julian devorak has an adventurer's soul. he's someone who craves the rush of a new experience, the satisfaction of solving mysteries or uncovering what is hidden. in doing so he can be quite careless (more or less depending on who you ask), but none can deny that he is loyal to a fault. in fact, this faithfulness frequently comes at his own detriment, especially when paired with his stubborn determination to finish what he starts.

when he's not off exploring some uncharted territory, he's indulging in the theatrical affairs of an actor. he lives for the swoon of an audience and the comfort a mask can provide. he's actually quite good at it, too (depending on who you ask). in spite of his flair for the dramatic, however, in reality, he can be a little shy and anxious. he may put on a brave facade, but at the end of the day, it is only a facade, and when he's forced to reckon with the truth, he tends to cower away.

in this aspect, some might describe julian as a coward, and he might even be inclined to agree. he can play the role of a knight in shining armour, but that doesn't make him one off the stage. of course, fending off enemy pirates or slaying a vicious monster are practically child's play—it's the battles that don't require a sword that pose an obstacle. he shuts down in the face of confrontation and actively goes out of his way to avoid making himself emotionally vulnerable. unfortunately for julian, he falls hard and fast, so combined with an innate inability to reconcile with his own feelings, he's a walking tragedy just waiting to happen.

julian has a "curse" mark on his throat given to him by the hanged man that allows him to rapidly heal wounds and illness in himself and others.

while julian only had a granny to teach him the bare necessities growing up, he left to study medicine in prakra, following his passion to help people. he gained most of his experience as a medical aid on the battlefield of wars while apprenticing under nazali satrinava, who taught him a great deal of what he knows. he still relies far too heavily on leeches, though...

julian possesses a natural capacity for magic, though he's reluctant to tap into it. he is known to be capable of performing minor elemental magic, but the extent of his abilities is currently unknown.

julian and his sister, portia, were shipwrecked by a vicious storm at a very young age, orphaned as the sole two survivors since their mother and father had perished in the accident. the two were rescued by a group of salt seals that brought them ashore and protected them until they were discovered by a woman named mazelinka. she brought them to the nearby town of nevivon, the two siblings soon to be taken in by the local grandmothers who managed nevivon’s most popular tourist attraction: the hot springs.

julian and portia were equally amazed by and curious about mazelinka's primary occupation as a pirate, notorious by the name of dread pirate mazelinka. julian was clumsy with a sword the first time he tried to wield one, but found himself more interested in exploring than fighting. he had always wondered about the places tourists would come from, enraptured by fantasies of far-off lands he had yet to encounter.

eventually, he left nevivon and his sister to go travel to those places, in doing so uncovering a passion for medicine. he focused his studies in prakra, where he met nazali satrinava, sister of nadia satrinava who would later become countess of vesuvia and consequently the wife (and eventual widow) of count lucio. nazali was julian’s tutor in medicine, guiding him in the practice while they assisted wounded soldiers on the battlefield of the seemingly endless wars being waged at the time.

it was during this stage in his life that julian would meet lucio for himself, not as a count, but as a mercenary going toe-to-toe with vesuvia’s enemies himself. lucio had suffered a fatal wound to his arm, which julian had to amputate in order to save his life. he never considered that their encounter would ever lead to much more than that—he had operated on countless soldiers by that point, after all, and lucio was no different. however, when the previous count of vesuvia deemed lucio worthy of becoming his successor, julian was understandably surprised when the newly appointed count summoned him to become his court physician some years later when a mysterious plague broke out in the city.

he had already set up shop in vesuvia to lend his efforts to treating the plague, but being hired by the palace allowed him access to resources he previously didn’t have, so of course he accepted. it was during this time that a magician would come to apprentice under him to learn science and medicine in addition to their magic. julian attempted to perform his due diligence to his new ward at first, but quickly became absorbed in an obsession to find the cure for the red plague. it was because of his negligence that he didn’t notice his apprentice had contracted the plague themself, remaining none the wiser until they succumbed to it altogether. the guilt was nigh impossible to bear, especially when he started working alongside the magician’s companion, asra alnazar, who had come to the palace under invitation to offer his unique specialties to finding a cure as well.

as painfully awkward as it was in the beginning, though, julian regrettably developed an attraction to asra, and try as he might have to suppress it under the inappropriate circumstances, he was never very good at being subtle. asra eventually caught on and surprised julian by indulging him. nothing romantic—it was purely a physical liaison surely meant for nothing more than venting and relieving the stress of the times they were in. at least, that’s what it was on asra’s part. for julian, it was a little more...involved than that.

a simple attraction grew to be something more passionate, intimate, something utterly unrequited. julian knew, on some level, that it wasn’t mutual, but still he pursued it, allowing himself to be used at asra’s discretion for the simple joy of being close to him. he may have, at some point, convinced himself that there was a chance for something between the two of them, but that notion was quickly shut down the moment asra caught wind of it, along with every other part of their torrid affair.

knowing he had made one too many assumptions about their relationship, but still feeling rather torn up about how it all ended, julian threw himself back into his work tenfold. this was aided in part by count lucio, who had grown impatient with the lack of progress on a cure—even more so since contracting it himself—and thought that the best form of motivation would be to force a plague beetle down julian’s throat. after all, wasn’t it true that people grew more desperate when their own lives were at stake?

and so he did. julian all but secluded himself away in the dungeon beneath the palace in which he worked alongside the other plague doctors, headed by the courtier valdemar. they never struck julian as all too concerned with the plague, but more so the bodies it left behind. julian did his best to ignore them, the plague manifesting in his right eye within only a couple of days. having been a man of science all his life, it was with great reluctance that julian turned to...less orthodox studies. he still had a key to the shop asra had shared with his magician companion, so he took it upon himself to gather a few pieces of reading material for his own research.

julian eventually came across works of the major arcana, finding himself drawn to the hanged man in particular. he figured out a way to contact the hanged man and make a deal. upon doing so, he gained a magical marking on his throat that halted the progress of the plague within him and allowed him to heal himself and others. in addition to that, he learned from the arcana that count lucio himself was the source of the red plague, and only his death would bring it to an end. alas, when julian had returned to the mortal realm (locked in the dungeon by valdemar to “help him focus on his studies” and later freed by asra’s friend muriel) and raced to count lucio’s chambers to put an end to the plague once and for all, he found that the count’s room was already in flames, lucio’s body little more than charred ash. he was caught fleeing the scene, questioned by the courtier valerius, to whom he falsely admitted to killing the count, and made his grand escape to vanish from vesuvia for the next three years, completely unaware of the magical hijinx that had transpired that night.

dr. julian devorak, a name synonymous with "treachery" and "murderer" amoung the citizens of vesuvia. after making his great escape from the death sentence of being accused of the late count lucio's murder, he has returned to the great city with every intention of clearing his name or solving the mystery of his missing memories of that fateful night.

having cleared his name and solved the mystery of lucio's death and the red plague itself, julian rushes into the welcoming embrace of a life abroad. with his own ship to sail, he sets off to sea in search of excitement and adventure, his only destination wherever the wind sees fit to take him.

julian's insecurities and desperation have gotten the better of him. in a last ditch effort to protect those closest to him, he sacrifices himself to the devil's devices, taking on the unseemly appearance of something that is half man and half crow. doomed to remain in the arcana realms, he slides further and further from his grip on sanity and his own humanity. eventually, he will be no different than the royal courtiers.