Azzar

Azzar also known also as Red Quarterstaff Mage, Thief of Time or Lord of Cans is a human mage and wielder of magical quarterstaff. He’s the leader of The Order of the Red Quarterstaf f, as well as diplomat and painter. As the Quarterstaff Mage, he traveled through various different worlds with the mission given by the creator of quarterstaffs. Azzar arrived at Rathnir which is officially his eighth world. He’s being recognized by the red symbol of his quarterstaff in a red circle on a black background (or with those two colors swapped).

Personality
Because of his soul being fragmented and trapped within quarterstaff (see: First World), his behavior and personality differs at random intervals. Azzar can be cunning, manipulative and methodical at one time, to be compassionate, emotional and nonassertive several days later. Despite those drastic fluctuations he can always be described as a person that puts his safety above others.

Because azzarsprites share different parts of his memory, Azzar is forgetful, sometimes to the point of being completely oblivious of his past actions. He sometimes acts contradictory to himself.

Despite these differences, Azzar tries to use it to his advantage, adjusting his personality to the person he has contact with. That proved to make him a very skilled politician and leader most of the time.

He's known to escape the consequences of his actions on numerous occasions, often putting others in the danger rather than himself.

Abilities
For some reason Azzar doesn't age. Some speculate it could be explained by his soul's state, his connection to his title "Thief of Time" or the fact he came from the world where time flows differently.

Red Mage is capable of using variety of light, fire and thunder spells. Those vary from forming beams or orbs of energy to electrocuting, creating tracking vines of red electricity, controling fire in a small area or ability of combusting blood stains.

Every quarterstaff matches wielder's personality and Azzar's grants him short-ranged teleportation. Despite having wide range of spells, Azzar is considered to be the weakest quarterstaff mage.

Finally, his time powers revolve around stealing time from others and lending it to others, being able to take it as he pleases. Time in this example dictates how long a person's personal timeline will last. By taking that time he causes his victims to die prematurely in the future. By lending the time, he can basically keep his allies immortal, as long they're in contact with him. Azzar has some level of control over this power, though he cannot completely stop it, often using it subconsciously. In extreme scenarios, he can steal all the remaining time of the old individual, dooming them to die in a very short time, no matter what. The Red Mage can also summon a time-measuring tool on his hand to determine how long is the average timeline of a targeted individual.

Beside this, Azzar is talented in painting and bot constructing, although because of the Order's rules he cannot bring or make them in "mission" worlds, that are not technologicaly advanced.

Before the Order
Not much is known about the world where he was born, but he most likely was a regular adventurous human, with regular parents. Azzar was at first a small trader, working between several villages and cities. At some point he made friends with a person named Kirokofi but decided to move onto a new planet, when a mass migration occurred, as the response of the slow deterioration of the planet. Looking for new opportunities, he embarked on his first great journey, never to return to his parents ever again.

First World
This world, in many sources known as Desteria, at first appeared as very promising land, full of possibilities. Azzar got along with another traveler,  known by the name of Miragiks. They set up a base in the mountains and started accumulating more people. Both men showed some leadership skills and great synergy with each other. Unfortunately, they soon fell into conflict with another group led by a infamous robot Enguvru, who threatened them and destroyed part of their refuge. He would later travel to plunder more locations for resources. This sparked first prolonged conflict of Azzar and made him strive to defend his personal 'honor' at all cost.

Order encounter
At that point Azzar and Miragiks made contact with three mages: Jasi, j23cz and Tendintis (bronze, black and green mage respectively) that turned out to be members of the Quarterstaff Order. They revealed that this world was losing their water supplies by an unknown underground source. Of course, only few were aware of that impending doom.

The Order’s goal was to save various worlds from their global dangers, like endless wars, drastic climate changes or powerful necromancers, to name a few examples. Their members have the habit of sometimes choosing people from these words that are worthy of becoming one of them, to save their home world from destruction. Three mages saw potential in Miragiks and decided to train him in magic arcs. Azzar, being his closest friend, also learned a bit and got really interested in spellcasting. This interest followed him more or less throughout rest of his life.

Miragiks was later invited to the Order’s headquarters on a different planet. There, they would present a new apprentice to other mages and the Order’s leader: ᚴ, that was already preparing a quarterstaff for him. Azzar tagged along but as soon as others stopped paying attention to him, he sneaked out, exploring the temple on his own. Driven by curiosity he stumbled upon a chamber where an unfinished quarterstaff was located.

Creating a magic quarterstaff requires a lot of skill, power and patience. During that time, many protective seals must be casted upon an object to properly contain their power. Each quarterstaff consists of a special crystal trapped within a shell. The first person’s soul that touches quarterstaff upon their creation, will create a special bond with that object, making that person its owner. In all other cases, the only person that is capable of creating quarterstaffs – ᚴ, became that owner and later “lend” those to other members, making sure nobody will pose a threat to him in the future.

Azzar decided to touch the quarterstaff that was not finished and didn’t have any bond. It tried to create multiple strong connections, trapping Azzar’s soul inside the crystal, dividing it into 19 instances and creating a pocket dimension to store them. Those soul instances are called “Azzarsprites” and together they form Azzar’s personality. Every sprite has their own identity with various characteristics. Since at the same time only three sprites can determine Azzar, that causes him to have mood swings, complete changes of behavior or attitude in certain periods as well as having separate memory resources.

It’s easy to guess the Order was not happy with that incident  and hunted Azzar down, but ultimately decided to let him become a part of it. The process was not reversible and destroying his quarterstaff would result in the death of the user. Thus Azzar became Red Quarterstaff Mage. Because Desteria got their new mage, Miragiks was not given a quarterstaff and it was up to Azzar to resolve the problem. The might-have-been mage held a grudge against Azzar for what happened but decided to help and support him in his quest anyway.

First Mission
It was not specified what was the cause of the drought but it could be resolved with a special machine created by Jasi, that required a certain power source and few mages to activate. That machine was supposed to trigger some changes deep within Desteria's mantle. Azzar suspected that the recquired power source was in the possession of some other groups in Desteria, thus started his attempts in conquering them. During that time, he allied with some interesting people like Mlekopol, Kanon, or Maxaxik. Unfortunately, even with the help of j23cz, he was unsuccessful in his quest and the world of Desteria became a barely habitable wasteland without much water left. Azzar however, was able to escape that world with a special one-use portal that is always given to quarterstaff mages, when they begin their new mission. It can only be opened for a short amount of time and usually only few people can get through. Given that, along with the Red Mage, his allies could abscond the desert planet as well.

Second World
To repent his failure, Azzar was sent on another mission. The Second World  suffered from monster infestation that threatened the existence of all intelligent life. While fighting hordes of creatures proved to be fruitless. Azzar decided to focus on permanently securing the existing settlements rather than defeating the source of the problem. He managed to drive away the danger from some cities on numerous occasions, which was met with praise and glorification from the locals, which permanently boosted Azzar's ego. Those victories were short lived, as new waves eventually made their way towards their targets and cities fell one by one, which Red Mage on a constant travel.

Similar to the previous world, Miragiks accompanied him, along with Green Quarterstaff Mage - Tendintis that had a different approach to the problem. Tendintis and Miragiks became good friends during that period, defeating giant beasts and dragons. They formed a special group of hunters (that included Berlix and Nexttj among others), managed to defeat many monster nests and discovered an ancient artifact of great power that naturally absorbs and amplifies certain types of surrounding essence. They planned to use that artifact to battle monsters faster than they can appear. Tendintis and Miragiks split up, the Green Mage venturing to find more recruits and localizing monster nests, as well as other artifacts, while Miragiks was left in a small town to guard the artifact. It turned out that when it absorbed positive essence, it scared off any negative essence (that monster in that world possessed) creating a giant shield of some sort. The village soon started rapidly growing in size when the inhabitants realized it’s a safe space. Miragiks was conflicted on what to do, since it was only a matter of time that the artifact would get moved somewhere else by Tendintis.

Azzar at that time was able to lead a certain group of shady people, with Dimitrij as his right hand, reinforcing cities and abandoning them once they fell. He had a grudge against Tendintis  for leaving him, but didn’t know anything about his actions. The news about “safe city” quickly got to him and the Red Mage saw it as his opportunity to finally succeed. It was the first (and definitely not the last) time when Azzar decided to truly exploit somebody's trust.

He managed to convince and manipulate Miragiks into keeping the artifact longer inside the city and announced to the public it will remain there forever. Citizens quickly elevated Miragiks into the status of their ruler. Other hunters hearing this, tried to retrieve artifacts themselves, not being able to reach out to Miragiks because of Azzar. The Red Mage not knowing they were Miragiks’ friends saw them as enemies trying to doom the city and hunted them down. He used a series of robotic-like creatures he met along the way, that for some reason obeyed him automatically. Through the miscomunication and misunderstanding, they thought they're supposed to neutralize the threat by killing.

When Tendintis returned, he found his people dead or missing, his outpost destroyed and an artifact locked with Miragiks in a fortress in the middle of the city. He went mad once he found out that Azzar was behind this. What happened after Tendintis reached the palace is only known to few people but Green Mage has never been seen ever again. Some say the Red Mage bested the Green Mage through dirty tricks and traps.

Azzar rendered his mission a success and left the world, leaving devastated Miragiks as the king of the protected, city. Miragiks later met Ryrzard, who became his advisor and dear friend. He later stated that upon obtaining the quarterstaff, Azzar died, leaving only a shell controlled by the twisted versions of himself. Despite his aversion towards the Red Mage, Miragiks was still somehow attached and vurneable when it came to his old friend, which Azzar was ready to exploit once more when opportunities arose.

Third & Fourth World
Not much is known about the third world - it was a much more advanced world under the threat of the incoming asteroid. Despite access to early starships and advanced machinery, the inhabitants were oblivious to the danger, as the war between many factions covered an entire globe. It was a place where Azzar was referred to as Thief of Time for the first time. He waged terrible wars and despite not supporting (and later leading) a powerful local faction he managed to keep the conflict hot.

During Azzar’s stay, he met IQuick, an engineer, who had teached him how to construct mechanical creatures, similar to those that Azzar encountered in the previous world. Red Mage also stole some of his blueprints and projects that were used in next missions including certain flying machines. They encountered a bizarre, mechanical location called Omen Binder, but weren't able to investigate it more deeply, because of impending doom, which Azzar failed to prevent.

Azzar escaped that planet right before asteroid arrival, taking IQuick with him.

First intermission
After that, Thief of Time began travelling across worlds to find a suitable home for himself. It was a practice done by quarterstaff mages, where they had their base located on a planet chosen by them. After his failures, Azzar wanted to become just like the other mages more than ever, thus he became the search. He visited lands made of silicon and lava, floating purple cities that completely covered the entire moon, enormous archipelago worlds made of sponge-like material and many more. Through those travels, the Red Mage made some new allies. He messed with many of them, trying to set up his own headquarters, but wasn’t successful, sometimes causing irreversible damage to the enviroment. Azzar wasn’t always using the unfinished portals that he stole from Order’s headquarters - sometimes he was using special vessels to travel between worlds of short distance.

During one of those trips, Azzar’s vessel crashed into a deserted world - either by accident or by somebody that recognized Red Mage for his past deeds and decided to kill him. The planet was not only a complete wasteland but also infested with monsters. It would be the end for Azzar, who was out of portal crystals if not for an yet another expensive magic object he stole, that allowed him to summon the closest quarterstaff mage. It turned out to be none other than j23cz (that was not prepared for that and didn’t have portals either). Together they managed to abscond the planet after a long struggle, putting aside their differences. This experience has taught Azzar many means of survival. Finally, Azzar found a mesa-like looking planet covered in tall, spiky mountains and runes where he constructed his infamous tower. It is now his home, where he returns after every mission and works on his personal projects. This is also a refugee for all people he had rescued from his “mission” worlds. Soon, the tower was guarded by a dozen bots constructed by Azzar. Some say he had a mysterious guest one day that provided him with a design of them.

Fourth world
Fourth world was foretold to be threatened by a mad and powerful necromancer that would roam around that alien planet. However, before that danger could be revealed, the Red Mage integrated himself into the major kingdom over there. He served the king there, only to be involved in a coup against him, since the Red Mage wasn't satisfied with the level of power he was offered. At some point Azzar mentioned he himself posed as some kind of religious figure there and faced a massive rebellion because of that.

As with other worlds, not much is known about Azzar’s doings there. Some say that Thief of Time was the one to unknowingly create the threat and fulfill the prophecy about the impending doom. At the end the rest of the Order had to be involved to finish off the necromancer that at that point consumed almost all life energy from the planet. After that incident, the Order decided that mages are forbidden from performing necromancy on their “mission” worlds. Azzar’s tower got a new inhabitant that day, called Oracle Libby - one of the head figures of the coup. The Fourth world fell dead silent with a few Azzar’s banners still hanging from the ruins. After those two worlds, Azzar valued the life of others much less.

Fifth & Sixth World
The Fifth world faced constant and ferocious war on a planet without continents with rising water levels. That meant the conflict was mostly fought on ships and flying creatures. Some say that Azzar joined the wrong side of the conflict. Either way, the war hasn’t stopped - it only grew more destructive and brought anihilation of multiple settlements. At some point Red Mage was assassinated by his main military opponent though his unique connection with his quarterstaff saved his life. This caused him to be a bit paranoid and aware of potential assassins. From that moment, he always carries a special-stylized knife with him. The Red Mage also started to slowly build resistance to many types of poisons, by consuming small doses of them in a long period of time. Some say that caused his eyes to take a characteristic yellowish tint.

Despite having powerful navy, at the end he was outsmarted, thus Azzar lost his army and the war - he was forced to leave the fifth world empty-handed along with one of his admirals. Although the conflict continued and many islands were sunk, some say that their inhabitants managed to construct flying and underwater cities to finally taste peace after so many years.

Sixth World
The Sixth world was quite a unique one, although it started like the previous ones: Azzar created an organization that revolved around him and with their help tried to solve current global problems. They managed to lock underground some powerful beings called titans that threatened that world. Instead of leaving, Azzar felt comfortable and remained among his people, including Debliniak, Juleczka, TGaming, iZer0, Darti, Jaru, JB, Lord Masełko, Glacade and many others. They constructed a small castle and met another group led by PanTesla - who soon became Azzar’s nemesis.

The Red Mage focusing on pleasing and satsfying the Order unknowingly chose a solution that was only temporary. Meanwhile, imprisoned titans became destroying the planet from the inside, but Azzar was too occupied with his petty rivalry to notice or acknowledge that until it was too late. The planet became to crumble - massive tsunamis and earthquakes occured, while titans fed on the core. Planet’s gravity became unstable and erratic, creating floating islands. In the final confrontation, Azzar was able to defeat one of the titans, by concentrating all of his will into one of the azzarsprites for a limited time. Some say, he deeply regretted that action as not only said titan met their demise.

Second intermission
Because the sixth world became too dangerous to live in, Azzar began searching on how to undo the damage. Once again, j23cz came with the help & solution. It turned out that the planet where Order’s Headquarters were located met the same fate a long, long time ago. Only small islands survived that often made a dive into high-pressure depths, to reemerge months later.

Black Mage has found a solution to restore big parts of land with a special magic gravitational resonator and keep them together on a safe height, but needed a lot of people to find and gather required resources - multiple resonators were required to reconstruct a decent portion of the planet. Azzar agreed on helping j23cz with his task and soon they managed to transfer part of the population into that world. Among these people were Ardebram, MaDragon, Corot, Tyton and Ryrzard, who was looking for the way of rescuing his city from the trap originally made by Azzar in the second world.

Their plan was going well (for the most part), but before they could try to restore the sixth world, Azzar got a new mission. For this occasion, he brought most of the people from the sixth world with himself. They formed a prototype version of the Red Quarterstaff Order on Rathnir and solidified Azzar's style of ruling.

Seventh World
Next planet was yet another one facing endless conflict and aggressive extraction of natural resources. This mission wasn’t easy by any means, but Azzar was disliked by several mages that wanted to get rid of him, because of his failures and the way he acquired his quarterstaff. Red Mage also caused several arguments and divisions within the Order, weakening it greatly. Surprisingly, Azzar managed to gather around himself more people than ever before (like Tytan, Corot, SzerVi, Zbojcerz, Lisav and many more), despite initial difficulties and betrayal of some people from the previous world, expecting that this land would be ruined by the Red Mage as well. His faction managed to make solid alliances and construct a powerful castle. They almost became the most dominant organization and had a chance of winning and ending the war. Unfortunately, the last battle that could obstruct this goal was lost and most of the Azzar’s people were killed.

Demotivated and hopeless, Azzar abandoned that world, taking several people that survived, returning back to his tower. He still helped j23cz in his project, schemed against PanTesla and worked on his new generation of bots. He even started training JB in magic arts as his apprentice to please the other mages. Azzar was aware that if he failed his next mission, he could face some serious punishment from the Order. He tend to be bitter and self-centered more often than before, often posing himself as the victim of others. His own group of allies at home no longer providing enough validation.

Eighth World (Rathnir)
Next world was not any different from the previous one, if not way harder. Endless war cycles roamed the land, false gods and destructive religions caused suffering and posed a major threat.

Not wanting to fail, Azzar brought with himself even more people from his other worlds. In response, Quarterstaff Order asked j23cz to keep an eye on the Red Mage, to make sure he won’t mess up this time. Unknowingly to Azzar, an Emerald Quarterstaff Mage also decided to oversee.

Beginnings
Azzar gathered his people and formed an organisation he called Order of The Red Quarterstaff, just to tease his Order. Starting company emerged in the mesa biome and marched north-east, led by JB. They set up a small settlement in the Simulami Empire, although Azzar underestimated local’s organisation and strength and his party was quickly kicked out from that region, suffering few casualties. From that moment Red Mage swore his revenge against Simulami’s leader, ZenoHUN - not because of people he lost, but because he had hurt his pride.

When most of the hope was lost, the Red Order was approached by Najer representative IronJaw, who was a governor of Central Najer at that time. Azzar accepted his offer to settle down in the northern part of Najer and began the construction of Campus Ordo.

Expansion
Despite his argument with Ryszard and protests from Pomjad, the Order began to thrive and Azzar started his journey on Najer’s hierarchy, receiving a title of Lord from IronJaw shortly before his death. Some people believed that Azzar was behind Jaw’s death, as he was one of the last people that met up with him and gave him a drink. Alexander Vikhrov began an investigation regarding that case, finding no direct evidence against Azzarin in following years. Whenever or not those claims were true, Azzar followed IronJaw’s legacy and eagerly offered shelter to any refugees that happened to land in Najer. Some of them settled in the abandoned city of Pomjad and joined the Order that grew stronger and stronger with each day.

The Red Mage decided to take a second apprentice and started teaching Sleepy, after noticing a lot of potential in him. Azzar also made friends with Nova Belis, finding its state of multiple entities merged into one, familiar to his own fate. He also grew very curious on subjects of soul preservation in this world and made several paintings of Nightwater Port and his people.

Some time later, the Order expanded on yet another city and Azzar was selected as the governor of Central Najer (Jake’adh) solidifying his position both in Najer and in the global arena. He used IQuick’s blueprints to make flying machines out of local materials.

He also had a serious argument with Ryrzard who started perceiving Azzar as a villain. He later fled to Lennox.

The Discovery
Somwhere around 40 AB, Azzar discovered a cluster of mysterious crystal near pyramid of Asri Vodon. Said crystals amplified the strength of the spells. Red Mage quickly recognized the type and potential of this discovery, stating it can be used for the creation of additional portable portals for him to go in and out of the world of Rathnir. He changed his mind when Nova told him about the way the souls from Library of The Lost venture to afterlife - Azzar found their method of ascension somehow similar to souls from Najer. With the help of mysterious individual he obtains purified ice shards but for some reason changes his objective once again, this time opting on a complex spell which requires 6 ingredients. The true purpose and outcome of the spell is for now only known to him.

Collecting the ingredients
As he started collecting ingredients, Azzar recquired purified ice crystals, which were delivered by Miragiks. He also temporarly left second world, but instead of trying to find magic artefact to help his people, he ventured in search of Ryrzard. Taking advantage of his deteriorating mental healt, Azzar made a deal with him. He commanded Miragiks to kill IronJaw, offering to bring one of his comrades from the second world back, once the spell is completed.

The first ingredient, being IronJaw's shulker core which is "to contain all that's gathered into one place" was purposefully placed within personal stash of JB.

The second ingredient was obtained by a dangerous spell transfering all enchantments from Pomjad's Komtur - Egap Pie (whose species characterized with a natural powerful enchantment of the body). The transfer resulted in the creation of highly enchanted purified ice shard "to strengthen what was weakened" and the unintended death of Egap. Azzar made sure the whole incident appeared as an accident. After the post-resurrection of Minalwa'Juz, Azzar as a time player, detected the anomaly and attempted to kill him for breaking the time law and disrupting the timeline, but ultimately was convinced not to, since they both were working towards the same goal. Some time later, both of them confronted a mysterious lizardfolk called Linja'uz that was supposedly trying to transfer several people from different timeline. When confronted and accused for breaking time law, he summoned his friend's projections instead, trying to defeat Azzar and Waju. Thanks to the their teamwork, they were able to defeat Linja, unfortunately destroying him in the process. The Red Mage obtained a book from this battle, which despite being written in an unknown language, had Order's symbol on the cover. Due to increased attacks of intertimeline creatures, Waju and Azzar decided to attempt connecting current timeline to a different, more safe one. After a while, Waju is send on a mission to alternative time where Azzar became the Emir, to retrieve a Silver Crown from Silver Crownlands period "to call what was once under rule" in exchange for Azzar's knife from fifth world. This trade of two important and significant items would solidify the connection between two timelines. However, Azzar planned to eliminate Waju as soon as Red Mage takes the Crown, which was the third ingredient he needed. This action was partially motivated by the pressure of Emerald Mage, that visited the world and was displeased seeing Azzar working with the time outlaw. In a subtle communication Azzar succesfully communicated with his alternative self and together killed Waju, tearing him between two realities with a time spell.

Soon later (95 AB), his keep was attacked by Miragiks, Alexander Vikhrov and Afxisi - Waju from an alternative timeline. Upon discovering that Azzar stood behind IronJaw's and Waju's deaths, they teamed together to topple down Azzar, deciding to face him in a direct confrontation. The Red Mage hid in his palace at Campus Ordo, sending out his people to protect him. Vikhrov's team defeated Order guards: JB, Sleepy and Lawón, eventually battling Azzar in his palace. Unfortunately for them, a deadly combination of azzarsprites gone active during the fight, resulting in the death of all three of them from Azzar's hands (except Miragiks was able to revive himself). After placing the sole survivor in a dungeon and releasing him after a while, making sure he will not threaten the Order plans, Azzar pondered on preventing such situations in a future.

Sibkea and Sigtuna crisis
Thanks to manipulating the footage and lack of evidence, Azzar managed to avoid any reprecussion for the murder of the ex-governor, though increasing number of people against the Order.

Eventually, Azzar learned that Alexander Vikhrov was being supported Gafa - goddess representing the water. To weaken the Vikhrov family (still opposing the Order) and to have revenge on Gafa, Red Mage called Dajciemumrzec and her crew to construct giant facility underneath Kozuke'jad in order to lower the levels of underground water reservoirs, resulting in a drought in the region. At the same time, Daj was supplying the settlement with food and water, becoming rich and expanding the facility. People eventually stopped worshipping Gafa, thinking she abandoned them, which also resulted in undermining Vikhrov's family status. A significant migration occured, where Sidel clan left teh town and settled in Sibkea and Silkovia, spreading anti-Order attitude initiated by Alexander many years ago. Soon, the settlement attampted to break away from the Order.

This change of citizen attitude caused the cancellation of Grand Najer Race, organized by Azzar to increase his popularity in the country and to achieve another ingredient: the piece of hair of the fastest land creature in Rathnir "to give what was stagnant and escape velocity". The tensions between Sidel clan, led by Soonsandbash and the Order increased in the following years, resulting in a military escalation, after receiving some confidential information. Sidel was challenged to honorary battle to prove they're strong enough to break away. Order was supported by the Valondor Pirates and the Army of Lunari Empire. The armies clashed at Sidel Pass in 109 AB, resulting in a decivsive Order victory, regaining its control over Sibkea.