CHARACTERName: Miziren Starminer
Age: Born Saaral 11th, 61 AC (19 years old)
Species and Gender: Human Male of Vacuo
Symbol: A honey coloured star in the center of a charcoal hexagon with jet black hex patterns around the star
Occupation: 1st year Huntsman in Training at Shade Academy
Appearance: Miziren stands at five feet and eleven inches tall and weighs in at one hundred ninety seven pounds. With an average body shape for a male of his height and weight, his athletic training has trimmed the fat down to six percent, highlighting all of the musculature he’s earned through his extensive daily training for the past five years. Due to his semblance’s nature, in addition to the heat and weather of the desert, Miziren usually opts to wear the lightest, most open clothing options available. Because of his regular exposure to the sun, his otherwise olive skin colour has taken on a deeper, slightly more bronze hue. The arid nature of his environment and daily personal care lead to an excellent clean and clear complexion.
Miziren has deep golden eyes that are a stark contrast to his dark sandy hair, difficult to tell apart from black at a distance. He keeps the sides of his head shaved, while keeping the rest of the hair along the top relatively long, about twelve inches or so, typically tied back into a ponytail. His hair is naturally wavy, so when let down, it has the same curvature as the swaying dunes from which he travelled in the past five years. Since personal hygiene is of great importance to him, his teeth shine a pearly white, bringing that extra little sparkle to his warm smile. Whenever he does smile, that is, since most times he has a relatively even expression, usually appearing pensive and deep in thought or concentration.
As for his apparel, he typically dons as little as possible. Thanks to the lax nature of Shade in regards to dress code, Miziren is able to get away with a cool, charcoal set of under armour shorts and a pair of sandy boarding shorts that hang just below the knee. The shorts feature several circular openings along the front, sides, and back of his legs, and include a lot of black meshing. He wears no socks or shoes, preferring to keep his feet bare, even against the blistering heat of the sands, leading to heavily calloused feet. The only other article of clothing that Miziren bothers to wear is a plain white poncho. The poncho’s he wears usually come with a hood to hang over his head for when the sun is up. Accessories come in the form of neutral coloured shemagh’s and aviator sun glasses, both usually for environmental issues such as sand storms or clear skies.
History: Both of Miziren’s parents, Stormy Sootminer (Mother) and Aphelion Starfield (Father), graduated from Shade Academy and took on council sanctioned scavenging missions, along with various other miscellaneous hunting missions; delivering packages, scouting for viable settlements, working in tandem with other scavengers as informed security details, and the like. After Stormy was severely injured and lost the functionality of both her legs on a particularly dangerous mission, both she and Aphelion retired from ventures into the dunes. Stormy took up a civilian occupation working with one of the local dust-mining companies as a consultant, and her husband took up teaching at the local Oasis Academy. Shortly after they settled down into their new lives and had time to get down to business, Miziren was born.
Miziren grew up in a loving home with caring and attentive parents who were respected members of the community. While that may have been a boon in certain circumstances, it was just as often that Miziren was the target of bullying from the other children his age. Not being able to live up to the expectations of a son of two respected warriors didn’t bother Miziren for a time, but over the years the constant name calling, disparaging comments, and often times physical altercations started to grate on his nerves. He started to view his parents with less and less awe, until he finally disregarded their status and opinions entirely, eschewing their concern when Miziren fell in with a small group of thieves and pickpockets.
Tired of being associated with the accomplishments of his parents, Mizi ran away from home in a fit of teenage angst and took to the streets of Vacuo to try and earn himself a name and reputation. It was only a matter of weeks till his parents found him, despite his best efforts, and dragged him back home kicking and screaming. Huntsman/Huntress Scavengers were no slouches on the investigatory front, as it turned out. This had much the opposite effect for Miziren’s street cred, and he became known as incapable with moving in the shadows as a footpad for the local thieves and fences. In a fit of misguided desperation, Miziren set out the next day on a trip towards Cavalcade by himself. It wasn’t long until Miziren returned to Vacuo, battered, beaten, and nearly dead from exhaustion and dehydration.
His parents didn’t quite know what to do with him. It took some time for him to recover once he was given proper medical attention and bedrest, and in that time, his mother and father came to the conclusion that he required discipline. A loving and caring relationship simply wasn’t doing the trick, so they agreed that he needed something a bit harsher to put his worldview into perspective. Once he was fully recovered, Aphelion took Miziren out deep into the wastes of the desert. It was there that Aphelion began to train young Miziren how to survive the barren desert landscape in the hopes that he’d stop feeling so sorry for himself, and maybe grow a backbone. Early on, Miziren harboured an intense hatred towards his parents, and did everything he could to undermine Aphelion’s training.
A month into his training, Miziren awoke one morning only to find that his father wasn’t around. The dune buggy, their tents, all of their supplies, and even their tracks from the previous day were all gone. For the first time in his life, he was truly afraid. With nothing but his wits and the clothes on his back, Miziren had to fend for himself in the middle of the desert. The lessons his father had attempted to drill into him for the past month were all specifically designed to test him in that exact situation, and the young man found himself scrambling to remember anything he could about what he’d been previously blowing off. After failing once more to utilize anything his father had taught him, Miziren found himself exhausted and on the ground not a few days later, at the mercy of approaching grimm. As it turned out, his father was only watching from a distance, and when the grimm came close enough to strike, he swooped in to defend his child. After that moment, his very first encounter with grimm, Miziren took each and every lesson his father had to offer to heart.
After spending five years in the desert, Miziren had learned much more than simple survival. He’d grown into a calm, cerebral young man, capable of handling himself in many varied situations. He learned about aura, semblance, navigation, how to cook and drive and fight. When he returned to Vacuo with his father, he was no longer the feeble, meek boy his friends knew him to be. Having as much time as he did to reflect upon his life and the path he wanted to take, it became clear to him that there was no shame in following in his parents’ footsteps. Skipping Oasis Academy training, Miziren took the entrance exam into Shade to begin his first year of Huntsman training.
TLDR:Miziren is the son of two reputable graduates of Shade Academy. Got bullied growing up, threw a bunch of temper tantrums and expressed teen angst by being a very poor son to his parents. Father took him out to the desert to teach him discipline and train him how to handle himself. Came back to enroll in Shade Academy after 5 years of exodus.
The first word a person might use to describe Miziren is distant. It’s as if he’s always looking forwards, his mind somewhere else. It’s not so much that he’s distracted all the time; in truth, Miziren is very studious and focused whenever a task requires his attention. It might be perhaps that he is too focused on attaining perfection, always planning, always looking for an opportunity for self-improvement. After his training in the desert under his father, he’s had little in the way of social interaction besides the occasional talk between father and son, and he is accustomed to remaining silent. If ever socially engaged, he might even come off as being particularly robotic in his responses, his lack of interest in small talk or typical banter preventing him from having any kind of social lubricant.
Miziren’s lack of social skills or interactions with people put him at a disadvantage, since he doesn’t put much stock into other people’s feelings. His are kept fairly restrained, partly in due to the rigorous training he’d undergone prior to application, and partly because outside of his father, the only interactions he’s ever had to any real extent have been with the creatures of grimm. He prefers to take an objective stance, relying on logic and efficiency over emotion and empathy.
While his feelings have a tight lid over them, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the desire to protect the people of Vacuo. It’s in the very job title he seeks; to defend the people of Remnant against the vile forces of destruction. He does have a list of preferences, however, of people he’d prefer to see alive and well. If it were a choice between his mother and a group of random strangers, the path would be clear. The path of logic and objectivity pale in comparison to the bonds he has with his parents, and would likewise be the case with anybody who manage to truly become close with the young warrior.
Aura and Semblance: Miziren’s aura was unlocked six months into his exodus from Vacuo by his father. It was during their first lesson with aura that Mizi’s father taught him about the basic properties, and how one could utilize their aura. Mizi’s soot black aura, strangely enough, was dotted with tiny sparkles that shimmered like stars. A few weeks afterwards, Mizi discovered his semblance.
At first, Mizi was rather disappointed with his semblance and its lack of offensive power. How could he become a Huntsman if he couldn’t use his semblance to slay a single grimm? His father was encouraging despite his lack of confidence in his semblance, and taught him that not everything required a show of power. Some things required experience, knowledge, and a creative mind to utilize. It was upon realizing the potential of his semblance that Mizi began to rely less and less upon his conventional weapons, preferring to focus most of his combat-related training on the use of his semblance as a caster. Initially, Miziren required the use of a Semblance Catalyst Focus, tuned and recharged by his father whenever required. These came in the form of bracelets that he wore when practicing his techniques with his staff. It was his father’s idea to combine both martial techniques with dust integration, using muscle memory as a trigger for when Miziren was required to inject Dust into his semblance. It took several years before he’d become proficient enough to cast without a SCF, but even then, he still utilizes the combat techniques with his staff, knife, and unarmed martial arts. It acts as a pseudo-SCF that helps him perform his semblance with dust, like a rote action. He still keeps his bracelets however, just in case he is unable to truly focus and requires a little aid. Everybody can be caught off guard, after all.
Mizi’s Semblance,
Carbon Catalyst, allows him to expel large clouds of soot-like substance from any part of his body. He can expel these clouds as a constant, sustained geyser, or in smaller individual bursts. The size of a single, average soot cloud is enough to cover roughly three cubic meters of space, and provides enough cover that an individual within a single cloud would be visible as a murky shadow. Mizi can increase the density of the clouds with extra expenditures of aura, completely blotting out line of sight. In addition, the clouds also interfere with taste and smell based sensory capabilities, as if one was licking an ashtray or inhaling mildly irritating cigarette smoke. The maximum distance at which Miziren can expel the sooty clouds is roughly twenty feet. Once expelled from his body, Miziren has no direct control over the clouds, and they dissipate within ten minutes of being expelled.
With a higher degree of aura expenditure, Miziren is capable of forming mundane solid structures. Since it takes quite a bit more energy to utilize this second tier ability, Miziren usually sticks to the basics. Simple armours, strings or ropes, or small weapons like knives, spikes, hand-axes, and spearheads. Once a structure has been established and solidified, it can no longer be altered in any way except to eventually dissipate. Structures created in this way are usually brittle, or have a low tensile strength, and as such, typically only see use as a one-time object. The true power of Miziren’s semblance, however, relies on its interaction with Dust.
Fire Dust – When mixed with his tier one ability, Miziren instead expels gouts of fire rather than clouds, akin to a human flamethrower, and gains the ability to ignite already pre-existing clouds as a form of aerosol explosive. When used with his tier two ability, the structures laced with fire dust detonate upon impact. The size of the detonation depends on the size of the structure formed.
Air Dust – This lets Miziren to ‘throw’ his dust clouds of ranges up to thirty meters and expel gouts of air rather than clouds, allowing him to push cloud formations around once they’ve been expelled. When used with his second tier of ability, the distance of thrown structures is tripled.
Earth Dust – This dust allows Miziren to give his soot clouds the consistency of sand rather than fine ash upon expelling, creating a gout of earth able to knock projectiles with a low velocity, such as arrows and spears, away from their intended destination. When used with his second tier ability, Miziren is capable of forming larger, denser structures for a fraction of the regular cost.
Water Dust - Miziren, instead of expelling clouds, expels gouts of water instead. When mixed with his tier two ability, his constructs upon contact, create a sticky slurry that entangles or slows opponents. Sub-spheres of this Dust,
Steam and
Ice, have differing effects; The prior is essentially only compatible with his tier one ability, allowing Miziren to spew scalding water vapour instead of soot clouds. The latter is essentially only compatible with his tier two ability, filling a similar role as Earth Dust. The main difference is that the constructs, while receiving the same discount in energy output, are more fragile than if Earth Dust is used. The upside is that tier two constructs become hyper conductive.
Lightning Dust – Upon spewing soot clouds, a static charge is built up within them. Upon contact with a cloud that has built up a charge, a shock is received. The severity of the shock depends entirely upon the size of the charged soot cloud, and upon being released, the soot cloud remains until it dissipates. This dust has no effect with his second tier semblance ability on it's own, and is usually used in conjunction with other Dust functions.
Kinetic Dust - Functional only with his second tier ability, this dust is essentially a force multiplier for thrown constructs. It is best utilized in combination with other dust-laced constructs and clouds in order to maximize destructive potential. A prime example would be making a spherical construct laced with Kinetic Dust and Fire Dust, with a soot cloud inside laced with Steam Dust to create a large radius incendiary grenade.
Gravity Dust – This dust is only able to affect Miziren’s second tier semblance ability. It essentially compresses his structures to the point where they are hyperdense, and are tough enough to resist sustained small-arms fire. In addition, this dust has the peculiar effect of changing the typically soot-coloured structures Miziren forms from his semblance to a more transparent, diamond-like crystalline structure. As this dust is particularly difficult to obtain compared to others, Miziren reserves this dust for only the direst of circumstances.
A note on Semblance Timing and Fatigue: ShowHide Mizi is able to use his tier one semblance without strain for a maximum of three seconds at a time, requiring a three-second cool down between each use. This pattern can be repeated up to ten times before Mizi begins to sweat. This is for a single expulsion of a three meter by three meter cloud, usually expelled via his open palm. Basically, this equates to a minute of on/off usage before he begins to sweat, similar to say, very heavy barbell curls. If Mizi decides to forgo the cooldown in order to continue spewing soot clouds, then he is able to sustain only a full fifteen seconds before he begins to sweat. Likewise, if he chooses to utilize more of the surface area of his body to expel his clouds (for example, expelling two clouds at once out of both palms, or out of his back instead) then this reduces the existing timeframe for both sustained and controlled bursts by a magnitude of three (one second intervals with three second cooldowns, or five full seconds of expulsion). Nine full minutes is the total amount of time during a single instance for which Mizi is able to utilize his tier one semblance in the three-second controlled bursts for single expulsions before exhaustion is reached. The same timeframes can be applied to multiple or larger expulsions in its basic form. In total, Mizi is currently only able to utilize his semblance in this manner for a hard limit of 30 minutes a day before falling unconscious, requiring at least three hours of non-usage in-between if Mizi utilizes the full nine-minute controlled bursts of his semblance. Since he’s able to use the entire surface area of his body to expel his soot clouds, he also has the option of ‘engulfing’ himself in a single cloud utilizing the majority of his body, and this single instance of a one-second burst is equivalent to ten times the amount of energy required for a typical individual expulsion.
In regards to the second tier of his ability, the creation of aura-based constructs rather than amorphous clouds, Miziren is usually restricted to making a simplistic individual object, about the size of a spearhead, in a single instance of one second. Since it’s more of a strain to make constructs, the cooldown for this is much longer, currently on a 1:10 ratio. In a minute, Miziren is capable of making a maximum of six spearhead-sized items. Coincidentally, after six objects/one minute, Miziren begins to sweat. Complete exhaustion occurs after twice that amount of time. Miziren can opt to make a larger object instead, but the larger the object, the longer the amount of time necessary to create the object, which also quickens his exhaustion. So for instance, if he opts to create a large circular shield akin to a Spartan’s shield, this construct could very well take him a full six seconds, after which he’ll be sweating (not to mention he’ll just be standing there doing nothing for a full six seconds, leaving him vulnerable). Miziren is only able to utilize six seconds worth of constructs before he begins to sweat, with a hard cap of twelve seconds worth of constructs before exhaustion is reached in a single instance. Over the course of a day, a hard cap of twenty four seconds worth of constructs, equating to say, a conical spire the same height as Miziren with a base diameter of his height, is the total amount of time he can spend on constructs before falling unconscious. A minimum of four hours is required between both instances to regain the strength necessary to use a second instance.
Neither tier of his semblance works in vacuum either; if he uses both in a single instance, then both uses will weigh on him and count towards his exhaustion.
Miziren is typically versed only in grimm extermination, and has thus based the majority of his tactics around that. Having studied various types of grimm, Miziren has found that laying ambushes work the best for him, especially when dealing with large numbers of grimm. He always seeks to win the battle before the engagement begins, preferring to utilize the terrain to his advantage, setting his traps to eliminate the largest number of grimm in the most efficient way possible without direct engagement. Filling cracks in rocky passes with his Catalyst and then igniting the clouds with fire Dust to create a crushing landslide in order to deal with a pack of beowolves is preferable to taking them head on. Leading a large or armoured grimm into a dark cave that’s been filled to the brim with Lightning Dust charged clouds in order to kill it or weaken it enough for a barrage of Fire Dust infused throwing spikes to finish it off would be preferable to attempting to fight it out in the open. It is for this reason that Miziren spends more time studying the geography of an area as extensively as he can before actually placing himself there. The better he knows the lay of the land, the better he is able to utilize the terrain to his advantage. The more advantages he can give himself over his opponent, the better.
Miziren avoids direct confrontation as much as he possibly can, since it isn’t his forte. That isn’t to say he’s unable to stand his ground against opponents, only that he doesn’t stand out in any other way than his dust manipulation. He is only average in regards to speed, durability, offensive power, and is a mid-to-short range fighter with no real way to augment his mobility, lacking any particular edge against ranged opponents. His strengths lie mostly in his intelligence, patience, and creativity, believing his mind and his skill with dust to be his biggest assets.
If ever forced to engage directly, Miziren isn’t a very proficient hand-to-hand combatant, and attempts to rely on his proficiency with his wax wood staff and its various augmentable forms, usually some other type of polearm. While he does utilize knives and the like in his engagements, he’s far better off throwing them than he is trying to get up close and personal. His lack of proficiency with hand-to-hand combat seems to have carried over somewhat to his usage of knives and other similar implements in melee-based engagements.
As Miziren has operated as an individual under the guidance of his mentor and father, Aphelion, Miziren lacks the instinct to utilize allies and their abilities in the midst of combat. With enough time and preparation, as well as enough personal interaction and time spent getting to know his allies’ strengths and weaknesses, he could be a force to be reckoned with. As it stands currently, Miziren still needs to develop interpersonal skills, since he tends to ‘fly solo’ during combat, underutilizing the potential that is presented in the form of unit cohesion.
TLDR:Strengths: - Intelligent
- Versatile
- Creative
- Skilled with Dust
- Above Average Utility Semblance
- Plans Ahead
- Extensive Knowledge of Grimm
- Excellent Tactician
Weaknesses: - Long Range Fighters
- Surprise Attacks
- Lacks Hand-To-Hand Skills
- Vulnerable Without Dust
- Weapons Lack Killing Power Without Semblance
- Lacks Mobility
- Doesn't Utilize Most Powerful Defense Often
- Prefers To Fight Alone
Walking Stick
Primary Form: Miziren prefers the simplicity of mundane, non-folding tech. It is difficult enough to train as a caster, let alone train to master multiple different kinds of weapons. A seven foot long wax wood staff has enough durability and flexibility to deal out a modicum of blunt force trauma, and is typically long enough to deal with the ranges of many other melee weapons. The sheer utility a long stick provides him is numerous enough for him to favour this easily maintained and replaceable item. While it has no real compatibility with Dust, Miziren is able to augment this simple weapon with his tier two semblance ability, creating spear-tips, edge-aligned grips, axe blades, or even flail-like protrusions at the end of his stick.
History: Miziren experimented with many different kinds of weapons during his time in the desert. Each one had its own merits and flaws, and while he was trained in how to maintain folding tech with an emphasis on desert terrain, he figured that the less time he spent on maintaining his weapons, the more time he could spend training with them. While a wax wood was more than simply a stick picked up off the ground, it was cheap, easy to obtain, easy to replace, and could serve multiple functions in combat. While Miziren preferred the safety and reach a polearm gave him, he could easily turn a broken wax wood staff into nunchaku, three section staff, or weapons that others might not be able to conceive of when thinking about how to best utilize a stick. This realization came relatively early in his training, right after he'd learned the value of always being armed.
WEAPON 2Name: Big Knife
Primary Form: While Miziren can indeed make knives out of his semblance, it was a lesson in practicality and staying humble that convinced him to carry a large bowie knife. Once again, it is a non-folding weapon that also serves a purpose as a tool. With small saw teeth along the spine of the knife, paracord wrapped around the handle, a small magnifying glass in the guard, and a large piece of flint inside the handle, it has its fair share of uses outside the battlefield. As a weapon, it can also be thrown, since it has a relatively good balance, and makes an excellent slashing or thrusting weapon for extremely close combat situations. Much like his Walking Stick, this weapon also has no Dust compatibility.
History: After unlocking his semblance, Miziren directed almost all of his energy towards mastering it, unintentionally letting many of his other lessons become secondary in nature. After deciding he was ready to test himself against the creatures of grimm by himself, he set off with no weapons to protect him, confident in his ability. The battle he'd found himself in was short, and while he managed to fell a surprising number of grimm, he'd exhausted his stores of energy. Defenseless against the last of the grimm, Miziren's father had to swoop in and save him once more. After that encounter, he swore he'd never enter into an encounter without a backup measure of some kind.
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