Name: Rckaird Ironclad
Age: 120 (around 60 in human years)
Gender: Male
Species: Archon
Class: Knight/Warrior
Color(s): White/Blue
Appearance: Rckaird is a tall man, standing around 7’6’’ in height and reaching even higher up when on the back of his winged lion mount. Not an inch of his skin is visible anywhere, as his entire body is clad in heavy steel armor; even his face is obscured entirely from view by a big, metallic hood attached to his shoulders. If you happened to peer inside the hood you would be met only with darkness, like he wouldn’t have a face at all. Whether or not he actually has one is a mystery, though he is able to talk and hear just fine. In either case, neither his eye nor hair color is known. The fact you can never see his face means that it’s immensely difficult to read his mood, not at all helped by the fact he rarely – if ever – talks, so most are left guessing exactly what goes on in his head. At least to regular townspeople he often seems very intimidating due to this.
Rckaird has broad shoulders and quite a bit of muscle, though it’s difficult to measure well due to all the armor. Still, he seems fully capable of swinging around heavy weaponry and lifting creatures far bigger than himself, so it would seem he doesn’t lack physical strength.
The armor Rckaird wears is heavy and gold in color, shining brightly whenever he uses light-based attacks. This illuminated armor gives him sort of a divine appearance at times, especially among the common folk. He has separate boots from the rest of his armor, decorated with curvy, metallic patterns and reaching his knee. The only non-metallic part of his getup is a cape that goes with his hood, colored red. He carries around a huge sword, a trident and a shield, the first of the two silver and the latter the same golden color as the rest of his equipment.
He is almost without fail being seen accompanied by a large, muscled lion with huge, eagle-like wings. This creature’s is called Gshir, though not many of its name; usually when Rckaird and Gshir converse it’s done telepathically. Gshir is, after all, part of Rckaird himself, so he hardly needs words to communicate with it. The lion is deep brownish red in color and much larger than any regular feline; it’s about the size of an adult rhino and weighs accordingly. Its wings are brown in color and extremely strong; Gshir is capable of carrying a handful of adult men on its back without much effort. Rckaird himself weighs quite a bit, so strength is a necessity to Gshir.
Personality: Rckaird holds the values of something he calls “absolute good” in extremely high regard. That is to say, he believes everyone guilty of even the slightest misdeed should be punished severely, so as to not give evil the opportunity to strengthen and spread. He is a firm believer in upholding the law through any means necessary and is cold and ruthless towards anyone he doesn’t believe to strive for the greater good. No crime committed in his presence will be left unpunished, be the culprit man, woman or child; the criminal’s characteristics don’t affect the severity of the crime itself, and as such everyone should be punished equally. Yet, even if he kills someone against the law, he doesn’t think of it as wrong. After all, he did it with a noble cause, and it was a just kill. If he sees fit he won’t hesitate to rewrite the laws of whatever world he’s visiting to make sure no evil-doer escapes. Indeed, in essence he believes he is the Law itself, and therefore no actions he takes can be wrong; it’s all for the greater good in the end, all for making the world a Paradise for everyone. Murder in the name of law is not a crime, it’s a necessity, no matter how unfortunate that is. He is just doing his duty as the Multiverse’s Judge. Oh, and hold no hopes of making him realize that what he’s doing might not be the best way to accomplish world peace; he will not listen to the lies of heretics and you’d rather not be on his bad side.
As is probably clear by now, his extremist views on what is good and just makes him come off as extremely cruel whenever he’s met with crime. Is it really right to punish someone who steals food to live with death? In his eyes yes, yes it is. There is no excuse for criminal behavior, no matter how small the offense. Laws are put in place for a reason, there are no ifs or buts when following them, and if you let one crime slide, you need to let slide another and eventually it becomes a cycle, feeding evil and tying the hands of the good people trying to bring order. It’s better if it’s made clear from the start that no misbehaving will be tolerated.
He might sound like a bad person and a hypocrite, and while those arguments could be easily made against him, he is held in high respect in many of the places he frequents for a reason. He has saved many a people and town, and for those upholding and respecting the laws he is like a completely different person; caring and kind, yet still strict. He is like a father, you could say, guiding the masses with an iron fist. While he rarely talks, he shows compassion for those in need through other means; for example, he often gives food and money to the poor, provided, of course, that they haven’t strayed from the righteous path during their years of misery. He will go out of his way to save an individual in trouble, but is still a firm believer in “the needs of many take priority over the needs of one”, so he makes every decision with that in mind. Leaving someone to die is not a decision he does with pride, but it is sometimes a necessary one. This also means that he will not save anyone if it would mean sacrificing himself; as the representative of order he needs to live in order to keep peace and turn the entire Multiverse into a utopia not unlike Bant. When weighed against that, the life of one citizen is nothing, as cruel as it sounds.
Like mentioned, he rarely talks and due to that, many actually take him for a mute. But the real reason behind his silence is that he sees words as unnecessary. Words can lie and it’s easy to utter whatever comes in mind while not really meaning it, and so he’d rather show his approval or disapproval through actions. This often has the effect of making people scared of him, as he is an imposing figure with no face to read expressions from, and it can be unnerving at best when he stands next to you in complete silence for prolonged periods of time. That isn’t something Rckaird minds, however, and he actually takes steps himself to ensure people uphold some sort of fearful respect for him. There can be no real respect without fear, after all.
Rckaird considers all black mana users “evil” to some extent, and will keep a watchful eye on anyone he sees practicing its usage. He doesn’t go and kill anyone just for that, as he realizes destroying all black mana users would count as a mass murder and most likely lead to revolts, but he will be even stricter on what he allows them to do. He sees every single one of them as selfish, unneeded people who only bring distort to the peace he has created.
He is analytical and not quick to anger; in fact if you asked him, he would tell you he is incapable of truly feeling anger, sadness or anything of the sort. He is above emotions, he would tell you. Say that he cast them away ages ago in order to stop them from hindering his judgment. This is actually where the lion accompanying him comes from; shortly after Rckaird ascended into an Archon, he sealed his emotions away through magical means. But because keeping them sealed within his mind would tire him out and there’d always be the risk of them breaking free, he molded them into a creature of their own; Gshir the winged lion. It’s a creature that lives within his mind as its own individual, and yet at the same time, as part of his mind. But because it’s a separate being, Rckaird finds it easier to control. Gshir is impulsive, proud and fueled by emotions, but it, too, has a sense of duty and follows every order Rckaird gives it. It will not stand ridicule or foolishness however, and is much quicker to attack than its calm “owner.”
History: Rckaird was born as a human in the plane of Zendikar. From a very young age, he was taught how to use magic. His parents were scholars, doing research and admiring greatly the ancient civilization that used to populate the land. They wished to find a way to bring back the great power the ancients had wielded, and so they travelled the lands and visited various ruins in their search for knowledge. Rckaird was naturally dragged along, and explained many times over why it was imperative he learned to wield mana as soon as humanly possible. His parents were pretty old already, and so when they finally had had a son they had wished for him to continue their research and maybe, if he started to study mana earlier than they had, unravel something they couldn’t. They had started their research too late, but they would not make the same mistake twice. Rckaird didn’t mind, really, he liked playing with the blue mana he seemed to have an alignment for, and it was fun impressing his parents. Plus, knowing magic really helped in the dangerous world they lived in.
As they travelled, Rckaird quickly got a chance to see just how chaotic the word they lived in was. There were no laws except those dictated by nature, and even they didn’t seem to make much sense. Everything was distorted, wild and dangerous. But it was all Rckaird knew, so he never even dreamed of anything better. This was the world, this was where he would live until he died. At least, that’s what the young 12-year old boy thought one night when he and his parents spent their night in the wilderness and like always, he sat near the campfire, playing with water and making it dance around the flames to raise smoke. Perhaps they were lured in by the smoke, or perhaps the trio was just out of luck, but it was that night that they were attacked by wandering bandits. Rckaird’s parents put the most value to the life of their son and the preservation of the artifacts they held, so the family’s father ordered the two others to run while he attempted to fend off the fiends. Rckaird and his mother got away with most of their valuables, but he never heard of his father ever again. It was clear he hadn’t made it. It was probably at that moment that Rckaird learned to truly hate criminals. So far he had seen many a robbery and assault, but none of that had ever touched him personally. He had always been a quiet boy, just playing with his small canteen and making the water inside do tricks and assume animalistic forms for him, never paying much attention to the crime that went on only few tens of feet away. But now… now it had affected him. And he was mad.
But his mother, despite her sorrow, could just not stop there. She knew that her husband would have wanted her to keep going in search of history as well, and so before Rckaird knew it, he was already back on the road, his heart heavy and legs weak. But never again did he look away when crime was taking place. He didn’t go and do anything, he didn’t have the power. He just looked on with hatred and disgust. But, as years passed and he grew, his hatred started to slowly subside. Chaos and accidents like these were commonplace; people died all the time and there was nothing anyone could do. That was just the way the world worked.
And then, one day pretty much everything changed.
The 19 year old Rckaird and his mother happened upon one of the biggest ruins they had ever encountered. The feeling they got off it, the power seeping from within was unlike anything they had ever seen before. That alone should have been a warning for them not to enter, but Rckaird’s mother was hell bent on solving the mysteries of the past during her lifetime, and so she rushed inside and her son was forced to follow to make sure nothing happened.
As if he could prevent what would soon take place.
They dug up and explored the vast ruins for a year or so, before they finally managed to get further in and encounter the source of all that power; it was a tool of some sort, laying in the far corner of a lone room, but whether its use had been to kill or to create wasn’t clear. They had no idea what it was or what it had been used for in the past, but they nevertheless approached it with fearful respect. That was, until his mother decided to lay a hand on it. In a second the entire room was filled with mana, so heavy and crushing it brought the two flat on their faces and threatened to crush them both under its heavy press. Rckaird remembered the entire world getting distorted, melting, gaining back its original form and finally turning black.
It was then that his Planeswalker spark ignited, however, it wasn’t the only thing that changed within him.
When he woke, he wasn’t in the ruins anymore. Instead, he was in a place that seemed to soothe his soul the moment he could blink his eyes open and behold his surroundings. Everything was silent, golden, pure and at peace. The ground didn’t suddenly erupt, there were no screams or monsters, just winged creatures that looked at him with pity and rushed to help him when they realized just how heavily he was hurt. His entire face was bleeding, his features unreadable through it all.
For the longest while, Rckaird was sure he had died. But he was not a religious boy, and he still seemed capable of experiencing pain. Immense pain, in fact. All the time. And it reminded him he was alive, though not quite human anymore. There wasn’t any visible change, but he just felt very different. It was like something had mover around within his body, trying to change him, and yet every time Rckaird was sure he’d become a monster of some sort, the feeling died down. It was as if it didn’t know what to change him into. The pain persisted and for the longest time, seemed to try and keep him from standing. And alone, he probably wouldn’t have been able to fight it, but there were angels aiding him, smiling benevolently down at him. His face was wrapped in bandages and he could barely see through it all, but he was alive. But then, where was he? That was the first question he asked, though he quickly found himself not really caring. This was a paradise, so different from what he had witnessed. The name didn’t really matter. What mattered was how did this world become so perfect while Zendikar… was a wreck.
Rckaird spent years in the Bant shard of Alarna, learning from the angels and growing to respect the peace there. Rules. Order. The absence of chaos that wrecked both lands and minds alike. That was what his home needed too. And as his personality and ideals slowly molded into something new, the feeling within him seemed to calm, as well. And year by year, Rckaird changed, slowly starting his transformation into something else; he grew taller, his senses started to strengthen despite the horrible condition his face had been in ever since the accident… But he didn’t really even pay any mind to that. He was too busy studying, absorbing the place’s ideals and wishing he could somehow bring them back home and initiate change for the better. But how could he bring such things there? He didn’t even know how he would get
himself there. His Planeswalker spark had ignited, yes, but it wasn’t something he knew how to use. Whenever he tried, the pain that had accompanied him ever since he first planewalked grew even more intense. And so, for years, he retained from even trying to get back home. Eventually, however, the memory of his father’s demise arose anew, and the young man could not sleep a single night without thinking of home. He had accepted his father’s death as something natural that couldn’t be helped, but now he knew that just wasn’t true. Zendikar could he helped, he just needed to get back. He needed to help. Ensure nothing of the sort happened again. And… though he was hesitant to say it loud, to gain revenge.
Rage started to build up within him, and the angels quickly took note of that. Some of his friends came to him and told him that what he harbored needed to go if he ever looked to change anything for the better. He needed to cast away something awful like that. So Rckaird tried, focused only on the thought of bringing law and peace, and despite the pain, he forced himself to use his powers. His body felt almost like it would break apart but he withstood it and just focused. And it was then that his form changed completely; the power of change he had obtained finally had a direction.
And so, when he ended up back in Zendikar, he was no longer human; he was clad in golden armor and there was a light surrounding him. He felt in power and the pain had finally faded away. He was an Archon, born from a sip of the ancient power that dwelled in Zendikar, as well as the determination to bring law. He was an ascended being. It felt great. He instantly got to work in trying to bring order in his home world. However, his mind was constantly haunted by the wish for revenge; when he was stopping a crime, when he was lecturing people, whatever he did, one eye always kept a lookout for a familiar face he could rip open. He was powerful enough to do so. He was powerful enough for anything! And with that realization, along came the temptation to misuse his power, if only for a brief moment; maybe he could force the weak to do work for him and go to dig up the ruins his parents had been so obsessed about? It was a thought not unlike that, that finally snapped him out of it and made him realize that he was starting to stray from his path of righteousness. Emotions, those vile things needed to go.
And so, through magical means, he gave a form to any thought that didn’t further his goal of bettering the world and locked them away. They took the form of a winged lion which, at first, was nothing but a pile of emotions stuck together. But slowly it started to gain a mind of its own, somewhat. It was still part of him and not sentient in the word’s strictest sense, but it wasn’t just a mass of emotions and magic slapped together anymore, either. With emotions out of the way, Rckaird could finally start purifying the world properly, riding on the back of his lion like a proper Archon.
Ever since then he has travelled the planes, seeking to bring order and justice wherever he goes. He spent a considerable amount of time in Ravnica, joining the Boros clan there. During the years many of the clam members started to view him as the epitome of law, and he holds a high rank within the clan. He often visits them to report of the work he has done, and to check on how they’re holding up. Still, despite all the planes out there, his main focus will always be Zendikar and its chaotic vastness. Especially since lately, the place has been starting to get overrun by huge monsters…
Abilities: Apart from fighting physically very often, Rckaird has extremely good control over water magic, as he has experimented with it ever since he was a child. Now, combined with his light powers, he can create tides of cleansing water that washes away ill-intent. It has a soothing effect in smaller doses, but if he keeps it up it becomes a whirpool that drains away from the person’s very being, eventually destroying anything “bad” about them. That is to say, it also kills free will and their very mind, though it needs time for that, more so the stronger and more benevolent the target is. For evil or weak creatures, it works much faster and does more damage.
He can also have water take on many different forms and shapes, controlling it freely and molding it into anything from a small insect to a huge dragon, as well as have it take the form of his enemy and fight like a mirror image of them, though naturally it doesn’t gain any of their abilities.
He can counter spells and have them attack their original caster as well, though this requires precise timing and concentration, and doesn’t work with multiple attackers at once.
Unlike most white aligned creatures, Rckaird can’t heal others. Instead his white mana is destructive. As a slightly deadlier and modified version of his water/light attack, he can create light so bright it burns away at the target, blinding them and scorching them from the inside, burning away at every single bad deed they have ever committed, only stopping when the light dies out or Rckaird judges them to have made up for their sins. It’s a fate that often befalls criminals he catches, and most of the time, when the light fades nothing is left of the target.
His lion can also fight beside him, though it knows no magic.
Equipment: I really had no idea whether or not some of these are considered off-limit or something by the canon (the shield was called indestructible for example, but I’m just going to go with “very, very sturdy" instead unless it’s a legendary item or… something) so feel free to educate me if I got something wrong!
Lighting Greaves - Greaves that give an electrical charge to his kicks and make him faster.
Surestrike trident - A trident for better controlling his water attacks. This is his secondary weapon, his primary being an extremely large greatsword. If he combines water with the trident, then he combines light with the sword, making its slashes burning and it's surface gleaming with light whenever he unsheathes it. The sword is really heavy, usually meant to be wielded with both hands, but he manages it one-handed. There are few decorations running along the hilt, but the blade itself is regular. Nobody would be able to see any decorations on it anyway due to the light.
For protection he uses a very sturdy, also shining shield which covers his chest completely when held in front of it. It's moderately sized, but compared to the huge sword it might look small at times. He uses it deflect attacks and often combines it with his counter magic, making the shield give out a counterattack whenever an attack lands on its surface.
Plane From: Zendikar