Godrick the Witch-Mage

[Godrick the Witch-Mage]

Godrick Lorenz Galdun

Godrick Lorenz Galdun The Witch-Mage (College of Winterhold) | The Shamed One (Forsaken). 24; 7 Morning Star. Breton. Scholar, Consultant, Mercenary. Neutral. College of Winterhold. N/A Heterosexual.

[atrb=border,0,true] In the time before Godrick was known as the Witch-Mage or even the Shamed One, he was simply known as Godrick. A Breton child born and raised in the Reach by the Reachmen (aka the Forsaken) in a redoubt that's name is of no particular consequence. From a young age (as early as six) it was apparent that Godrick had a knack for the arcane arts, and thus he was educated in the practices of Schools of Destruction and Conjuration, as well as, alchemy. It was his father's hope that one day Godrick would become a shaman, a spiritual leader amongst the Forsaken, but fate and a hagraven, named Ulicia, had far different plans for the boy. Ulicia took a peculiar interest in Godrick's education in his youth. She even participated in it by tutoring him. Those tutoring sessions were the equivalent of torture for a young boy. Ulicia's definition of "hand's on" experience was hurling fireballs at ten year old boys, apparently. Despite whatever nightmares the sessions with Ulicia elicited, Godrick persevered through his training. By the time he was fourteen, he was summoning storm atronachs, a deadly daedric creature that requires great skill and fortitude to control. Ulicia was pleased with Godrick's progress, and she began planning the next stage of her plan. On Godrick's sixteenth birthday, Ulicia decreed that Godrick had completed his training as a shaman at a bonfire ceremony held to celebrate Godrick's coming of age as a man. There was much applause and some cheering. Even a tear or two was shed by Godrick's mother, and his father proudly clapped him on the back, a rare sign of affection. But Ulicia was not done. As is this case with most hagravens, whatever good fortune they bestow is almost immediately followed by bad fortune with a side general suckiness. She then decreed that as an honor to Godrick and his family, he would take his place as the next Forsaken Briarheart to stand at her side as her lieutenant and carry out the will of the Forsaken. More applause and cheers followed, but none came from Godrick or his parents. Let's pause for a moment, so that a Briarheart can be adequately explained to the reader. Briarheart's are technically undead. The process of becoming a Briarheart involves submitting to a hagraven to let her cut out your heart and replace with (you guessed it) a briarheart. The briarheart is then unceremoniously held in place a few leather straps, and if it is ever removed the Briarheart warrior dies. The principle behind this crude ritual is to give the warrior great strength and stamina--and to create a puppet for the hagraven performing the ritual on the warrior. That's right. A Briarheart must follow the hagraven's every command, making little more than a beast to be unleashed at a crazy old feather-covered witch's whim. So while becoming a Briarheart might, technically, be an honor among the Forsaken, one would have to be either a fervent servant of Forsaken to consider becoming one or insane--in most cases they are both. Godrick, however, was neither of these things. So let's resume. After the declaration of doom, a date was set for the ritual that would transform Godrick, the sharp young shaman, into a mindless zombie bent on killing anything that remotely looked like a Nord, the ceremony was completed and each family returned to their slices of paradise (aka tents made of animal pelts--if they were lucky). Upon returning to his parents' tent, Godrick found his mother weeping on the single pallet of straw and pelts in the tent reserved for her and Godrick's father (Godrick slept on the cold and often muddy ground). Godrick couldn't find the resolve to console her. He couldn't even console himself. Five days hence, he was essentially dead. Godrick sat in a rickety chair watching his mother weep deep into the night. After she had finally cried herself to sleep, Godrick's father entered the tent. He glanced at his wife and then directed his gaze at Godrick. "I've never said that I love you," he said quietly, "And I never will. There is no room for love in a Reachman's heart so long as the Nord's squat on the lands that are rightfully ours." Godrick cast his eyes on the ground. He had a feeling where this conversation was going to go. His father would tell him that it was an honor to chosen to become a Briarheart, and that it was his duty to become a servant of the hagraven as a sacrifice to his people. Instead he heard a soft thud. He looked over to his father's feet to see that a knapsack had been deposited on the ground between them. He looked up to his father's face, and it still wore the grim scowl that Godrick had become all too familiar with, but there was something about his father's eyes that didn't seen quite right. They seemed almost misty. "She--" Godrick's father gestured at his wife, "--loves you though. It is her weakness... And her strength. She will die of sorrow if you, her only child, become a Briarheart. I do not wish to see her dead, but the only way to save her is to save her son, as well." He kicked the knapsack towards Godrick. "You will leave. And you will never return upon penalty of death. From this moment forward, should a Reachman see your face his only goal will to kill as a deserter. Your name will be stricken from our tongues as your parents, for to speak it would bring shame unto us. And our names will be stricken from your tongue, should you ever speak them may your tongue rot from your mouth. You shall henceforth be known as the Shamed One--a deserter... But you will live if you make your escape quickly, and your mother will live knowing that you live." Despite the grave words that his father had spoken, he knew that this was a kindness unlike any other his father had ever shown anyone before. Godrick was being offered a chance at life, where by all means, no chance should be. He would lose his family, his friends, and his cause--but he would live, and that was a gift. He picked up the pack, and looked his father in the eye. Neither of them said a word. They merely gazed at each other for a moment before Godrick stepped around his father and left the redoubt and the Reach far behind. Some three months of traveling later, Godrick arrived at Winterhold, home of the College of Winterhold, a sanctuary for those who practiced the arcane from the Nords who tolerated very little of the ways of magic. He was accepted into the college, and Godrick set about continuing his education. The first thing he learned at the college was that he had learned almost nothing amongst the Forsaken. Sure he had learned powerful spells, but he had not learned their principles. His educated from Ulicia had not been to enlighten him, but to turn him into a weapon. A weapon does not need to know why it can maim, kill, or destroy--it merely needs to do those things. Despite Godrick's enthusiasm for learning the arcane arts at the college, many of his peers did not accept him. He was an oddity even among the mages. A shaman--a witchman--that had come to college for formal training. He was treated as an outcast, and his younger colleagues took to calling him the "Witch-Mage". A name that was meant to be insulting and derogatory, but was essentially true. He was trained to be a witchman, and now was training to become a mage. It was an apt name for him, and one that Godrick shouldered without complaint. It would only further his reputation, which good or bad, any reputation amongst the mages of Winterhold was better than none. As the years went by, Godrick became a person of mystery and intrigue to the young novices joining the college. That he was called the Witch-Mage only furthered their intrigue. Many sought him out for advise or private lessons, hoping that he would teach them some dark art that the college forbade. Occasionally, a novice has even asked to become Godrick's apprentice, but he has always declined every student who ever worked up the nerve to ask him. The practices and rituals of witchcraft are far darker than a young novice's mind should have to endure. Now-a-days, Godrick primary line of work is consultation and mercenary/security. He is also a scholar. He does consultation for many areas of expertise, including magic, history, dark arts, witchcraft, and property and personnel protection. Consultation is the perfect job for an accomplished mage, who has studied a broad range of subjects. Why? You get paid for your opinions while rarely having to do any actual field work. Despite his relatively dark (though normal for a Reachman) past, Godrick has a fairly laidback attitude. Live and let live. Unless you're being paid to injure, maim, or kill someone attacking a trade caravan, in which case you live and set fire to your foes in a rain of agony and destruction--but I digress. He tends to be uncharacteristically grim when it comes to aspects of witchcraft or combat. Not unwilling, but not exactly enthusiastic either. Those are the types of things that are done as a necessity. As far as Godrick's attitude towards his former comrades, the Forsaken, he tries to think of them as little as possible. Though he doesn't resent them--Ulicia excluded--after his years at the college he has lost his conviction for their cause. Sure, the Nords were living on the lands that traditionally belonged to the Reachmen, but when you think about it, most people were living on lands that belonged to someone else at some point. There was actually plenty of room in the Reach for the Reachmen and the Nords to share and still live peacefully. And there was always the option of retreating to High Rock to live amongst others of their race. What did the Reachmen really expect to gain? The smallest kingdom on the face of Tamriel? Newsflash! Small kingdoms tend to get swallowed up by larger ones, so they would eventually end up with the same problem again. If Skyrim didn't annex them then the Aldmeri Dominion would. And the Empire would certainly demand that they submit. It seemed to Godrick that the Reachmen were only deluding themselves, and thus making themselves easy targets for those who prey on the weak and deluded, the hagravens. When came down to it, Briarheart or not, all of the Reachmen were puppets of the hagravens, witches who they had elevated to matriarchs in their society in exchange for power and sense of purpose. Godrick has honored his exile from the Reach, never treading upon the land since the day he left, but then he had never had a reason to go back. The Reachmen's convictions were misplaced. That much was obvious to Godrick now. They were fighting miniature war against the Nords, and in the end, win or lose, all of it will have been for nothing. And it served them right.

Justin.

22 .

7 to 8; On-and-off.

RPG-D .