They were recruited from a young age to the demon hunters, so they've had years of training. They didn't start off as being capable. His sister only rescued him months after they were attacked, and with the help of others who were genuinely skilled.

Most of his skills are useless in combat and are only really for entertaining people, which wouldn't come up for a while because his personality means he won't be very quick to go all artsy on everyone. Also, for his magic, it's explicitly the result of the experimentation, and he doesn't have very good use of it yet. It's not really powerful, and he has poor control of it. I planned on it mostly being a way to bolster his weapon use. 

Am I underestimating how good a novice would be at things? I assumed a novice medic would be somewhere along the lines of, "knows how to usr basic field medical supplies, like a bandage." I explicitly stated he wasn't very good at practical applications of his skills, but I figured having a decent knowledge of those skills would bump it up to "novice". I can make them untrained if you want?

Am I also underestimating journeyman? I once again stated specifically he was by no means archmage material. I can change that to novice or even untrained if you want. He's not supposed to be an ultimate deathknight or anything. More of a scared kid conscripted into military service.

The mask is because of how the experiments warped him. He's gray and has horns. I'm assuming that, since the populace is mostly human, that that would make him appear monstrous to most folk. He hides his appearance for that reason.

He was born human.

His personality is sort of an exaggeration of the jerk with a heart of gold trope, with some nerdiness thrown in. He's not a crazy sociopath, he won't just run off during a fight on impulse. However, he makes bad decisions and tactical errors under pressure, and is kind of an asshole. So he could ignore the order to retreat for a few moments and get himself or someone else hurt, or say something stupid at the wrong time and land himself or others in hot water, but he's not going to straight up fuck everyone over intentionally.

And the armor resistance was because he was a demon hunter. I figured it made sense for them to ward themselves against their main foes. I didn't want it to weaken Thorn's magic because then if the armor were removed he'd be more powerful magically. I didn't want to think of a way to give him two different power levels, and it's a weak enchantment anyways, so I figured it wouldn't affact his own magic.

The second loss of family was more to bring him into his current situation than to add more woobiness. I didn't really plan on him angsting a lot truth be told, I planned for his interactions to be more lighthearted than anything.

All good critiques and valid concerns. Mary-sue is definitely inaccurate though. This character isn't perfect at all. His weapon skills and magic are counterbalanced by poor teamwork and an overly aggressive fighting style. He's not pretty, he's not very smart, he's not powerful. 

That said, I'll edit him and see if I can bring him to the standards of this roleplay.

Edit: Oh, and remember Thorn has a severe weakness to magic. His resistance to dark magic would have made him very useful as a demon slayer, and against datk magic he's definitely op to the max.

Against an apprentice mage a single weak fireball will ignite him. I honestly meant for that to be a pretty crippling weakness.