Local Midlander Builds Marvels!
Inventor, engineer, machinist, gun maker, Allagan technology expert, airship architect... if there's something in Eorzea related to science and machina, Ramius Raske probably has a hand in it.
Ramius Raske (ray’-me-us rask) (nickname: Rami) is a Hyur Midlander whose passion in life is inventing, crafting various machines, devices, contraptions, and gadgets for a wide range of purposes, largely at the behest of well-heeled clientele among the social elite, but also for those in need wherever and whenever he can be of help.Age: 25-29 (19 during Seventh Umbral Calamity)Hair Color: Bright red with golden highlights, like a lick of flame bursting from his scalp.Eye Color: Golden yellow.Height: 6 fulms.
My ideal is to have people hire Ramius to build them things they need or perform mechanical services of whatever sort, as clients, although I'm certainly not against a longer term story if it feels right.Some possible hooks would include if your character...- ...has a need for a machine or invention of some sort. This is Rami's bread and butter. Your character doesn't have to have any technological background, just a problem that could potentially be solved by someone who does.
- ...is looking for someone with extensive knowledge of Allagan technology or artifacts.
- ...is an inventor or engineer looking to collaborate on a project.
- ...is involved in law enforcement for one of the Grand Companies (this one would require some pre-planning and some trust established between us).
- ...is themself a piece of technology!
You know a piece of land is worthless when none of Eorzea’s territory-hungry city-states can be bothered to claim it.Such was long the case with the Carteneau Flats. A peninsula on the west coast of Aldenard situated southwest of Mor Dhona and northwest of Thanalan, Carteneau could at best have been called “nowhere” even before the Calamity. Yawning steppes of dense, untillable ground yielded little in the way of vegetation apart from the odd gnarled tree or reedy scrub. Unforgiving mesas and latholiths of rock littered the terrain like vast tombstones and sarcophagi. Nauseous beasts and monsters roamed free, unmarked by any soldier’s eye. The great nations saw little profit in annexing this remote, blighted territory, and so it lay for hundreds of cycles, with no human residents.…So the official records of the city-states allege. But while the Flats were a dangerous challenge to human life, they were not uninhabitable… and wherever men may survive, they will inevitably settle. What’s more, those who would elude the outstretched palm of the tax collector or the watchful gaze of the lawman may find any lawless land irresistible, no matter how treacherous.Thus it was that unknown to most Eorzeans and disregarded by the rest, a sprinkling of huts, hovels, and tiny enclaves secreted themselves amid the cliffs and outcroppings of Carteneau, lingering out of sight of the world for generations, too few in number for any government to trouble itself with.The jewel of these settlements, if such a term could be unironically applied, was Brazemoor, a spacious, low-slung manor house built into the concave side of a mesa half a malm from the Cinderfoot River. Brazemoor was built by and was the ancestral home of the Raskes, a noble family of Hyur Midlanders dedicated to the pursuits of science and invention.Unlike most of the scattered residents of the peninsula, the Raske family chose the Flats as their home not to escape the law or the treasury—though in their endeavors they certainly benefited from the absence of both—but instead to reap a unique harvest.The family had chanced to discover a secret that was lost to every other soul in the realm until the end of the Seventh Umbral Era: an immeasurable wealth of ancient Allagan technological artifacts, buried beneath Carteneau’s intractable plains and scarpments. Everything from tiny parts and trinkets to large, sophisticated machines at whose purpose one could only guess lay waiting to be unearthed, holding the amassed knowledge of the most advanced civilization ever known.In addition to creating new devices from scratch as they always had done, the family discreetly excavated sites around the Flats and utilized what they found in a number of their inventions… recycling, retrofitting, and reverse-engineering the relics to create more advanced machines and gadgets. A Raske device gradually came to be coveted by many highly placed individuals in the city-states, unrivaled by any other both in form and in function. In this way the family grew modestly wealthy, and moved freely about the higher echelons of Eorzean society when they traveled forth from Brazemoor with their wares.The peninsula was prowled by dangerous creatures and occasionally by bandits and speculators, and the absence of a government also meant the absence of a peacekeeping force. Cartenuvians quickly learned to defend themselves, and in this too the Raskes developed unsurpassed skill and ingenuity. The arts of gunplay and machinistry were barely more than theory in those days, but the Raskes built and used their own firearms, teaching all of their children marksmanship and the construction of guns, turrets, and other defensive weaponry. As a noble clan they also trained extensively in the combat arts of gentlemen, such as boxing and fencing, and even employed some light magecraft. With these abilities at their disposal, they were able to fight and defend Brazemoor from any monsters, raiders, or rivals who would seek to lay waste to what the family had built.Alas, men and women so absorbed in their work tend not to be prolific in the act of expanding the bloodline. By the time of the Garlean invasion and Dalamud’s descent, the house was inhabited by just four people: the heads of the household, Vertus and Edwina Raske, their teenaged son, Ramius, and their paid servant, I'bensho Tia.As soon as it became clear that the Carteneau Flats would be the staging ground both for the battle against Garlemald and for the lesser moon’s impact, most Cartenuvians began to flee north into Mor Dhona or to cross the Cinderfoot into Northern and Central Thanalan. Vertus and his wife gave custody of Ramius over to I'bensho and commanded him to flee with the boy northward by sea, up the Strait of Merlthor and across the Indigo Deep and the Bloodbrine Sea to Old Sharlayan, where their only son would be safe at least from the Garleans.However, they themselves refused to cede Brazemoor. The family had defended it for generations, it was Ramius’ birthright, and both father and mother agreed that they would be thrice damned if they would surrender it now: not to the Alliance, not to the Empire, and not to the Dreadwyrm. At Brazemoor they would remain, and protect the estate from any force that would attempt to rob them of what their ancestors had built.Neither the son nor the servant were in a position to dissuade them from such folly. And so, as the smoke lifted from the Seventh Umbral Calamity and the world began to take stock and to rebuild, no further word arrived at Sharlayan from the manor upon Carteneau.Ramius returned at last to Brazemoor five cycles later, having enrolled at the Studium and honed his own craft among the Sharlayans in the intervening time. He had long since had word of his parents’ demise, and the devoted family servant had passed some five moons prior. The rage of Bahamut had reduced the manor to mostly rubble. Some portion of the structure remained intact however, including much of the laboratory and enough space protected from the elements to be used as makeshift living quarters.The Carteneau Flats themselves had been utterly transformed by the ravages of battle. Exposed stone and sand surfaces surrounding the impact point had been vitrified. Massive craters pockmarked the landscape. Everywhere were broken weapons, rotted hulks of magitek armor, and human remains stripped of their flesh, all of it blistered and blackened by primal dragonfire.More troubling still, the Allagan ruins, known only to the Raskes for generations, had been laid bare for all the world to behold and to covet. What was once a peninsula shunned by the city-states became hotly contested between them, as each sought to lay claim to the technological wealth that the sundered land had yielded. Not only did the Grand Companies conduct regular skirmishes over control of the territory, it was also stalked by Ul'dahn monetarists, detachments from the Garlean castra, and independent thieves and scavengers, to say nothing of the terrible creatures that yet remained.Not one of them recognized any claim by the region’s ancestral occupants.Carteneau was a noxious, apocalyptic wasteland, far worse even than before the Calamity. Yet, to lay claim to any slice of it meant no less than to wage a private war against the assembled hordes of every powerful faction in Eorzea.Ramius Raske, with the same stubborn determination he had inherited from his parents, refused to be cowed. He reclaimed and settled at the ruins of Brazemoor in the name of his family, vowing to carry on their legacy, to defend what was his by right, and to honor his parents’ sacrifice by ensuring that it was not in vain.
*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that’s my Carrd. You may be wondering how I ended up here…Let me run down a few things about who I am as a roleplayer and what I’m looking for.I’m open to all forms of RP, but what really strike my fancy are storylines, with arcs, conflict, growth, and consequences for the characters involved. Naturally, anything permanently life-altering or injurious to either party should always be discussed in an OOC manner beforehand.My style tends to be literate but not too wordy, and I try to keep my writing as colorful and compelling as I can (except for when I’m sleepy because I haven’t had my tea). I appreciate creativity and cleverness; witty banter is my proverbial jam, but I’m not picky. I prefer naturally flowing conversations with short-to-medium lines, but I can do paragraphs when it’s appropriate. Listen, I’m just flexible that way.I don't actually have a voracious RP appetite, so if you're looking for someone to be a several-times-per-week writing buddy, I'm afraid I'm not what you're looking for. At most I can usually only find time and motivation for a scene a week or so, and that's pushing it. By all means I'm open to things that inspire me enough to do more, but I just want to put it out there that I'm probably only reliable enough for occasional scenes.Please note that I maintain strict IC/OOC separation. I’m definitely not averse to chatting OOC and making new IRL friends with those I RP with, but Ramius is not my avatar. That means that his feelings are not necessarily my own feelings and vice versa. I treat him as a separate person, and so should you! I don’t project or metagame.Now, let’s get out there and write some passable-to-decent fiction together!
