staging: character-thorne.md task=1433c24a-ea1d-41be-a978-5a811de0ef75

projects/echoes-of-the-forest/staging/character-thorne.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+# 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