Name: Karl Eisenach
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Appearance:
Military service made the young Karl develop his physique rather well, being lucky enough to be tall and somewhat handsome, though his glasses and educated looks do betray his nature as more of an indoor person in his free times. It is notable that for a man of his rank and his wealth, the man is noticeably well dress and figure well kept, habits left from his young age as the son of a tailor.
Personality:
Eisenach seems like an unapproachable person at first glance and by all records it once was the case, but his time on the front line softened his somewhat rigorous and cold attitude toward the outside. He sees people as deserving of respect until proven otherwise and despite his obvious importance on first impression, with how fanatically he grooms himself, he's willing to give people a chance no matter who they are or how they look. He tends however, to give people only that one chance. This is because Karl is a decisive person, that hates people that are long winded or cannot make a decision as well as one who is certain of his own views and not prone to change them.
Specialties:
Primary:
-Chemical Gas Alchemy: His expertise, the transmutation of the elements primarily into chlorine gas, but also other noxious and poisonous agents.
-Stormtroop Veteran: Developed from the trial and errors of his unit in the north, in the fight against Drachma. Pushing out entrenched enemies using shock and awe is what his career is built on.
Secondary:
-Mechanical Engineering: While he can use alchemy to do repairs and constructs, he doesn't like it. 'Too stiff somehow' as he says it, and prefers to manually interact with the pieces. He's decent at repairing things ranging from weapons to automobiles, enough to make them work at least.
-Sewing: He might not be a tailor like his father, but he prides himself never having to get some prole to repair his clothing.
-Drawing: His true passion.
Tertiary:
-Medical Alchemy: Enough to prevent someone from bleeding out while real help gets here.
State Title: Captain Eisenach, the Creeping-Cloud Alchemist
History:
Born in Altheim, Central District, Karl was the son of a tailor turned industrialist involved in synthetic dye production. It never really was in his interest to go about the family business since he already had older siblings to take over. While he originally wanted to be an artist, his father demanded that he didn't have a useless profession and one that could help the family business. Chemistry seemed like a good option and in the end he disliked it. That meant he flunked his exams and unfortunately, that meant he now had to do military service.
Amestris is... or rather was, a nation constantly at war so conscription was natural and to Karl's displeasure, he was sent in the north, to stare at the Drachmen and eventually, to fight them. He started in a unit of fresh recruits and saw a lot of his friends die in the clumsy start of the war, the only thing saving them from their incompetence being how the soldiers from Drachma were even worst! Slowly they learned but so did the enemy as this escalated constantly, each side trying to edge the other in abilities and tactics.
It was during this time that Karl learned how honor didn't shield you from bullets and applied some of the things he had learned. A by-product of synthetic dye was extremely toxic and volatile chemicals he had studied longly and as it turns out, Chlorine is a natural element. He didn't have the technological means to try what he wanted and so dabbed into alchemy, his little tricks on the enemy slowly becoming more and more elaborate as he poisoned entire trenches, forcing them into the open for his comrades to clear out, this eventually attracted the attention of a real state Alchemist who saw talent in his amateurish work and thus encouraged him to study more formally, giving him the material to better himself.
And then, the war ended. And Karl was pissed. All this time and effort, all these dead and so very, very close to victory! And the new führer, Mustang, decided to do peace with Drachma, without asking for an inch of land, for a Cenz of compensation! Karl felt betrayed like never before, that all of this meant nothing! Not only in the north, but in the south where Ishbal was left... free to go! Just like that, all of the war for nothing. All of it for what, friendship that would be forgotten in a generation? To allow Xing access to modern military equipment, modernize and become a menace to the next generation as well?
Ultimately Karl was of course being kept in the dark, like most of the population and army, about what Bradley did, but it only infuriated him more and worked to make it seem like Mustang was a Xing puppet! A plotter that won his place by a coup d'État! At least Bradley won the wars. Karl agrees: Amestris needs change and its not as a little artist or tailor he'll help. If becoming a state Alchemist makes him better placed to see that the traitor Mustang sees justice, then he'd become one.
Equipment:
-Bayonet: He keeps it in his boot to shank people in case of emergency.
-Lucky Piss Rag: ...Its been cleaned, of course, but never will he forget how crudely he had to protect himself from his own chemicals when it all began, a rag soaked with piss being the most basic and available filter for chlorine. He's never been hit by a bullet ever since he started using his piss rag and although he now has a gas mask, he still carries it around as a lucky charm.
-Military Boots: Just a pair of well worn, although extremely well maintained boots. Well, a little more, the transmutation circle of his chlorine gas cloud is under each boot, printing it on the earth he walks. Otherwise, its chalk circles for him.