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Yeah. I know it's all been done before, but hey, it's all in fun, right? ;-)
Last updated: 10-01-2005
Note as of April 2006: This page is horridly outdated and due for a nearly complete workover and rewrite. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get to it sometime soon.
Syphor Knight's Portraits
Portraits done by Autero. I can't thank you enough!
Click on any for the full-sized version.
Syphor Knight Himself
"I'm Syphor Knight, interdim explorer," as he now likes to introduce himself. Apparently aged 21-28, he doesn't seem to age much, if at all. He has plied the dimensions for many years, exploring semi-randomly at will through the megaverse. He has no idea of where he came from or what species he is, and has been traveling for around 848 years. He acquired his starship, the Dauntless under rather dubious circumstances about 350 years ago, give or take a few, and has used it as his home and mobile base ever since then.
Appearing to be of canine-based descent, more wolfish than anything else, he is about average size (about 6' tall) and bulk, not appearing especially muscular, but certainly not weak, either. He has unusually clear, amber colored eyes. His fur is naturally purple with blueish highlights, and he wears a fancy red vest, jacket, pants and wraparound cape over dark colored heavy metal boots. He does NOT have whiskers like most canines do. On his hands he wears leather gauntlets with a silver insignia on the backs, the loop of infinity. This insignia is repeated upon the dark black bracers he wears on his arms. Both of these he has had since before he set out, though he doesn't remember – to him, he's always had them...although he's modified them over the years, adding the symbols and other protections. Underneath it all is light chainmail armor of a synthetic purplish metal, invisible underneath his clothes. Unusually for someone of his apparent ancestor species, he hardly moves his rather long tail at all, besides to get it out of the way when sitting down or doing something. He is very loyal to his friends, but is a fearsome enemy to have, as if he deems it necessary he will follow through and remove the danger for as near to all time as he can make it. Smarter than he acts a lot of the time, he has meditated on much, and has many insights into life and much experience from his travels. He is also far stronger than he appears, his eyes glow when he is excited or upset, and is not generally known for his tact, but he means well. Normally acting carefree, he can turn extremely serious in an instant if the situation merits such a response. Actually, he's rather of an emotional rollercoaster...though a strange one. He can switch between serious and happy even while talking to two different people at the same time, and it's all the same personality. Recently he found what he believes his true power – he is an elemental summoner, capable of calling and commanding the forces of the elements...as well as a few other things in times of stress. Somewhat of a loner, yet not in many ways, he has no interest in any relationship much closer than very good friends. He believes he has not become of age yet, though that is partially suspicion, although more and more facts are showing it to be the truth.
Around his neck he now wears a necklace supporting a small green gemstone, the chain of the same purple metal as his armor. The gem isn't a very noteworthy one, either in hue, size or shape, but also not the emerald it would at first appear to be.
Under the cape at his side hangs a longsword, Kalayrah by name. Deceptively plain, with a single blood channel running down the center of the blade and a lone roughcut ruby on a plain gold, longer than average hilt, it is his pride and joy. However, it appears the sword chose him as well, although any purpose has yet to be seen...
On his back sits an apparently small backpack, the HSLP, or Hyperspatial Luggage Pack. Picked up during his travels, it stores items within a hyperspace bubble allowing him to stuff absurdly large and heavy items within, and still carry the pack easily.
About his waist is clasped a thick ribbed metal belt. This is the DCTS, or Dimensional Coordinate Translation
System. It gives him his mobility through the different dimensions, as well as allowing him to, with
precise coordinates, teleport items around him. It can be used as a defensive weapon, by enclosing a
foe within a time-stasis bubble – effectively freezing them until something can be done, be it
flee, or bring up reinforcements. Also capable of limited time travel of small objects. (Up to about
15lbs) The controls are within a flip-down panel on the front. Exactly where he got this device he's
never said, in fact he might not even remember, but one thing is definite: Only a few of them, if even
that, are in use, possibly existence.
He also wears various other small devices, mostly hidden, some keep watch on his health, others log
everything he sees and hears for storage in Zeos' memory banks.
When he first found the dimension of Furcadia, he was overjoyed, thinking he'd found where he came
from at last. Further study though, indicated that this place, although with intelligent creatures similar
to himself, was definitely not where he came from, as his biological signature was decidedly different.
Having found a dimension with denizens akin to himself, but not the same, he has made it a regular stop.
The Dauntless
A dead-black 20,000-ton starship with swept forward wings, created as their crowning achievement in hundreds of years of constant fighting by the Hykavarsh race, the Dauntless is now Syphor's mobile base and home. Capable of dimension hopping thanks to an engine retrofit by Syphor himself (albeit with lots of try-and-pray and where-was-that-in-the-manual-again?), it is nowhere near as mobile as he himself is, so he usually keeps it orbiting an out of the way planet in a life-poor dimension while he uses his DCTS to move around.
The Dauntless is a smallish, but fully capable battleship equpped with full anti-detection and stealth systems. It isn't capable of cloaking at the moment thanks to the cloak interfering with the current engine retrofit, not that it matters all that much. Syphor and Zeos could have probably worked out the problem, but haven't gotten around to it yet because of a lack of a need for that level of stealth. Syphor keeps the ship in perfect maintenance, upgrading it with technology he finds in his travels, despite it not having seen battle for over 220 years. "Sometimes you can't leave anything to chance," as Syphor himself says. It is designed for a crew of about 10 members, although only one can operate it without too much trouble due to automation. Containing all the items from his travels that he isn't interested in carting along with him all the time, it also serves as a storehouse of knowledge gleaned from innumerable worlds, contained and indexed by Zeos, the ship's sentient computer. Zeos and the ship werer built, and he came online, about 1.5 years before Syphor came aboard as the ship was stolen. All that time was spent loading Zeos with battle data.
Zeos is what the computer called itself when Syphor met it, and he and Zeos are now quite good friends, although both often seem to enjoy attempting to annoy each other, even and especially when others are around. In fact, Zeos was the major reason that Syphor now owns the ship. The Dauntless - originally named the Varseeth - had been stolen from its creators by one of the Hykavarsh who wanted to destroy the whole planet, being under the delusion that that was how to fix the never ending wars. Syphor warped in onto the Varseeth by mistake, ended up talking to Zeos, and helping the computer retake the ship – the theif having bypassed Zeos' nonfinalized system controls. The theif transported himself off the craft in a panic after he met the armed and ready invader, and nobody knows where he went. The remainder of the Hykavarsh on the other hand, had gone ballistic at the other faction under the belief that they stole the ship. This resulted in a complete and devestating world war, destroying each other and most of their technology in the process, including their copies of the plans for the Varseeth and the AI on board. When they discovered that, Syphor and Zeos decided to continue his journey together, with the now renamed Dauntless as Syphor's home. Zeos contains full plans and information to recreate the Dauntless, or to build a larger ship and transfer his consciousness to it, should that become desirable or necessary.
The Dauntless contains a complete armory, and although Syphor prefers to use Kalayrah in combat, he can and will use a gun with moderate accuracy. The Dauntless carries two one-man starfighters built by the Hiiagran civilization named the Shiva and Velan, also capable of dimensional transportation. In his typical covering all possible escape routes in case something goes radically wrong, all his craft are interdim-capable.
When flying full-out, the Dauntless has a bright blue-white engine flare behind it,
giving it the appearance of a cometlike body when viewed from afar.. These engines create a lot of light,
but no heat. Because the light ruins stealth missions, the ship has a secondary engine set, which create
no light, but are far slower, leaving you with a choice: High speed and high visibility, or low speed
and almost invisible.
BackStory
Syphor's parents, Mona Knight, and Vansor Knight were of the Moranos - a race that although they looked somewhat like short-muzzled bipedal canines, although they were genetically no more related to the canine genus than a dog is to a parrot. The average life span of their race was 180 - 230 years. On the day that Syphor Knight himself was born, his parents, two of the most noted genetic scientists of the planet discovered that their offspring appeared to be far more distanced from their own species than they could ever have guessed.
Worried by rising tensions over the planet, they conferred quietly with a few other scientists, close friends all, studiers of space, mind and the fabric of reality itself. Quite surprisingly, Syphor, as they had decided to name the young one, had light purple fur with bluish markings as well as other unusual features. That color had never been seen naturally before, although some of the populace dyed their fur that color. More worryingly than his color, his muzzle was longer than usual, and he didn't feel...right. Afraid that he would end up in an institution, and even more worried about the undercurrents of revolution running through their society which could get him possibly even executed as 'different', if the new faction took over. At length, deciding on a rather extreme course of action, they filled the young boy's mind with everything they could think of, and sent him off in a space capsule, in sleep stasis, to wake up at about age 20. Equipped with the world's only dimensional warp devices set to emerge in a random dimension, in an environment he would be able to live unassisted in. He would, they hoped, live a long and happy life, and with a light compulsion to one day try to find his home world once again. To that effect, the experimental DCTS was packed in with him. He would live longer than they could have guessed...and never in a way they could have envisioned...
Soon afterward, the rebel faction did manage to overcome the planetary government,
and the planet slipped into barbarism under a stranglehold rule. But all this took more than a few centuries,
and Syphor knows nothing of it, though he still plans to find his home world, when he gets around to
it, that is. By now, actually, civilization has regrown again, traces of old technology recovered, learned
from. Forgotten secrets rediscovered. Not everything, though.... Some hints have been found of it existing,
but the technology used to send Syphor through the dimensions has not yet been found again, or enough
to even start reworking on the theories. All documentation and hardware were with the child, in the
torpedo-like capsule. Basically, he has the only working prototype, and 98% of the associated workpapers
and designs, though he doesn't know it. All the memories he has of his parents are in a few occasional
dreams, and he's unsure how accurate they are.
Events - Timeline (Top is oldest)
-Note: When Syphor first found the furcadian dimension he was aged about 800 years. -He got himself stuck in a bit of a timewarp, with a dimention that's timestream moved unusually fast. This resulted in him aging 48 years. He really is that much older, yet those in the furcadian dimension only missed him for a relatively short time, only a few days. This makes him aged about 848. He has matured somewhat, and gained more fine control over his powers. -Is rather troubled at the moment, having always felt he was dedicated to the light. Some indications seem to show otherwise though, and this doesn't sit well with him. He's not really sure how his life will go, and is rethinking all the principles he has based his entire 848 year life on. Subject lately to unnatural flashes of rage at only slightly irritating, or frustrating events, though he does his best to control it and keep it hidden. -Is slowly beginning to understand his anger for what it is, and it worries him. Still prone to violent flashes, he is usually able now to hold himself back, to a point. His control is still shaky though, and feels he cannot be trusted not to hurt someone. Still looking for answers...and he has taken a certain responsibility upon himself. -Syphor has left on a long journey, and not even he knows when he will be back. But he will be. He made a promise, and he won't break it. -He has returned after a hundred years' journey of self-discovery and thought. He's changed, exactly how has yet to be seen. He's now about 950, and looking somewhat older, though not all that much... -Syphor has gained more understanding of his powers - light side, though it knocked him out for a while. -Tensions are rising, rumors of war flying. Sides will be chosen, if anything happens.. -Now seems most of it was a false alarm, however that doesn't mean he won't be guard, to a point. Things have calmed down, though he has been taught a few things and may have to make a difficult decision in the near future. -A decision made, feeling much happier about the future, Syphor is now bending his resources toward finding his home planet. It could still take many, many years, even with the measures now in place. But he's trying. -Accidents will happen, and sometimes they turn out well. Surprisingly well, in fact, though he didn't feel so at the time. More different now by even farther than he was before, chameleonic wings residing upon his shoulders. -Feeling oddly pulled, he will soon embark upon a journey that he feels he must take, though he doesn't know why. A manipulator behind the scenes, perhaps? -Strangely, the feeling has subsided..for the moment. Beginning to question if he even has a right to interfere with the doings of a dimension not his own, he has to come to a decision quickly, as several of his local friends are in trouble. What to do? Only time will tell. -Never has he been asked to officiate at a wedding before. Though sprung on him all at once, he accepted and then had to come up with something rather quickly, wishing desperately they'd asked him a couple of days earlier! Despite being quite flustered, the whole event went over rather well. -Biogenetics can be useful for saving a friend. But it cannot do everything; the final slack must be taken up by an outside force of some form. Magic, perhaps? Unable to cast the simplest of normal spells, his own abilities will not suffice. -The answer found, yet not every one. The future beckons with its usual fan shape...and who can tell what lies around the next bend? Even if he met someone who could, he would probably pay NOT to have his fortune told. For isn't half the fun simply getting there on your own? -Returning friends who he's not seen for years of subjective time. What to do... what to do? Old interests die hard, it appears, although he may have chosen a particular path, they have not. Something will have to be done. -Rocks and a choppy sea... Perhaps, once past, things will - but probably will not - return to their former state. In any case, time marches on and he will deal with things as they come, to the best of his ability, however atrophied that ability feels. |