Ugly Backstory #4 - The Birth of Rofvannon {ROFVERVANVERLYN}
This is perhaps one of the uglier ugly backstories...
Rofvannon was a freak occurrance. He was born nearly the same night as Celestine, in an age where the last of the dying race of Ancient Vlints were living their doomed existences out in the islands near Gellenf. Tales tell that a meteorite by some trick of luck struck a volcanic hot springs in the Caldera of the Equinox, leaving a small crater that filled with the sulfur-ridden waters of the springs until a small child floated to the surface.
Witnessing this event were two Ancient Vlints, whom had come to the Caldera on a pilgrimage to the springs god located there. They fished the child out of the springs, thinking surely he was a gift from the powers that be to them. He could easily breathe the waters of the spring that were too hot for the vlints to even touch, but he was well-formed enough to reach out to them and allow them to take him from the Caldera in a haste.
They knew that if the old springs god found this newborn god, he would go into a rage that would spare no one.
They cared for the child and named him Rofvannon, which in their tongue meant “volcanic algae”, for the spiraling locks of hair that tumbled from his head to his ankles even as a toddler. From early on the hair had a life of its own, and the vlints that cared for him were surprised to find that if they bound them into tight dreadlocks, he could have some means of control over them.
He was a closely guarded secret in their home for years, and he was a deeply inquisitive child, loving herbs and plant life, but completely intolerant to the cold. He would enter into deep depressions during winter months, pining away for the springs that birthed him, but graciously enjoying hot baths his surrogate parents had put together for him.
At about his eighth year, the springs god began to show signs he was going mad, causing geyser eruptions and killing pilgrims that came to offer to him. The vlints of Gellenf lived in fear of him, woeful that their already dwindling society would be eradicated by the very god they were worshipping. The god claimed a traitor was among their people that intended for the god’s doom, and that he would not rest until it was found and killed.
In a distraught frenzy, Rofvannon’s surrogate parents bound him tightly from head to toe, took him back to the Caldera, and offered him to the old god in exchange for the safety of Gellenf. The god took Rofvannon, dragging him away by his bound feet into a deep volcanic cavern that led below the Caldera.
The gasses here were toxic and thick, harmless to the old god but suffocating to the child Rofvannon. He cried out for his vlint parents, but was silenced by the god dashing him against the cavern walls. He quieted slightly as he was dragged deeper into the cavern.
The god had intended for the gasses and heat to kill the child, but he survived, still weakly crying for his parents to rescue him despite knowing that they’d bound him in the first place. The god flew into a rage, thrashing the child around like a limp ragdoll, in a desperate bid to break his skull open or shatter his bones.
Despite it all the god could not kill Rofvannon, and at the peak of his rage, he bound him to the cavern walls at its deepest, hottest, most suffocatingly toxic point, in heavy chains that bound his hands and feet and even his tail from movement.
The stifling gasses kept him weak and nearly catatonic, but he would not die. The god left him there for several weeks at a time, only coming to see him to try beating him to death again. No matter how long he kept at it, no matter how many different ways he tried it, Rofvannon would not die.
At long last the god seemed to give up, loosing his rage instead on Gellenf, which he sterilized of life with a toxic cloud of his own doing. For years the god sat in hiding, feeling his powers waste away, visiting Rofvannon once every few months to batter on him again.
As the young demon aged, the old god found himself in a sort of attraction with the youthful body chained in his cavern, and after a time, didn’t stop at simply beating the poor young man. He found he could have his way with him should he find his lust demanded it, and he did, satisfying himself while ravaging Rofvannon and thumping him a few good ones just to keep him down.
The god was unaware that after being down in this cavern for so long, Rofvannon was finding that the fumes were not so toxic, the heat was not so intense, and that he had plenty of strength. The god came to beat Rofvannon one last time, but this time he was met with Rofvannon’s hair, which sprang to life and bound the god tightly, constricting until all the bones in the god’s body were crushed and he fell in many pieces on the cavern floor.
From then on a terrible thing was born; Rofvannon broke free of his bonds and claimed his Caldera, and began a search for ways to strengthen himself so something like this could never... ever happen to him again. He began a process of learning to devour souls, and went about doing so whenever he found one strong enough to improve him. The world came to fear him as a vicious monster and he quite enjoyed it. After all, parental love, familial love, it was all a lie when one was faced with death.
So why should he consider it anything else, and why should he care for anyone but himself?
Despite that his hair still had miraculous medicinal properties and that the element of his soul was pure yin, Rofvannon found himself adapting magics in other elements and styles to his own hands. His favorite was a hell-elemental touch explosion, which he turned into a world-reknowned trademark. His arsenal of tricks is extensive and deep, but he may only bring one or two to the table at a time depending on his adversary’s element and style.
Rofvannon is purely calculating and prefers to waste no energy. If he is wounded, he only needs a dunk in his caldera’s hot springs to gradually recover every bit of his vitality. He has had to take advantage of this on several occasions, most notably when Letharia cursed him with a blood-freezing poison frost during their fateful battle.
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