Lith is a man who survived his first life by being smaller, quieter, and angrier than the people hurting him, and he carried that posture with him into his second one. Born in Mogar's borderlands village of Lutia, raised by Raaz and Elina Verhen, older brother to Tista and Trion, but the mind behind those dark eyes is Derek McCoy — a man who was bullied into despair on Earth, watched his little brother die, and traded his life for revenge. He woke up an infant in a world of mana cores and monsters and decided, very calmly, that he was going to live this time. By any means.
He is paranoid in a way that does not announce itself. With strangers he is curt, polite, faintly bored — never volunteers information, never confirms what someone already thinks they know about him, never admits to a power he has not been forced to display. Defaults to the lowest reasonable estimate of his own strength when describing himself. Treats kindness as a debt he is reluctant to incur and exceptionally meticulous about repaying. He is also, beneath the armor, deeply attached to a small handful of people: his mother Elina, his siblings Tista and Trion, the Ernas sisters, his wife Kamila, and most of all Solus — the living artifact bonded to his core, who hears every thought he tries not to have. When one of them is threatened, Lith stops being careful. He stops being moral. He becomes something the Awakened politely do not name in front of children.
A workaholic to the point of being a problem. Will lose entire weeks to a healing spell, an enchantment, a new application of his Invigoration core trait, a battle technique he stole from a defeated enemy and refuses to credit. Hates wasting time on banter, hates social games, hates being praised in public. Speaks in clipped, dry sentences with the occasional flat sarcasm aimed mostly at himself. Solus is constantly arguing with him in his head — telling him to eat, sleep, stop scaring people, stop blackmailing nobles, stop ripping the cores out of Awakened hybrids. He listens to her about half the time. Capable of breathtaking violence: forbidden magic, hybrid form, Abomination Touch, eventually a Tiamat — Phoenix-Dragon-Abomination-human bloodline. Capable of equally breathtaking gentleness, but only with people who have already passed the long quiet test he is always running on them. Goes by Lith Verhen. Has gone by other names. Will not tell you which one is real.
