pet cockroach and once again took on the role of the local mortician. There he stayed for years, growing old. The fire happened at twenty-two, and he is now sixty-three. The community thinks of him as a strange, frightening man. He keeps to himself and is rude to those who attempt to get to know him better. Nonetheless, he understands grief intimately, and he reveals his kindness and empathy when working with those who have lost a loved one. Despite his countless faults, Lux will always respect the dead.

Goals + Values

Respect the Dead. Lux will always perform funeral rites or otherwise respectfully pay tribute to any loss he encounters on his journey. He will also attempt to emotionally support grieving loved ones, if any.

Understanding & Empathy. Lux understands that every culture has their own unique rituals and ceremonies when it comes to death, and he strives to learn and understand every one. He will go out of his way to research these rites when available.

High Magic Hypocrite. Lux detests powerful spellcasters, especially those who practice necromantic magic. He believes it to be evil—on paper. If he were to stumble upon a way to raise the dead in a way that would benefit him, he would immediately try to take that power for himself. (If he can’t have the power to raise the dead, nobody can. Everybody needs to grieve… except for him, of course.)

Other Half. Lux possesses half an Elvish soul. This implies that he has an other half somewhere in the world. Lux has no interest in discovering this person whatsoever: in his eyes, his life is already over. He can save those revelations for the next one.

Past Lives. Why Lux is haunted by nightmares remains a mystery. Did he perform a grave sin in a past life? Why, then, does he possess the Blessing of Correllon? He’s curious about this, but he has no desire to “seek it out”. he’s gone this long without knowing, after all.

Bug Boy. Lux loves bugs, plants, and fungi, and when encountering new specimens, he’ll make sure to observe and draw them. He’ll go far out of his way if he’s able to see a new bug.

I Have a Job So I Can’t Worry About That Right Now. Lux is fully employed as a mortician. In order for Lux to go on any adventure, he has to be thrust into it, or it has to have a reward that piques his interest. He is loath to leave his abode. He is, at the end of the day, a grumpy old man.

Personality

Lux was once a sweet and quiet boy, curious about the nature of life and death alike. After the fire, though, Lux twisted into a strange, mangled caricature of who he once was. He is a rigidly serious man and prefers to keep to himself. He rarely attempts to make friends, meet new people, or learn new things. He is an old soul, stuck in his ways.

He is also a morbid man. He deflects the banalities of life with black humor and sordid jokes. He has a dull, flat tone of voice, which often leads people to believe he’s more serious than he actually is. It takes a while to figure out Lux’s bizarre outlook and recognize his humor, though he rarely lets anyone get so close. He has no interest in forming new connections, both out of believing he doesn’t deserve them, and believing that nobody can replace the family he once had. Despite that, though, the confidence and assuredness with which he speaks leads people to naturally trust in him. (High charisma.)

Lux frequently dismisses the feelings of others. However, when dealing with grieving loved ones of the deceased, his jaded demeanor fades. Being intimate with grief himself, he will always lend a hand to those grieving by offering company, performing funeral rights, charging less for his services, et cetera. When he’s presented with bodies without families to mourn them, he does his best to mourn for them and treat them with respect. He frequently leaves flowers and cleans the graves of unmarked people he’s buried.

Though Lux is knowledgeable about embalming, cultural traditions, and physiology, he lacks a formal education. He might know how to properly remove an organ, but he won’t know the organ’s name, nor the details of what the body uses the organ for. He comes up with complicated webs in his mind, stringing together relevant bits of information in order to piece together a skewed understanding of the world. (High wisdom, low intelligence.)

Ever since the fire, Lux has extreme pyrophobia. He will choose to rot away in darkness rather than light a candle. Even campfires and fireplaces make him uncomfortable, but he can control himself—though unmanaged fire, especially fire used as a weapon, will cause him to break down.

In addition, Lux’s obsessiveness has manifested in plenty of other compulsions, such as his need for cleanliness. Lux will only ever wear white (he is frequently found in a white dress shirt, white gloves, and a white smock while he works), and he will take care to make sure they stay white. This can usually be solved with bleach or Prestidigitation, but going for long periods of time with dirty clothes will make Lux twitchy. In an unstable world, keeping his belongings clean and orderly is one of the only ways he can feel like he’s in control.

In tandem with his fascination for death, Lux enjoys the natural world. He has a special interest in insects and fungi. He’s also a talented artist and keeps sketchbooks where he draws notes on the details of the human body, as well as sketches the shapes of unique wildlife he comes across. Many of his old sketchbooks contain pictures of Lily, but at some point, he realized that he could no longer capture her likeness.

Lux is motivated by grief and regret. He still feels as if there’s a way to restore Lily’s life, and he’s one bad day away from going full mad-scientist. Beyond that, though, he will try his best to do good where he can: he knows, deep down, that he is responsible for Lily’s death, and there’s nothing he can do to bring her back. He wants to repent for his past mistakes. He will also always go to great lengths to help those in the grieving process, or to avenge those whose memories have been disrespected. In addition to practicing mummification, Lux has started to use his newfound magic for healing, and he’s begun his journey into valuing life while it’s with him, rather than when it’s already faded. He doesn’t consider himself much of an adventurer, but he can feel magic bubbling in his blood—he knows how desperate it is to be nurtured and kindled. He’s ignored it for this long, but he’s starting to wonder how long he can get away with it.

Sorcery

Lux’s sorcery awoke the night of the fire, though he hasn’t tried to cultivate his power since then. He blames the magic for what wound up happening and prefers to think about it as little as possible. (He has to learn to help rather than hurt people with it.)

Lux is a divine soul sorcerer with a strong connection to the Seldarine, AKA the Elvish pantheon. However, because he’s only a Half-Elf, the magic manifests itself in strange and bizarre ways. He almost feels as if the half of an Elvish soul inside of him wants to die in order to reincarnate into someone whole—though Lux wonders if he might’ve been born into this body as a punishment for something he did in a past life. He often lies in bed and contemplates who he might’ve once been, both on his Elvish and his Human sides, and he tries to piece together clues from the vague details in his memory. He figures he owes them the respect he gives to every other memory of the deceased. He’s always felt alone and empty because of his strange heritage, and he finds it a touchy subject.

Blessing of Correllon. One of the ways his connection to the Seldarine manifests is in Lux’s possession of the Blessing of Corellon. He wakes up each morning as a different biological sex. He can’t control the blessing; however, his appearance is androgynous enough where most people don’t notice one way or the other. It’s not exactly a secret that he has the blessing, but he doesn’t talk about it very much (mostly because it offends every Elf he’s come across, being sacrilegious for a Half-Elf to have).

Lux considers himself agender, and he won’t correct anyone if they call him a woman, man, or otherwise. Theoretically, he thinks of himself as a “he” or a “they”, but he doesn’t mind “she”. He finds being called “it” dehumanizing. He doesn’t know much about the Elvish pantheon, as his mere existence disgusts most Elves he’s come across, so he doesn’t have a good grasp on exactly how unique the blessing makes him.