A A R D W A L D E N
Details
Full Name: Aardwalden
Race: Stoneborn Gnome
Sex: Male
Age: 551
Height: 3'9"
Weight: 159 Lbs
Birthdate: 18th of Searing, Year 771 of the Age of Clockwork
Birthplace: The Ruined Holds
Profession: Runeforger (Expert)
Housing: An Apartment in the Umbrium
Partners:
Caste: Populus Peregrinus
Titles: "Is that statue moving?"
Factions: None
Fluencies: Common, Gnomish
Conversationals: Vastian
Ineptitudes: None
Appearance
Striking and with skin like rugged marble, Aardwalden is a short statured statue of a man - a gnome - of irreproachable poise. With eyes glowing behind the retina in a dim blue light, the veins of that same energy glimmering beneath the surface. Those who look upon him who are unfamiliar with Stoneborn commonly think of him as a golem or a heavily mutated mage. In the dark, he would certainly glow.
Oft does Aardwalden don weathered, dusty trappings to accentuate what he is, and the weight of time his body has experienced. In more formal settings, he may opt for polishing his skin smooth until it glistens, bringing out the technicolor light in his veins. To that end, he would wear a tailored white suit and a dark vest. The smoothness of a polishing never lasts. With skin of living stone, it shifts and stirs, returning to the same harshness of the earth within a few days.
At the end of a movement, Aardwalden often pauses with stillness, then carries forward to a new motion with deliberation. Just like the living stone his body is built from, he is capable of staying as still as the earth, and possesses no heartbeat. Sometimes but not always, his movements are accompanied by the creaking shift of stones grinding against one another, especially if staying immobile for a long period of time.
Personality
Likes
Earth, Solitude, Industry, Science, Art, and Music
Dislikes
Small Talk, Catastrophe, Fools, Politics
To many, Aardwalden seems cold and aloof, a hermit rarely seen without deliberation and purpose in the visit. Those that know him well know that he is kind, that he cares little for wealth and power, and more about the art in his trade. To him, power is the means to produce greater variety in change, an easel he wields as any other. Even after centuries of life, he has scarcely wielded magic nor artifact to defend himself against a mortal, preferring to stay altruistic until lives are threatened.
An Elementalist at his core, Aardwalden shares an almost romantic bond with the earth. It coddles and nurtures him in a way that gives him ample comfort within its auspices. Marble in particular resonates with him more than other stones, possibly due to the fact that he resembles animated marble. Even so. living for so long without death has left Aardwalden a witness to the passing of many old flames and friends. He craves companionship even if he might not show it, always seeking to fill the rifts left behind by the faces that withered away first in body, then in memory. Rifts the faceless stone cannot mend.
Wroth and frustration had always plagued the mage. He is his most animate when his heart is fueled by rage, or misery. The failure of a long project, and mild annoyances can build to immense agitation, boiling over to explosive effect. He paces and struts, even dances and holds himself in emotional lunacy.
Aardwalden is an anxious man. He is always thinking about every possible way a situation could go wrong, the world above the stone halls rife with chaos, evil, and the whims of gods in ways he'd only come to know in recent years. Sometimes he will find a broom closet, step inside, and stay there in solace.
Knowing several crafts quite well, Aardwalden is keen about high quality craftsmanship. He enjoys seeing how things were made, and never turns down a demonstration or the opportunity to learn something new about a trade if he has the time. He also approaches many situations with a deductive stab of logic, breaking it down as best as he can. The more confounding a creation, the more delighted he is to study the puzzle of its make. He is, at his core, curious as gnomes are known to be.
History
Aardwalden is an old thing. A curiosity many presume to be a window into a bygone era, only to find his memories of that time rather banal. Merely an apprentice Runeforger of no notable skill when the Sundering struck, he was thrust into the Maddening until the Order of the Dawnmartyr intervened and brought his kind a new clarity. After he calmed, he returned to the fringes of Gnomish and Dwarven society to pursue his Calling as a Runesmith, to a Dragonshard mining settlement near to the present day Dwarven Hold States. Other Stoneborn had similar ideas. They needed Dragonshards, and there was little left for them in the wake of the Sundering, and the curse. Without flesh of their own, they could not satisfy the demand of bloodlines, and thus many families were fractured and left to grieve.
There was a predictable Dragonshard shortage in the following months by which the Stoneborn who'd chosen to migrate to the settlement suddenly grappled with. A harsh reality thrust upon them. Still more starved back into the Maddening, but Aardwalden was fortunate to have been an Apprentice to a well-connected Runeforger, an industrious dwarven smith rivaling his gnomish competition, matching wit with wisdom, and together they watched the chaos unfold from the safety of a tower looming above the cavernous Hold.
When the economy stabilized and enough Stoneborn found their new calling as Dragonshard miners, Aardwalden focused on plying his craft. Quiet, industrious. He never asked for much, outliving his master and teaching the mage whom would inherit the workshop all he knew. Eventually the line of dwarves he served died out, and he was left to his own devices to buy up Dragonshards while selling improved versions of the same tools used to harvest them, made in partnership with local Scriveners.
Aardwalden's tower began to crumble with the ages, and he sought an Elementalist to repair the intricate masonry. Having witnessed the marvel of Lodestones, he paid an exorbitant fee for an initiation, and further tutoring. The mage only wished to be taught Runeforging in kind, and so they shared what they knew together.
That was only the first warning of what was to come. The number of customers, and thus the number of Dragonshards flowing through the city plummeted. A mass migration followed just as the Dragonshard mines ran dry, and from the centuries old settlement, Aardwalden found his supplies waning and soon considered the same.
It was no easy task, to break a centuries old way of life. Yet, when he arrived beneath the surface with a gnomish caravan in tow, he was filled for the first time in recent memory with a sense of wonder, and he began to consider what awaited him in mortal society beyond that of gnomes and dwarves.
Theorizing he could learn more among the mages of other lands, Aardwalden began to explore. In some realms, Dragonshards were hard to come by, but in others such as the Solunarium, they were available on the open market. Forming an admiration for the underground cabaret of the Umbrium, he found himself settling there, acquiring a home near to Under-Forum in the Sanctine District while seeking a loan for his workshop from the Ministerium Fisci.
Quirks
Elementalism
Motif: The Stone Lich
Afflicted with the state of being Stoneborn hundreds of years ago, Aardwalden has a deep connection with the element of earth, affording his soul and physiology unique pathways that his Quirks have begun to pave, stone by cobbled stone.
► Show Spoiler