Vexan Zin
Vexan Valaro Zin
Vexan Zin was a Rostran tinkerer who was among the first people beneath the Manifold Sky to create an artificial aerostat capable of carrying a person or equivalent mass of cargo. His invention became the foundation of modern airship design and inspired the great deeds of later Rostran innovators, tradesmen, and explorers.
Divine Domains
Air, Knowledge, Magic
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Like many great Rostrans of old, Vexan Zin is sometimes called upon as an ancestral spirit by adherents to Rostran Esotericism by means of ritual sigils. Among the laity, Zin is a somewhat obscure spirit in comparison to later historical figures, but those who are aware of his legacy call upon his potent iloi (intelligence) and iparda (perception) to bless their own academic or scientific pursuits. Zin is said to smile upon, scientists, artists, explorers, and others who use their perception to seek the beauty and truth of nature. In this way, Vexan Zin may be thought of as a uniquely Esotericist parallel to that of the Unexpector deity Veldrin Vance.
The spirit of Vexan Zin is almost never called upon to act against the enemies of the supplicant, but if so, his influence is said to make the enemy more susceptible to ranged attacks (missiles, sniper's bullets, bombs, etc) as these are most dependent on careful observation to strike true. Members of the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy Marine Forces may call upon Zin to guard them against ambushes and hidden traps while rendering stealthy opponenets (i.e. the Avarix Corps) more vulnerable to the artillerist's craft.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Little is known of Vexan Zin's early life, but what is known is that he was born around 7700 AX on the island of Kalqa in Rostral D. He was born to the Zin family, who were becoming known at that time for their members' contributions to what would come to be called the natural sciences. Zin was likely home-schooled and began keeping a journal in his late teenage years.
Vexan Zin's journals suggest that the young Low Rostran was fascinated by the ability of flight, whether from birds or the lanterns released in the local equivalent of Eurymaxim, and ultimately entered into tutelage to become a Hierophant in hopes of becoming more aquainted with what he assumed to be the spirits that governed the air currents.
Employment
Vexan Zin became a lifelong scholar, studying the natural world even as he performed services at the behest of his faith community. Later in life, he was able to parley his invention (see Accomplishments & Achievements) into a lucrative series of commissions for members of the Archipelago Parliament, ensuring that he and his family were able to live comfortably until his death from natural causes at the age of 77.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Vexan Zin spent much of his time not involved in faith works on making small figurines and armatures emulating the features of birds, hoping that these constructions would ultimately be able to emulate the flight of those creatures. These efforts came to naught, but his scientific observation and modeling skills were honed by the birdwatching he did in the pursuit of this goal.
It was this perception that allowed him to make note of the association between the various features of a flying lantern released during the summer festival - the heat generated by the candle, the volume and mass of the envelope, the ambient temperature, and so forth - that inspired him to shift focus to buoyancy-based (aerostat) flight rather than forceful (aerodyne) flight. Rostran technology at the time could not have generated enough mechanical energy to enable aerodyne flight, but, as it turned out aerostat flight was feasible with the materials at hand.
Zin used his observations to create larger and more buoyant versions hot air balloons based on the flying lantern model, lofting his armos nonengu, then the same loaded with a karpik, then eventually a canoe. Soon enough, Zin had created one large enough to host a person, suspended by a harness beneath the balloon and controlled by flaps opened and closed with ropes strung through the frame. This was a groundbreaking development, as, up to this point, only the inconsistent properties of gas spore pods in the then-unvisited Petalcap Vale had been harnessed - and even then only as novelties themselves.
The legacy of Zin's invention in the Manifold Sky setting is impossible to overstate. Hot air ballons, largely unchanged from Zin's designs except for volume and capacity, allowed the Rostrans to fully explore their tesseract at an accelerated rate compared to other people and to lower the first true Skystation into a commissure in 8210 AX. This tremendous head start into airborne exploration has since shaped the Rostran culture into one that celebrates innovation and exploration while not abandoning its traditions. Because of Zin's great achievement, many of the most famous Navigators, including Eqai Voiranoi, were Rostrans, further going on to influence the later development of the world-spanning Navigator's Guild.
Divine Classification
Ancestral Spirit
Religions
Alignment
Lawful Good
Current Status
Deceased
Species
Ethnicity
Church/Cult
Life
7700
7777
77 years old
Circumstances of Death
Advanced age
Place of Death
Children
Sex
Male
Eyes
Blue
Hair
Black
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Red
Belief/Deity
Aligned Organization
Comments