[Suitov, depicted by his author]
Suitov Iceheart, sixteenth Lord of Applestone (aka Suitov of Applestone, Suitov or other abbreviations) is a character of Herm's who heads one of the factions on the planet Shade during the Twine Wars. Suitov is a tall, pale and dark-haired mage and military commander whose most recognisable feature is his ever-present familiar, a large black dog called Basaltine.
His birth name, used by friends, is Rige (pronounced to rhyme with oblige). Suitov is a hereditary title particular to his family, like a surname but only held by the current head of the family (male or female). The Suitov lords are in charge of Applestone, which is located in the country of Woking on the continent of Terrimoire on Shade.
Rige's immediate family consists of his father, the fifteenth Suitov lord called Steedfast, his mother, the Lordess Adalfrid of Applestone, and a younger sister, Lord-in-waiting Betel of Applestone (all deceased by the time he reaches legal adulthood).
The Suitov lord is what's called a warlord, a minor noble on whom the crowns can call to contribute troops in times of international impoliteness.
It's practically a family tradition that Suitov lords attract nicknames not of their own choosing. In this Suitov's case, Iceheart is the most 'official' and widely used of the nicknames he acquires. It is the one used by noble-spotters to differentiate him from others in the Suitov genealogy.
The hair is not blue-black, just darker-than-very-dark-brown black. It's kept long and tied well out of his face, which is narrow with high cheekbones. He never grows a beard. His eyes are grey. His clothing is usually smart and appropriate to the occasion; he favours blacks or other dark colours, with grey or ice blue details. When on official army business he often wears his 'team colours' of black and gold.
Basaltine has insisted on telling the world Suitov's shoe size is 48(Eur)/13(UK)/14(US). This is not a euphemism. He wears [good walking boots] normally, [dress boots] similar to paratrooper jump boots when in formal dress.
Among strangers and casual acquaintances Suitov is friendly, courteous, reserved and quietly enthusiastic about any interesting topic - and he finds just about everything interesting. He displays the etiquette and chivalry that are drummed into a typical noble's child: noblemen are expected to be gentlemanly, never arrogant. Suitov will be especially polite and even-tempered towards those who are (or look) female.
Suitov's acting ability is frequently put to mischievous use. His sense of humour is characteristically wry, ironic and intellectual, which has led some to describe it as "dry ice". He is prone to puns and technical humour. He dislikes jokes that belittle others but is always prepared to be good-humouredly self-deprecating.
Iceheart has a certain charisma about him. He's hard to ignore. If he's watching you, you feel watched. If he smiles at you, you feel smiled at. If he is, atypically, showing anger, you'll know about it. He's able to put a lot of command or persuasion in his voice. On Shade this is called glamour, but it's highly debatable whether 'glamours' really exist as discrete things.
Suitov, while as ruthless as they come when necessary, tends more to the "cold bastard" than the "cackling maniac". Iceheart is not indiscriminately cruel, manipulative or vindictive to everyone he meets and he won't even necessarily lie to you, even if it might benefit him. He is entirely pleasant socially. He likes most of his enemies. He won't break the terms of a surrender or try to kill someone who's just spared his life, because he doesn't want people doing the same to him. He considers the Evil Overlord List to be simple common sense. [2]
Suitov follows a personal code of honour, except when he doesn't. He's a great admirer of the principles of dragannerie. He has a chivalric attitude to those of the female persuasion ("of course she's able to defend herself. But she shouldn't have to while I'm around") and will go to significant lengths to avoid hurting or threatening a woman, preferring any reasonable alternative. This includes shapeshifters in female shape. (Note that he grew up to expect women to behave in exactly the same way towards men - chivalry works in both directions in Woking.)
He has varying proficiencies and weak spots. One large area of ineptitude is healing magic. He does have basic knowledge of anatomy and field first aid.
Suitov started out working and casting by hand motion, but has studied and attempted to master just about any alternative technique he comes across (except for singing and other things he can't do). [3] He is known to try to simulate material-mindedness as a mental exercise, but he isn't material-minded himself.
His magical sense is primarily visual and secondarily 'gravity'/acceleration. He can sense a magic effect and its location, unless it's successfully concealed, but doesn't necessarily know what it is. That depends on whether the effect is obviously perceptible and on his familiarity with the other magician's techniques and character.
The usual rules apply to his magic sense and general magic use.
His familiar Basaltine provides him with a small extra reserve of energy (he can exhaust the dog instead of, or in addition to, himself) but no other magical ability.
In addition to his new creations, Iceheart is responsible for countless updated and 'customised' versions of existing spells, including a completely rewritten version of an old stalwart called Treacle Shield.
He can ride, closer to pastime level than cavalry, and do a few useless nobleman-type things such as dancing, and a few rural things such as handling chickens, taking care of horses and camping outdoors. His knowledge of plants is very good but specific to his area of origin - so if he's bivouacking on XYZ Moonlet, or even a tropical region of his homeworld, he won't be able to identify edible fungus by sight.
Suitov is mostly or completely tone deaf[4] and has to cheat magically to tell the pitch of a musical note. However, as with many tone deaf people, his understanding of prosody and intonation in speech is unimpaired - he can hear and understand when voices rise and fall in pitch. He has a good sense of rhythm and timing, particularly dramatic and comedic timing. He does not like or appreciate music: he does not understand it except on a strictly theoretical level. Consequently, its effect on others is interesting to him. (His familiar is not tone deaf - but can't carry a tune much better than Iceheart can.)
Despite rumours, he is not impervious to physical weapons and does bleed when cut. He is susceptible to [heat].
Suitov is keen on xenolinguistics once he happens across some xenos. During the Twine Wars he is likely to pick up a good handful of alien languages (Instarrian aristocrat dialect, probably the Flag's main language, etc.) to varying degrees.
He can't access Basaltine's linguistic ability when the dog isn't within hearing distance.
In his spare time Iceheart reads a lot, experiments, investigates interesting things and comes up with a lot of ideas, not all followed up and not all attributed. He contributes irregularly to various scholastic debates and journals, resulting in his name being known to the sequestered scholarly community, which doesn't care much for politics and mostly manages to ignore the Wars as an inconvenience.
He has areas of ignorance corresponding to his disinterests - for example, wine, music (except as it pertains to science and magic technique), anything to do with clothing beyond the practical[6], and fictional literature. He doesn't exactly pooh-pooh such things or consider them a waste of time, just a waste of his time. In general, though, he can muster at least some interest in almost anything.
However, this also means he has an intermediate (by Shade's standards) defence against telepaths. Shielding in Shaded telepathy is passive and consequently difficult to distinguish from someone who merely has a naturally high resistance to mindreading. A powerful telepath could break through, though there's not much chance of doing so undetected. The exception to this is Suitov's communication with his familiar, which is completely unreadable for different reasons - see below.
As should be obvious, anything telepathic will only be written by mutual agreement of the writers. See 'Roleplaying'.
Suitov tells anyone who asks that he stole Basaltine from a demon, which is not true. You can read [another telling], not guaranteed to be any more reliable.
Iceheart is most likely to be interested in a non-aristocratic (trust us, this one runs in the family...) faleigh or human woman who is very intelligent and has interests beyond men and clothing. He prefers women of his age or a little older. He is rumoured not to let little things like marriage get in his way.
A woman who looks outwardly young, even if this is caused by species or other differences, will make him cautious. (Looking under twenty is a deal-breaker, even if you're really 1000, and his 'too creepy' threshold will increase similarly as he ages.)
Iceheart is not planning to marry soon. Technically speaking, during wartime, his pledge is not his own to give as he pleases... and besides, the only lady he wants to marry is unavailable.
[Weft's version of things] is different again.
Weft likes to mock Suitov's acquired nickname, coming up with such variants as "Snowlungs", "Chillbrain" (Suitov's favourite) and "Flurryfoot".
He had various tutors with a high turnover rate, and there were several abortive attempts to teach him fencing. One of his fencing masters was Pechard Baine, a man of some note in Woking. Rige never learned to do more than draw and flourish a sword. Those, however, he learned to do very smoothly. [1]
Rige's immediate family died (two in an accident, one in suspicious circumstances) when he was fourteen, a year before legal adulthood. Their deaths were not a defining event in psychological terms. Life went on and the world at large did not hear of the newest Suitov lord until the Twine Wars started shaking everything up. At around sixteen years of age Suitov was summoned to the crowns along with the other war aristocracy, and managed to make himself both useful and a perceived threat. As a consequence, he has an unusual position in his home country's war effort and isn't allowed to bring an armed guard into the crown city.
The Worlds War plot is still ongoing. Suitov's author is fairly sure he survives to the end and has vague ideas of what happens afterwards, depending on what other powers are in play by that time.
Charisma: well, charisma isn't always positive. The way I generally deal with it is to exaggerate slightly however the other character would normally react to someone who looks and acts like Suitov (intimidation, annoyance, attraction, curiosity, obedience, whatever) - unless that reaction would be a non-reaction like indifference or ignorance.
Being a mage character who notices magic, he (or his writer) needs a little information if your characters or items are causing active magic effects (casting spells, etc). See the [Muttiverse magic article].
For psionics, see the roleplaying section under Shaded telepathy. Suitov uses his talent sparingly because he has significant reasons to keep it secret. Don't ever assume he's reading your character unless I say so explicitly.
I will try to make it clear in posts when this applies, but some of Suitov's thoughts are unreadable, namely those shared with his familiar. These and these only are non-negotiable - no keylogging, no packet sniffing, there's no way even to tell there's communication taking place. Any other thoughts are potentially up for grabs, subject to the usual writer discussion.
If your character can see or detect souls, please talk to me one-on-one about how this might apply to Suitov's familiar.
Roleplaying a socially graceful character when you're autistic is hard, and if you think I've made any massive mistakes or misunderstandings that a perceptive human or faleigh would not have, feel free to say so.
Photo by Bart Klemensowski
Suitov Iceheart is a reprehensible and highly annoying individual. He has nothing whatsoever to recommend him. He is also not at all good-looking.
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