Strazio Rockwell

[Strazio Rockwell]

Character History

Born to a fisherman and a barmaid the young Strazio Rockwell seemed destined to live a simple life. They lived in Riverweldt, a small coastal city that was as mundane as they came. During the day Strazio would help his father on their fishing boat. Long days at sea taught him much about the ocean and her majesty, and though the work was backbreaking he rarely complained. At night he’d help his mother with odd jobs at the local inn. His life was filled with labour fit for the simple folk, and he was content.

One night, after the boy had reached his teenage years, a stranger rolled into town. Not that this was uncommon, Riverweldt often served as a pit stop between several major city, but as day after day passed he did not seem to be simply passing through. Night after night Strazio watched as he sat alone in the corner of the inn. The man never ate and never drank, he seemed to sustain himself with air alone. On the sixth night the man called Strazio to his table. He told the boy to sit across from him and the boy, too timid to say no, obliged him.

The stranger wore a visage that was world-worn and marred with rugged features. A mud-colored cloak hung on his thin frame, offering a reaper-like suggestion. For a long time the man said nothing and instead sat studying the youth before him. His eyes were that of a disinterested predator, unflinching and piercing yet indifferent to Strazio’s presence. The boy fidgeted. Sixth sense, a sort of instinctive set of alarm bells rang in Strazio’s brain. He had to leave. He had to run. His heart beat. His mouth dried. And despite the unbridled panic he did not move.

“Remember me,” the man spoke, his voice a dull knife, “my name is Damien Alabaster, do you hear me child?”

Strazio nodded, frightened that any move would be his last.

“Good, good, remember my face, remember my name, and most importantly remember what I am about to do.”

Calamity. Red lightning tore forth from Damien’s fingertips annihilating all that it touched. A catastrophe that lasted mere seconds, but would become a permanent fixture inside Strazio’s psyche. Those that survived took flight, but their escape would be short-lived. Strazio watched as Damien stood and pointed his hands towards the sky and called forth a pillar of red energy. The energy crashed through the roof and demolished support structures forcing the inn to collapse upon itself. Fortune, or perhaps misfortune, smiled on the boy and as the building crumbled he fell through a shattered set of floorboards into the basement below. Riverweldt was razed overnight, no survivors save the ruined child.

For several days the boy was trapped below a pile of rubble. Trapped in darkness with nothing but silence and a small flicker of anger in his chest. A wandering spellcaster stumbled upon the decimated town and heard the boy’s cry for help. The mage, well-versed in magick, unburied the child and comforted him. He introduced himself as Valerie LaMolle and upon hearing Strazio’s story he offered the boy his tutelage. Strazio spent the next several years studying under Valerie with the hopes of exacting his revenge.

For over a decade Strazio searched for Damien, finally finding him in a tower hidden from the mortal world. He held the stranger’s life in his hands and just as he would have extinguished the man’s fire Omni tore him from his world and thrust him into the Omniverse.