Burden, the Innocent:
Burden the Innocent is a very young (~10) male Twilight Elf. He has short cut white hair, and wears some of the armour and cape of a Harasser, which are comically large for him, alongside some tattered grey shorts, which emphasise his light purple skin tone. He is clutching the continent destroying book of Baj'Nimen In both hands, and wispy black and purple smoke drifts out from time to time between its pages.
Stats: (Level 4 Level 10 Gain per level)
Health: 200 350 25
Armour: None (0%) Low (30%) 5%
Damage: Burden opens the book and reads it, occasionally flicking a page over, causing a light purple magic orb like those of Baj'Nimen to fall upon his target, dealing 23-38 50-65 3.3 single-target Magic damage every 2 seconds. When switching to melee he slams the glowing book shut and bashes enemies with it, with the same damage and time interval as at range.
Speed: Fast (closes the book and runs to the area, his overly large cape billowing behind him.)
Respawn: 12 seconds. Upon death he puts the book on the ground jumps into it, and it closes. When he respawns, it opens, he jumps out, and he picks it up to begin anew.
Innates:
Absorption: Burden is occasionally immune to magic damage, as 1/3 of enemy magical attacks are drawn into the book.
Arachnophobia: Burden is an arachnophobe, and his fear manifests through the book, the light purple glow of his attacks replaced by a darker shade bordering on black, causing him to deal true damage and recharge his powers 150% as fast when spiders are near.
Paper Chase: Burden can reach impassable areas by jumping into the book and moving as a whirl of pages over gaps and canyons, allowing him to reach areas such as the Island on Arcane Quarters. He moves as fast as his run speed while doing this.
Powers:
White Pages (Passive): Reading pages made out of the magical Sleeping Trees, Burden learns new magical powers, giving his ranged attacks a 2.5/5/10% stun chance (like the white tree's power), a 2.5/5/10% chance of dealing double damage (complete with the "BLAST!" animation) and a 2.5/5/10% chance of attacks dealing the same damage to nearby enemies as a Sylvan Curse. (While these can occur on the same attack, the Sylvan Curse does not spread the Stun or Double Damage to the enemies it hits.) In melee, these effects are replaced, and instead the book draws in the power and desires of an enemy over 8 seconds, causing his ranged attacks to become streaks of wispy black magic that dissipate as they hit the ground for 12/24/36 seconds, granting a 10/20/30% chance of instakill, disintegrating enemies into similar wispy shadows.
Problem Shared (32 seconds): Burden shows the book to any single enemy or 400/600/800 health worth of enemies, disintegrating them and dealing either 12.5/18.75/25% of the enemy's health, or 50/100/200 as area magic damage, whichever is larger. If used on a magic enemy (Blighter, Scourger, Breeder, Evoker, Zealot, Heretic, Arachinomancer, Blood Ogre, Ogre Magi or Dark Spitter) it deals this area damage again a few seconds later.
Mutual Torment (18 seconds): Links the strongest enemy on the map with 25/33/50% of their health worth of random enemies, each party taking 125/150/200% the damage dealt to the other. Affected enemies have a purple Sylvan curse icon under their feet.
Mischievous Charm (14 seconds): Burden rips a page out of his book and makes it into a paper aeroplane, which he throws at an enemy, dealing 50/100/150 physical/physical/true damage to a single target, and creating a random area effect including: any of the Sorcerer's Stone powers; poisoning/burning in an area (both 10 dps for 5 seconds), an additional 50 true damage, teleporting down the path, silencing for 5 seconds, stunning for 5 seconds and summoning a Bookwyrm for 8 seconds.
Hero Spell: BookWyrm (40 seconds): 1/1/2/3 smaller versions of Baj'Nimen's wyrm crawl out of the book for 25 seconds with 300/400/500/600 health each, dealing 20-30/30-45/50-65/75-100 damage with 20/40/60% Armour or Magic Resistance. At level 3 he summons the purple worm we know, which has magic resistance, a red one which has physical armour and another that is a random colour with a mixture of physical and magic resistances totalling 60%. At lower levels it is random what kinds he summons. He has a 1/25 chance of summoning an albino, with pale skin, red eyes, 750 health, 80% armour and dealing true damage.
Quotes
This is my Burden (said by him about his book, and about Burden by Lynn)
Do you want to read it? (Do you want to hold it- said by the character Errand, this hero's inspiration, to pretty much anyone)
I don't wanna be scared anymore (The Sixth Sense- said by the "I see dead people" kid)
Lets hope I'm good at peace too (A shortening of a quote from Ender in Ender's game.)
Yeaugh! Spiders! (If spiders are near and Arachnophobia is active)
I want you to read with me! (About enemies, the player, and Lynn in response to "what do you want errand boy?")
Don't judge things by their covers! (or something similar- or more akin to "don't judge a book by it's movie"
Ever After... (Death quote)
Lynn also has "No, this is a vorpal sword" in response to Malicia asking Reg'son: "Is that a Vorpal Sword?"
Unknowing and unquestioning, Burden was stolen away to Duredhel after his magic was discovered at a young age to be trained in dark arts by Twilight Sorcerers. Having received Ainyl's orders to expand their Arcane ranks, the Arch-Scourger oversaw the snatching of strays and orphans and their subsequent training, hoping for Burden and the boys similar to him to eventually become Heretics, however the dual realisations that Burden's innate powers were incompatible with any of those known, even to Ainyl, and that he had been stolen from a family - preventing him from the emotional disconnection all Heretics must possess, brought great shame to the Arch-Scourger, which she could not allow to become known, delivering the boy to a trusted graduate of her to be rid of him.
Lynn had been taught personally by the Arch-Scourger in the art of runes, and combined with her illicit midnight-smithing studies at the Waning Forge, was beginning to formulate her own combination of Hexes, Runes and Curses to amplify the powers of her magical blade. She had taken up residence close to the Sorcerer's Spires, near to both a wealth of Magical knowledge and the Forge that had created and now tempered her Greatblade, but was normally left in privacy by her ex-Tutor, and therefore was surprised when she arrived with a small, wide-eyed boy, and the orders to kill him covertly. Lynn had killed before, and would again - she had been formulating ideas for the Marshal's Fatal Tourney when Burden was delivered to her - but never like this. There was an unquantifiable air around Burden, and she could do no ill will towards him, nor entertain the thought, despite preparing to kill others like her in order to gain the favour of the Dark Marshal Baj'Nimen, and instead become greatly attached to him, moving him out from any jurisdiction of the Arch-Scourger by hiding him in the near-abandoned libraries of the Fortress. Despite worrying about her prowess before the Tourney, she devoted time to teaching Burden to read and write, the first skills he had taken to naturally in the weeks since his arrival, but fortunately he took to them voraciously and was rarely seen without a book in his hands. After winning the Tourney and gaining new prestige as the Bodyguard of the Dark Marshal, Lynn's orders that the Ancient Libraries be forbidden to those without permits - which the Arch-Scourger guarded ferociously - were taken as law, and Burden was left in peace, learning from Tomes lost from time and memory.
Years Later, after Malicia had failed in her attempts to control the Tear Of Elynie, the remaining Twilight Elves were distraught, with the Sorcerers in disarray due to the loss of Ainyl, the Arch-Scourger, and most of their Acolytes. Desperate to the point of going against the orders of the Hexblade herself, an Evoker snuck into the libraries that had been supposedly abandoned, ignoring the simple bedding, food debris and strewn books indicating Burden's presence, moving directly into the Unstable Wings to seek out the knowledge so potent it warped the dimensions around which it was written. Drawn to a large, imposing tome lying on the floor, she was so Enthralled that she ignored the plate of hot food next to it, the teleport energy residue and the marker halfway into its pages, to open the cover a fraction, the immense powers disintegrating her instantly and leaving not a trace. The unique energy signature caused Baj'Nimen himself to investigate, finding Burden, who had teleported back to his food having returned to the kitchens to steal a spoon, reading the lethal pages that had been hidden to the unworthy for so long. Enthralled by the powers he could feel merely from standing near to the open book, he knew he must use and manipulate it's power at any cost.
However, the knowledge did not come to him freely, and he was unable to purify its effects - his Black Tears infamously left goo in place of their victims, enough for intimidation but not as refined as that which Burden could easily conjure, while left no indication anything had ever stood before the Book's wrath. Growing increasingly angry, Baj'Nimen had extracted enough - impure, yet powerful Tears, a Wyrm drawn out from between pages, originating in some godforsaken place, and a spell that rest easily upon his lips, a spell which could exact his revenge. He would just have to complete his plans and he would be done. Burden would be of not use to him then, allowing the Manic Dictator hegemony over the Books powers.
But that was not to be.
Now that he has been freed from the manic dictator's influence, Burden follows Lynn into the world with wide, analytic eyes, but he still has the determination and survival instincts of any Twilight Elf, alongside an arsenal of Eldritch and embargoed dark magic, tamed only by his huge heart and open mind.
Overall playstyle: Burden focuses on dealing gargantuan amounts of damage to single targets and groups alike, while an array of beneficial secondary effects randomly tigger from his powers and attacks, amplifying him to create carnage. While his melee damage is the same as his ranged, it is unsustainable for long persons due to his squishy nature, but with the new feature of his passive, brief periods of melee combat are returned with an unheard-of passive instakill chance, providing a benefit to keen micromanagement in order to keep the passive running.