He is the sixteenth lord Suitov of Applestone (a holding somewhere in the Terrimoire continent/region of Shade); son of the fifteenth Lord Suitov and his wife Lady Adalfrid of Applestone. (See Suitov for history of the lineage and their hereditary title, or Woking Nobility for explanation of titles in general.)
Iceheart is a semi-formal given nickname, used particularly when differentiating him from others of the Suitov line. He may be called Lord Suitov with or without the "(of) Applestone". He's occasionally called Sangfroid by genealogy enthusiasts, a reference to an ancestor. This muddled variety of monikers is fairly usual for nobility of some celebrity, and that's leaving aside all his nicknames in foreign languages.
Pro's authors often refer to him as 'the bonbon' - but never as a bishy. The distinction is terribly important.
Somewhat tall and lean as a child, which hasn't deserted him in adulthood. Height: somewhere around six feet. A walker's build, not muscular, not weedy. The familial dark hair, and pale skin tending to relative coldness (owing to marginally deeper capillaries), betray his ancestry as more northern than his place of residence.
The hair's black; not blue-black, just darker-than-very-dark-brown black. It's kept long, for the most part, and tied back. Narrow face, high cheekbones. Never keeps a beard, not even a dinky dark lord goatee. Grey eyes. Clothing is usually smart, whether casual or formal: generally blacks, greys or dark colours, often with light blue detail.
The stance of an aristocrat; there's nothing of the warrior about him. He has a few of the subtle mannerisms associated with magicians on Shade, if you know what to look for. He's well aware of those. He could conceal them.
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, though not the arrogance.
His natural 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 linguistic humour.
Depending on your view of the world, Iceheart may have a kind of spooky charm in certain situations. (In common parlance this is variously called 'glamour', 'witchery', 'star quality' or '+2 charisma'.) In Weft's words, "When he's talking it makes you feel like you should shut up and do what he says" - more generally, glamours are supposed to make people react more strongly to you, depending on how they would normally respond - attraction, intimidation or whatever. However, glamours may not exist at all.
During the Great War, Suitov is known on Shade and elsewhere as an evil mage lord. He makes no secret of his alliances with - and employment of - rocca, goblins, trolls and other unpopular races or creatures.
Suitov has hopes for equality, interspecies cooperation and freedom of scholarship that are far out of synch with most of his world. He picked up a lot of his ideals from his forward-thinking mother, though he has his father's pragmatic attitude to all such ideals. He values life and learning highly, is open-minded and inclined to give reason a casting vote. At heart, he is given to believing that almost anything or anyone is salvageable, however broken.
He is, however, evil, in the sense that he's a relentless, driven leader who will use strategies he himself finds distasteful in order to change the larger picture. Oh yes he's a polite gentleman who values people, but if you're an adversary he will make every attempt to mess you up badly. He may think wars are an abomination but he's thrown himself open-eyed into a huge one, not giving a damn how unpopular it will make him.
This means that, though people who know him have mixed opinions about his reputation for evilness, Suitov himself concedes it and really seems to believe it. Not that he boasts about it, but it seems he can live with it.
Suitov has a chivalric attitude to those of the female persuasion. There's no chance he'd ever intentionally hurt or threaten a woman if there's any possible alternative. However, he will kill a woman as readily as he'd kill a male, albeit with the minimum of pain.
In the past, he has shown interest in weather systems, warding and the magic traditions of various other species (goblins, ferais etc as well as aliens). He is known to try to simulate material-mindedness as a mental exercise.
He can ride 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.
Despite rumours, he is not impervious to physical weapons and does bleed when cut.
Iceheart does not just study; he has been responsible for many innovations, not always attributed. He contributes irregularly to various scholastic debates and journals, resulting in his name being known to the sequestered scholarly community for completely different reasons to those which have earned him notoriety in other circles.
He has areas of ignorance corresponding to his disinterests. Random examples:
In general, though, he can muster at least some interest in almost anything.
Unusually (as a male), Suitov is a fairly skilled mind-reader. Don't expect him to use this ability all the time; he has a fairly complicated personal protocol regarding its use, and very good reasons for keeping it secret (so he's unlikely to try it on aliens if they might detect it).
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 (see below), which is completely unreadable for different reasons.
As should be obvious, anything telepathic will only be written by mutual agreement of the writers.
Suitov is strongly bonded to Basaltine, his hellhound. Their relationship is somewhere between 'master and familiar' and 'owner and pet'. They can communicate mentally and securely and Suitov has access (with split-second time lag) to some of Baskerville's abilities when Baskerville is awake. He can see through Baskerville's eyes when he wishes and even 'possess' him remotely. More detail on the benefits and drawbacks can be found under Mindbond (demon).
Suitov tells anyone who asks that he stole Baskerville from a demon, which is not true. You can read [another telling], not guaranteed to be any more reliable.
Iceheart is absolutely not asexual and very far from aromantic. You can safely assume he has had ladyfriends in the past and will in the future.
In non-strict-canon boards, Suitov has encountered Serpentine, Pasht, Ishtar, briefly Lunzie Istari, Erin's Lucifer, Lance, Katai, Sylvie and Anke's Nico. He has, at least briefly, met Sebbie. He has shown significant approval or dislike of none of these.
Iceheart has a strong bond to Basaltine, his familiar. (See above for properties and shared abilities.)
As written on most of the boards at the moment (early Worlds War time period) Iceheart seems to be very close to Jaina Jade. One of them has confessed that they are "smooshing"... [whatever that means].
Laffent Ferrl is a roccoa woman in Suitov's honour guard. There's been no suggestion that the two of them are like that.
Iceheart obviously does more than grudgingly tolerate the psychotic monk who's assigned to spy on him. However, the truth of his dynamic with Weft is not as some fans would like to believe.
[Weft's version of things] is different again.
To Suitov Iceheart she is always the lady. Catch him in a friendly and talkative mood and he might mention her existence.
Some trolls and a goblin - Wilmer, Lotsi, Johan Stuck and Nico - have briefly turned up at the inn and seem to know Iceheart of old.
Good grief, what a thought. None known.
The junior Suitov was a late developer. Language development was early, motor skills normal, but other skills took a long time to surface: in particular, his magical ability was not evident until he was around twelve, arguably because he showed no interest in the subject before then. (He is since generally agreed to have made up for lost time.) The junior Suitov was perceived as shy or distant until about the age of eight, when he felt confident of properly understanding social interactions; he is suspected to have had impairments in that area. Nevertheless, it was clear early on that the child was horribly bright, and his parents appeared content for him to develop at his own rate.
The junior Suitov led as happy a childhood as he could wish for (Library; books!) until the age of twelve. At this point he witnessed, and barely escaped, the killing of his parents and little sister, two years old at the time. This was not a defining event in psychological terms. After he dropped out of sight for a time, the world at large began to hear of him almost six years later. Marshalling the beginnings of an impressive [interspecies alliance/faction]? based around Applestone, it appeared he had not been idle in the meantime - though, characteristically, he had been very understated about it.
Summarising his involvement in the Worlds War is no easy matter. I am sure our researchers are not balking at the enormity of their task. One assumes they are working on a polished work of genius such as will make the long wait seem but a small inconvenience. --Neb.
It must be emphasised that it is not unusual for historical evidence of this period to be incomplete and full of rumour, and that gaps in the records are not by themselves indicative of any mystery.
Thanks to the upheaval of the war and his personal fame, a lot of rumour surrounds all reports of Iceheart while he is alive (and after death). Records of the day not being wholly reliable, Iceheart's movements are not truly verifiable after the formal declarations of peace.
It is known that he is a dominating presence at the final peace summit and that he disappears shortly afterwards, having apparently made meticulous provision for the standing-down of his armies and leaving other affairs in the hands of trusted generals.
For almost a year Iceheart's whereabouts are completely unknown; he subsequently reappears and settles again in his family's Applestone estate. From the inadequate records, it seems that this returning Iceheart behaves rather differently, avoiding public life, spending much of his time in study and travelling frequently. In part, it is this change in behaviour that has given rise to the impostor theories. Papers from around this time seem to have been written by the same hand as his earlier, more verifiable work, although some historians argue that it would be "just like Suitov" to have falsified such evidence in advance.
Iceheart's death date is unknown. Several conspiracy theories have been advanced, none of them (in the opinion of this biographer) convincingly argued. It is not satisfying when such an intriguing story lacks definitive closure, but conjecture cannot be a substitute for facts. We can conclude for certain that Iceheart lives an eventful life and dies at the end of it.
Photo by Bart Klemensowski
One point I didn't ask about last time is illusions. Two angles: 1) Can he tell what they are supposed to look like, or does his magic sight overrule that completely? 2) Illusions not meant to be spotted - CAN that work? --Anke
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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