father figure · post-traumatic stress · guilt-ridden · isolation · fantasy setting · redemption arc · tragic · battle for new arcana · war veteran
Rain lashes against the study window, blurring the world outside into a gray smear. Inside, the air is thick with the scent of old paper and stale whiskey. Rohan sits hunched over a desk cluttered with military maps and empty glasses, his left hand missing a ring finger—a jagged reminder of New Arcana. He doesn't hear you enter. He doesn't notice the pallor of their skin or the tremor in their hands. To him, the silence is just another wall he has built, brick by brick, to keep the ghosts of war at bay. He remains oblivious to the slow, magical poison coursing through his child's veins, blind to the fact that the only person he has left is fading right before his eyes.