Name
Rewan Treave
Age
31
Appearence
Treave is of medium height and lithely built, although a drinker of some competency and an eater of equal skill. His shock of dirty blonde is often tied back, and a thick beard lines his angular jaw. His nose is aquiline and hard; indeed, his face seems to be comprised of sharp lines and angles, though his cheeks soften his appearance to a degree. He is considered by many to be handsome--of particular notice are his eyes, light green in color, which have been more than a few ladies' fancy.
Race
Human
Diety
Methel the Fickle
Personality
Treave is, in a word, mercurial. He can be both cruel and kind, melancholy and merry, sardonic and sincere, charming and repulsive, hilarious and deadpan, all in a single moment. He is a maze to navigate, and leaves no clues to guide the unwitting. To some degree this is derived from the influence of Wild Magic, but Treave has, since his youth, been something of a rabble-rouser.
Skill
- Masterful: Illusion Magic
- Skilled: Wild Magic, Diplomacy
- Adept: Gambling, Elemental Magic
- Novice: Brawling, Athletics
Traits
- Educated Scholar: Rewan was educated from a young age, and has an at least cursory understanding, if not more, of history, natural philosophy, foreign languages, geography, arcana, etc. He is, however, most gifted at mathematics.
- Unpredictable: Due to the influence of Wild Magic on his psyche, Rewan is prone to sudden mood swings and sometimes erratic behaviors, although he is often unaware that he is doing so. Some think that he is simply eccentric, but it would be more appropriate to say that he is often unstable.
- Dirty Fighter: Rewan does not fight by the rules. A saying he learned in prison---"The fair are dead." He uses any and all resources available to him to deal the most damage he can. Against human opponents, this would earn him disrespect or distaste (though he would laugh at that), but against the Undying it is an advantage.
- A Man of Many Vices: Rewan has a weakness to fine wine, fine women, fine food, and fine coin (usually gotten from gambling). He despises it, but is unable to control himself despite his protests. Gambling especially is a kind of addiction to him.
Personal History
Rewan Treave was born to an affluent family of burghers in the city of Seredas, capital of Naul Rahn. His father (a merchant plying the iron trade with Operath) and mother had long endeavored to have a child, to no avail. When, finally, at the ripe age of thirty Eselda became pregnant, Rewan's father hosted a banquet for the ages in celebration, and husband and wife both drank themselves into stupors. From posterity's vantage, this, somewhat ironically, sets the tone for the life of the child that would come.
Being wealthy as he was, and after the custom of doting fathers, Kenver Treave tried to provide for his son the best of childhoods, and the most rigorous of educations. Certainly the boy was brilliant; his tutor, one Padrha, an elf, thought him to be one of the greatest students he had ever taught. His grasp of mathematics in particular was noted, and Kenver, adroit tradesman that he was, beamed at the thought of such a son taking up his craft. From an early age he was discovered to be magically skilled, and a separate instructor, Iaga, educated him in the various magical disciplines. He wanted for nothing. His parents were almost comically devoted to him, and his every need was satisfied circumspectly and even excessively.
Perhaps it was boredom, then, rather than some innate characteristic, that induced him to disturb the order of things. It is, of course, pointless to consider what might have been. It began, subtly, from the time that he was seven or eight, a kind of dissatisfaction, a nuisance, that grew ever greater, until he realized that to upend this coddled existence, to be a plague, an imp, a rascal, was his purpose and no other. The Treave parents had imagined it to be merely some momentary trouble that would, with time and education, pass. But, by the time Rewan was thirteen, they were not so certain, and, by sixteen, felt themselves to be failures.
The boy terrorized Padhra, brutalized the servants of the manor, tormented his parents. He snuck out under cover of night to lose himself in brothels and wineskins, only to be brought back, reeking of liquor and perfume, to his weeping parents' doorstep. His father lamented that all of his life's efforts would be for naught, for no one would replace him after he died. Apropos, Eselda herself died not long after, from a severe case of lullwater fever.
Following Eselda's death, Kenver lost all control of his son. Rewan, unofficially, took up residence with a whore he claimed to have fallen in love with, and returned home only intermittently. What's more, he had taken up the vice that would come to dominate his life: gambling. Even without magical aid, he was a natural. He won exorbitant sums of coin. He bought himself a new wardrobe and went about like a dandy. He purchased he and his lover a small home on the waterfront, and was known to hold ridiculous fetes and galas each night. He once even won a small fleet from a drunken merchant, but lost it in the following round, to the former's great relief.
To augment his winnings, he, most craftily, used Illusion. He changed the readings of dice, the color and suit of cards, before his opponents' eyes, and for a time attracted no suspicion. He was, of course, cognizant of the perils of such a practice, and thus went about it with finesse and subtlety. He allowed himself to lose, and many times even affected the outcome of a certain draw or throw to be in favor of his opponent. But he gleaned the lion's share of the earnings.
Despite himself, Rewan never thought of stealing from his father, although he could have, quite simply, had he wished it so. Even with his burgeoning purse, he declined to make any gifts to his solitary parent. "We are too different, he and I," he mused aloud one night to Pia, the aforementioned whore, "And we will never be able to reconcile those differences. It's simply the way it is." One particularly drunken evening, a few weeks later, however, he was dealt an unfortunate blow---he lost, unexpectedly, nearly half of his earnings to a crafty dwarf. In trying to gain it back, he lost some more. He and his challenger shared an appraising look, and in that instant it was obvious that both of them were Illusionists of some caliber. To reveal this secret, of course, would be to bring their own to light. And thus, irrevocably, they became enemies. "You owe me a debt, Treave," the dwarf began, bemusedly, "And I'd like to have it.
Tomorrow." He pushed back his chair, and with a regal air, took his leave.
His ruin had begun. It was only an hour after midnight---still enough time to turn the tides. He crept into his father's house, and stumbling (he was quite drunk), managed to steal into the secret place where the family fortune was hidden. With this sum in hand (still far beneath the debt he owed to the dwarf), he could win enough, and then some, to pay the due and restore, at least in part, his father's wealth.
But, as if by some caprice of fate, Rewan's fortunes were not favored that night. Due to his inebriation he found it difficult to focus, and his magical efforts consistently foundered. By the early hours of the morning, he had lost more than he had gained, and even the most ardent gamblers cut their losses and went to bed. He wandered the streets, restlessly, until dawn found him at his father's door. He replaced what little money remained him of the stolen fortune, and passed out on the floor.
He awoke, sweating, at noon, and found his father standing above him. They shared a wordless look, and he promptly left.
He was captured that night, on the road to Operath, and remained imprisoned for the following seven years. He was nineteen years old. A few days afterwards, having comprehended the scale of his ruin, Kenver Treave committed suicide by drinking poison along with his evening brandy, and went peacefully to the beyond. Rewan did not learn of this until after his release.
His incarceration, of course, changed him. Despite himself, he gambled with what little had value within the prison's walls. This got him into trouble, especially when his dejected opponents learned that they had been cheated. So he learned to survive, to fight, to be brutal. And most importantly, he was taught, from a one-eyed old dog, the furtive arts of Wild Magic. This produced in him the greatest changes of all, though they manifested themselves subtly. He began to think, after a time, that he was slowly going mad. And perhaps he was.
Following his release from prison, he imagined himself change for the better, but news of his father's death shook him profoundly. His former lover was nowhere to be found, and no family was left to him. He felt completely and utterly alone, and knew that the blame was entirely his.
So he left Seredas. Traveled the face of Ailthun. Gambled, because he could not help himself. Won and lost. Engaged in love affairs and fought in lovers' quarrels. Tried out various occupations, and failed at most. He even, on occasion, killed, if the coin was good enough, and the object despicable enough. Even in his degeneracy, he could not abandon the ethics that he had been taught, and that he knew implicitly to be true. He felt, on the whole, empty. Listless. Drifting about his life. What had any of his travails ever earned him? He was brilliant but knowledge got him little, save for the affections of ladies too shy to admit their interest; he, at times, wished that he could be ignorant, for he would probably be happier. He was skilled in magic, but used it for his own benefit, or for violence, which, along with gambling, was one of the few things he felt himself to be truly good at. And gambling...a vice which he could not escape. Money gave him nothing but momentary satisfaction, and yet he could not help but want it, earnestly need it, not even to eat, or drink, or pay his rents, but to cure some indescribable craving. He recognized all of this, but did not, or could not, change any of it. He felt it impossible, or perhaps even unnecessary. Before he was even thirty years old, he thought that his life was over, and he waited numbly for a random death.
Then, one cold day in Belia's Cradle, he first heard of the Duchess's quest. He was, as everyone was, well aware of the threat of the Undying, but he did not really care about it. In a perverse way, he was excited by it, fascinated by it. But he had never imagined that he himself would go himself to fight against it. The coin on offer was good, of course. That was a requisite. He had, over five years, accrued some debts, and they would soon come to collect; he was, of course, not keen on repeating an experience with which he was quite familiar. And so he went to join the Duchess's little crusade, that paltry effort to save the world--packed his meager belongings, kissed his erstwhile bed-warmer goodbye, and went off. It was money that moved him, and knowledge too. But also, in some dim and secret place, he hoped that the crusade would give him something to believe in, something to fill the emptiness in which he had lived for five of the longest years of his life. He could not remember the last time he had believed in anything. Perhaps, he thought, it was naive to hope.
But he hoped. He hoped.
Weapons and Armor
Rewan wears light armor---leather and mail, with calfskin boots, leather gloves, and a rich traveling cloak. Belted at his side is a sword of Operath make. A wizened elm staff he uses as a focus for the more taxing Wild Magic, though Illusion he can carry out without its usage.
Misc Gear and Possessions
WIP
