Magni Oavánson

Aliases

• Prince Erdhart (during Shark Tooth King)
• Monk (nickname / sign name)
• Magnus Orrenson (given by Ironwrights)
• Mavnós Oavánson (given by parents)

Appearances

• Ship of the Dead
• Path of Silence

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Hale, hearty, and intent on keeping it that way. Magni works through a strength and flexibility routine every morning, and spends much of his downtime in some form of physical activity: swimming, running, and climbing.

Notable Features

Magni is ironbound making him immune to magic. As a result, he is covered in slow-healed scars, which are larger and darker than magically-healed ones.

He has a sword tattooed on the inside of his left forearm, with three brands in the shape of chains crossing the blade. The sword represents his role as a Knight of the Ironwrights, and the three chains represent his rank within that role. There is space for a fourth chain.

Clothes and accessories

Coming from a high-control group, Magni is often overwhelmed by inconsequential choices. He defers to practical clothing and muted colours for work; in his downtime, he allows Hope to treat him as a dress-up doll, wearing whatever she dictates, but he is beginning to express a preference for jewel tones and soft or silken textures.

Personal history

Magni was raised a travelling carnival, the son of an acrobat and a train engineer. As a child, he idolised his father and wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a performer.

When he was 10, Magni was witness to his father’s sudden death and, struggling to come to terms with this and his father’s absence, Magni ran away from home by stowing away on a train. Immediately coming to regret his decision, he tried but failed to find his way home. A devout child, he went to the Smith’s temple for help and was taken in and cared for, before being passed to the Ironwrights. The Ironwrights told Magni that they were searching for his family but, after four years, they told him that they had made contact but that his mother didn’t want him back. Too old for an apprenticeship and with nowhere else to go, Magni committed himself to the Order.

The Ironwrights are a high-control group who believe that magic and its related elements – dreams, emotions, lies and fiction – corrode Reality. Member are sworn to oppose and kill witches, wizards, mägen, and gods in order to prevent the world from being destroyed by magic, and to enforce rational behaviour and emotional repression on themselves and others.

After twenty years operating under the belief that the violence he inflicted on himself and others was saving the world, Magni broke faith with the Ironwrights and fled. He was picked up and recruited by a local magistrate, who was keen to have his own Ironwright on staff, but Magni baulked at the demand that he kill on command, and turned on the magistrate. In the ensuing fight, the magistrate’s house caught fire and burned to the ground.

Magni was swiftly arrested and transferred to a penal battalion, tasked with hunting people and animals infected with therianthropy. He, along with Doc and Blue, were recruited by Sunny, a fellow prisoner, into a team of skilled people Sunny deemed most likely to survive. Magni later found Hope wandering in the woods, and she was adopted into the group. After their release from prison, Sunny sponsored Magni’s induction into the Ratcatcher’s guild.

Education

Homeschooled until 10 years old, then inadequately and inconsistently educated by Ironwirghts between 10-30

Work experience

• 0-10: Grew up in a travelling carnival
• 10-30: Ironwright
• 30-31: Prisoner in a penal battalion
• 31-present: Journeyman Ratcatcher

Description of home

Julim are a nomadic culture comprising large families living and working in close proximity. Meals and sleeping quarters were communal and this community remained constant as the landscape changed. As a result, Magni believes that home is where your family is.

Currently, Magni lives on the move, camping or staying in hostels, inns, and guildhouses with his team. He finds solitude difficult and dislikes sleeping alone.

Worst childhood memory

When Magni was 10, he and his father were travelling by cart when a motorcar passed too fast and close, and spooked their horse. Magni’s father tried to soothe the animal but it kicked out, killing him and leaving Magni to return home alone.

Accomplishments and achievements

Magni finds it difficult to take pride in anything he’s done. The things he used to be proudest of are now a source of guilt.

Failures and embarrassments

His greatest shame is running away from home after his father’s death, leaving his family to grieve two losses. Because he cut himself off from his family, and has forgotten customs, culture, and language of his people, he doesn’t feel worthy of celebrating life milestones and birthdays.

Intellectual Characteristics

Magni knows that his education since leaving home has left him with a wildly distorted view of the world and is actively trying to remedy that. Immensely curious about the world around him but not content with a superficial understanding, he wants to know why and how things work and is determined to discover the truth of the world, no matter how distressing that knowledge may be. He is good at spotting patterns and noticing details other people miss.

He enjoys in-depth discussions and exploring different ideas, and tries to consider many possible truths before whittling them down to one objective reality. When he can’t do that, he can become frustrated but is adept at compartmentalising and putting his emotions aside. His friends and colleagues describe this behaviour as “frightening” and “concerning”, but Magni considers it a survival skill that prevents him from drowning in a sea of emotion he isn’t otherwise equipped to deal with.

Twenty years spent among the brutal discipline of the Ironwrights has made him sensitive to micro-expressions, and he is able to read other people’s emotions extremely well. He has made it a point of pride that he never tells an untruth – although he lies habitually and reflexively.

Trauma

As part of their induction and committment to the Ironwrights, all new members are given a new name and required to speak a common language, Huswat. They are prevented from practising “irrational” traditions or celebrating events. Magni feels an abiding grief at the loss of his identity, and shame at having voluntarily given it up. Although he has tried to reclaim what he can, he knows he’s forgotten more than he remembers.

As a result of his experiences with the Ironwrights, Magni suffers from PTSD, which manifests as nightmares and panic attacks. He is unbalanced by combat-related sensations, such as, the taste or smell of blood, fear, and magic use.

A formative encounter with a mage with late-stage therianthropy has left him a profound aversion to invertebrates and unable to eat food that resembles insects, slugs or worms (eg: dates, stuffed vine leaves, noodles). In addition to this, he also has sensory aversions related to his autism, namely eating chewy or greasy textures, like meat and meat-pastes, and wearing coarse fibre and restrictive clothing.

Religious Views

Magni’s mother raised him in the temple of the Smith – a god of engineers. Although the Ironwrights used this to abuse and control him, Magni has returned to his faith as an act of defiance, performing daily prayer and contemplation, reading the Smith’s Handbook, and observing of holy days.

Despite his efforts to reclaim his faith as a source of strength and a connection to his lost family, he can’t bring himself to attend services in a temple; he was turned over to the Ironwrights by a priest and doesn’t trust that it wouldn’t happen again.

Personality

Core beliefs

• People who pretend to be kind are out to use me
• Anyone can be rehabilitated

Motivation

• Nothing is more important than doing the right thing

Magni feels an abiding guilt and shame over his actions while he was part of the Ironwrights. This compels him to do whatever he can to make up for the damage he’s done. He knows that he need to secure his own position before helping others, but wants to put himself in a position to help other people leave the Ironwrights and to limit the Order’s influence and harm.

How he sees himself

Having much to make up for; capable; moral; uplifting; adaptable; unworthy; guilty

How see others see him

• Capable; powerful; heroic; inspirational; trustworthy; friendly; likeable; entertaining
• A zealot; a murder; dangerous

Strengths

• Gregarious, funny, and energetic
• Radically kind and forgiving
• Adaptable and resilient
• Strong sense of justice
• Sincere, honest and trustworthy
• Quick to step in and help or protect others
• Disciplined and conscientious

Raised in a carnival, Magni is an extrovert who loves having an audience. He is adept as sleight-of-hand magic and card tricks and loves to entertain people, being especially good with young children: he is playful and willing to be silly, while also listening seriously to their ideas and concerns.

Magni knows firsthand how easy it can be to be misled into doing terrible things and believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to change and make amends. He is unconcerned with revenge, punishment, and state-enforced “justice”, instead looking towards restoration and harm reduction. Generally easygoing, he cannot be bullied or bought into acting against his principles, and is willing to put himself in harm’s way to protect others.

Weaknesses

• Hides his pain
• Doesn’t plan for a future
• Stubborn, defiant, and mistrustful of authority
• Struggles to ask for, or accept, help
• Lack of emotional awareness
• Susceptible to back-and-white thinking

Magni deals with the trauma of his part by compartmentalising it, taking on and discarding personæ like roles in a play – rationalising that things can’t hurt him if they happen to someone else. While this makes him very likeable, as he can be whoever he needs to be in any situation, his connection to others is often superficial and his personæ can conflict.

Despite this compartmentalisation, Magni is still affected by his experiences and struggles to see past his prejudice against magic, even though he knows it’s a result of his indoctrination. He has an automatic mistrust of authority and a reflexive defiance when given orders by someone who hasn’t earned his respect.

Hobbies:

Athletics/parkour, swimming, circus skills (juggling, sleight of hand, escapology, ventriloquism), reading, tinkering

Favourite books

The New Science magazine; nonfiction; hard sci-fi

Greatest hope

To reunite with his family

Greatest fear

That his family will reject him

Relationships

The Ironwrights violently discouraged emotional expression, so Magni now automatically and unconsciously compartmentalises his feelings. He has had limited opportunity to build deep emotional connections or explore his romantic options, but he has has a large number of acquaintances.

Close friends

• “Sunny” - employer/mentor. 49. Master Ratcatcher
• “Hope” - Friend/Sunny’s daughter. 12. Apprentice Ratcatcher
• Gwynn ‘Doc’ Edris - Associate. 27/118. Witch
• Blue - Friend. 127. Researcher/mercenary
• Alford Steiner - Friend. 33. Wizard

Family

Julim are traditionally non-monogamous and Magni was one of nearly a dozen children raised by several adults. While he had no shortage of love and attention, Julim are a poorly-regarded and often ostracised culture and he grew up with a clear sense of being unsafe outside his own people.

Magni’s family were very poor; food could be scarce and access to medication was limited and, as a consequence, many of his siblings died in infancy. Despite this, his hope as a young man was to grow up to have a large family and a role in his community, such as Lorekeeper, like his father.

Children

Magni’s children were born as part of the Ironwright’s eugenics programme and he is unaware of their existence.