Presenting Tabansi, Shaman of the Whispering Void for your consideration.
Race and class CN Male middle-aged human (Mwangi (Zenj)) shaman 3
Party role Battlefield control via augmented summoned creatures, buffs/debuffs, exceptional perception (with bonus vs. surprise and to detect invisible or incorporeal creatures), decent diplomacy, heal and survival skills, backup healer (NOT built to be a primary healer, although he can fill this role at higher levels via Wandering Spirit).
Roleplaying notes Mature and complex spirit guide who has seen the horrors that lurk beyond time and space and learned to harness their power without arousing the eldritch beings that lie slumbering in the void. He roams the Mwangi Expanse in an effort to prevent others from awaking evil they cannot comprehend while constantly working to maintain his grip on his own sanity, with the aid of Mlezi, his serpent spirit animal.
A son of the Zenj people, Tabansi hails from a quiet riverside tribe deep within the Mwangi Expanse. His people honor the spirits of land and ancestors, but old stories also warn of sky-demons and star-borne terrors. In a culture where spirit-listeners are respected, Tabansi’s intense sensitivity was seen as a gift — though his connection was far stranger than most.
Born with a rare spiritual attunement, Tabansi was always able to hear whispers others could not. Drawn to the stars from youth, he felt the call of the Dark Tapestry, interpreting its murmurs as omens. During his shamanic training, driven by curiosity and pride, he attempted to commune directly with these voices — seeking deeper truth without proper caution. What came through shattered him. His mind, unshielded, was flooded with visions of endless voids, screaming stars, and the crawling will of the Outer Gods.
The backlash left Tabansi alone in the jungle, fevered and raving for weeks. It was during this time that he bonded with Mlezi, his sea krait spirit animal. As he floated naked and babbling in the river on a moonless night, he suddenly felt the serpent's scaled form curl around his shivering limbs. The presence of the strange snake that had sought him out so far from its natural habitat helped him regain control over his shattered mind.
His body survived, but his mind was forever marked. Though he regained lucidity, he emerged from the ordeal changed — his psyche fractured beneath the weight of cosmic revelation. The horrors remain etched in his memory, ever pressing against the walls of his sanity.
Fearing that his presence might bring ruin to his tribe, Tabansi exiled himself, choosing a life of wandering. Through art, ritual, and careful discipline, he learned to manage the endless whispers, balancing on the knife’s edge between insight and madness.
Tabansi stands lean and weathered in his early forties, bearing the marks of years spent beneath the Mwangi sun. His eyes, dark and deep, often drift skyward — watching constellations few others recognize. Black hair, streaked with gray, is worn in short, twisted locks adorned with tiny carved beads. His robes are simple but patterned with star motifs and protective sigils. Always at his side is a worn staff and a pendant of polished obsidian shaped like an eclipsed eye — both tools of focus and grounding.
Soft-spoken and reflective, Tabansi radiates a quiet grace. He speaks in poetic metaphor, often describing visions through layered allegory. His empathy runs deep, and he listens more than he speaks, though when he does offer words, they are deliberate and resonant. His nights are spent painting, sculpting, or composing rhythmic verses — artistic rituals that help anchor his mind.
Beneath this calm lies constant effort. Holding the line between madness and clarity is Tabansi’s daily work. Stress, overuse of his powers, or close contact with aberrant forces can fray his control. When his grip slips, it may manifest as disassociation, fragmented speech, compulsive drawing of alien symbols, or moments of eerie detachment where his voice seems not entirely his own. Yet, he recovers, and when stable, he shows the awareness of one who knows his own mind well — even its broken places.
Tabansi does not worship the powers of the void, but he respects their terrible gravity. His magic focuses on summoning — calling familiar beasts and spirits to fight in his stead, avoiding direct calls to the alien. Yet even his summoned animals sometimes show small distortions: an extra eye, unsettling grace, or shadows that ripple wrong. He draws power from the edge of the abyss but does so like a cautious sailor drinking from poisoned waters — just enough to survive.
The art he makes is not merely creative expression; it is his shield, his prayer, his exorcism. Through it, he translates madness into symbol, terror into beauty — holding the darkness at bay one brushstroke at a time.
Apperance
Mlezi ("The Thread" in Polyglot) appears at first glance to be a slender sea snake with sleek, iridescent blue-black scales, patterned with faint, pale spiral markings along its length — almost like constellations coiling around its body. Its eyes are deep void-black, speckled faintly with motes of starlight, giving the unsettling impression of twin night skies staring back.
Upon closer inspection, one notices that Mlezi is never exactly the same length twice. When resting, it coils like any serpent, but when stirred, it can unspool to lengths many times its normal size — far longer than its apparent bulk should allow. In these moments, its body seems to stretch rather than simply slither, as though space itself yields to its will, allowing it to extend impossibly thin and long like a thread through the weave of the world.
When agitated or when channeling power through the familiar bond, the spiral markings along its body glow faintly with purple or sickly green luminescence, and its body may ripple with unnatural elasticity, forming brief, fractal-like bends and folds as though reality itself can't quite agree on where the snake begins or ends.
Personality and role
Mlezi is eerily quiet and watchful, rarely hissing or striking except when truly threatened. It shares a psychic bond with Tabansi that is deeper than mere familiarity — more akin to a shared wavelength of perception. It sometimes exhibits odd moments of insight, such as flicking its tongue toward unseen corners of a room or hissing softly before aberrant magic is detected.
At night, when Tabansi sleeps, Mlezi often curls protectively around his neck or arm. Occasionally, it seems to dream, twitching and coiling in complex patterns while sleeping — in these moments, Tabansi sometimes finds his own dreams tangled with images of spiraling voids or endless coils wrapping around worlds.
Tabansi often refers to Mlezi affectionately as “Thread of the Dreaming Serpent”, a title implying both its physical form and its connection to the formless terrors of the void. To Tabansi, Mlezi is a symbol of his threadbare grip on sanity, his companion in navigating the unfathomable.