Adam ‘Birdsong’ Rahim
s p e c i e s Human
a g e 42
h e i g h t / w e i g h t 5"11 // 60kg
g e n d e r Male
s t a t s (All stats are on a scale of 1-20)
- Strength - 8
- Agility - 10
- Endurance - 14
- Will - 18
- Intelligence - 18
- Charisma - 14
s k i l l s - Arcane Adept - Adam has spent much of his life training in the ways of magic, and claims aptitude in several schools of spellcraft. His premier is healing, and the subtle art of repairing the body and soul.
- Desert Chemist - More than once has Adam recognised a mere weed as the last ingredient in a medicine that has saved a life. His former profession has taught him better than to rely on the logistics corps to create a working supply line, and to find faith instead in what you can get for yourself.
- Surgeon-Soldier - It would be awfully daring to claim that his swordsmanship is anywhere near as good as his skill at doctoring, and at surgery, but it's not like he's never used one or never gotten training with it. The rest of his education wasn't bad either.
- Linguist - There are some souls who die out there, in the freezing cold of the night, some of them dying alone; but not Adam. 'He who seeketh mine aid need not speak the language of my ears, only the words of my heart.' Half out of paranoia and half for the purposes of his job, Adam has taken to learning languages. He now speaks several of the more common ones fluently enough and has at least a familiarity with most of what you might find out there.
w e a p o n s- A Survival Knife, kept sharp, with a serrated reverse side. (one)
- A Steel longsword, slightly curved for ease of use and maintenance. (one)
- A Steel shortsword, with a straight blade for use in tight spaces. (one)
- A Hunting Bow, more for the utility than for any real fighting. (one)
a r m o r - Head - Layered cloth wrapping, for protection from the sun and the sand.
- Chest - Padded cotton, with two separate layers of dull, uncoloured silk. Around his waist there is in excess of three seemingly redundant, but strong and well made, leather belts.
- Left Arm - Cotton, with a brass band along the forearm
- Right Arm - Cotton, with an iron band along the forearm
- Left Leg - Padded cotton trousers, with flexible boots and an iron rod woven across the front like a sabaton.
- Right Leg - Padded cotton trousers, with flexible boots and a brass rod woven across the front like a sabaton.
e q u i p m e n t - Traveller’s Backpack
- Rations of dense bread, dried meats, and dried fruits. Utilitarian, but diverse and nutritious. Enough for three days assuming good rationing practice.
- A Doctor’s Bag, containing…
- Two rolls of cotton bandages, totalling 8m length between them
- A clay jar containing treated cotton fluff – used for fashioning dressings with bandages.
- A kit containing other components for a variety of wound dressings
- A set of herb and plant extracts in glass phials, labelled cryptically
- A pouch of small pills, made of a substance not unlike salt and clay, dried out – the pouch is labelled ‘for fevers’
- Three unlabelled jars, one clearly containing charcoal, the others containing creams or ointments of odd texture, cryptic purpose, and no smell.
- A set of primitive ceramic syringes with alloy needle tips
- A surgical and suture kit
- A wooden bowl, nicely sanded and varnished
- A decent bedroll and sleeping bag
- A jar of honey
- A bottle of very strong, neutral tasting alcohol
- A waterskin, about half full
- 9m’s worth of thin, strong cord
- A set of wooden rods
- 16 X Iron broadhead arrows
- A roll of string, 3m in length.
- A large sheet of fabric, about the size where it could be used as a cloak, the colour of sand. It’s normally draped over the rest of his backpack to cover it from sand.
- A flint, used with the serrated edge of his survival knife to start fires.
- A journal, and a charcoal pencil to write in it.
a p p e a r a n c eAdam Rahim stands at 5”11 and 60kg. He’s a reasonably skinny guy, toned enough to show his fitness but quite plainly below the average in terms of strength. His hair is dark, just showing the beginnings of silver touchings above his ears and through the peak of his beard; his skin is a dark tan, by birth and by the grace of the desert sun. He has a pleasant face with a nice, easy, resting smile, and warm eyes. On his face there is only one scar – a thin, largely faded blade mark, on the left side of his chin. It is normally hidden by his facial hair. Underneath his clothes, there are a number of other scars on his torso from stab wounds, a couple of what look like they might have been very serious abrasions or erosions, and one quite obvious burn on his right pectoral. These scars have not, however, marred the fine and intricate tattoo work on his shoulders and above his heart – fine black lines of script, arranged in beautiful and painstaking patterns - around a symbol of a staff and a single snake, coiling stylistically around the body of the staff. The staff itself is encircled by a black ring of the aforementioned script, and it is present on his chest (slightly to the left of the sternum, tilted to the right), and on both arms in smaller variants.
Though it is hardly common knowledge, these tattoos are the signifiers of rank and station within the Asperan military. His in particular show that he is a member of the medical corps, and that his position is as a battlefield surgeon and healer. There are subtle hints as well that he is a practitioner of magic, but these are concealed amongst the vows, oaths, and poetry of the rest of the text, easily visible only to those who know to look.
p e r s o n a l i t yAdam Rahim gained the nickname ‘Birdsong’ because there is no direct translation from the Asperan language’s word he was originally called by – the closest meaning in our language would be ‘a man whose heart belongs to birds’, or ‘someone very easily distracted by daydreams of places where birdsong echoes’. Needless to say it’s a lot more eloquent in that language – but it
is very telling about the man himself; he in indeed a daydreamer, and a starry eyed idealist, who grew up on beautiful stories about another place where forests grow and birds sing in the mists of morning. He is kind, thoughtful, and insightful, his life coloured by the paint of optimism and faith in human goodwill. Perhaps most marked, however, is his curiosity, and his love of adventure. He originally joined the army to ‘… go and see the world.’ It was wanderlust and the desire to go and see beautiful sights that first brought him to the Sunrunners Guild – he has yet to regret it.
l i k e sAdam is a man of relatively simple pleasures. He likes to see new things, he likes to revisit old things he's seen before, he likes to help people out, he likes a little wine...
- New sights and experiences
- Old sights and experiences he has fond memories of
- Lending aid to those in need, and the practice of medicine
- Wine - preferably cold, white wine.
- Bathing or splashing his face with cold water
- Recording his journeys in his diary
- Campfires with friends
- The sound of birds singing
d i s l i k e s- War
- The taste of fever medication
- Bad dreams
- Being confined indoors for long periods of time
- Dispassionate, cold, unfeeling people
- Doing harm
- Dusty hands
- Sandstorms, especially without shelter