Salvur

Salvur
Status:	Alive
Guild:	Empath
Race:	Human
Gender:	Male
Type:	guild leader

A researcher for the Empath guild. Studies the vela'tohr.

You see Biomancer Salvur Siksa, a Human Empath.
Salvur has a square face with frown lines around his mouth, deep-set dark eyes and a crooked nose. He has thinning dark brown hair with a white streak running through it, with weathered skin and a stocky build.
He is short for a Human.
He appears to be venerable.

He is holding a slender ironwood walking stick topped with a heavy platinum knob in his right hand. He is wearing a bone-white spidersilk shirt, a crocodile-skin buckler, a heavy platinum signet ring, a wide leather belt with a large platinum buckle forged in the shape of a Vela'Tohr leaf, a tooled leather belt pouch, a pair of fitted leather trousers and a pair of fine leather boots clasped with gleaming platinum buckles.

It has been 406 years, 220 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer. Annael steps down as Wen following a meeting with Eksharo. Salvur is appointed Wen in her place.

Salvur

"What? Me?" The greying man raises an eyebrow, gazing at you for a long moment. Finally, he shrugs, planting the platinum-clad end of his cane in the soil of the garden. "They packed me off when I was young and bright and full of promise, off to the hinterlands to study some -plants-. I took it for a punishment then, and maybe it was, to spend the flower of my youth and the prime years of my life wrapped in coarse-woven, scratchy goat-felt, attempting to commune with vegetation."

Salvur adjusts the fine, soft spidersilk of his cuffs, his smile seeming genuine for once. Satisfied, he continues, "But it honed my empathy to razor-sharpness, and I can climb and swim and fight almost as well as any ranger. Can't say it did much for my manners though. No, it did not. And now I've finally come into the reward for my long service -- playing mother hen to a bunch of soft, peeping chicks who don't know their beaks from their backsides. How am I to make anything of the dross they send to me? Another impossible task is what it is. No small wonder Annael stepped so lively on her way out of here."

Vela'tohr

Salvur fingers his belt-buckle, smiling slightly. "I studied them, in that wood of theirs, for longer than most of my students have had their empathy. Fascinating, and very sad. They were sentient plants, wonderful things, and their nectar... but they're diseased now, driven mad and full of rage and grief. A necromancer's doing, have no doubt. An empath of skill can sense it it certainly makes the troubles of most of these Crossing folks seem petty enough, I'll tell you that. There's an untainted specimen in your temple here, in the gardens. Communing with it can be... fascinating, for those with the senses to perceive."

Forf

Salvur adjusts one of his spidersilk cuffs, pausing to caress the soft fabric. "You wouldn't see me wearing anything this fine when I lived there, no you would not. What would be the point? Even if my stipend was sufficient, nothing could keep the incessant rain off better than that thrice-cursed goat felt. I was studying in the Vela'tohr valley, you see. If that's the word for my travails. I did not make the breakthrough they hoped for, though I learned much. The punishment for a youthful indiscretion, though it was presented to me as a 'once-in-a-lifetime research opportunity.' Pah. What they meant was I'd spend most of my one lifetime there, toiling away in obscurity. And let us not forget the rain."

Annael

Salvur surveys his surroundings, then shrugs. "My predecessor, I suppose you might say. Annael was the guildleader of the empaths here in Zoluren, before she resigned. Another tragedy to make our dear little Annael sadder than ever, poor thing." He snorts.

He smiles mirthlessly, continuing, "You're stuck with me now, though, like it or not."

Khalo

Salvur gazes at you, lips compressed into a thin line. "Step outside, and ask a passerby for directions to the Asemath Academy. Do I look like a Gamgweth tutor to you?" Exasperated, he explains, "Khalo. It means leader. There are three branches of them in our guild. The Aev, the Moda and the Wen. I'm a Khalo rae Wen. Now see if you can puzzle out what that might mean."

Wen

Salvur smiles slightly. "The leader of the young. The mother hen who keeps all her little peeping chicks in line. Do I look like a hen to you? I never thought I did, either."

Aev

Salvur says to you, "What are they teaching you in that Academy these days? Don't you know your Gamgweth? It means eye. Think about it, and perhaps you can piece together the sort of work they do." He gazes at you expectantly. "Diplomats. Messengers. Observers. The watchers, that's the Aev."

Moda

Salvur's eyes narrow, a vein throbbing briefly in his neck before he suddenly assumes a perfect and undisturbed tranquility. "The Modien, yes, a Khalo rae Moda individually. They're the mouthpieces, the deciders. If a young man should misstep, it is they who would see that he spends his prime years in a dreary land whose main export is goat hair."

Eksharo

Salvur says, "His empathy is powerful, there can be no doubt of that. Well, it was powerful, before he helped bring down Lyras and shocked himself silly. I might have thought he had a high opinion of himself before that, if anyone had asked me, but it turns out perhaps it was not misplaced."

Shock

Salvur gazes at his cane pensively. "They call it empathic shock. It's certainly quite shocking to experience, but the term is often used incorrectly. Really, the shock is the stunning, painful wrench that accompanies an empath's act of violence against something that can be empathized with. Much has been written on the subject, but I shall try to explain succinctly." He pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts, then continues, "Almost everyone you know is currently laboring under empathic shock. All people are born with some small measure of empathy, which they suppress over the course of their lives. Only empaths cultivate this sensitivity, deliberately increasing it. Many of our foremost abilities rely upon it. So, empathic shock..."

"Empathic shock is a negative consequence, but is not a punishment, as some would have it. There are no rules to follow regarding violence, or oaths to break, or the Gods know I would not be standing here now. Shock is simply an automatic reaction that arises by virtue of the empath's heightened sensitivity to the life forces around him. If you dwelt in a cave for a year and a day, and then wandered out into the noonday sun, the bright light would hurt your eyes, and you would be temporarily blinded. This is much like empathic shock, which is pain followed by a temporary -- let us hope -- insensitivity that is caused by over-stimulation of one's empathic senses."

"It's true that if an empath is determined enough, he can crush his own empathy entirely. It's a long road to ever get it back, and some would say it's permanent, but a few have managed the task. So it's true that empaths must avoid harming others, and some people do have their own sort of morality rolled up in it, but in truth is a purely physical reaction. Any moral or ethical component is attached to it by the empath alone, though any man will need luck in hammering that through the thick pate of a non-empath. Gods know I've given up trying in earnest."

Empathy

Salvur's mouth twists. "A gift some call it, and others a curse. Empathy allows an empath to sense and manipulate the life essences of those around him. This ability has many implications. The best known, of course, is healing -- the ability to transfer wounds from a patient to the empath's own body. This is far from the only application, however, and many more are rumored. Others are more than rumors, but are forbidden."

Jomay

Salvur grows silent, prodding at the earth with the tip of his cane. "She was not a member of the Empaths' Guild as we know it, but a member of, and then the leader of, the Imperial Healers' Guild. She was brilliant, as brilliant as they come, but mad as a hatter. Her actions led to the disbandment of the Healer's Guild, and the propensity you might have noticed for this guild to walk small and quash innovation. Jomay was a great innovator. Is, probably. She's still around, as far as I know. You'll know her if you see her. No nostrils, no ears. If you do see her, I'd advise you to walk briskly in the other direction."

Mirinn

Salvur says, "Yes, Martyr Mirinn Saedelthorp, she runs the hospital across the way. I'm often surprised that she has the patience for her patients." Salvur snickers quietly to himself at the pun.

Lyras

Salvur says, "She was a necromancer ruled by a demon, a mere puppet at the end. She perpetrated genocide of untold proportions, and nearly unmade the whole world. The empath Eksharo helped bring her low, but the price was high. Let us all pray that she is the worst thing this world ever knows. I am not sure we could survive another like her. The last was a near enough thing."

Necromancer

Salvur's nostrils flare. "Fools who meddle where they shouldn't, thinking they know better than the Gods who made them. They've got many pretty words about knowledge and research and understanding. The truth of it is, each of them is a rabid dog, whether he knows it or not, to turn on us all at any time. Just look at Lyras they're all like her, or they will be. Eksharo took care of Lyras, but the price was high. We will simply have to deal with another Lyras, and another, and another, unless we can scour them all from our lands. Look what they did to the Vela'tohr valley -- that'll be the whole of our world, if they keep meddling. Assuming we have anything left to stand on at all."