jlficks

I’ve posted a few of my maps and more humorous blogs here, but I thought I’d take a moment to talk about one of my favorite more serious characters. He’s an assassin, like my lead character Shade, but he is a ballsy and chillingly capable rival who is a true threat to Shade’s crown as world’s top assassin. I call him Raithe and he’s got quite the tongue on him. Let’s begin with a quote from the man’s very lips:

“Of course, I don’t have so widely esteemed reputation as you, Shade, but that’s partially my doing. I make no show of my kills, you see. I am but a shadow and a whisper…a ghost that moves silently among men. My appearance sudden and terrifying. My departure leaves behind no trace, but the dead.”
~Raithe, Shade 2: Kingsblood

A shadow and a whisper he describes himself, a ghost who moves silently among men. Raithe is in many ways a flip-side to Shade, who as many of you well know is a Dark Elven elite assassin of the Unseen Order. Raithe is clad all in white, as opposed to our dark anti-hero, with mysterious powers that make him terrifyingly elusive even to our infamous world-class assassin. Raithe can float through walls, dematerialize his body to evade blows and even float through the sky. He is very much like a ghost, his ghastly aura, accented by a pair of Grim Reaper-like daggers… Hand Sickles as I’ve come to call them.

Raithe’s cockiness even exceeds Shade’s own. His barefaced arrogance is a mixture of his astonishing talents and zealous ambition that truly sees himself as the world’s deadliest assassin. Shade is the past and he is the future, as Raithe believes. And so, at long last when Shade meets Raithe for the first time in Shade 2: Kingsblood, the Dark Elf sees at last what it’s like to be ridiculed and belittled by a foe oozing with as much confidence as him.

In Shade 2: Kingsblood, Shade finds himself in the unlikely position of having to foil an assassination plot, a contract signed by his rivals, the Shaltearan Brotherhood. The Shaltearan Brotherhood is a guild of hooded almost ninja-like assassin’s who utilize exotic forms of weaponry. The brotherhood marks their entire bodies with tattoos, each tattoo representing a kill, something they call the Assassin’s Codex. So you can imagine that Raithe’s body underneath his robes is covered in these grim tattoos.

Now Raithe is an anomaly all his own, he combines his Shaltearan training with an unknown magic which has made him a deadly prodigy. He glows just before he fades into bodiless forms, floats or comes through walls which further enhances his ghastly aura.

Shade’s epic cross-city duel with Raithe is further enhanced by the size and scope of mighty Doljinaar, City of Kings. Doljinaar is the most massive city the world of fantasy has ever seen…ten sprawling districts each the size of a metropolis wall together side by side. Doljinaar is said to be impregnable, it’s walls too high and grand for any siege engine. And below the city lurks the Doljinaar Catacombs, tombs upon tombs of old city streets built over upon over and over again. Forgotten things lurk in the great deeps. Catching an assassin with Raithe’s ghastly abilities in such a place makes for Shade’s hardest challenge yet.

Now finally here’s the man himself, Shade’s deadliest rival, Raithe. A shadow and a whisper, a ghost that moves silently among men…

To learn more about Raithe and other great Chronicles of Covent characters, go here:
http://www.chroniclesofcovent.com/characters.html