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Entry tags:
Somnia | Information
█ ▮ █ ■ █
NAME |
Viktor
AGE |
33
GENDER |
male
CANON |
Arcane
PERSONALITY
✓ observant
✓ passionate
✓ intelligent
✓ altruistic
✓ idealistic
× stubborn
× obsessive
× snarky
× calculating
× naive
As a child, Viktor was already something of an outcast. He's seen tinkering with machines and creating a toy for himself rather than playing with other kids, either out of disinterest or inability because of his disability. He's curious and kind, choosing to help Singed with Rio's health both because she is unique and friendly. However, when Viktor sees the lengths that Singed goes to in order to keep Rio alive, not for her sake but to help her mutation survive, young Viktor angrily leaves, betrayed but the cruel methods of his would-be mentor.
Adult Viktor is ambitious, innovative, and intelligent, securing the position as Heimerdinger's assistant despite the setbacks he lists: poor, crippled, and from the undercity. He stops Jayce from committing suicide through expressing interest in his research and believing in his passion, not necessarily because he cares for the stranger but because he sees potential in what Hextech can do for the world and himself. He's dedicated to helping the people of the undercity, working with Jayce over the course of many years to create innovations that can help improve the life and work of those across the river.
When Viktor's physical condition worsens, highlighting his mortality and that he's running out of time, he begins to worry he may die before he's able to leave a memorable legacy behind. This drives him to mania surrounding his individual work with the Hexcore as his last chance to save himself. Even in the face of all this, he feels guilt when the Hexcore kills his lab assistant, unable to destroy it himself and pleading with Jayce to promise he'll finish the task. This shows that, despite his fear of death and oblivion, he still values human life and recognizes his failure.
APPEARANCE - Waking
HEIGHT
~7ft
SKIN
deep purple living metal
HAIR
dull brown, limp
EYES
glowing yellow
BUILD
spindly bug
VOICE
sample
The other big difference is his lack of power, cut off from the arcane and all that it once did for him. His movements are more mechanical, stuttering and jittery, lacking the fluid motion that made him appear somewhat human. The third arm that sprouts from his back hangs limp, dead without arcane energy to power it.
Around his shoulders is a cape of tattered fabric, deep navy blue with maroon lining. It serves little purpose beyond sentimentality. On top of that, he wears the Runic Survival Shawl, his gift upon waking. It hums faintly in sync with the core that ticks behind your ribs. It could be used as a cloak, bedding, insulation layer and so on. It's imbued with the faint scent of a strongly lit candle and an almost familiar, earthy musk that soothes the nerves. The stitched runes on its edge subtly adjust heat retention: it cools in fevers, warms in frost, and muffles sound when pulled over the ears. The runes remain unreadable, even to you, but they seem to respond to intention.
Now that Viktor has been in Sleephattan for a while, he's had the time to not only study his runic abilities, but also perfect some of of them. While his left arm is a chaotic jumble of runes that he's lightly and hurriedly carved into the metal, his right has neat lines of the most useful spells he's discovered.
(paid commission, do not take! drawn by the lovely Owlie ❤️ @twitter & @bsky)
APPEARANCE - Dreaming
HEIGHT
5'8"
SKIN
pale with moles
HAIR
chestnut brown, short
EYES
amber
BUILD
thin and lanky
VOICE
sample
This appearance is a reflection of Viktor's image of what he would look like at this age if he'd never had health problems. There are flashes of this version of himself in reflections as well as his astral form in the arcane plane. It's both a boon and a burden, the reminder of something that he's never had and never will even if it makes life easier while in this form. Compared to his broken mechanical body in the Waking World, his dream form is temptingly perfect and reason to draw him back to Sleep again and again.
ABILITIES - Runecaster
RUNIC CONJURATION
By using the correct runes, Viktor can do low-level conjuration of simple elements: a small flame, a trickle of water, a gust of wind. More complex conjuring requires more complex runes, and he's been experimenting with combinations of arcane runes, Sleep's language, and other languages. He's discovered the equations/sentences for the following:warming the palms of his hands creating a soft, cold light
RUNIC HEALING
By using bodily fluids to paint runes, Viktor can do very simple healing akin to stitching a wound closed. In these cases, he can use the injured person's blood for the spell since it's often conveniently already present and ready for use. For larger degrees of healing, he has to use his own body as a catalyst which presents a major problem in that he doesn't have blood nor secrete any other fluids besides one: tears. This makes them a valuable substance and, because it's difficult to amass a large volume of them, major healing is for emergency cases only.
SECTION TITLE
INFO
ABILITIES - Blessings
BLOODMOON REVERIE
When struck or overcome by strong emotion, you may enter a trance-like state where time slows. In this state, you will be able to see Tethers as ribbons of color in the air, yours and others'. You may be able to pluck at them, though this will be uncomfortable for the parties involved. You will also be able to see when someone is suffering from succumbence, and how much time they have until fully succumbing.
SECTION TITLE
INFO
Application
Name: Cherry (they/them)
Preferred Contact:
Age: 34
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Viktor
Canon: Arcane
Age: 33
Canon Point: post-show
Wiki Link(s): main info
SOMNIA-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
1. Dreams are how Sleep chooses you. What might draw your character into Somnia— a wound, a wish, a weakness? Would they follow the dream, or run from it?
Viktor has a difficult relationship with his body. Having been born with what is most likely foot drop and also developing lung disease from his exposure to pollution in the impoverished undercity—referred to as Zaun from this point forward—by his thirties he is consumed with the pursuit of a cure. We see him resort to cutting runes into his own skin during his testing and otherwise toeing the line of human experimentation. Later, when his entire body is transformed without his consent, he almost immediately accepts it due to the fact that it appears to be perfectly functional which, to Viktor at the time, is the most important definition of perfection. He immediately begins using this new body and its abilities to heal others and give them equally "perfect" bodies. When he is, once again, transformed into a third form, it's one that currently haunts him after being shown the error of what he believed to be logic.
Sleep would likely be drawn to this conflict and a yearning for change, a pursuit of improvement that Viktor cannot break himself free from craving. She might show him a better version of himself to follow, or one of the twisted versions of himself to run from.
2. Somnia is a slow unraveling—of worlds, and of selves. How does your character respond to fear, transformation, and losing control? Do they fight, adapt, collapse?
Viktor's first instinct is to examine and learn. If there isn't an obvious and immediate threat (and sometimes even if there is) he'll question something new and seek to understand it. This comes out of a desire for knowledge as much as a need to properly counter the danger. Being arms with more information about a threat would allow for adaptation to the situation in order to fight—not physically since Viktor is more likely to use his brain than non-existent brawn. However, in situations where Viktor is forced to look internally and face himself, it is more likely to close off and isolate, to ignore the issue, and possibly collapse. He's at a very fragile state having been forced to face all of the bad he'd done, manipulated by the arcane but also very much the one whose hands are dirty despite hoping that all he did was for the better of humanity.
3. Connection is the only constant. What kind of bonds does your character form— fast and burning, slow and wary, deep and desperate? How might that shape their time in this world?
Connection is something that Viktor is sadly quite unfamiliar with from what we see in the show. There's no mention of a family in Zaun, no friends at school, and not the best relationship with Heimerdinger despite being his assistant trusted with carrying out important legal tasks. Viktor's only real connection that we see is with Jayce Talis, someone he meets when essentially arresting him. The only reason they meet again is because of Viktor's interest in Jayce's research, and though they definitely hit it off intellectually, they don't share much in common other than their work. A lot is hinted at during a seven-year timeskip in the first season, and the rapport between Viktor and Jayce suggests that they developed a friendship alongside the partnership—they defend and support one another, and Jayce is the only person who's able to talk Viktor off of proverbial and literal ledges. All of this suggests that there can be an initial spark between Viktor and someone who intrigues him, but while he's slow to open up to others, he does create deep bonds when they come.
4. What are two major forces in your character’s personality that are often in conflict?
Viktor's main goal in life, if asked, is achieving freedom. He starts out being driven by his own pursuit of knowledge and innovation, something that pushes him to leave Zaun and join the Academy in Piltover. He does this despite not being set up for success, a "poor cripple from the undercity," in his own words. Viktor's desire to free himself and others like him manifests in his constant pursuit of progress and innovation; for himself, technology to aid his disability and science to cure his disease are would be very tangible aids to his own freedom from his own constantly looming mortality.
On a deeper level, however, he dreams of belonging. Growing up in Zaun, his focus was on innovation driven by his desire to improve life for himself and other residents in the undercity, yet we see him playing alone as a child more interested in machines than the company of his peers. At the same time, he finds a friend in the mutant Rio and is intrigued by the scientific mind of Singed, both to the point of seeking them out in the future. Later in his life, in the same breath he speaks of being set up for failure when leaving Zaun, he describes himself as an outcast the moment he set foot in Piltover; his disability sets him apart visibly, and his difficulty fitting in with people in Piltover sets him apart socially. His first and only lasting connection that is seen in the show is with Jayce, someone incredibly like-minded, a colleague who is equally inquisitive and driven when it comes to using science to help the world.
The conflict between this push for freedom and yet desire for belonging is seen several times. When Singed reveals his true colors by experimenting on Rio, Viktor turns his back on the science because of the betrayal to his friend. This shows that progress isn't the only thing on his mind and that connections, though rare, are important to him as well. By the end of the series, Viktor has transcended all of the shortcomings he perceived in his body, gained power, and become utterly free—yet his connection with Jayce and desire to belong are what ultimate bring him back to reality and show him that the right choice is to give up his freedom in exchange for saving the world.
VESSEL SELECTION
Which Vessel Type are you choosing: Token
Why does this Vessel type feel appropriate for your character? Viktor has already gone through several body transformations, the biggest of which made him unrecognizable and quite unhuman. I think it would be more interesting for him to experience a kind of power that was more internal, especially because he wouldn't have such an obvious way of avoiding his body as it is naturally. Beyond my own selfish plans for him, Viktor is definitely a more cerebral person than he is physical, and so a Token makes sense for him in that sense, too.
Subclass: Runecaster