Mu'Rder

Caught
Mu'Rder
Player: @Talen Lee
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Dominator
Security Level:	Warzone Clearance
Personal Data
Real Name:	Mu'Rder
Known Aliases:	Rider
Species:	Mu Lineage Human
Age:	25
Height:	6'4"
Weight:	115 lbs
Eye Color:	White, Milky
Hair Color:	Red
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Etoile Citizens, Mu Lineage
Occupation:	Prince
Place of Birth:	The cold stone womb of Oranbega
Base of Operations:	Cap Au Diable
Marital Status:	Betrothed
Known Relatives:	Sister
Known Powers
Mind-control magic
Known Abilities
Natural Mu Electrical manipulation
Equipment
Confidential
No additional information available.

Character

Amongst the Mu Enclaves hidden within Arachnos, during their shadowy meetings, they speak of the Mu Prince, Mu'Rder. Quiet and reserved, even by the standards of the Mu, he often can go meetings at a time without so much as a word of commentary. However, despite all this seeming disinvolvement, once in a while he will speak and the insights he offers are brutally effective. A ruler of no small amount of clout, he has a seemingly perfect memory of the thousands of inter-snared family and political treaties, debts, and general nastiness. It seems strange to many of the Mu that this young man knows of such strange secrets without any seeming research - a trait that has persisted past Mu'Rder's personal life and indicates his position of prince is one well-deserved.

Of course, Mu'Rder barely knows anything about the Mu court. This information is all given to the ghostly spirit of the ancestor responsible for the entirety of his family line, a mean-spirited and ambitious spectre that has been haunting Mu'Rder the whole of his life. The spirit, known to Mu'Rder, and his father and his father before him, has always been known only as Grandfather, and he owns the title well. Mean-spirited, cranky and unempathic, Grandfather has no personal interest in Mu'Rder's life or dealings, seeing the family line he created as nothing more than a way of 'keeping score' with the metaphorical spirits of other Mu progenitors, his own peers from back when the spirit was alive.

The secret life Mu'Rder leads is one outside the Mu's secretive meetings and hidden political agendas. Sneaking out at night, shedding the trappings that make him evidently a Mu prince, he wields his magic to strike out at the gangs and common thugs, to hamstring most of the Arachnos operations he spends the day learning about, in some way or another. He likes to fancy this is as much being a champion of the poor as anything else, but he doesn't really know that. He doesn't know any of these common people he imagines himself serving, and in many situations, due to the simplistic approach of "destruction = solution," he's actually making life worse^[1].

Grandfather is unaware of the sleepless nights Mu'Rder keeps - he himself sleeps much of the day, and does not need Mu'Rder to pay attention during Court - merely to be awake enough to be provoked into speaking. Grandfather, a malicious sort at the best of times, sees the young man's constant sleepiness as a failing of the boy, and assumes that Mu'Rder will be an easily manipulated dupe who can be used as a convenient and easy mouthpiece to further his aims within the Mu court - unlike the family members of Mu'Rders who had proven to be more... independent.

Grandfather holds up hopes that, unlike his predecessors, he will not have to dispose of Mu'Rder for a while.

With these two aspects of himself in duality, Mu'Rder walks a careful line between doing the right thing and the wrong thing; he can justify to himself a large body of the work for Arachnos, the unfortunate cost of doing business. While he can pass a lot of merciful behaviour as that of a Mu prince (who would not lower himself to killing innocents, for example), he has to maintain distance from a number of the acts Arachnos perpetrates that he personally views as barbaric. Fortunately, between his mind-controlling magic and his position of authority, it is not too hard for Mu'Rder to keep his distance from those places where his ironclad facade would be put into question.

Mu'Rder, beneath it all, is a prideful young man who recognises the complicated nature of his life. He carries a large amount of sensitive information - he is aware of his Grandfather in a way that the other Mu are not, he understands much of the inner workings of Arachnos, and he also knows a lot more about the 'heroic' scene of the Etoile than is reasonable for him to know. Worse, there are a large number of unknown unknowns about him - able to keep information from even Grandfather, he plays a dangerous game amongst the unpleasant workings of the Etoile society.

Mu'Rder himself, as a person, is a relatively respectful and serious young man who second-guesses himself constantly. With a troubled and uncertain mind, he spends a lot of his time in curious introspection, uncertain of revealing himself to others. He therefore makes probing, cautious forays into the world around him, choosing to be seen as strange and distant than to be resented or disdained.

Powers

Mu magic is internalised, and involves a number of magical nexi within the body being aligned in a particular way. Mu propoganda suggests that this nexus arrangement is unique to Mu, and indeed, the whole distinction between Mu and 'normal' humans. Mu lineage is instead a font for such power because these nexi are almost all in appropriate alignment from birth. This makes Mu easier to find, but it can just as much mean the magical gift leaps a generation.

Mu'Rder, on the other hand, is part of a breed of noble families that have steadily worn their nexi into the appropriate location. Development and natural selection over time has encouraged the children to be prodigious mu mages from the onset. Therefore, the conventional training regimen undertaken by Mu adepts and acolytes - with its careful and precise uniforms, its conformity and its stifling self-denial - was not necessary for the Prince. To him, mu magic, the manipulation of a person's energy, is as given an ability as breathing. Restraint is nonetheless part of his own training - but he does not understand why. He finds the chains, the straps, the leather and the restraint to be comforting - to help him focus.

Mu magic is deeper than most acolytes indicate it to be - in addition to flying and commanding red energy, it can be used to warp men's minds, to command their respect and obedience, to brutally control the sense of others. By understanding control in himself, he is able to exert that control on others - through the medium of mu magic.

While Mu magecraft espouses self-denial and sensory deprivation to the point of refusing to strike opponents, not because of potential harm to themselves or to ones' self, but because the contact is stimulation that can distract from internal focus, Mu'Rder's prodigious gift at magecraft means he does not need that focus to maintain his combat ability. Without that limitation, he is instead able to strike opponents with his hands - which is seen as downright uncouth amongst the Mu.

Metatext

RP Notes

• Mu'Rder is half-blind. He can only perceive general shapes, and he identifies threats to his person by magic and tertiary senses. He can't read written language.
• Mu'Rder is only about as perceptive as a normally sighted person would be without his magic to aid him.
• There are a series of titles and terms used to refer to Mu'Rder that can denote how you perceive him. The first draft of this page had them, in detail. Then I lost it. So fuck it, it's not like anyone's going to do it.
• Mu'Rder uses some minor words of mu speech, the same way a Quebecois might find themselves dotting in tidbits of French into their speech.
  • Sza - a piece of language that lacks a real meaning, it could be read as 'Is that so?' or perhaps 'isn't that right?' When spoken on its own, it indicates Mu'Rder is thinking.
  • Tscha moyden - a form of swear, 'by the prince's will.' While technically not a swear when spoken by Mu'Rder - as he is the prince the swear refers to - he still speaks it as such.
  • Che - an expression of boredom or disgust.
  • Ie - to express disagreement or to simply say no

Themes

Parenthood. My sister recently had a son and it occurred to me that, failing some oddness, I don't plan on having children of my own. This got me thinking more at length about the main reasons I feared the role of fatherhood and they mostly stem back to my own upbringing, my own direction as a son of two well-meaning, reasonable, intelligent people who happened to have a colossal blindspot that led to what I feel was a damaging childhood. Couple this with the recent Avatar bender myself and my wife have been on (which has inspired her in different ways), in particular the dynamic between Ozai and Zuko, and I felt it an interesting area to mine. Even as adults, we try to shake off our parental influences. I hear my father's laugh in my own the older I get.

Mu'Rder's story is one of development, of trying to be his own person under the influence of a parent figure who only cares about Rider in the same way he cares about his silverware.

Trivia

• Mu'Rder's name was originally Fred's. Fred, being a really honestly great guy, let me have the name. Then, being a dick, he made fun of me.
• Mu'Rder's name is even more interesting when I talk about him with my wife, because then I have to actually say it aloud.

References

1. ↑ Veritably, a testament to the idea that good intentions don't actually count for very much.