Saran Cerementi

Saran (I & II)
Created	I: 1x & II: March 2000
Status	Inactive
Race	elf
Hometown	Cillidellia
Classes	II: Mage
Last Seen	2000
Partner	I: Typhon
Relatives	Jahiliya of Veladorn

Saran Cerementi was the re-creation of Saran al-Ashari, Rogue of the Grey Waste and Brother to Jahiliya of Veladorn, an early 1x triple class [ Ra:25 Sh:25 Th:23 ]. Upon Cordir's promotion to DemiGoddess in 3x, Saran unretired to join her following. As his playerfile was long since purged, he created a unique character - Saran Cerementi - a risen mummy of his earlier 'incarnation'.

Mud Contributions:

In addition to being an amazingly competant player, Saran also posted poetry from time to time, including this one from 1996, about why he stayed Un-Aligned:

[29] Saran: Paradise
Wed Jan 17 19:25:55 1996
To: all

Many cry Out for some god's glory
Many preach a way things should be
I hold orchids. Watch stars and comets
Delphine tears within the sea

I pray to the break of dawning
And the veils of the aurora
Clouds of crimson, the plains lit golden
lover sculpt from malachite

One shows me Ivory Roses
One shows Elder Signs and night things
I show landscapes, the fall of eveiling
Hues of indigo and green

I know that while I live nature
Gods are nothing to desire
Rains and rivers, this world of wonders
These are Paradise to me

Current Description: REBIRTH (Saran II)

A tall mummy stands before you, wearing the leathers of an explorer. Where his head should be, there are no wrappings, only air and blue-white light radiating from a lost soul. Clad in white leather, white cloak, and white wrappings, the mummy exudes an aura of eternal, icy calm, lowering the temperature around you with every passing minute. The soullight crackles, and you see two 'eyes' of blue manifest amid the luminous swirl where a head should be. As these 'eyes' gaze upon you, you see the cerement bandages on the mummy's body shift ... and see across nothing but air and light to the wrappings on the mummy's backside. The wrappings do not lie upon a body ... they are the body of this creature.
You peer closer, and see that the bandages are of exquisite quality. Embroidered with ivory threads at their edges, inlaid with old pearl carvings, and gilt with iridium sigils, the cerements themselves are woven of the very greatest Cillidellian elfweave, magic itself. Blue soulfire bleeds from within, flecked with red eruptions as it dances across the iridium sigils. The sigils themselves are ancient and all but unintelligible, the writing of a lost age. The same nine phrases repeat many times across the body:
=>= >=Z+Z +#= |^<*^^u
''+#*Z= 0>= ^*+ T=0T,
>|<# <0^ =+=>^0/ /|=!
0^T |+# Z+>0^&= =*^Z,
=v=^ T=0+# w0X T|=!
0/% 0 w0z= *E w*w=^+Z
=v=>X#=>= X*u +u>^ +*
P=&|^Z 0 ^= P=&|^^|^&
+* ^=v=> E|^T 0 E|^|Z#

Current Description: Version 1x, 1995:

Tall, chiseled, bronzed by the elements he worships, a great 
naturalist stands before you. Wise in the ways of nature's
forces, he butchers animals and harnesses the waters to
free himself from dependency on the decrepit cities.

Stealthily gliding, he notices you, and smiles. Throwing a
cloak of protection over you, he waves and slides silently
into the natural world he calls his home.

Saran has many nasty wounds.
Saran is using:
<used as light>     a glow rock
<worn on finger>    (Magical) the neon smoky quartz ring
<worn on finger>    (Magical) (Humming) the blazing blue quartz ring
<worn around neck>  (Magical) the flaring pyrite amulet
<worn around neck>  (Magical) (Humming) the Amulet of True Seeing
<worn on body>      a stony dragonscale torso
<worn on head>      a snakeskin coif
<worn on legs>      (Magical) a pair of leather leggings
<worn on feet>      (Magical) a pair of muddy boots
<worn on hands>     (Magical) elven war gloves
<worn on arms>      (Magical) elven vambraces
<worn about body>   a huge morning star
<worn about waist>  (Magical) a studded leather girth
<worn around wrist> (Magical) the superb rose bracelet
<worn around wrist> (Magical) the vibrant tiger eye bracelet
<wielded>           (Glowing) the Ebony Blade
<wielded off-hand>  (Glowing) the Ebony Blade
<worn with pride>   (Glowing) the Brooch of the One Dwarf
<worn with pride>   (Glowing) the Brooch of the One Dwarf

You peek at the inventory:
steak made from Kasselwort
bag made from Librarian hide
(Magical) the Amulet of Steadfastness
(Magical) a mud school diploma
(Magical) a purple potion with green swirls
a raft
(Magical) (Humming) the fiery glass amulet
a Chthonian's Denticle
(Magical) the glorious chalcedony ring
(Magical) the simple electrum amulet
(Magical) the cracked spinel amulet
(Magical) the Amulet of Blocking
(Magical) the Amulet of Waterbreathing

WHO Lists:

1995:  Hum [ Ra:25 Sh:25 Th:23 ] Saran al-Ashari: Rogue of the Grey Waste

Geasa:

1. Saran bears a Restless Soul. To this end, he will never dream again, nor know sleep's peace.
2. Saran bears no form of flesh. To that end, he shall never eat prepared food again - no steaks or other 'prepared' foods, only those gifts of nature in their most raw and basic form.
3. Saran turns from the more tempting sorceries. To this end, he is forbidden to ever learn the Path of Draining, the Path of Energy, or the Path of Spirit. The spells on these paths are:
Draining: Drain Strength (Weaken), Vampiric Touch, Drain Will (Charm Person), Sleeping Touch, Drain Essence (Energy Drain)
Energy: Magic Missile, Generate Sound (Ventriloquate), Energy Blast (Shockin g grasp), Sound Blast (Deafness), Arcing Energy (Chain Lightning).
Spirit: Sense Life (Infravision), Analyze Spirit (Identify), Materialize Water Spirit (Create Spring), Spirit Shroud (Mass invis), and Spirit Swarm (Meteor).
4. Saran seeks Poverty: To this end, he shall never own or seek to own more than he carry. He will shun the moneylenders, and not seek to store extra equipment with friends and/or Chosen in case of death, nor money. He will enter into no loads, and expects no quid pro quo assistance for assistance rendered.
5. Saran seeks Service: He will and must assist anyone who asks for aid in re-equipment from death, with anything he has in inventory, until *they* are satisfied or until his inventory is stripped.
6. Saran seeks Loss: Upon discovery of ANY corpse, including his own, he will retrieve three items, one for each aspect of the Triat, and all the gold therein. Then, he will sacrifice it to the gods.
7. Saran Seeks Balance: For each journey traveled with one alignment, an equal journey must be done the other side. Aid must be likewise offered in balance.
8. Saran seeks Focus: He shall never heed, nor answer, the sound of shouts, yells, or auctions.
(There was a ninth, but the file it was in got corrupted and it was lost.)

Character History:

Saran's recreation was skillfully played out as the ancient memories of the original character and the tortured self-aware mummy of the new. His character history is split between the two. To further his character's RP, he came up with the 10 Paths of Mummy Magic (see below).

I was manufactured in Cilladelia during the Time of the High Queen, as all bolts of elfweave are. Arcane magics were woven into me, and my being grew, shaped and guided under the skills of a masterweaver centuries old. After years of painstaking preparations, my creation was complete, and I lay whole and perfect before any who gazed upon me.

I was born in the Grey Waste in the Year of Darkest Sun, to parents unknown and near siblings unseen, and was taken up by the Wanderers there. Spirit magics were taught unto me, and my being grew, tested and built under the strains of a malefic waste aged even in unknown antiquity. After years of preparation, my training was ended, and I stood hale and ready before the elements that bore upon me.

I was purchased and transformed by the bandage makers, cut and spun and stitched into those ceremonial wrappings fit for the most noble of interments. High wards were threaded through me, that my purpose in safeguarding my charge be kept at any cost. I hung in the temple of cerements and waited to fulfill my duty.

I was discovered and transfixed by the city humans, cut and stunned and stained to that integral horror toward modernity that comes for those living in most noble nature. Great spirits I channeled around me, that the blessed ways of thriving in nature be defended through all days. I wandered with sister and friends and crusaded to uphold my calling.

I was dedicated at the start of the Third Age, bound to protect the fallen form of a great human obliterated by the power of the Vortex at the end of the Second Age. I felt the word of binding, heard the scent of death, tasted the pleasure of flesh. I was one with my new lover, and would protect my beloved for time without end.

I was corrupted at the dawn of 'a better Age', betrayed by darksome shades in the howling chaos of insanity uncomprehending people have called the Vortex. I fell, seemingly ended, but knew that with time I could piece my avatar back together. Then I felt the lashing pain of soulbinding, heard my spirit scream and shatter, tasted a bitter certainty that never again would I be who I had been and should be. I was one with my new prison, and could never escape the gaol, even were time itself to end.

For centuries I protected my lover in my cold, white embrace. While gods rose and fell I kept the rot at bay and preserved each perfect feature from the ravages of time. But then the resistance began, as though the perfect flesh itself were opposed to my gentle caress. I fought as I had been made, to the utmost of my abilities, until one night I saw my lover's golden voice, and surrendered myself into an even more perfect union.

How long I screamed I shall never know, but each moment was a cold, white eternity, and there were countless millions of them. Horrible power kept me whole long after my flesh should have joined again to the great Mother. But eventually I learned to manage the hellstabs, to see this torment as a White waste to make the Grey one a life of city decadence by comparison. I mastered that, I would master this. Though I could never call on the Mother's spirit again, yet might I will my own. Though I could never escape my prison, yet might I see myself its master. How long I fought I can never know, but I rewove the fragments of my sundered soul and bound them into the wrappings of my prison, letting my tortured body crumble at last.

I Rise this night. I leave this crypt and walk into the magnificent city where I was made, a filthy urban mire I have never seen. Who I am, I am not sure. I am not who I was, nor what I was, but rather I am what I will be. No longer am I the ranger, the shaman, the thief of the wild - now I am magic itself. No longer am I a ward, a seal, a binding against all change - now I am resurrection incarnate. The night is young, and I will learn of this new world. I will find the great wise craftswomen who made me, and I will stalk those monsters for time without end for this blasphemy against life they have made with their evil magics. For I am Saran, Wanderer of the Wastes, and I will not keep the blasted desolation to myself any longer.

10 Paths of Mummy Magic

Created by Saran:

Saran is, technically, a 'mage', and has access to what they do. More specifically, however, he is a mummy, one of mage magic itself, and his ability to 'be a mage' is limited and guided by the nature of his dead body.

Mummies work magic along fixed Paths, growing, in sequence, up each Path, learning the magics along it. Each Path has 5 spells, each of fixed place on the Path, and one cannot attain, say, the 4th level of a given Path without knowing the first 3 levels first. (Though it's not a geas, Saran has learned and will continue to learn his magics along the paths given, even where that involves delaying a spell's acquisition). The Paths, collectively, go by different names in different cultures: Hekau, Pneuma, Thaumaturgy, etc. Saran may well come up with his own name for the things.

There are 10 Paths in all. Saran finds one Path (Draining) too tempting for his Rage, one Path (Spirit) too painful to contemplate (ordering spirits around by compulsion, like puppets), and one Path (Energy) too ... alien ... for his tastes. His geas forbids him to ever pursue the magics of these Paths. The 7 Paths he shall acquire are:

Bone Shintai - augmenting the dead 'god-body', drawing on its form.
> Ward of Pearl (Shield)
>> Tireless Stride (Refresh)
>>> Strength of Ivory (Strength)
>>>> Unbreathing (Waterbreath)
>>>>> Bone Skin (Stone Skin)

Celestial - divination by astral energies.
(Requires holding off on Comprehend Languages until 6th level, which Saran did)
> Feel the Astral Flow (Detect Magic)
>> Piercing the Shroud (Detect Invis)
>>> Dowsing (Locate Object)
>>>> Perceive the True Names (Comprehend Languages)
>>>>> Scent Corruption (Detect Disease)

Ghost-Flame - cold, blue-white 'flames' of the soul sent outward
> Nimbus of the Ka (Chill Touch)
>> Bolt from Within (Burning Hands)
>>> Flames of Revelation (Faerie Fog)
>>>> Pyre of Vengeance (Fireball)
>>>>> Exhale the Five Poison Cloud (Acid Blast)

Radiance - manifestations of light (blue-white with red bits, in Saran's case)
(requires holding off continual light for a while, which Saran only now got)
> Blinding Light (Blindness)
>> Bolt of Radiance (Lightning Bolt)
>>> Undying Light (Continual Light)
>>>> Lightburst (Colour Spray)
>>>>> Orb of Ra (Sunlight)

Sigils - analyzing existing runes and making new ones
(requires holding off enchant for a while, which Saran will do)
> Sign of Warning (Alarm)
>> Mark of Claiming (Wizard Mark)
>>> Glyph of Awareness (Survey)
>>>> Sigils of Understanding (Improved Identify)
>>>>> Runes of Empowerment (Enchant Weapon)

Smothering - magics of suppression and concealment
> White Tiger Mantle (Invis)
>> Extinguish the Astral Fire (Dispel Magic)
>>> Shroud of Night (Darkness)
>>>> Call of the Void (Silence)
>>>>> White Tiger Body (Improved Invis)

Wayfare - methods of moving to other places/planes
> Leap of the Flea (Jump)
>> Wings of the Ibis (Fly)
>>> Gate of Hermes (Portal)
>>>> Steps of Osiris (Passdoor)
>>>>> Word of Chance (Teleport)

Trivia:

• Saran was the 34th individual to join the Chosen of Fate.

Personal Timeline:

No data is available on Saran's first incarnation, which was prior to 1995.

3/11/00 - Saran is reborn into the Realm.
3/16/00 - Saran joins the Chosen of Fate. <LOG>
3/22/00 - Saran escapes the hated Cillidellia, and Relocates elsewhere.
3/30/00 - Saran levels to 16 mage.
4/30/00 - Saran reaches 22nd level mage.