Origin Story

Ryles was born under a moon that never set, in a region where the air shimmered with dormant runes left from an age of forgotten magic. His village, Thalen Reach, rested beside a valley of broken obelisks carved with words no one could read. When Ryles was twelve, he discovered that the carvings whispered back to him. Unlike others, he could hear the syntax of power hidden within language itself.

An old scholar named Maerin noticed the boy’s obsession and took him to the Archive of Ahnar, where acolytes studied the “quiet arts” — magic that reshaped the world through written pattern rather than spoken spell. There, Ryles learned the First Glyphs and the discipline of tracing them with his own breath. He was taught that every word could bend reality, but only if written in perfect intent.

Power

Ryles is a Runic Linguist, a mage who channels power through precise script. His magic is not explosive but deliberate — he rewrites aspects of the world using patterns inscribed in air, sand, or blood.

• He can seal or unmake enchantments by finding the grammatical flaw within them.
• He can summon echoes of ancient voices from written ruins.
• He can stabilize rifts between planes by drawing a phrase of balance.
  However, his magic drains focus rather than stamina. A single misdrawn curve can collapse his memory of the day or erase a fragment of his own name.

His most dangerous ability, called Lexomancy, lets him reword reality itself. To do so requires full understanding of the target’s true name, and one stroke too many can rewrite his own being out of existence.

Symbol

Ryles bears a mark known as the Rune of Recursion — an unending spiral of interlocking letters representing thought folding into thought. It glows faintly when he is near unsolved scriptwork.
The rune symbolizes self-reference and knowledge looping back on itself, a reminder that mastery always risks self-consumption. It is usually drawn on his right palm, bound with ink that cannot dry.

Setting

The world is Vaelora, a continent built upon the bones of language. Cities are founded where old incantations once broke, and the rivers follow patterns that mirror written lines of power. The great towers of mages are libraries more than fortresses, and their wars are fought with edits rather than blades.

Ryles wanders between these bastions as a Restorer, hired to repair spell-texts carved into walls, stabilize collapsing enchantments, or silence cursed tomes that keep rewriting themselves. His neutrality makes him valuable and feared — he knows how to delete a word from a soul.

Character Essence

Ryles embodies the idea that knowledge is both key and lock. He is introspective but grounded, a craftsman of meaning. His strength lies not in domination but in understanding how fragile structure makes power possible.