Amal El-Irfan's page

Amal is the second child of a powerful wizard and a marid. He wishes it were as amazing as it sounded.

How do you even begin to explain the day-to-day life of a family with reality-binding power at their fingertips? Suffice to say that retired adventurer Hafiz el-Irfan teleported away to teach in university – thankfully he had plenty of Unseen Servants to help around the house. It was a bit more complicated to answer questions about his mother – who, for that matter, was rarely home. Lidhalla had gone from being a mere servant to a shahzada in the Water Plane to striking an advantageous match with an adventurer that allowed her to do pretty much whatever she wanted. She had traveled the world – sometimes, even the planes –, her musical talents no longer outshined by any member of marid nobility. She had started a little family of her own – a pet project of about a century, by genie standards. When she missed them, she actually went home – for a while. But she had never tolerated a routine, and sooner or later she was gone again.

It was a strange upbringing. The second-hand embarassment that Amal got from other kids gawking at their parents and proclaiming how very, very cool they must be never quite tarried as they got older. He much preferred saying nothing about his parents than attempting to explain their life choices to other people. No, his father wasn't upset with his mother – if the el-Irfans lived by one rule and one rule only, it was to respect that other people thought differently than you did, and never to will someone into something they weren't. No, Lidhalla was no desert genie and, in fact, didn't talk to them much – she had tried, and found their obsession with human politics quite bothersome. It was not her business. Why had they moved to Wati? Because it was Hafiz' childhood town, and between the remote location and the ancient graveyard, real estate was cheap. Amal also suspected that it was appropriately far away from Khemet III and his antics – but he kept that to himself.

It was on the day that he had to answer questions about one room from his house disappearing overnight – Lidhalla had wished to turn her private hammam into a pocket plane for convenience – that Amal had sneaked into the necropolis for the first time. At the moment, being surrounded only by ruins and the ghostly presence of those who had nothing left to prove felt more comforting than whatever was outside.

Contrary to what a lot of kids his age seemed to expect, Amal had never inherited any cool powers from either of his parents. Quite the opposite. At age eleven, his eldest sister already moved with a fluid, supernatural grace that made her Lidhalla's pride and joy – but nothing of the sort had manifested in Amal. They had no talent for music. They couldn't wrap their heads around a spellbook. They had turned to fencing with not much natural talent, and never could win a fight against their sister – who would defeat them bare-handed. Neither Hafiz nor Lidhalla seemed to mind that Amal failed where his parents or sister were excelling – or even to consider that he was not skilled in the first place. But Amal did mind, and here, in the dust and ancient ruins and silence of Wati's necropolis, in its half-faded hieroglyphs that he would painstakingly draw to look up the meaning later, he had truly felt like he had discovered something that belonged only to him.

The ancient writings were undecipherable, but here or there he would discover a symbol that could be associated with ancient gods. As Amal painstakingly mapped out the ancient pantheon, they began to leave small offerings in front of the religious symbols in the necropolis – an incense stick, usually, or flower petals, that could easily be covered by the sand or blown away by the wind. They became particularly interested in one ram-headed figure – Khnum, so the books said – that supposedly ruled over the oceans. During the peak of his obsession, Amal would collect small objects that more or less related to Khnum, and arrange a small corner in his bedroom to be dedicated to the god. Hafiz and Lidhalla were not religious, but they did not comment on these strange habits.

If there truly was something that could faze his parents, then, for a long time, neither Amal nor his sister had found it. Lidhalla was happy enough to grant her first-born a wish, and turn her into the woman she wanted to be. Hafiz was happy enough when his daughter changed her name to Pallavi, and helped her out when she decided to try her luck at an Iroran monastic retreat on the island of Jalmeray – and got accepted. They had never quite understood why Amal insisted so much on doing things without any magical help – including his own transition – , but such decisions had never been their prerogative.

They were, however, slightly more shocked that he had entered the lottery to explore the tombs of the necropolis – not that they had remained blissfully unaware of his excursions there. Amal had talked about them out loud, but he knew full well he had not been discreet, and they had only turned a blind eye out of politeness. Convincing his parents that he would go in on his own, with standard training and some equipment, while refusing any of their help, was less of a conversation and more of a full-blown argument. But Amal was tired of being the black sheep of their family, and the opening of the necropolis to adventurers, while still embarrassingly close to home, was what he hoped to be a good path to emancipation.

Boyish and androgynous, Amal has curly, short hair and light brown skin, inheriting from their father's mixed Keleshite-Garundi heritage. They are lean but rather small, and prefers to dress in ample clothes that conceal their frame. While they own embroidered jellabiyas, they often prefer to go for a simple white, linen shirt tied at the waist and worn underneath their armor, and a knee-length shendyt. In true Osiriani fashion, their shield is engraved with an ankh cross, and they wear a ring bearing the symbol of Khnum – a ram's head – on their left ring finger for protection during his travels. His eyes are possibly the only hint of his marid parentage. They are golden, more yellow than light brown, and remiscent of the colour of ocean at sunset.

While Amal tends to come off as rather blasé and taciturn, his definition of what he would consider unusual simply goes against most people's expectations. Having lived most of his life being exposed to unbelievable things, he craves normalcy. He can be left unfazed by the wildest travel accounts of Osiriani aristocrats returning from a trip to the Impossible Kingdoms, and yet express genuine interest for the happy childhood of the baker at the corner of the street learning how to make perfect bread with his grandmother. This keen interest in everyday experiences, no matter how mundane, makes him quite likeable to most of his conversation partners.

Born to powerful spellcasters used to traveling the world and meeting all kinds of people, Amal is very open-minded from being exposed to different cultures, races and mindsets, yet his knowledge is seriously wanting regarding very practical information. To their frustration, they would be unable to locate the places they've visited on a map, much less master most foreign languages beyond "hello", "thank you", and "tea, please". As a result, they almost doggedly refuse any magic help beyond the bare necessities.

Like most of his maridar ancestors, they are genuinely curious about the world and get easily bored. They rarely read a book more than once and dislike most routines, seeking change and new life experiences to thrive.