User Profile

RPG PROFILE FOR IAN

HISTORY: Ian was the firstborn son to Donal and his meijha¹ Sorcha. He would later be given a sister named Isolde. During his childhood he and his mother and father - and later sister - were raised in the keep kept and owned by the Cheysuli who lived outside Homana-Mujhar. It all seemed pretty idylic, but Ian had to watch as his father Donal deal with the problems that came with being the heir apparent of the Mujhar Carillon (Carillon only having had one legitimate child - a daughter, Aislinn), as well as the still-prevalent hatred and hostility that came about during and after the qu'mahlin².

But Ian's idylic childhood - despite everything he'd dealt with beforehand - ended one night after his mother had taken him and his sister Isolde to a clan located to the north of the Bluetooth River to live. There, in a fit of anger and despair that Aislinn and not Sorcha herself would become Donal's cheysula³; she committed suicide by slitting her wrists, thus forsaking the afterlife, since suicide is taboo amongst the Cheysuli. Ian was only five at the time, and yet he found himself having to grow up well before the time boys his age did.

It wouldn't end there, because he had to watch as those around him gathered together to plot a means to take over the line of succession for the Lion Throne. Niall - Ian's younger half-brother by five years - was unfit to rule, since he was not "Cheysuli enough". Niall did not have the proper appearance of a Cheysuli warrior, nor did he have a lir⁴ companion that all Cheysuli warriors had. The line of succession - and the prophecy itself - they claimed, would be better served if Ian - who in their eyes was "all Cheysuli" - assumed the throne upon Donal's death. While Niall was groomed to be Donal's successor, Ian had to fend off the a'saii's⁵ advances and petitions that Ian reconsider his role as Niall's liegeman⁶ and thus merely Niall's loyal ally.

Ian's fate took a turn for the worse when Niall reached the age of 18 and was thus ready to wed his Cheysuli-Atvian cousin Gisella, who was betrothed to him while Niall was still an infant. Alaric, Gisella's father, had sent along an envoy - Varien, and a proxy bride - Lillith, to Homana-Mujhar. As per Atvian custom, a man had to wed a proxy bride before the actual bride was married to him. Lillith, it turned out, was Ihlini - specifically the half-sister to Strahan of the Ihlini and thus the daughter of Tynstar himself. She would play a big role in his life - starting with the proxy wedding and continuing on when Niall and Ian went to Atvia to claim Niall's cousin-bride.

A storm had sunk their ship, seperating the brothers - sending one (Niall) to Erinn and the other (Ian) to Atvia. Since Tasha was nowhere near where Ian ended up it was easy for Lillith to have Ian believe her dead. And since a Cheysuli warrior cannot live without his lir, the loss of the mountain cat meant that Ian was left with only one option: to perform the death-ritual of his people. Unfortunately Lillith had found a way to ensure Ian remain in Kilore, thus preventing Ian from performing the rite. As it later turned out, it was Lillith's intent to have Ian father a child upon her, so that the Ihlini could make an attempt to have the Cheysuli prophecy of the Firstborn angled in their favour. (This child would later be revealed as Rhiannon, rather than Elek as Ian had originally believed).

Since this version of Ian is taken from the fourth book, "The Track of the White Wolf", everything that came after his time in Atvia has yet to take place, so the majority of his history (from the age of 23 onwards) has not yet occurred.

1: "light woman" or "mistress".
2: purge; extermination. In this case, a racial extermination.
3: wife.
4: a magical animal sent by the gods to serve as a companion to each individual warrior. Without this animal all of the magic of the Cheysuli race is denied a warrior. One can always tell what animal a Cheysuli can become by looking at his lir: a warrior will always assume a like shape that mirrors that of his animal.
5: zealot
6: a custom dating back to the time when the Cheysuli Mujhars - fearing Homanan-led rebellion, abdicated the Lion Throne and turned it over to the Homanans instead. As per custom all Homanan Mujhars had a Cheysuli leigeman who served as body guard, advisor and trusted friend and ally.

APPEARANCE: Like all Cheysuli Ian has the dark skin, black hair and yellow eyes that are characteristic of his race. And like all Cheysuli Ian prefers to wear a traditional dress of leather jerkin and leggings. He also wears gold bands on each arm, which are inscribed with the images of mountain cats and runes, as well as a single gold earring in his left ear, which is mountain cat-shaped - something all Cheysuli men have as a means of signifying that he is a warrior in the clans, and one can only gain such status when one receives a lir. Aside from all this Ian has a few scars that he's accumulated over the years; mainly from the many scrapes and bumps one obtains through life, as well as a few on his torso that he gained during the shipwreck that stranded him in Atvia.

Special appearance: When in lir-shape Ian is a mountain cat, as indicated by his lir Tasha. His animal form is tawny in colour, with black, tufted ears and greenish-yellow eyes.

Lir's appearance: Red with chestnut dappling on flanks and haunches; golden eyes.

ABILITIES: Can shapechange into an animal (mountain cat) at will; can also speak with his lir companion via telepathy (something referred to as the "lir-link"). Is also capable of healing another of minor injuries as well as having the ability to make another person do as he wishes, though this ability is almost never used, due to the fact that it strips another person's right to freedom of choice.

PERSONALITY: For the most part, Ian's temperament could be described as easy-going, though every now and then he may slip into a more somber mood, one borne from those trying events in his life, and Ian it seems, has had more than his share of them, starting with the loss of his mother to suicide, and other things which will be revealed as we progress through his "diary".


Special Notes

Dialogue: Anything in italics is Ian speaking with his lir Tasha, or Tasha speaking with Ian, or are words in the Old Tongue. (This doesn't apply to any entries in his journal written in italics though.)

Time-line: This journal deals with Ian in his Track of the White Wolf incarnation. Everything that happens to him here can, for the most part, is what happens to him in the novel, minus whatever events that happen as he makes his way through the Milliways pan-universe.

This part no longer applies to Milli!Ian. After much time away from the game during the summer of '05 it was decided to scrap the White Wolf!Ian and move Ian into that grey area that exists between White Wolf and the novels that deal with Niall's children through Gisella—Pride of Princes and Daughter of the Lion.

As such Ian is something of an AU character, since there is nothing in canon to tell us what exactly he did during the twenty year gap between book four and books five-six.


[Characters, settings (non-Milliways) and "The Chronicles of the Cheysuli" series © Jennifer Roberson. I'm only just borrowing them for my personal amusement and as an RP character for milliways_bar.

No copyright infringements are intended and no profit is being made off of this.

This is just for fun.]

The crack-dealer is: terminal_frost.

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