Name: Gray the Enlightened
Appearance:
Age: 178 when he came to Abandon, 22 after his last rebirth
Race: Solari
The Solari were not really a race, in terms of genetics, they were not really any different from any of the other human races in their native world, in spite of some of their nobles claimed otherwise. What brought them to be referred to as a separate race was their name to be written forever separate from all the other human tribes, was their inexplicable thirst for knowledge, driving them into studies of magic and the occult. At some point their Magi King, Athem, discovered the secret to the eternal body renewal and after sharing it with his followers, became known as the Eternal King Athem. Naturally, the neighboring tribes saw the incredible grow of their civilization from the desert sands with both awe and hatred. Not before long, the neighboring desert tribes had made a pact with their cousins from the steppes, to share the treasures of the Solari kingdom, for the Solari used gold, gems and other precious metals and stones in their work on a daily basis, without attributing them any commercial value, apart from when trading with other peoples. The Great War of the Sands, that ranged for generations between the Solari and all the other tribes became stuff of legends, but eventually the Solari managed to deal such a terrible sequence of defeats to all their opponents, that they had no other choice but to beg for mercy.
How?
Mastery of the arms and the arts of the warrior were never the passion or the talent of the majority of the Solari people. Their armies would have easily been crashed by the raging tide of armoured enemies. Their knowledge, however, held immense power and the first magi of their order had begun waging war for power and knowledge of the forbidden war with the spirits of the astral plane. They were powerful, even at that higher plain, but among mortals, they were godlike. Most of the Solari magi were merely interested in learning and questioning. For them war was a distraction, a drag that they had to deal with in order to return to the studies and battles that really mattered. Gray was one of those magi and in the name of his King he had burned down entire cities in fires of inextinguishable flame that burned for years after. He had brought madness and dementia to entire armies and survived countless of assassination attempts, by simply slipping into the astral plain of existence for moments. All the other tribes had priests and shamans, but even their Gods and spiritual guardians were hunted down and brought forth in Chains, from the astral into the physical plane, to be humiliated by the Solari.
Athem, the magi-king of the Solari, whose father was the first one who first dared delve into the mysteries of the world, was wise beyond bounds, at least according to his people. He saw that the other tribes were savages, afraid of the Solari's intelligence and too burdened by their idotic ancient traditions to grab the knowledge and become masters of their world. He knew that if left alone, they would just attack again, causing another war. For this reason, he decided to just force them all to bend the knee in submission, slaughter all of their chieftains and rulers, thus creating the Eternal Solari Empire. His people, though, did not like the idea of living as equals with what they perceived to be stupid brutes and despite their victory in the war, they still remembered the sacrifices they had given. As a result, the empire came to hold all Solari as gods amonst men, a separate superior race, standing immensely higher than the other humans.
Gray had survived all of that and approved it. In the name of the Eternal Eperor Athem and in the name of the safe pursuit of knowledge, he had helped forge the greatest oppressive force in the world. And then he died. Silly. In one of the many failed experiments. An experiment which aimed to make a portal between universes. For this reason he doesn't believe that this is really afterlife, instead he is certain this is some inter-dimensional prison for curious or stupid travelers. He has attempted to contact his world and despite his lack of success, he knows that The Eternal Emperor would come and seek him out. He also knows it is his duty to return to his world... and the first way that came to mind was to kill himself. Yes, only moments after his arrival in Abandon, he stabbed his heart, only to wake up as a child in the city's suburbs with others laughing at him for dying and asking him who did he piss off.
Since then Gray has had innumerable experiments to leave this city, many of whom had killed him. Without magic, he started to learn technology, which he considers to be the way the inferior races compensated for their ignorance. After more than 100 rebirths after failed experiments, he came to think of Abandon differently. He realised the insane potential for learning that this city gave him. The Eternal Emperor Athem and the other magi would inevitably find and rescue him at some point, even if he didn't do a thing to assist them. He decided to learn everything he could from the endless stream of new beings from different worlds -after all didn't he aim for just that - opening a portal to another universe in order to study it? Also this world allowed him to experiment without any concern for safety - after all he'd just be reborn!
How did he escape the Karma cut?
Because Gray doesn't believe the Watchers one bit and is certain that the "hell" everyone fears is just a competitor city or an illusion (after all what would the purpose of a dimension solely made for torturing be?!) he didn't care if he was forced to go there. Nevertheless, he did need positive karma for the black market and after his realisation he didn't want to leave Abandon just yet, after all there was so much to learn before moving on. He was no warrior and couldn't really fight without his magic. But! He realised soonafter that sharing his immense knowledge and wisdom with random city inhabitants, especially if they looked troubled, unsless bound by a commercial transaction gave him postitive karma. Since his learning also involved meeting, talking and recording knowledge and data from all the strange new cultures and creatures, it was incredibly easy for him to gain his fair share of positive karma - he simply gave advice, wisdom and knowledge to others and sometime after contacted them with a please for them to tell them about their world, which they were happy to do in most cases.
Gender: Male
Number of rebirths spent in Abandon: 271
Clarity of memories from first life: Remembers everything quite well, especially the years closely prior his death. He still recognizes it as a part of his life, moreover he is certain that that is the real life for him. He believes Abandon to be a sort of illusion or at the very least, one of the many possible options for life after death. He is still certain that he could go back to his world and feels the need to do so. Moreover he doesn't believe that the only reality apart from this city is hell and is certain the Watchers are hiding something about the structure of the world.
Potential Fragment: Summoning lightning, the purest form of fire, from nothing to use and control as he pleases. Hasn't done if so far.