Blink and You'll Miss Him: The Life and Times of Former Mercenary Adventurer Daniel Obrove; Or, Tele-Port and Ssstarboard; Or, Hither and Slither
When Daniel Obrove completed his final year at the magician's college, he was excited to put his studies to the test in an adventuring party. What better way to get started in on his new life than with an adventure at sea? He enlisted on Captain Gregory Wandelstok's vessel, the
S.S. Singleton. Wandelstok was a privateer serving the king in dispatching vessels sent from enemy nations, and he kept a crew that was hardworking and experienced, if a little rough around the edges. Daniel joined as a deckhand, assuring Wandelstok that he had skills enough to hold his own when the going got tough on the high seas.
During their first encounter with an enemy ship, Daniel used his magic to rock the waters around the vessel, distracting its crew so that he could sabotage them further by slipping below decks and igniting their powder kegs. As the vessel sank beneath the waves, Daniel was able to levitate loot and his crewmates alike back aboard the
Singleton. Slumped against the mast and exhausted from the expenditure of magical energy, he was happy to see the arcane display had paid off. The men gave a wild cheer and it seemed that the young magician was the hero of the day.
However, there was one person on the ship who was not pleased with Daniel's methods. Captain Wandelstok was highly superstitious of most magic, believing that to manipulate nature in such a way was to tread on the toes of the gods. Wandelstok was an old veteran who had seen too many sailors be caught up in decades-long voyages after offending the gods of their world, Lathyrus, and he wasn't about to have some hotshot spellcaster end his perfect track record. Daniel would have to rely on saber and pistol like the rest of the crew, or be left behind the next time the ship made port. Daniel didn't think this was the best use of his education, but he acquiesced. Even if he was forbidden from using his magic, at least he was on an adventure.
When the next sea battle came to pass, Daniel wasn't quite as successful. He was clumsy, his body too large to easily maneuver among friend and foe alike--on the cramped quarters of the ship's decks, this was made even more difficult. Finding himself surrounded, Dan pulled a truly desperate move and used a short-range teleportation spell to reach the enemy ship's crow's nest before teleporting back down to a more advantageous position. The
Singleton barely made it away intact, but the rival vessel was turned back towards the open ocean and away from sovereign shores.
Daniel expected hell to pay from the captain after that, but once they were parked in the shipyard and awaiting repairs, the confrontation never came. He finally asked Wandelstok why he had had such a sudden change of heart. The old sailor explained that, while elemental evocation and like magicks disrupted the gods’ domain, they could hardly complain if Dan snuck
out of their domain to pop back into it in a different location, right? Blink-magic sat well with the old man. Daniel was given permission to use blink-magic--but
only blink-magic--while working aboard the
S.S. Singleton.
So he did. Daniel considered it a relief to be able to use
any magic, and a challenge to be forced to use it in such a limited way. He practiced daily at becoming more accurate with where his body wound up. Daniel even managed to develop new techniques, such as working the teleport spells in such a way that, when he arrived at point B, his body's momentum was greater than when he left point A. This meant that he was able to slam into groups of foes and knock them off their ships into the brine below. He could use this "weaponized blinking" alongside the skills with blade and bullet he had picked up for a deadly combination.
Eventually, Daniel left behind his life at sea, using his share of the plunder to purchase a small shack on a resort island, and a stationary cross-dimensional gateway for when he's feeling restless. Blade and bullet are no longer required, but his teleportation still had its uses. Upon disembarking the
Singleton, Daniel found himself taken with a curious disorder similar to
Mal de Debarquement, a sort of “reverse seasickness.” He couldn't move for any extended period of time without getting nauseous, though remaining stationary (or returning to the sea) abated any symptoms. His blink-magic could be used without adverse effects as well, and it became his preferred method of transit, a workaround to avoid the crippling motion sickness that arose whenever Daniel tried moving about on land. Some specialists believe that it is exactly because of his exposure to his transitional nether-realm that caused the symptoms to arise, but this is merely conjecture.
Nowadays Daniel spends his time lounging on the beach or touring new places using his portal. The bulk of his great odyssey is over, but maybe new adventures will come his way.
Lamga or Nagmia, Depending on the School of Thought to Which You Subscribe; Or, Thirty in Snake Years; Or, Species Information
Daniel Obrove was born into a subspecies of snakefolk characterized by the fact that they could not come up with a specific name for their subspecies. Extra-anthropologists eventually grew tired of arguing about which classification to place Daniel's people in, and settled on referring to them as "Lamga" or "Nagmia."
Nagmia/Lamga are lukewarm-blooded and their scales come in a variety of colors and patterns. Daniel began his career of adventuring with bright red scales, but over time and with exposure to the void outside worlds, this darkened into a more purple-y hue.
Lamga-Nagmia lengths depend upon what their height would be if they were a mundane human being. Daniel, for example, would be exactly six feet tall if he had legs, and therefore his lower serpent half is exactly twice that length, plus the length of the legs he
would have if he was a human. This brings Daniel to 18 feet long from tail-tip to luscious, salt-touched curls. See that? Math is simple, easy, and fun.
Nlamgmia are extraordinarily long-lived. Daniel spent 50 years working aboard the
S.S. Singleton, and when he ended his tenure there he was approaching his one-hundred and first birthday. At present he is 121 years old. Despite that, he appears to be in his late twenties or very early thirties. Part of this may be thanks to the fact that members of Daniel's species periodically shed their skin. This fact is extremely embarrassing to him, but helped to save him and his comrade's lives during one hilarious episode in which the ship was waylaid and the crew set afloat on the open ocean. Daniel's molt proved to be buoyant enough for the men to grab onto, allowing them to survive long enough to wash ashore on a nearby island.
There is no math to how Daniel's age corresponds to his appearance. That is determined entirely by magic.
Daniel's species possesses a normal human stomach in their upper torso which is used primarily for storage and light, mostly harmless pre-digestion. A longer, more spacious stomach, intended for the bulk of the grisly processing of food, is located within the length of their serpent half. The upper torso can stretch to fit tremendously-sized meals, almost to the size of an entire human person, and the lower serpent half is capable of fitting even more. Whether or not that information matters is up to the reader.
Going For a Jaunt; Or, Point A to Point B; Or, Powers and Abilities
Daniel Obrove specializes in a form of short-ranged teleportation magic which he lovingly refers to as "blinking." Blinking involves briefly entering a small pocket of netherverse and exiting in a different location nearby. For accuracy's sake, and to avoid terrible accidents, he will try to only blink to areas which he has within his line of sight. "Blind blinking" is when he is forced to teleport through walls and barriers, and he prefers to avoid it because he cannot always predict what he will collide with on the other side. Daniel's magic allowed him to maintain positional advantage during skirmishes on the sea, as well as keeping himself and his crew member's out of sticky situations.
Along with the aforementioned manipulation of exit-momentum, used to jettison his much sturdier Lamga/Nagmia body at less sturdy targets, Daniel has developed several other advanced techniques to coincide with his teleportation magic. With experience he has grown used to the jolts and bumps of rapid-fire blinking, and is now able to chain teleports in rapid succession to move long distances without vomiting. It's not as fast as using a single long-ranged teleport, but Daniel is well aware of the dangers of miscalculation, and is wary of transporting himself anywhere he can't see. He can also blink others, either to lethal heights or as a means of transport, though during his travels abroad the captain considered this application of his magic "excessive." As a desperation move, Daniel is able to pull denizens of the abyss to his destination. This poses the risk of unleashing an elder god on the world where his intention is usually to bring back a swarm of smaller stygian horrors. Not a trick he would pull at parties.
Daniel is capable of performing more broad forms of magic, thanks to his education, but grew out of practice while under Wandelstok's command. Now that he's retired, he spends some of his time working to recall his lost spellcraft. Where immolation and ice bolts are lost to him, the skills he gained in swordplay and marksmanship remain in a pinch. Even those fall to the wayside in favor of blinking, though.
The Hither and Thither Expanded; Or, Drawing Back the Curtain!
Obrophidian is the alternate universe analogue of the Lovecraftian horror bound to a stage magician's prop, Obe. He is not the creature's former acquaintance, its blood summoner, or its avatar and herald to the mortal world. He's the Obrove if Obrove were a retired adventurer blink-mage, while
the mimic is a scourge upon multiple alternate dimensions. Or it would be, were it not trapped in a hat.
Other Obroves, some of them a little less scaley and land-sick, can be found on their alt list,
here.
There are more "Danalogues" to come, eventually, so we kindly ask that you...
STAY TUNED!
