Ilias Lament

"Life is only a dream.. and it is only suiting that I wake from it 'pon the tip of a macabre blade painted red."
—Ilias Lament

Ilias Lament
Ilias.jpg
A.K.A. Heron, Loopy Lament
Birthplace Roarke, OR
Date of Birth October 31
Age 16 (Beginning of SHR)
Height 6'2 / 189 cm.
Blood Type AB-

Ilias Lament is a character of School House Rumbles, the Forum RPG that spawned the sequel School House Rumbles 2. Despite being born of high status and prestige associated with the Lament family and its musicians, Ilias sees very little use for the trappings of monetary wealth and lives a very barren life by many standards; his only entertainment and pass-time are practicing the blade, and the only thing he finds "fun" are putting the skills he has gained from doing so to use. Above all, however, Ilias' life is defined by his younger sister, Larieha, her death, and his promise to her as she lay dying.

Appearance


Ilias generally wears skin tight, white (though at times he wears other colors) collared shirts that are bisected by a black zipper; the shirt itself is sleeveless, allowing his arms a full range of motion. Over this, he wears a large, ankle length, pure white hooded silken coat that slowly fades into equally white feathers a foot from its bottom.

The pants are generally regular slacks, though he wears a pair of rather out-of-place dark wooden Geta sandals. All of his clothes are tailored to fit exclusively for him, and while his coat and shirts are generally all white, his pants vary in color from black to dark red.

His skin color, though tanned, is not dark. Ilias’ hair is made up of dark, brown-grey curls that swept back from his forehead and face and left to hang down to below his shoulders and down his back in long, untamed wavy strands. Cheek bones and chin are delicate, and almost pretty, which, combined with his other aristocratic features, makes it hard to mistake him for anything but highborn society. The only thing some would say detract from his “beautiful face” is his eyes, which are two chips of ice the color of pitch; at times, even his parents find themselves shying from his gaze.

While well muscled, Ilias maintains a slender build despite his wide shoulders and a height of six feet two inches. His fingers are long, and well calloused, and though some have attempted to push him into using them for various instruments, he has never been interested in anything but fighting. Many find it ironic that such a son was produced in a family of with the surname “Lament”.

Because of his height and unerringly nigh divine grace both with the sword and without, he has earned the name “Heron” among his peers. And “Loopy Lament” because he carries a spoon around everywhere with him, but that’s another story entirely.

Bladegod, a History


Before Arcadia: Sister and Sword, Blood and Duty

Ilias comes from a large family, though his immediate family is small, and has become even smaller in the past couple of years, who has earned renown throughout the world as some of the greatest musicians of today and times past. However, despite this, Ilias has no knowledge of the practical use of instruments, and even less about their history.

In a family of musicians whom search for serenity through music, Ilias in the only one who has ever sought to reach it through battle; because of this, Ilias has always been rather removed from the family and their interests.

This state has become far worse in the past seven years, since the death of his sister when Ilias was the age of eleven, and has since caused a large rift between him and his whole family. This is because, at the age of six, his sister has suffered an accident that had caused her to collapse into a coma. After a year of no sight of recovery for her, Ilias’ parents pulled the plug, and the seven year old died.

He has never forgiven his mother and father (Aria and Raphael Lament, respectively), for their allowance of the death of his catatonic sister, and blames them for her death. Since then, neither his father nor mother has been able to look him in the eye, though they protest against the intense coldness he directs towards them often.

The irony of all this is that the person Ilias hates the most is himself, as it was he who was supposed to be keeping an eye upon Larieha that day. The sight of his sister impaled upon one of very own blades has forever remained burned in his mind, every single detail from the way her hair fell upon her sweaty brow to the precise color of her blood upon the floor that day. And the words she said to him that day were etched in scalding flame into his memory forever: “I.. just wanted to use the sword like you, Ilias..”

The sad part is, is that she never got to finish what she meant to say. The last part of her statement will remain forever unsaid: “.. because I wanted to be as happy as you always are when you use one.” The fact that Ilias has dedicated his life to the honing of his skill to flawlessness—and that this has resulted in costing him his happiness is perhaps the ultimate sundering of the reason why Larieha loved watching her brother work with the sword in the first place.

After his sister’s death, Ilias sunk deeply into an obsession of developing his blade forms, and his whole existence revolves around their perfection because Ilias is obsessed with the promise he made to himself upon Larieha’s death: that he would never lay down his swords until he deserved the awe Larieha held for him that led to her death.

Because of this, Ilias has sped through his studies, simply so that he might have more time to dedicate towards the perfection of his forms. He graduated at the young age of thirteen, and had not met nor befriended anyone since then, despite attempts by his parents to get him to socialize (which were met with great disapproval and ruthlessly cutting remarks). The only reason Ilias even met Dean Gatlain was that his father sponsored him for a tournament held in Reno, Nevada, the first time that Ilias had ever visited the state, much less said city.

What Ilias saw impressed him greatly: Dean fought people almost twice his age, yet easily defeated them all, and handily each time. Afterwards, Ilias sought him out, and has since moved there and begun living in Reno in a large, extravagant studio that his parents provided for him, though he has since cleared out much of it and turned it into an open floored dojo for himself, with a small futon in the corner and some other amenities.

Since he moved to Reno, Ilias and Dean fought very often; not only that, Dean introduced him to Jon Grey, who Ilias found to also be an excellent challenge against his abilities. And while slightly confused by Dean’s victory over he and Jon before Dean left for Arcadia, he still felt that Dean deserved it.

Ilias was not to be daunted by his loss, though. Utilizing connections that his father had built up over the years and ones Ilias himself had gained, he wormed his way into Arcadia himself—after all, what better way to test himself, and perfect his skills, than to do so against the best of the best?

I'll expand on this section in the future when I have more time and I can get my thoughts together on what happened after "school" began. -Inverse

Equipment, Stats, and Fighting Style


Current Point Allocation
Strength 10
Speed 75
Intelligence 10
Agility 10
Durability 25
Stamina 10
Weapons Mastery/Fighting Skill 05
Ki 20

It is funny that in a family of musicians, the only way Ilias can allow his soul to sour is through the sword. The only thing anyone has ever heard Ilias say when asked about why he loves his blade so is a single word: “Release” (the irony of the word usage here is only recognized by Ilias much later down the road).

Ilias’ work with blades is far reaching: every blade that he hangs upon his wall he has obtained practical experience and even mastery of. This is not limited to swords, though; included are multiple pole-arms, knives that could even be classified as short swords, and even the rather unique instance of the kusari-gama, though this is one that he is far from the master of.

The sword forms that Ilias uses are composed of singular dance-like movements, each performing a part of what one could call "kata", each tailored to combine seamlessly into the next movement—Ilias is almost literally just the solid, living, breathing representation of his blade techniques taken form. He wields all of his swords as if they weighed nothing, and most people don't see even a blur when he moves his blade (even if said blade is a large Great Sword, Claymore, or even a Nodachi). His most used blade is the nodachi Tenro, a blade in which he has much invested emotion and memory and even more blood and toil, which has given it special abilities.

However, among his massive collection of weapons, great and small, the sharpest, most deadly blade he wields is that of his keen intellect. He was pronounced a genius at the age of five, and has only grown since then—to the point that his ability to predict an opponents movements through the smallest of minutiae twitches of muscles and body.

He Who Wears a Crown of Swords


These are the abilities of the Heron, Ilias Lament, many stemming from his ability to sense blades or his own keen intellect in some way.

Blade Communion

The ability of Blade Communion comes from Ilias’ kinship, and mastery, of bladed weapons. Ilias can literally sense a blade (no matter how big or small) if it comes within a fifteen meter distance of himself (this includes under and above). However, what makes this skill really special is his own ability to sense blades that he himself has used often, and placed a special ki beacon into that only he, through the use of Blade Communion, can sense. And Ilias can sense these swords from anywhere, no matter how far away.

Combining his Blade Communion and his ki, Ilias can reach from where he is, through a separate dimension, and to where any of his swords are and instantly retrieving and/or switching them with others.

Foresight

The ability “Foresight” comes from Ilias’ supreme intelligence, and allows him an ability to predict an opponent’s movements that borders on precognition. The skill itself comes from the ability to predict where someone will go through seeing the minute twitches of groups, or even singular, muscles, patterns of movement, and even simply body language.

What this means is that, as long as Ilias can see you at any point and time, and even if you’re extremely fast, he can predict where you might go, and prepare for it. However, this does not mean he’ll necessarily be able to react. If someone is simply so fast that he is by far out classed, then this ability becomes rather useless—this is one of the reasons Ilias worked very hard on increasing his speed.

The Companion Blade, Tenro

Tenro's sharpness and durability is equal to his ki stat.

Tenro is Ilias’ longest used blade: he has bonded with it on a deep, subconscious level, and shared with it himself, bringing Tenro alive in its own unique way. Tenro is Ilias’ companion in every way, and sits in the back of his mind at all times, protecting it with the viciousness only a wolf (its namesake) could, protecting it from being influenced or read.

Tenro has unbelievable cutting power even when in its normal state; but not only that, the unique way in which the metal was folded causes it to vibrate violently with even the smallest hint of ki, allowing it to slice fluidly through even refined metals.

Tenro is a nodachi, its blade reaching the enormous size of five feet, and its edge and blade itself were crafted with the utmost beauty derived in its infinitely dangerous edge in mind.

Blood's Edge

Due to an odd combination of his mastery of speed and his body, Ilias’ blood has acquired a unique ability: it vibrates—at all times, it is moving at a supersonic rate, unless Ilias forces it to move more slowly. This has one very large effect on Ilias biology: when he bleeds, the blood superheats when oxygen touches it—it can cause third degree burns just by briefly being in contact with skin.

However, Ilias, since he has mastered his body both within and without, he has also, as noted above, gained the ability to control his blood. He can make it go slower (to keep it from shooting thirty feet out of the smallest of paper cuts), or, as he quickly learned, keep himself from even bleed at all. Sadly, Ilias’ control of his blood doesn’t extend outside his body, so it can’t be use as a more focused weapon.

The strongest, most fearsome ability that this grants Ilias is the ability to, when he focuses large amounts of ki into his blood, it turns white-hot—literally a glowing, pulsing white, that can eat through flesh. However, this is a double edged sword: it can just as easily harm Ilias as be used for offensive gain.

Bladegod

Employing his ki far beyond what he originally could, Ilias combines it with his Blade Communion, resulting in his complete mastery of all things blade: the ability to materialize his blades at the speed of thought, at any point within his Blade Communion range (fifteen meters in all directions). He’s also mastered the ability of materializing and dematieralizing the blades, allowing him to say, swing his sword, dematerialize the bonds connecting part of the blade, sending the disconnected part hurling towards his target.

Not only this, but the blades can be conjured mid-motion—even in thin air, though the blades can never reach Ilias’ maximum velocity, they can manage half of it, a still
of a respectable speed. Ilias can only handle a maximum of seven swords out at once and still be able to control them well, however.

Creator's Comments

I never truly got to take Ilias where I wanted to; I entered the game just a bit too late to fit his true character progression in, and I eventually got so frustrated with it I dropped him and School House Rumble altogether. I simply couldn't stand that a character who I had such great plans for just wouldn't be able to make the cut when it came down to it, and rather than see his ruining myself, I left; admittedly it was done mostly as an act of anger and I might have done different if I'd been in a better frame of mind but.. well, hindsight is always 20/20, eh?

Originally, I wanted Ilias, like many of my characters, to eventually come to terms with his own sorrows and overcome them, and likely die by the end of the RP; the death scene I had planned involved him and his blade, Tenro, covered in his own blood and him activating Blood's Edge at its highest levels, taking him into what I called "Whiteblooded God" mode. His cutting power and destructiveness would have been pretty unholy, but.. well, I never got that far, unfortunately. I regret it but..

Oh well~

-Inverse Genesis

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