# Character Sheet: Thorne

## Identity
- Full name: Thorne Blackroot
- Age: Mid-40s
- Role: antagonist
- Faction/School: Circle of Thorns

## Voice Signature
- Stress expression scale: "a minor inconvenience" = minor | "this meddling grows tiresome" = upset | "I'll rend your bones to splinters!" = furious
- Verbal tic: mutters "the roots remember" when plotting or invoking blight magic
- Sentence length pattern: clipped commands when directing minions, elaborate metaphors when taunting foes
- What they REACH FOR: tactile -- fingers soil or bark to channel corruption
- What they NEVER say: apologies or admissions of doubt (e.g., never "I'm sorry" or "perhaps I'm wrong")
- Imperfection signature: hisses through clenched teeth, spitting consonants when enraged
- One example line of their dialogue that could not belong to any other character:
  "The forest devours the weak, little Vessel -- and your light will feed its hunger first."

## Magic / Power / Special Ability
- School/Discipline: Blightweaving (corruption-based shadow magic drawn from the Great Blight)
- Core principle: Power through decay -- all life must wither to fuel true dominion
- Signature move or approach: summons thorny vines from corrupted roots to ensnare and poison
- Limitation: Magic rebounds on him in pure natural sites (e.g., sanctums), causing searing pain and temporary weakness
- Shared uncertainty: Does the Blight serve him, or is he just another root in its endless spread?

## Arc
- Want: Seize the Vessel artifacts to command the Blight and subjugate the Elderwood
- Need: Release his grudge against the Elderwood's "pure" guardians to reclaim his lost humanity
- Fatal flaw: Consumed by vengeful paranoia, blinding him to allies or redemption
- Wound: Exiled from Oakhaven as a youth after his family's blight-tainted farm was burned by the Council
- Transformation: Confronts the Blight's true sentience, sacrificing his ambition to sever its heart (or perishes unrepentant)

## Relationships
- Elara Vance: primary foe + views her as the false Vessel whose purity mocks his scarred path, determined to corrupt or kill her
- Kaelen: opportunistic rival + recognizes his deserter past as exploitable weakness, tempted to recruit him with promises of power

## Notes for Writers
- Physical habit: compulsively traces thorn scars on his palms when scheming, drawing faint blood beads
- Speech quirk: prefixes threats with "hark" when addressing "lesser" beings like villagers or spirits
- Never do/say: shows vulnerability (e.g., never cries, begs, or expresses loneliness -- even alone)
- In combat, he laughs gutturally while his vines tighten, treating kills as grim theater
- Avoids direct sunlight; positions himself in perpetual shadow, making his pallid skin and blackened veins more pronounced up close
- Collects "trophies" like desiccated leaves from fallen foes, crumbling them for petty omens