CLAUDE
"What’s locked will be unlocked, what’s hidden will be found. What’s yours will be mine"
Claudius ♦ 24 ♦ Male ♦ Chaotic Neutral
Vasilius is a city of extreme diametric opposition. On one hand it is the uncontested seat of the throne, a place where nobility and the rich can truly lose themselves in all that the capital has to offer, where they can forget horrors of the land like the stone blight. But on the other side, it is a place of cruel temptation, the poor, the street rats, the forgotten, look up at manors of unfathomable size, hawk their meagre wares towards educated and aloof nobility, and are forever reminded of their pitiful state beneath the shadow of the Garland Citadel.
One such member of this downtrodden rabble found herself swept away with the charm and elegance of a newly shored “sailor”, though all the signs pointed towards their relationship not being a lasting one she grew attached to the hope and comfort that he gave her. Despite the outright contempt her family had for her new partner (as well as their lack of trust in his profession) the two moved in together and would eventually bare a son they would name Claudius, a noble name for a peasant boy.
As Claudius grew up he felt torn between the growing contempt his parents shared for each other. His father was often away for months at a time on sea and on his return Claudius’ mother would be seemingly distraught with any gold or jewels he offered her, referring to them as “blood trinkets”. When his father was around he was very often drunk or getting into fights with his crew, he did seem to take an interest in teaching his son skills he himself had learned, how to crack open a safe, how to tie and climb ropes and even later how to swing from them with an artistry Claudius had thought his father incapable of. The teaching that had caused the most violent argument between his parents when his mother found out about it however, was how to pickpocket.
The way his father had phrased everything Claudius had always felt like they were simply playing games but his mother tore into her “beloved” when she learned of it, stating under no uncertain terms that their son we’d become someone “like him”. It was then that Claudius’ father struck his mother when Claudius realized what it was she was talking about, very quickly Claudius turned against his father and the combined hatred from his wife and son made his father further enraged, he decried both members of his family and left, taking any of his money he could find with him and set sail, neither Claude or his mother ever saw him again.
The following months were hard one for Claude, with the main breadwinner gone he was forced to spend his time begging for scraps on the richer streets and avoiding guards who would shoo him off at best or haul him in on suspicious intent at worst. His cynicism and disillusionment grew as his formerly kind and caring mother became emotionally withdrawn and ambivalent towards their situation. When Around the time Claudius became a teenager, she killed herself, leaving behind a sorrowful message to her son. What little shred of hope and optimism he had left died in Claudius that day, so much so that as he was being escorted to live with his mother’s parents he quite simply and suddenly ran from his escorter and into the slums where finding him would be an arduous task. Alone and on the run the first few weeks would be an extreme test of survival for Claude, but he began using the skills his father had taught him. Occasionally a bar patron would find a few gold pieces missing from his pocket, later it turned into a stall vendor looking back at his inventory to find himself missing one loaf of bread.
In present day Claude has graduated from pickpocketing and petty thefts to becoming, at least in his own mind, a “master thief”. The days of him begging nobility for handouts has long left him, now he takes from them what he eneeds with impunity. The first few years of thievery were touch and go but with his will to survive and “a few well made contacts” Claude has carved out a comfortable if terribly lonesome existence of self sustaining. But as with seemingly everything else in the land, the stone blight has caused a number of issues in his line of work. The wealthy are far less inclined to launch exorbitant parties and parade around their gold and objects of worth, there is a downturn in just about all of Claude’s prime means of thievery, travellers are down, hope is in sharp decline and people are dying.
Claude suspects that the suddenness of this blight and its ferocity can’t simply be a cause of nature, but he is hardly any type of educated scholar, what he is however is someone not interested with the prospect of becoming a decrepit statue. So by any means Claude seeks answers, and believes he will get them from the darkest corner with the greatest view.
Ω A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
//ABILITIES:
◼ Velvet Tread & Lightning Hands | Claude is, first and foremost, a thief. His mode of movement in general revolves around people (his target’s especially) never even knowing he was there, to that end Claude has trained his body to move with the grace of a dancer, lest his career in burglary come to a swift and decisive end.
◼ An Eye For Detail | The traditional term is “casing a joint”, Claude hs spent much of his time estimating the value of a target and whether or not the risk is worth it, further he is able to make some surprisingly observant (if typically cynical or sarcastic) thoughts on a person from a few sentences. His most reliable observations however come from when he is scouting a route, a window left ajar, a crack in the walls, sooner or later Claude will find it, he has to, after all he can’t go through the front door.
//SKILLS:◼ The Unwelcome Guest | A big part of Claude’s job is infiltration, he has an agile frame and lightness of movement that makes climbing and scaling come as easy as walking. Further Claude has honed his skills as a locksmith and is able to extend his talents to doors, safes, windows and more or less the majority of contraptions nobles like to keep their jewelry in, however he can only do these complex locks when he has some variety of tools on his person.
◼ Aim True & Arm Steady | Whilst Claude is hardly the peak physical specimen he’s not typically one for blades or blunt objects, or really typical weaponry in general save for a dagger, not much use for them in his line of work. A bow on the other hand is one of Claude’s most valued possessions, interestingly however he rarely uses it for offensive purposes, typically using it more as a tool in tandem with custom made “rope arrows” to make scaling things like towers or high walls easier. Regardless Claude’s aim and familiarity with a bow is not a skill to be underestimated.
//LIMITATIONS:◼ The Folly Of Genetics | The life of a poor orphan is not typically one which is good for building mass and fitting in daily training regimes, whilst Claude has been able to hone and develop his skills in athletics and can use his speed in a fight if it's absolutely necessary, his frame and armour is just not suited to taking punishment from larger opponents.
◼ A Gentleman Thief Is A Dead One | Whilst Claude does have certain…. Moral restrictions even he won’t fall below (chiefly because there’s not much profit in it) he is still by no means a very good person, or even a pleasant one. Claude can be sarcastic, disparaging and sometimes plain vindictive, this is so as to always keep anyone he must interact with at an emotional distance, thievery is a lonely business, but a thief with a lot of friends simply has more people able to stab him in the back if history has taught Claude anything.
//WEAKNESSES:◼ For The Man Who Has Everything... | Naturally Claude can be comically greedy, whilst on the job he is the epitome of focused, he has a tendency to overlook a job’s risk depending on the payout when it comes time to plan his next move, this has resulted in several close encounters and while he seems to be mellowing from this with age and experience a very simple way to entice Claude into doing most anything is a hefty bag of gold.
◼ Consummate Professional | Claude is a thief, not an assassin. Whilst his hands aren’t exactly “bloodless” Claude avoids killing (or even leaving a body in general) wherever possible, he’ll tell you that it’s the mark of a true professional to be able to not even need to resort to such measures and because it runs the risk of people coming after you and things getting “messy” but it’s clear that deep down he has moral convictions against needlessly taking a life.
◼ Though Claude makes a tidy profit from his job, a commoner flashing around that type of cash would quickly be marked as a thief, due to this Claude is more or less forced into keeping tabs on his spending, hiding his larger stashes in well concealed dead drops and keeping any frivolous purchases securely under wraps. And he is quite bitter about it.
