Character
Essa Basara
A man out of time, a relic of the past.
Fossil • Mage • Relian
Overview
Born 3,000 years ago in the desert kingdom of what is now Relian. Essa was a quiet, unassuming boy who worked hard to keep to himself and follow the rules of his kingdom. As one of the many sons of the king, there was a certain manner he had to follow. Rules to obey, jobs to work.
Though his father, Hasis-Adra, was everything. His father, his king, his emperor…
His god.
Essa spent his life devoted. He read the scriptures, followed the rules, studied hard to prove himself worthy of his father. Yet he overheard the whispers in the corridors.
He knew little of his mother. Yet some said he was blessed. A glow followed the boy as he grew into a man. His magic was unusual, divine and pure. Quietly he worked to help his fathers citizens. Maids with scars or bruises, cooks with burns. While he was nobility, he cared a lot for his people. And he made friends with a slight few.
Due to his natural gift with magic, Essa was trained with other sons. Through the grand libraries of his father’s house, he was taught to read and write. He trained in magical arts, learning how to fight and expand his fathers kingdom. Though not one for combat, he would tuck himself away during sparring matches, or slip a stack of books and scrolls from the library to hide away in his little alcove, the only place he felt truly safe.
It wasn’t a surprise that the sorcerer king was mad. Hasis ruled with an iron fist, everyone fell to his whims and desires. If he said jump you would say how high. To be in his presence was its own gift.
Essa felt drawn to be more. A spark of potential, a draw to help and to grow in power.
But he squashed that desire, forced it down quietly. Ignoring the voice in his head, luring him to his destiny.
As he hid from his father and his loyalists, Essa couldn’t resist helping still. It was a simple mistake. Healing a lesser, healing multiple people over time. Reports made their way to his father, until he was forced to kneel before the towering god.
The one he had devoted his life to, the one he feared.
But Hasis…there was a look in his eye he had never seen before. If Essa had been braver, more confident in his abilities, he could have asked.
The sorcerer king decided then and there to stop Essa’s power growing any further and imprisoned him in a tomb of stone. Petrifying him to never move again.
3,000 years locked away. The deepest of slumbers, a dreamless darkness that he could barely remember.
Until he was found in an unassuming tomb in the middle of the desert, in the ruins of his once bustling city, no longer a pillar of the society he grew up in but a crumbling temple in the sand.
Wizard Lirana Basara was the one who helped him, unpetrified him and brought him to the Topaz Institute, a large school of magic and research located in the Empire of Poera. There, began the slow process of adjusting to modern society. The language was complicated, and very few spoke the ancient tongue he was used to. The shock to his system at the changes, at the fact everything he knew was now dust.
A living relic.
There, he met people who he would grow to trust. Alongside Wizard Basara he met Theris Juro, an aalor similar to Essa, and a restoration specialist. She and a few others worked closely with him, and he grew to trust her as a friend and a mentor. Sharing as much about his feelings and helping give as much information as he could about his past.
When the institute could do no more, he was released to Lirana’s care and worked hard to be of use to the woman. Strongly aware that he had no home and nowhere else to go, he aided Basara in anything he could, trying to learn the language.
However, his nerves stopped him doing much more. Essa was particularly shy, his lack of confidence in the language and conditioning by his home allowed little improvement, until an ally and frequent customer of Lirana’s, Arash Kardan came along.
The man was charming and could speak his own language. Having his own interest in magic and history, being a bounty hunter and ruin delver in his own right. Essa found he could talk to him for hours about their respective pasts and hopes. Though the last time he spoke to the man was before he left for his own trip. Arash was part of a dig happening further to the West. Though Essa was looking forward to his return so they could share more information.
Works & Projects
- Compiled the Tide‑Years chronology aligning sea‑glow intensity with recorded events.
- Curates the Glass Garden oral histories.
Traits
- Precise, wry humor; ink‑stained fingertips.
- Uses bioluminescent markers for nighttime note‑taking.