the snowflake project

Short Character Summary (Step 3 of TSM)

Name: Torik

1-Sentence Summary: A dishonest thief is swept up in a conflict between one man, an empire, and a monstrous enemy.

Motivation (abstract desire): Torik lives to be free. Free of all obligation, free to be his own master and live by his own rules.

Goal (concrete desire): Torik’s chief goal is to build a fortune without incurring any obligations – he actively seeks out opportunities to gain maximum wealth at minimum cost.

Conflict (barrier to goal): Torik feels an uncharacteristic loyalty to Kos, and is drawn to stand by him, despite being the sort of person who would normally cheat his own mother.

Epiphany (lesson/change): Torik is presented with a perfect opportunity to part with Kos, and follow a path toward a considerable amount of wealth as well – but he ultimately chooses to stay with his friend instead, finally understanding what friendship means.
1-Paragraph Summary: In the blood pits, Torik tricks Kos into losing his sword and shield. Kos is given a chance at revenge in the arena, but refuses to harm Torik, earning his trust and friendship instead. Though Torik seems self-serving in every action, he is instrumental in making sure Kos escapes during the gladiators’ mass jailbreak. As Kos’s leadership fails and the escaped gladiators turn to banditry and thievery, Torik is presented with a dilemma. He elects to remain with the group rather than follow Kos, succumbing to the temptation of his old life. However, Aryenne’s messenger’s arrival sparks a change in Torik, and after saving the messenger’s life from his companions, Torik abandons the group and travels to find Kos with the messenger. Torik saves Kos’s life during an attack on the village where Kos is staying, paying the debt of mercy incurred when Kos spared him in the arena. But rather than calling the account settled, Torik decides to remain with his friend and travels with him back to the empire, risking capture and imprisonment, to help fulfil Kos’s mission.

Plot POV

Torik, committed to a life of crime, was a thief, and was wanted by the empire. Travelling through Saaltiva, he saw an opportunity to make off with a lot of wealth, apart from the imperial capital, Saaltiva was the city most infested with rich, fat nobility. He set house sa’Tabine as his target, and planned a complex heist.

Things did not go as planned for Torik, and he was caught red-handed by the city watch. Because Lord sa’Tabine was imperial nobility, Torik was tried and punished as a criminal of the empire, rather than just of the city Saaltiva. He was sentenced to spend the remainder of his days in the Blood Pits of Saaltiva as a gladiator.

Torik’s life in the Blood Pits was hard – he was no fighter, but he soon learned that ruthless use of one’s brain could be just as effective a method of survival as a strong body and military training. Torik began to trick other gladiators and steal from them, and outsmart them in combat. He developed a reputation as a malicious trickster and became almost universally hated by the other gladiators.

When Kos arrived as a new gladiator, Torik wasted no time in swindling him out of his issued sword and shield – but strangely, Kos seemed to bear him no ill will because of it. And Torik saw that a lack of sword and shield didn’t hamper Kos’s ability to survive in the Pits. In fact, it wasn’t long before Kos and Torik met in the arena. Kos was untouchable, seeming to possess supernatural speed and agility. Torik was beaten quickly, but Kos passed up an opportunity to hurt Torik, and when the crowd called for his death, Kos refused.

Torik resented Kos at first for what he took as a superior and self-righteous attitude, and he led the other gladiators in making Kos an object of ridicule. He focused on Kos’s past as a monk and named him Kos Ikko’Inu (Kos, the Monkey of God). But in time, as other gladiators came to respect Kos’s quiet refusal to participate in carrying out the empire’s death sentences for them, Torik, too, grew to respect the young monk. Ikko’Inu soon became a mark of that respect, rather than a slur against Kos.

Kos became a sort of symbol for the other gladiators. He was untouchable. Every gladiator knew that being sent to the Blood Pits was essentially a death sentence, only the empire wouldn’t have to actually dirty its hands. All gladiators eventually died in battle. But Kos seemed to be the exception to that rule – he rarely, if ever, took a hit from an opponent, and he never ever wounded one seriously. When Achi sentenced Kos to death by execution, the gladiators were distraught. They refused to fight each other, so wild beasts were brought in instead.

When the noblewoman, Aryenne sa’Tabine, came to the gladiators with a plan for all of them to escape, Torik was at first suspicious, but quickly got behind the plan – seeing that it wasn’t a trap, and of course, seeing the opportunity to follow Kos out in the world, and find fame and fortune.

Torik was instrumental in the escape plan – Kos took a lot of convincing to come along, and together, Torik and Aryenne managed to make him see that it was not his destiny to be senselessly murdered (or martyred). In the end, Kos claimed that it was a vision that convinced him, but he was thankful for Torik’s efforts as well. The escape was a success, every single gladiator made it out of the city alive.

The gladiators, including Torik, then turned to Kos for leadership, each one of them expecting him to lead them on wild adventures towards fame and fortune. Kos refused to lead, however. When asked, he delegated even the most fundamental decisions to others. When Torik confronted him on the subject, Kos claimed that fame and fortune were not the way of the Dragon – citing the teaching of his youth. Each man and woman is but a scale on the Dragon’s hide – no one is better than any other and each has a simple task. One scale does not shine brighter than the others, for it would attract unwanted attention. Torik thought that sounded more like cowardice than humility. And then Torik asked for the metaphor to be extended – who are the claws? The teeth? Who are the gouts of flame that pour from the Dragon’s mouth? To that, Kos had no answer.

So the escaped gladiators fell to their old habits, many of them were bandits before the Blood Pits, and so they returned to that life. Kos left, disgusted with the direction the escapees were taking themselves, and Torik parted from the group as well, wanting to go with Kos, but feeling that his hopes had been betrayed by him. So Torik, too, fell to the temptation of his old life, and roamed the countryside, looking for opportunities to come by wealth by less than lawful means.

Eventually Torik came to a small village at the western edge of human civilization. His aim was to steal what valuables he could from the richest house in the village. As he was laying his plans, a village hunting party came riding in with a creature unlike anything Torik had ever seen as a prisoner. It was definitely not a human being, and yet it resembled one more than any animal would. It looked exactly like the descriptions given of Elves in the old books he was taught from as a child. Torik watched as the villagers erected a gibbet in the middle of the village square, and crammed the Elf inside it. The Elf seemed to take it all in stride.

Torik’s curiosity got the better of his greed, and he stayed in the village that night without burgling to see how the presence of the village prisoner would develop. To his utter shock and amazement Kos was standing by the gibbet the next morning, asking for the leaders of the village to be gathered. Torik kept his head, and didn’t let Kos see him. Toward the end of the day, a town meeting was arranged and the whole village gathered to watch Kos debate their elders. Afternoon wore on into evening, and the people of the village seemed no more willing to let their prisoner loose – they were too superstitious, believing the Elf to be a demon, for all Elves died centuries ago. Torik, unable to bear it any longer, stood up in defense of Kos’s cause.

The Elf began to shout in a language Torik couldn’t understand, and a man rode into town on a dying mount. At the same time, gray-skinned, red-eyed monsters attacked the village. The ensuing battle was chaos. Several villagers were killed, even though there were only a few monsters. The only people in the village who were trained fighters were Kos, Torik and the man who just rode in. There were ten minutes of absolute hell as the three of them managed to kill the invading monsters, all the while the Elf was pleading anyone passing by to be let out so that he could help.

At one point during the fight Torik saw Kos surrounded by a group of monsters, and killed one just as it was lunging at Kos’s back, saving his life. Then something changed about Kos – he seemed to abandon restraint and what happened next terrified Torik. Kos began to wield magic to kill the monsters – and in the end it was Kos’s magic that destroyed them all.

After the fight, Torik looked around at the villagers who were left alive. All of them were staring at Kos, utterly speechless. Torik watched Kos march straight to the gibbet and blow apart the lock with magic. The Elf fell to the ground outside the gibbet, weeping for the lives lost, then began to do what he could to heal the injured.

Kos and Torik found the man who had ridden in, gravely wounded, with just enough consciousness to deliver his message – from Aryenne – that the empire was expanding and making itself stronger so it could defend the scattered human tribes from a horrible threat amassing in the west. The Elf came to examine the messenger’s wounds and took Kos aside. Torik continued to work on the wounds until Kos came back. To his surprise, Kos asked for Torik’s knife and slit the man’s throat, killing him. It was the first time Torik had ever seen Kos kill a human being. The Elf, calling himself Sky-Kicker, explained to Torik that the man would turn into a monster if he didn’t die of his wounds, and there was no way to reverse the process.

Kos asked Torik if he would come with him back to the heart of the empire, and help him gather followers on the way. They needed to tell the emperor that the monsters in the west were beginning their advance into the lands of humankind. Torik agreed, finally seeing the leadership from Kos that he expected when they escaped the Blood Pits. They made off across the countryside, bringing with them the severed head of one of the monsters. It was slow going at first. People reacted to Kos as if he were a doomsayer, and in a way, he was, but he offered them enough hope that a few people from each village they passed joined them. Before long, people began to actively seek Kos out to follow him. Many of the escaped gladiators joined their caravan.

As they got closer to the center of the empire, they were challenged by various authorities. It was well known that several of them were escaped convicts. Kos would address their challengers directly and humbly, informing them of their mission in the empire – that they planned to fight with the empire to protect its people. When that didn’t work, Torik rallied the troops, most of them lawful citizens to form a barrier around Kos and the other former gladiators. None of the law-men would attack a group of peaceful protestors, so they simply sent their reports along ahead of Kos’s group.

Things changed when they got to the imperial capital, however. They found the gates shut against them, and Achi and an army of men rode out to meet them. Kos tried to reason with Achi, but Achi seemed deaf to reason. Even the monster’s head had no effect. In the end, when Achi was about to lead his men over the rag-tag, untrained militia, Kos challenged him to single combat. ||

The fight lasted a long time, for minutes Kos and Achi amazed the onlookers with their purely physical combat ability. Then, to everyone’s complete shock, including Kos’s, Achi unleashed a magical attack. The attack caught Kos off guard, and Kos reeled from it, taking a wound. Handicapped, Kos pulled out all the stops, using magic himself. The battle became an even more impressive, and frightening spectacle. Achi’s attacks seemed to be wide and sweeping, indiscriminately falling on Kos, Kos’s men, and even Achi’s own men occasionally. In the end, Kos defeated Achi, somehow removing his connection to his magic – leaving Achi defenseless. When Kos showed him mercy, just as he did in the Blood Pits, Achi fled, leaving his men behind.

Kos’s army made camp outside the city while Kos went in. Torik stayed with the army outside, only venturing into the city to fetch what news he could of Kos’s progress with the emperor and to purchase supplies.

When Kos returned to the camp after several days, Torik had found willing donors, and had outfitted Kos’s followers with proper weapons. The ex-soldiers in the group (most of them also ex-gladiators) had begun drilling the group in combat exercises. The bitterness of being rejected by the empire was lessened by the willingness of Kos’s followers to fight the Griind themselves. They marched back west, the way they had come.

Kos and his followers made their stand at a narrow mountain pass. They were joined by a company of Elves led by Sky-Kicker. They held out against the Griind for three days. Waves of Griind threw themselves against their defense endlessly without pause. There was no time to rest. At the end of three days they were exhausted and on the point of breaking, when an alarm was raised from the rear. Imperial golems were spotted approaching the field of battle. Marching with them were hundreds of imperial soldiers as well as Dwarven warriors. They joined the battle, turning the Griind back, and pushing through the pass, gaining ground until the Griind broke.