Llir ap Lugh

A healer by day and reluctant necromancer by night, Llir has been afflicted with the ability to see ghosts since he nearly died of a severe illness. Plagued by the demands of the restless dead, he's started travelling; supposedly to further his education and experience as a healer, but more practically to try and find a solution to his increasingly serious problem.

Personality

Studious by nature, Llir is idealistic and sincere with a strong desire to help other people in whatever ways he can. He enjoys his role as a healer, and most see him as reliable and level-headed if a bit reserved when it comes to his social life and interpersonal relationships. He often comes across as distracted, though most people don't realize that's due to the constant presence of spirits that only he can see. Llir has a tendency to be a bit impulsive when stressed or panicked, which has gotten him into trouble more than once while trying to deal with the consequences of his amateur skills as a Binder. Despite being a bright young man, Llir can lack conviction when faced with the needs to others; this has had deadly consequences due to him not properly anticipating the logical end result of his actions, especially before he learned the dangers of letting the dead ride his body. As a result he's learned to be more cautious and conservative with his actions and tries to think what he does through thoroughly before he does it... to the point where he sometimes lets overthinking get in his way.

Abilities

Llir's most unique talent is by far his strange ability to see the dead; while ghosts normally vary enormously in how they manifest and whether or not they choose to be visible to the living, he's able to see them all the time. In many cases ghosts recognize this and are drawn to him, trying to make their final wishes known or begging for him to give them some semblance of life; while they'll rarely harm him, the constant mental strain takes a heavy toll on Llir's emotional well-being. Though far from fully trained, Llir shows a strong inclination towards the Healing discipline of magecraft and can supplement his magic with his knowledge of mundane first aid, anatomy, and herbal medicine. He's a quick learner and picks up knowledge quickly when given the chance, and as much as his 'travelling healer' routine hides his true intentions he genuinely enjoys the chance to study as a part of his travels. Finally, Llir's more secretive secondary training is as a Binder; a mage who deals specifically with exerting his will over otherworldly forces and the dead. In his largely untrained state, though, his arrangement is far from traditional. Llir has a bad habit of letting his compassion for the dead to overrule the longstanding 'rules' that a Binder is supposed to use to establish strong boundaries between them and the beings they control. Rather than drawing the line at communicating with the dead, he's made the mistake of letting them 'ride' him and possess his body for the sake of carrying out their own unfulfilled wishes. Since this went tragically wrong, every bit of what he's learned has been an attempt to put up barriers between himself and the spirits he sees until he can find a way to stop seeing and hearing them for good.

Backstory

Born in a small town in a northern shard, Llir ap Lugh and his elder brother Bran grew up in a farming family with no real ambitions of life beyond the shard. Sickly as a child, Llir spent a great deal of time with the local healer Magda and grew to have a strong appreciation for the healing arts; once he was old enough he took on the role of healer's assistant, and was found to have a quick mind and a reasonable amount of magical potential. By the age of 16 he'd begun training under Magda's limited tutelage and was starting to show a real talent for healing when he was struck down by a sudden and severe illness. The onset of his illness was sudden and severe enough that Llir came to the brink of death in spite of magical healing. He spent an extended period with little awareness of the world around him and when he awoke, found that his experience had profoundly changed him; one of his previously brown eyes had turned pale blue, and he found himself with the inexplicable ability to see the spirits of the dead. When he mentioned his ability, his family was quick to urge him to cover it up. Llir's plans for the future fell apart quickly. Though he didn't take long to learn that it was best to keep his unusual talent to himself, rumors spread through his hometown that he was mad or cursed by Siarus. His family sent him to live with an uncle in the town of Sarténa in Estaval Shard, where Llir continued his education under the tutelage of a healer named Aspen and told nobody of his uncanny ability. The dead continued to haunt him though, and in an attempt to help them and keep himself from going mad he began secretly studying Binding. Unfortunately for Llir, his lack of a formal teacher meant that he made many mistakes culminating in allowing spirits to repeatedly possess his body in order to carry out their last wishes. When some of those last wishes turned out to be violent, the town explained the sudden string of violence as the result of a curse; a local Binder named Ariana who Llir had been friendly with was charged as a necromancer and hanged for the crimes she hadn't committed. Realizing his mistakes but also consumed with guilt, Llir allowed her to possess him one final time in order to kill the corrupt lord who ruled the town before fleeing. Haunted by the silent ghost of the woman who died for his crimes, plagued as always by the restless dead, Llir spent the next several years desperately trying to find a way to relinquish his unwanted ability. He travelled extensively between shards, always on the move and acting as a travelling healer and student while using any opportunity he had to glean more scraps of knowledge about Binding. After some time he came to Iram Shard while following a lead about an ancient Freed Spirit rumored to be able to control the spirits of the dead; finding and making a pact with Nycto, Llir destroyed the Soulbinder Chain that kept him imprisoned. The two have been travelling together ever since, with Nycto acting as Llir's largely-unseen mentor and protector. Crucially, he's able to keep the spirits who surround Llir in line and keeps the young necromancer from being overwhelmed or driven to let them in; though he's technically accompanying Llir in exchange for his freedom, he seems to be legitimately entertained by the novelty of experiencing the world after so many centuries of imprisonment. The two continue to keep up Llir's previous habits of travelling seeking knowledge, but keep a low profile as much as possible. While their goal is finding an explanation for and solution to Llir's affliction, it's uncertain that they'll ever find one.

Important Relationships

NYCTO
Despite being brought together by practicality due to Llir needing a solution to the ceaseless demands of the ghosts that surround him, the dynamic between the two has evolved from a strict business arrangement into something Llir might tentatively call a friendship. While he maintains a healthy awareness of the fact that Nycto is a large, powerful, and distinctly inhuman being, there's a huge relief in having one confidant who he doesn't have to hide anything from; Nycto is aware of his abilities, isn't phased by them, and can give him insight and advice that he can't get from anyone else without leaving himself vulnerable.
Nycto, for his part, seems to be entirely enjoying a chance out to explore the world. It seems that he has a genuine fondness for Llir as a reluctant pupil, but at the end of the day there's no saying what the enigmatic spirit's true intentions may be... and Llir's also learned that travelling with a thousand pound predator that can only be seen when he wants to be takes some getting used to. ARIANA GRIMALDI / THE SILENT GHOST
In life, Ariana was a friendly face in unfamiliar surroundings; she and Llir met early on after his arrival in Sarténa, and formed a passing friendship due to both frequenting the town herbalist for their respective magical practices. For Llir, Ariana was a sort of surrogate mother figure who encouraged his curiosity and passion for the healing arts while also serving as an unknowing example that having a relationship with the dead didn't have to be a curse. She was the first Binder that Llir had come in contact with, and while he never revealed his abilities to her he was eager for any insight she could provide that he could add to his secret practice.
Following her wrongful death, though, Ariana has never stopped haunting Llir. Taking shape as a powerful ghost who's followed him the length and breadth of Genesis, she's a constant silent presence at the edge of his sight; unspeaking, doing nothing to harm him and nothing to help him, she nonetheless serves as a powerful source of guilt for Llir. It's unknown what her intentions are, but even Nycto's presence seems to have little influence on her vigil. BRAN AP LUGH
Llir's older brother Bran hasn't had much of a presence in his life in many years, despite the two growing up relatively close despite a moderate age gap. Restless from a young age, Bran had always wanted a life outside of Stillwater; when Llir fell ill, he left to find work in Avalon Shard and ended up a city guardsman contracting with the temple of Siarus. What little Llir knows of his brother's current life comes from the letters his mother had sent while he was still living in Sarténa, and they haven't seen each other since before Llir's illness. He misses his brother as much as he can after so much time apart, but worries that Bran might somehow realize that he's secretly practicing Binding... and how Bran might react.