Sentinel

Real Name: Regis Drusus
Hero Name: Sentinel
Title: The Protector, The Stonesmith, The Legion of One, Lithomancer
Age: 1968
Gender: Male
Race: Roman
Hair: Black
Eyes: Green
Height: 6,2"
Weight: 232
Blood type: B+


Currently, Regis is trapped inside a granite statue of himself. He is stuck, posed with his round shield held in front of him and clutching a short spear in the other, aimed to lash out at what's in front of him. His Greco-Roman armor is looks battered and torn, seemingly being pushed behind him from a strong gust of wind. A fierce, determined, yet acceptive look shines on his chiseled face that is partially hidden behind a Corinthian helmet with a vertical plume.

Once free of his imprisonment, one would see a tall man with broad shoulders and thick limbs of muscles, adding bulk to his otherwise lithe frame. His dark hair is shaved on the sides with a trimmed crew cut on top. His light green eyes soften the hard lines of his face, giving him a more approachable look.




Despite his reliance on stone, Regis is by no means stone-hearted. He deeply values his community and sees it as his destiny to protect those who cannot protect themselves. After all, it is the will of the gods that the strong lead, while the weak serve, it's simply how the world works in his eyes. While others may be weak, he thinks nothing less of them and can still view them as friends or family, but never equals.

In combat, he has a warrior's heart when it comes to his responsibilities and will push himself to his absolute limit in order to defend those he cares about. Out of his service to the people, he is a loving father to his family and treats his wife as his one true equal.

He is currently depressed after centuries of being trapped with nothing but his thoughts. He holds out hope that he will one day be free but he wonders if too much time has passed and if he has any purpose in a world that has changed so much.


'Come on...Come on...Dammit.' Regis sighed inwardly as that was the only thing he could do, the only thing he could ever do nowadays. Turns out that being an immobile statue didn't really allow him to do much besides well...Standing around...For the last 1942 years...

He tried to glare at the janitor as he walked away but the best he could do was give a stone-cold gaze since y'know, stone statue and all. The Janitor, Larry, had come in drunk off his tits again that had given Regis hope. Today like every 3rd Saturday of the month was repositioning day at the Smithsonian Museum, where the various exhibits would be remodeled or outright changed to a different place. Regis had already seen how "careful" Larry was when he moved the exhibits and hoped that with him being shitfaced that he would slip up and knock his statued form to the ground, breaking it and finally setting him free. Instead, Larry walked up to the Ancient Rome Exhibit, stared at him, and said "Eh fuck it, who'll know whether a statue is facing right or left?" and walked away. 'Damn you, Larry, damn you.' Regis seethed.

Regis sighed again as he really did not have anything better to do. His thoughts drifted as the night turned to day and day turned to night. He thought of his family, of his wife and sons. Surely they were no longer alive, it's been centuries, but he found himself thinking the same question he has asked himself since his entombment.  'Did I make the right choice?' He wondered. 'Did I save them or damn them?' He feared.  Hope is such a fragile and rare thing, and it was all he had left in his stone heart but he had clung to it since the day he gave his life for his loved ones. Without a doubt in his mind he knew there was no other way to stopping that monster, it was simply too powerful for even someone like him to really takedown.  The only thing he had was hope, hope that they survived and that he'd one day see the smiling faces of his descendants.  Memories flooded his mind and he found himself back to the fateful day...

"Are you done yet?" She asked with slight irritation in her voice. Regis grunted as he delivered a few more hammer blows to a half-finished sword. "Almost done, just need a few more minutes to even the balance out." He went back to hammering before a pair of delicate hands covered his eyes.  "Trying to blind me, woman? Almost made me hit my hand." He couldn't help but smile as he turned and saw the most beautiful woman in the world, his wife, Aelia.

She smiled back to him before lightly jabbing a finger at his chest. "You said that 20 minutes ago, we're already late, and if you use that excuse again then the only thing that's going to need hammering is your head."

"Fine, fine...You're right, it can wait." He tossed the sword into a pot of water.  "What are we doing again, some noble's birthday or something?" Regis said while wiping sweat off his brow."

"Nope!" She smiled. "No smug liars this time, it's market day and you said you'd take me next time you went."

"Oh I did, did I?" He said while raising an eyebrow. "And I bet you plan to spend all my money--." "Our money." She corrected. He chuckled. "Right, sorry, our money. Well, might as well time me why you're so adamant about going today instead of next week."

"I need--." She started. "We need, since y'know, our money and all." He interrupted with a shit-eating grin that only went away after she punched him in the shoulder. "Fair, guess I deserved that...I do need silk though, oh also more food for the kids."

"What, Why?" Regis said while he finished setting his tools back on the rack.

"About the kids?" She teased.

"No, not about the kids, we both already know they devour everything in sight like a pack of wolves. Why do you need silk, didn't I buy you fabric like 3 weeks ago?

"You did but that's fabric. I need the good stuff." She nodded as if her explanation made perfect sense.

"But why." He insisted.

"Because it wouldn't do to make the city's famous hero a coat of cheap wool when he deserves better on his birthday." She smiled.

"Birthday? Is it already that time again? Shouldn't it still be a month out or so?" He said puzzled.

"Yes, but it's going to take that long to make it, which is why we need to go today and buy some...Also so that our kids don't starve to death from not eating their weight in gold every night."

Regis gave a half-hearted sigh at the idea of his sons ever being a burden.

"Fine, sure, just let me find my coin purse and we can get the best damn silk our money can bu--" The loud ringing of a bell tower in the distance cut off. The couple looked at each other in silence. "You should go, the city needs its hero." She said proudly.

He embraced her, kissing her while saying " I'm Sorry, the market will have to wait. I'll take you tomorrow, I promise." He broke off from her as he quickly began to don his armor.

She nodded to him saying "I love you...Be safe." and left to go find the kids.

Standing armored from head to toe in centurion armor painted a dull grey, Regis looked every bit like a Roman sculpture. He extended his hand and from it, a long pillar of stone materialized taking the shape of a spear.  With a spear in hand and a solemn look in his eyes, Regis, or rather, Sentinel, as he was known to the people rushed out to go confront whatever threat dared to harm his city.

The Sentinel raced along the cobblestone inner-city roads as crowds of citizens parted before him like Moses splitting the sea. Some stared in awe, some shouted words of encouragement, but all showed respect as the gray warrior marched ever onwards towards. Regis frowned as the crowds of people became denser as he got closer to the main gates. It had been market day and there were simply too many people congested in one place to be expected to part as easily as the rest.

Taking a deep breath, Regis focused his attention on one of the many warrior statues lining the various rooftops of the city. He filtered out the world of distractions and suddenly he was where the statue once was, staring over the city in its place. He hadn't wanted to expend his magic so early, especially against a threat he knew nothing about, but he couldn't help but smile at the sheer convenience of being able to switch places with the statues he made.

From his new vantage point, he saw the threat on the horizon. It was a monstrous beast unlike any he had seen before. It was tall, taller than any building, and the very air around it darkened as if the very presence of the thing corrupted and soiled everything around it. Numerous jagged spikes of bone and gaping jaws covered by reddish fur. The monster did not have eyes but sparks of lightning and thunder rolled off its hide, striking into the earth as if the thing was tentatively feeling its way towards the city.

'Pure evil.' Were the only thoughts his mind could formulate as he gazed at this hellspawn from the very depths of Tartarus His hands involuntarily shook before he tightened his grip on his spear. He stared back to his city, his people, his home and pushed down the mounting fear. 'It cannot go any further.' He thought resolutely. It was either he drove the beast back to whence it came or he died standing, buying time for the other heroes to come. Focusing on a statue overlooking the gates, he teleported.

Tumbling off the walls of the city, Regis maintained a constant jog towards the monstrosity. It was over a mile out but it lumbered on its bulky legs ever closer. 'The speed of a glacier, but the unstoppability of one as well.' He observed. 'That lightning...It's almost like a shield surrounding the thing... How do I fight something so large when I can't even get close?' Images of various weapons flashed through his mind. Halberds, swords, flails, rapiers, hundreds if not thousands of weapons pushed and shoved their way to the center of his mind. His decades of smithing and fighting allowed him to weigh and consider each one, much like how a golfer considers which club to use. Finally, he settled on his weapon as his spear grew and grew until it was a sarisa of over 20 ft in length.

The sheer size of this monstrous spear was unparalleled as far as weapons went. While it wasn't a traditional sarisa, given that it was made entirely out of stone, it still held the same weight and balance and would serve just as well. Normally, a soldier had to 2-hand such a thing, but with his stone shaping, he was able to weigh and balance it to perfect equilibrium, leaving his other hand free as he created a rounded hoplon.

Anchoring his sarisa in the ground, he raised his shield while taking a deep breath and expanded his focus.  Doing the complete opposite of how he teleported to statues, he let his mind drift as his vision became a haze. 'Behind.' He thought and with a flash of disorientation he was standing behind himself, or rather, a stone copy of himself holding the same position he had just been. The Sentinel repeated this process several dozens of times in a matter of seconds, leaving behind an entire phalanx of statues, each poised to strike at the approaching beast.

Regis's breath shuddered as he finished his 18th creation. While having the power over stone was awesome in his opinion, it still was taxing on his body as he used more and more mana. It was far easier for him to create stone copies of things he knew intimately such as his own body and the weapons he smithed, but it was still taxing in the end if he spammed it as he did now.

By now the monster was close and Regis could feel the static in the air as his skin prickled. With strength honed and refined from years of grueling labor, he threw his massive spear. His aim was true and the 20ft stone speared the monster in its head. It didn't cry out in pain or even flinch from the sudden attack. All it did was slowly turn towards the hero with the sound of grinding bones.  Not wasting another second, Regis conjured and tosses another sarissa, then another, and so on.  By the time the beast was within striking range, seventeen spears were embedded in its red fur, but still, it showed no signs of distress.  It did not bleed from its wounds, nor did it slow down as it raised one of its treetrunk legs and brought it crashing down.

On instinct, Regis teleported to one of the many statues in the back and watched as his stone phalanx was smashed into rubble. Many of the phalanx's spears penetrated the leg and for once the damned thing stumbled.

He rushed towards the downed beast but as soon as he was near it lashed out with an arc of lightning. He raised his shield and blocked most of the current but not all as he was blasted off his feet. Shaking the stars from his eyes and regaining control of his numbing limbs he teleported away to a safer distance.

"Right...Can't get close, even if it is down." He muttered.

The monster rose like a mountain and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stick up as the air was full of electrical charge. In but a second he summoned a wall of stone statues as cover, only to be demolished as the very earth upturned with the impact of lightning.

No matter how well he blocked, nor how much cover he made, the sheer power was absolute and he could already feel his left arm starting to fail him.  

"Can't block it, can't hide from it, can't even get close to it...It doesn't bleed nor slow down...How?" He winced. The Sentinel had fought dozens of monsters and even people as skilled as him, but each one of them had a weakness, some sort of opening that he could exploit.  He stared up at the beast as he made yet more distance from it. It was slow, incredibly slow, he doubted it could land a single hit with its massive body but that lightning. He simply had to stop it...Or did he?

In his haste to retreat, he failed to notice that the current in the air was gone and the electrical field around the monster was gone.  His eyes narrowed as just a few seconds later the field came back as strong as ever. Nodding to himself he knew what to do.

The hellspawn's turning speed was abysmally slow as Regis ran literal circles around it just outside of its massive limbs. He conjured and threw ceaselessly all while generating statues until once again the air became charged. with but mere milliseconds he teleported to a statue behind the beast as it struck out once again with lightning. There he watched,  waiting as the shimmering field around the beast faded. Charging at it, Sentinel created a massive war pick and swung with all his might at the backside of its leg.

The pick bit deep into flesh and with a grunt he ripped it out and swung again, biting even deeper before suddenly teleporting away just as the electrical field came back. "Aha!" Regis cheered. He had finally found it and couldn't help himself from laughing. 'No matter how big, strong, or undaunting, everything has a weakness.' He thought smugly. With his new plan in mind, he went about circling the monster again, baiting out the lightning.

The afternoon day turned into night as hours passed. The field had long since been scorched black and pockmarked with craters. The moon was full and the stars shined brightly above Sentinel as he stumbled and collapsed to the ground wheezing.  Sweat poured down his face and spattered onto his broken armor.  He tried to push himself back up only to collapse again.

"Come on...come on..." He urged himself. "C--can't stop, not now...Not yet." He glanced towards the monster and saw it too was struggling to charge at him. While it still had not bled, it was covered in gouges and deep cuts. One of its bulky legs was torn off at its kneecap and several of its bone protrusions were snapped off. Despite all the horrific damage, it was unrelenting in its efforts, and slowly, even slower than before, it moved at him.

Grunting in pain, Regis stood on trembling legs. The last 5 hours had taken everything he could give and he'd be a fool to believe he could go the next few hours it would surely take to finally kill the damned monster. He stared pasted the beast towards his home and shook his head.  'Not enough...It will almost definitely still destroy the city...But I can't fight anymore.' Tears welled up in his eyes at the realization.

"No." He said not in a plea but with defiance. Shaking away the unshed tears he looked behind him to the one thing he knew that could kill such a monster. Just several hundreds of feet away laid an active volcano. As the monster continued to chase him up towards the mouth of the volcano he was lost in his thoughts. He knew that there was no coming back from this. Even if he didn't fall into the fiery pits below the most certain eruption would kill him either way. Had he more energy he might have been able to teleport away but he simply had nothing left, not even for a single teleport.  As he came to the cusps of the volcano he looked at the bubbling pits below. Edging his way to the other side he shouted back at the beast.

"Come on! Kill me!" He didn't know if the monster understood him but it came after him all the same. Waiting on the other side, Sentinel watched as the monster crested the mouth of the volcano, and under its sheer weight, the ground crumbled and collapsed, dragging it into the molten stone below. As it tossed and turned, trying to free itself from certain death, the volcano became more and more unstable before finally with a loud thunderous sound it erupted. Regis last thought before the cloud of ash overtook him was of his family and his home, Pompeii.

It wasn't until decades later that he regained consciousness. No longer was he at that volcano, nor did he know where he even was. He tried to move but he couldn't, he tried to call for help but he couldn't, he tried to break free from the stone that contained him but he couldn't. He was trapped in a tomb of his image and could only watch and think while the world passed him by. As the weeks turned into years and years into centuries he found himself going back to the same question...Did I make the right choice?


Lithomancy: Regis is substantially skilled in the magical art of lithomancy and developed his own techniques using it. His ability to create stone shapes is limited only by his understanding of whatever shape he tries to make. The more intimate his knowledge is with his creation the quicker and easier it is for him to make. With this in mind, he focuses on creating replicas of himself in stone and has built up a vast knowledge of melee weaponry so that he will always have the right weapon for the job. Furthermore, he has developed his magic to the point that he can, with focus, teleport to any statue of himself, replacing it.


Just a Man: While Regis is highly skilled in the art of combat and is naturally gifted in lithomancy, he is still human. He does not have the strength or speed to compete with those who go beyond the human limit.

Magical Reserves: Like most mages of his time, Sentinel relies on the use of mana to power his lithomancy. Constant use of his power and pushing himself will eventually make him run dry leaving him both physically and mentally exhausted. He can only operate at his peak for about an hour and a half before he starts to slow down.

Hero From Another Time: Coming from Roman times, he does not have much of an understanding of modern technology or culture. While able to eventually figure out what is going on, he still needs time to observe, interact, and reflect on these seemingly otherworldly things such as smartphones. Furthermore, he still has a Roman mindset in that the natural order of things is for the strong to rule, doing what they can, while the weak submit and suffer what they must. The idea that everyone has personal rights and freedoms even while being obviously weaker is not a concept he fully understands, which could lead him into many issues when trying to be diplomatic.

Visibility: In order for Sentinel to teleport to a statue, he needs to have a clear line of sight of the statue he wants to replace. Blocking his view, making the area dark, or even blinding him will hinder his use of Lithomancy.
 

Greco-Roman Armor: Imperial armor that takes the advancements in quality from the Romans, and mixes it with the styling of the ancient hoplite soldiers of Greece.