Julian ex Tytalus

Page updated 7^th December - Winter 1226

Julian is a thin, quite weaselly looking man, though possessed of some physical strength and the large shoulders of the smith.

He hails from Russia and is therefore native to the country, and has none of the problems in communication that Marcus does.

Julian is rather practical as Tytali go, and will often seek more peaceful solutions if in a strange environment, going for more typically Tytalus reactions later on when he knows his enemy and exactly what he wants to do. In essence then, he is more cautious than the average Tytalus, but no less powerful. Sometimes, however, the attitude of his fellow tytalus magi does surprise him. For instance, when being suffocated by an angel, Creo Auram to make some air seems a quite reasonable thing to suggest. The suggestion was, however, taken by Dmitri to mean "Lightning", and he tried to perforate said Angel. Sigh.

Julian is a craftsman. He works in all materials of the earth, stone, metal and glass. Magic-wise, he works often with rocks, which don't argue all that much. He is thusly very happy about the quite large local supply of Terram Vis. Now what to do with it..
Indeed. Julian was lately given 60 pawns of infernally tainted terram vis. Admittedly thats two seasons of purification work, but well worth the effort.

Julian has researched spells and spent a fair amount of time doing other lab-based activities after having a few bad experiences in his youth involving Vis. Apparently he locked himself in his lab at a previous covenant for almost a whole year during which screams of anguish were heard throughout the night originating from his quarters. Then suddenly one day he emerged sounding much better, though looking rather hunched and pale from his year in. People have noted and remarked about the two stone fingers of his right hand, which were a momento of playing with too muh vis. Normally he wears gloves to cover up this minor deformity.
After an escapade in a rather strange, divine-magic universe, where magi gradually became angels until they "ascended", Julian managed to start descending. That is, he started turning into a daemon.
Bugger.

Initially, the transformation only affected his hands, turning them into three fingered, black taloned redscaled things. Rather like this

Oh dear.

After finally getting back to good old Russia, helping blow up one of the temples to Wyrmwood ( a big snake-daemon-armageddon-is-here-type thingie), and meeting some rather nice Mountain fairies in Arcadia, Julian came across his long lost friend Samahazai. Whilst inscribing a low level Intellego Vim ring about the newly cast down angel, Julian, er, botched. Oops. Matters were not helped by Gwyntar deciding to, and I quote:

[Gwyntar] "I'll earth the random magical energies. What here is closest to Earth? That's Julian, isn't it? I'll earth the energies through him! "

Well, cheers, Gwyntar.

One quick Rego Vim later and Julian was enjoying a nice twilight all to himself. The rocks liked him though and he came out of it with increased understanding of how Terram worked. But equally, you could say that subsequent relations with Gwyntar were rather frosty. It may, or indeed, may not, be interesting to note that Julian came out of twilight when Revan pressed his sword (which Julian had made) into Julian's hands. There was then a very loud chorus seemingly emanating from the rocks of the tower themselves, and the room became hot, before Julian came round.

Julian was marked by his twilight in two ways. Firstly, the stony nature of his hand expanded up to his shoulder. Secondly, and more insidiously, his daemonic hands were now daemonic arms.

Julian's nightmare was to continue further, when, after everyone decided that the order all needed copies of Gwyntar's new aegis, they left and failed to come back in time to cast the aegis. This left Julian as the best qualified person. He learnt dreaming theory and took the text outside. He tried casting it and felt the energies go out of his control at the last moment. Still holding the vis, Julian felt rather odd. His back felt somewhat loaded down, and more... rigid... and the light hurt his eyes. Looking down he saw clawed, scaly feet, and he saw that he now also had a tail, long and lizardlike, matching his now scaly back. Realising that he was not within a divine aura, Julian discovered to his horror that the changes were now permanent. In abject fear and terror, Julian ran back to his sanctum, dropping the Vis where he had been standing, leaving Philippa and the junior magi to cast the aegis, which they managed. In the meantime, Julian could only think that Gwyntar's angelic nature had somehow managed to disrupt his magic due to Julian's form, and had caused his disturbing predicament.

The only time since then that Julian has been "seen" was on the night of the suspected Bjornaer attack. However, he was wearing an entirely black robe and stayed cowled or under an illusion for the entire night. No-one yet knows the full extent of Julian's alteration, and he doesn't want them to find out, either.

So, what will Julian do? With the upcoming tribunal at Animus, things have great potential to go totally pear-shaped.