Darlingverse/Flicker

Flicker: The Ingenious Constructor

Before Darling: Flicker was an exceptionally bright and endlessly curious forest gnome boy of around eight, whose hands were rarely still. His tiny workshop, usually a corner of his parents' cozy burrow in Waterdeep's North Ward, was filled with gears, springs, and half-finished contraptions. He'd spend hours dissecting broken toys and mechanical birds, driven by an insatiable desire to understand how they worked, and then to improve them. He was a natural innovator, often lost in the intricate workings of his own inventions.

Captured by Papa: One quiet afternoon, while engrossed in making a wind-up mouse scamper perfectly across his floor, Flicker felt a strange, damp cloth pressed over his face. The familiar scents of oil and wood shavings quickly gave way to a sickeningly sweet odor that sent him into a dizzying darkness. He remembered the feeling of being roughly bundled and carried away, his precious gears clattering uselessly against the sack.

Papa's Basement and the Void: His next fragmented memory was of waking to the chilling dampness of a stone floor, the air thick with a metallic tang he couldn't identify. He saw other children, small and terrified, huddled in rough cages, their whimpers echoing in the oppressive silence. Flicker's keen eyes tried to make sense of the shadowy figures, but then a towering, obscured form—Papa—approached one of the cages. A flash of unbearable, wrenching dread engulfed him, and the memory violently tore itself away, leaving a cold, empty void where the full horror should be.

Life in the Darlingscape: The Mind's Engineer: When Flicker awakened inside "The Golem's Canvas," he instinctively grasped the chaotic yet interconnected nature of this strange purgatory. His innate curiosity and drive to build became his purpose. He views this world as a complex, living mechanism that constantly needs maintenance, innovation, and occasional debugging. He's the tireless engineer of Darling's very essence, often found within the Grand Conjunction, fine-tuning its ethereal gears or devising new conceptual "systems" to keep their world from falling apart.

   With Elara: Flicker shares a profound intellectual bond with Elara. He provides the mechanical and structural genius for the magical concepts she devises, viewing her as the ultimate system architect. They collaborate constantly on understanding and improving Darling's fundamental functions.

   With Lyra: He appreciates Lyra's meticulous organization and her role in cataloging. Flicker sees her as essential for managing the vast datasets that run Darling's mind, ensuring his "machines" have reliable information.

   With Borin: While Flicker's inventions might sometimes seem whimsical to Borin, Flicker deeply respects the dwarf's understanding of solid foundations and structural integrity. Borin often provides the "physical" stability for Flicker's more abstract constructs.

   Antagonistic Towards: Flicker finds Grut's brute force and destructive tendencies antithetical to his delicate work, constantly worrying about the damage he might cause. He often views Kael's focus on simple, mundane practicality as a lack of vision, and finds Lysander's abstract grandiosity to be impractical and lacking in real-world (or mind-world) mechanics.