It seems like a fitting beginning to this little project would be to show everyone the character I've been writing longer than any other; as well as the primary protagonist to my most developed story.
Epithet: Worldbuilder
Sex: Male
Height: ~1.75 meters
Weight ~75 kilograms
Age: >5000, exact date of birth unknown
Abilities (at peak performance): Near-omniscience, powerful magic, flight, matter manipulation, mind control
Weapon of choice: War hammer
"It pains me to say, but this world has not met my... expectations. I have made a grave miscalculation. I simply must activate the Failsafe... It will be destroyed, and I shall begin once again."
It's hard to call him the protagonist, exactly... This series switches between quite a few POVs, with 3-5 fully-fledged narrators across the entirety of the plot (depending on what you think counts as, well, a fully-fledged narrator). Besides that complication, he is not the one that defeats the primary antagonist, and other characters serve the themes more... Direct manner, perhaps. Though, I still call Mikal the main character; he is the first one you meet as the reader, the narrator of the first two books, and is perhaps the only character that consistently holds a presence or is otherwise present in any given moment of the narrative.
He was born in a different sort of reality, the first realm known to exist. He lived here happily for thousands of years, but after civil war erupted within the heavens and he got in a nasty fight with his brother, he was sent away into a place of profound nothingness. Seeing it so empty, he wanted to create a new world, free from outside influence; entirely his own.
He carved mountains and valleys, built towns and cities, though when the time came to create life, he realized he was unable. The life force within this universe is called Will and is, for the most part, a fixed constant. Like the energy in our universe, it cannot usually be created nor destroyed, though unlike that, the laws of Will are known to have some exceptions. Though, unfortunately, none of those exceptions applied at the time. In order to create life, he had to sacrifice some of his own. He split his soul into eleven pieces. These were the first humans he had made. When he realized that he could not expend this much of his own soul for each person he wanted to create, he began to make more, with only a fraction of a fraction of what he used for the first 11.
Just like that, there were thousands. But he wanted more. He wanted to create millions, or billions, or more. But if he kept going, dividing his soul further, he would soon be reduced to nothing. But, by this point, he was far too weak to reclaim his Will from these things he had created; he was nothing more than a phantom. So, before he allowed time to flow, he wove within each piece of matter in this land a failsafe. Once the strongest of the first 11 humans were to die, the one called Kassius, the universe would fall apart in a way where he would be able to reclaim the strength of the thousands of lesser beings, (Who had so little Will, they had no agency, and thus would not continue life after death) The plan was simple: he would set in place a future where Kassius is to die in his young adulthood, and once that happened, he would begin creating a world once again with more resources.
He watches over this world, making sure the 11 never use their ability to choose in a way which would interfere with his plan. Despite the world not being as vast as he had hoped, he still thought it was beautiful, and he wanted to see it run its course. For more than 20 years, he watches this world, only intervening when something goes wrong, be it an error in his calculations, or one of the 11 true humans making the wrong decision. He would simply correct it, and move on. Everything goes according to plan, until an odd thing happens... Someone else, not a human, but someone like him, enters this world. He has an odd feeling that they've met each other; himself and this new being.
Regardless, he asks this new being if they would like to see this world he has created before it is destroyed. They oblige, and they begin to follow the Phantom around while he continues to make sure nothing goes wrong, as the appointed time for Kassius to die is mere months away.
Once again, everything is going well, until yet another variable enters this equation: It seems to be Mikal's brother. This one, however, cannot be so easily accounted for as the first was. He begins to interfere with reality in irreconcilable ways, ways that the Phantom can do little to prevent. As the appointed time draws nearer, Mikal must keep it from falling apart in increasingly desperate and unsustainable ways... But how will this world fall apart? The way that was intended from the beginning; the way Mikal designed it to... or in a less literal sense, where his brother disrupts it so wholly that it becomes unrecognizable from the way Mikal wanted it to be? Not Mikal, nor his brother, know how it will end.
That's just about everything I could say without major spoilers... That drawing is really the first solid design I've made for this character, though keep in mind that is NOT what he looks like when the book begins. Thank you for reading!
Will update soon,
-Skribo
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