Torin Kelsar

Torin’s earliest memories are of the city’s scrapyards, where the rusty rain sings on spent pistons and every bolt is a possible key to a new invention. He learned to read wind and weight, to judge the value of a scrap by the sound it makes when struck, and to disappear into the metal-smelling night with a bundle of gleaming trinkets on his person. His family was transient at best—small-time scavengers who moved with the tides of fortune, never staying long enough to know a neighbor’s name. When Torin was ten, a riot among the alley gangs turned the street into a furnace. A warehouse collapsed, trapping dozens of workers and collapsing the once-quiet life of a boy who had just learned the value of a good lockpick. He watched in horror as the fire raged, and in that moment something within him shifted. He could feel metal tug toward him with a gravity he couldn’t name, could hear the soft clicking of mechanisms begging to be set to work. The trauma split his world into Before and After, and in the After he discovered the Scorpio sigil waking within him, a power to pull metal from a distance, to coax it to his hands with only a thought. The power was exhilarating and terrifying, a living reminder of what had been lost and what could be built again.

For years Torin lived on the edges of law and order, a ghost among cranes and rail lines, never staying in one city long enough to be noticed by the wrong people. He started calling himself a “scrap-smith” and perfected the art of turning detritus into devices that could either inspire awe or conceal a retreat. The stars visible from the rooftops would seem to point him toward a future where his gift could become a force for good, but the ache of that night always lurked beneath the gears. The Starchaser Academy finally offered him a path: disciplined study, mentors who knew how to temper wild magic with careful craft, and a network of like-minded youths who saw danger as a tool to be wielded rather than a fate to fear. Here, he learned to focus the pull of metal into useful channels—crafting spring-loaded traps that could retrieve scattered scraps from a distance, or delicate clamps that could lift nails from a fuse without detonating a charge. He learned to work with others, to listen for the stories a machine tells, and to translate those stories into plans and prototypes.

Torin’s ambitions are simple yet perilous. He wants to become a master of metal and machine, one who can fix what others discard and protect those who cannot protect themselves. He seeks the truth behind the catastrophic night—whether it was a cruel accident, a deliberate strike, or something greater at play—and hopes to bring the responsible party to justice, or at least to light. He knows the power of his Scorpio-given ability is a blade: it can heal, but it can also wound if misused. His journey at the academy is as much about restraint as it is about skill, about learning when to act and when to observe, and about choosing allies who understand that power must be tempered by responsibility.

Despite his sharp edges and silvered tongue, Torin remains a boy at heart who still counts coins from a successful salvage and pockets a clever trinket for luck. He is a friend to the curious and a foe to those who would weaponize knowledge. His path is uncertain and winding, but the promise of mastery—over both metal and fate—gleams as brightly as the copper coils that hang from his belt.