__________________QUICK STATSName: Jocelyn Sebastien Arhain III
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Ethnicity: Serenian
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175 lbs
Class: Noble
Occupation: Artifact Collector & Cataloguer, Cultural Liason, Scholar, Explorer
Residence: His birthplace is Arca, but his residence is the world.
__________________IN-DEPTH STUFFPhysical DescriptionJocelyn is a handsome man who, if dressed properly, would easily not look out of place in a High Lord's ball room. Tall and lithe with a swimmer's body, his hair, light and yellow as the sun, falls to just the nape of his neck and curls around his ears. He has the strong jawline and pert nose that runs in his bloodline: one might say that he is a spitting image of his grandfather. His eyes though... while others of his family have flashing amber eyes, Jocelyn's are faded over with an opaque milkiness that can only signal his blindness. More often than not a thin white cloth is tied around his orbs, a cloth that seems to itself shimmer like an ethereal mist.
His attire depends on where he is currently located. While at home in Arca his wardrobe consists, naturally, of fine silks and lightweight fabrics, tailored to perfectly fit his lithe but muscled frame. The status of his family name affords him the sort of pampering that comes with wealth and renown.
He rarely returns home to be able to make use of such decadence, however. Mostly traveling the world, he has become accustomed to donning local garb. It is not uncommon to see him bundled up in swathes of robes that would otherwise look out of place if not for the popularity of such fashion in the current locale.
PersonalityUnlike several of his older siblings and other members of his extended family, and unlike other members of the upper-echelon class to which his family belongs, Jocelyn is more reserved and unassuming in personality. He's a fine conversationalist and polite enough when he needs to be, but he much prefers to be out of the limelight. The exception must be when the conversation turns to the study and collection of ancient artifacts. An avid scholar and an eager explorer, he can become quite charismatic when it comes to his line of work. He loves learning the customs and languages of foreign people, and can always be counted upon to serve as an interpreter or liason with some foreign dignitary.
On more than one occasion he has been attached to either small military excursions or diplomatic exchanges, mostly for his expertise in unique cultures and magical artifacts. Despite his disability, Jocelyn is as brave and intrepid as they come. He travels willingly with such contingents, dispensing advice about magic and about the local culture of magic when needed. He's willingly engaged in fights before, especially when whatever band he travels with finds itself in trouble (though he'll be the first to tell you that he's not exactly the best person to rely upon in a fight).
His blindness remains the one topic that seems to have a negative effect on Jocelyn. He is very much aware of the limitations of his blindness, and can sometimes be goaded into taking unnecessary risks and challenges just to prove that he is as capable as a man with two, or even one good eye. His natural curiosity only adds to this problem. In addition, this chip on his shoulder seems to drive him even harder in his line of work. His father is the curator of the largest archive of magical items in Arca, and Jocelyn has eagerly followed in the man's footsteps.
Magic/AbilitiesJocelyn, though blind since birth, was born with an innate ability to sense and feel magical energies whether they be in people or stored away in artifacts. This gift allows him to study magic in a way that others are unable to do: he can "see" magic the way others might read. He senses complex patterns in the composition of enchantments that normal scholars of magic can only dream of doing.
His blindness has also enhanced the rest of his regular senses, as they often do with blind children. Jocelyn hears just a little bit better, and has just that extra refinement in his senses of taste and smell, than the average man.
The cloth that is often tied around his eyes is imbued with magical properties as well. An ancient magical item taken from deep within the vaults of Arca's archives, the blindfold ironically allows its user to "see" the outlines of shapes and objects around them. Because it only grants its wearer a general perception of the world around, it does not fully cure one of blindness. Nor can it decipher colors (a concept Jocelyn still does not understand) or read words printed on a page. All he can see is the outline of the book itself.
Lately Jocelyn has been practicing with a short sword, sometimes a necessity considering how often he finds himself alone in the wilderness, or attached to military outposts. Given the limitations of his blindness, he is only a passable swordsman with his blindfold on, and completely helpless without it.
RelationshipsJocelyn Arhain II: Jocelyn's father, and the curator of Arca's largest and most important archive of magical artifacts. The man in whose footsteps Jocelyn follows, though the two personalities are decidedly different. Jocelyn's father, while also an avid scholar, is more traditionally shrewd and calculating, like most upper-class families.
Andrei: Jocelyn's older brother, and firstborn of the family.
Katriona: Jocelyn's older sister.
Erissa: Jocelyn's younger sister, a budding mage.
HistoryThe Arhain family has always been considered an important name in the political and familial intrigue of Arca, if not Serendipity itself. While the family's holdings are nothing compared to those of the most powerful families of the High Lords, it is the family's role as guardian and curator of the city's largest and most important magical archive that cements its status within the community. Arhains have increased the archive's vaults for the better part of seven generations, with every child at least expected to contribute to the cataloguing and collecting of magic for it. The latest curator of the Archives is Jocelyn Arhain II.
The man had three children, the first two of which were born without any magical abilities but also without any significant bodily defects. The youngest, however, was born blind. The surgeons and healers thought that a complex spell to heal the infant of that milkiness marring the traditionally amber eyes of the family could be fatal. Unwilling to possibly subject his youngest child and namesake to an early grave, the Curator sent the healers away.
Raising a blind infant is a difficult task, even for a family as well-resourced as the Arhains. Luckily, the Archives held thousands upon thousands of magical artifacts, each one catalogued carefully, with every magical property of the item explicitly detailed. It was here that the elder Jocelyn procured for his son the Cloth, an ancient rune-imbued artifact that would at least allow his son some limited vision, if not perfectly correct it. Through the ingenious use of block letters carved out of marble, the family governess was able to teach young Jocelyn to write, though he would never be able to read words on a traditional page.
What the boy could read though, was much more valuable to the Arhains and the Archives. He had an innate ability to sense other magic, both within people and within objects. He could "see" patterns in the intricately woven patterns of enchantments, and could identify the magical properties of an object much quicker than the traditional scholars they employed. Just being near another mage, he could almost instantly tell the general umbrella of abilities they possessed, and the means in which they produced magic. Even the most learned of mages considered him a prodigy in the study of the arcane, and many flocked to Arca to work with the youngster in unlocking the mysteries of the past.
As Jocelyn grew up, he became more and more intrigued by the winds of magic and how they blew. The work with his father entranced him, so much so that he often neglected his other duties as an Arhain, mainly to make appearances at social functions thrown by other noble houses and by the High Lords. Daughters from upper-class houses found him intriguing, some because he had a handsomeness to him that ran in the family, but most because he somehow always seemed to be distracted by his studies when he should've been paying attention to their pretty dresses and spiced perfumes. At the age of seventeen, before a match could be made for Jocelyn, he set out from home to further satisfy his own inquisitiveness and yearning for knowledge. His father disapproved in public, but privately he was eager to watch his youngest bring his Archives into a new period of enlightenment and growth.
Since then, Jocelyn has traveled to the corners of the world in the study of magic and the collection of magical artifacts. Whenever he finds something of incredible arcane power, or some artifact that holds clues as to how people of old lived in harmony with magic, he studies it incessantly. Once he has decided that he's completely unlocked the secrets to a magical item, he sends it back to Arca, where it can be added to the vaults.
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