And Van shall be reborn!
Name: Eldvanar Skölgrimm is his birth name but is more commonly known as Van the Frostborn
Age: 22
Height/Weight: 5’10’’ or 1.78 meters tall, 155 lbs or 70.3 kg.
Appearance: A wiry five foot ten inches, Van is short for the people of Muraad and has yet to fill out. He also doesn’t quite match the complexion and build of his nearest neighbors. He has unruly dark red-auburn hard, and slightly hooded ice blue eyes. They have a tendency to develop dark bags when sleep deprived. Van possesses an aquiline profile, with a slightly hooked nose and pointed chin with slow but full growing beard. Van has abnormally pointed canines, and an old white scar running along just under his left cheekbone. Slightly hooded eyes, with a frequent tendency to get dark bags under his eyes when more than slightly sleep deprived.
AppearanceVan has long slender fingers, with significant calluses on knuckles pads, and palms. He has large heavily muscled forearms, dotted with molten metal burn scars from crafting, smithing and archery. Consequently, he has large heavily built shoulders despite his wiry frame and has a bite scar on upper left bicep from a wolf. Another bite scar is on his right thigh. There are several more scars from light slashes across his chest, back and stomach.
Following the old traditions of Muraad, male children are tattooed at a young age as a rite of passage to adult life. Usually done by the village head or another wise figure blessed by extraordinary sight, the tattoo is not only a representative of an adult but their path through life. Instead of the traditional age of twelve, Eldvanar was tattooed by his adopted father En Skøld at the age of 6. Despite the amount of growing left, Skøld was able to tattoo the young boy with such skill that only at full growth will all the images be revealed. The tattoo is an intricate blue and black geometric tattoo with assorted scenes embedded within it. The tattoo covers from the right bicep to left pectoral and shoulder blade, and from join of right shoulder to neck down to right hip.
Only three scenes are currently visible in the tattoo. The first is a serpent dragon fighting a giant wolf with a great hawk overhead waiting to strike on the right pectoral. The second is a ruined mountain top in the middle of lightning storm. Two giant figures, one of light from the store, and one of fire on the ruined mountain clash with a god of ice preparing for combat from a surrounding fjord. It is located on the side of the right shoulder on the deltoid. The last is still too small to be clearly seen, but appears to be a raging sea scene.
Personality: Van is bitter, haunted by past memories and ideologies, and broods frequently. He is ruthless and ambitious with a mercurial temper with a tendency to hold grudges. His revenge tends to be inventively brutal, and he prefers to permanently end threats. Van is usually arrogant and brash, and will be impulsive if his emotions are running hot. Van is independent, cynical and untrusting. He also is usually clever rather than wise. Past experiences has created a revulsion to drunkenness.
Van struggles with faith to Varya. Not only was he not raised to the faith of Varya, but the idea of god that is less than supreme with other equals causes problems. Nonetheless, the power demonstrated by Varya causes a conundrum. Van is extremely well-versed in scripture, given his training in memorization, and can debate cleverly. However, the doctrine and dogma mean nothing to him on a spiritual level, as dictates of men seem irrelevant with a living breathing god. Sometimes it can be a comforting routine, well it is normally a minor irritation for having to go through the motions.
Talents/Abilities:
Physical Abilities: While well versed in the theory of a wide variety of weapons, the only three he displays any talent in are the bow, the spear, and the rifle. While skilled in unarmed combat, his slight build and size reduce his capabilities to just better than average, and he is clumsy with a sword. Van excels in endurance. Not only do most bitterly cold environments cause no discomfort, he can hike and port far more than might be expected. The counterpoint is that he lacks a certain raw, explosive strength.
Magical Abilities: Another area was Van is skilled in theory and poor in practice. While he can comprehend most of abilities, he cannot consciously perform more than the minimum required basics. He continues to practice and improve, if very slowly. He possesses two magical skills that he uses unconsciously at times. The first seems to derive from gods, and is shaping and creation of ice. The energy taken away is transferred to Van. While somewhat addicting, it is both random and has stubbornly refused all conscious control.
Unending Vigor: Van’s sole well-performed magical skill has been performed from birth. He very efficiently converts ether into physical endurance and energy. It sustains and regenerates his body so as long as the initial wounds or a serious infection doesn’t kill him and he has a supply of energy or ether to draw on, he will eventually heal, and a rate between 10% and 20% faster than anyone else.
Background: Eldvanar Skölgrimm was found by his adopted father in the Ice Wastes as he prospected for lead sands and blood vine. The infant was found in swaddling clothes covered in frozen blood on a frozen slick of red ice. Despite what might have been a day of exposure in one of the harshest places on the continent, the young boy was still alive. Skøld scouted around the area for clues to his past, but other than generic traces of a fight and scavenging from animals. Had Skøld been of the Muraad, he would have left the boy alone in the wastes to die. Infants who survived the Wastes for more than a night were Frostborn, loved by the gods of ice with hearts just as cold. Skøld saw the boy’s fringe of red hair and took it as portents to other things, and retrieved the boy to live with him for his own ends.
Old En Skøld was a foreigner to the small rural town of Arvska, home of a well-known but small crystal works. The one-eyed gray haired man had arrived five years earlier and had quickly and quietly made himself indispensable as a tinker, a craftsman, a smith, and a tattoo artist. Brilliant but mad, old Skøld was a master with his long clever fingers and fever-bright eyes that could clearly see into the heart of things. Prone to uttering heresy when drunk, bringing home a cursed infant did little to change their opinion of the man. Too rural to be able to afford to get rid of the probable T’saraen and his vital skills and inventions, they settled for a grudging respect, a subdued hate and fearful awe.
Skøld couldn’t care less, hiring a prostitute to take care of the boy he named Eldvanar for a year during the day and provide him enough milk until he could be weaned. During the intervening time, he continued to prospect and eventually found a new source of lead for the crystal works. The deposit revitalized the works and made the old man rich enough to continue with his experiments, with his percentage of earnings supplemented with the occasional bloodvine harvest. The color made from a brilliant red dye preferred by the church, the sap a powerful and controlled narcotic, and the fiber tough and insulating fabric. After the first year, Skøld took the young boy everywhere with him, and when he turned four, Skøld began expecting the young boy to begin learning and punishing him for failure. The beatings were the most severe for failing to remember the Skøld’s tales of gods and religion, like the man with fire for eyes, or the one-handed fighter with a sword for justice. The latter was in strict contrast to the old man’s bitter words and the back of his hand for failure.
Once Van could memorize a new tale a day, Skøld began his tattoo. Unlike the work of the rest of the Muraad had to reveal their heart’s truth, Van’s was to form a truth and a path. Beginning when Van was six years old until he was eight, the intricate working was Skøld’s masterpiece. At the time, the detailed scenes were not yet visible, and the completion represented the height of Van’s belief in the harsh old man. It also marked the beginning of some independence for the young boy. Allowed to visit the town, Van was not only ridiculed, but also beaten by some of the village boys. While Skøld began training the boy to fight, the doubt began to creep into Van’s mind. To the young boy, even Skøld’s harsh training and burgeoning skills couldn’t armor him from the attitudes and ideas of the villagers.
As the questioning began, the beatings grew worse. Skøld began to drink more and his work began to slip more, exacerbating the issue. As Van began to take over more the duties, crafting and hunting, Van lost faith in old Skøld. Even the spear training, of which the old man had peerless skill, was another excuse to break Van’s will and mold him into the mad dreams of the heretic. The grand ambitions to steal all the ether from the gods, tame the raging ice storms in the same way, and create gods out of men lost their appeal. If Skøld’s dreams of gods solely for humanity existed at all, why the world was covered in ice and only fractured gods of the titan of ice remaining? What proof was there for a titan of fire, and how could Skøld rekindle his essence at all? Other inconsistencies widened the cracks, and Skøld’s permission for solo hunting missions gave time for the young boy to brood sullenly. The final straw came when Skøld came home barely coherent from booze after a poor visitation to a local prostitute and began beating the boy in a black rage. Van was beaten so badly he couldn’t move for days, and in the coherent periods between the hazy periods of pain, he decide to run away. It took him six months to gather all the materials, craft the necessary goods, and cache it all away from the increasingly brutal and suspicious old man.
Van ran away at twelve during the waning of a brutal blizzard. Half his caches were lost but the stubborn youth refused to concede defeat. During the next three months he trekked towards what he thought was a large town to sell his skills. Unfortunately, his cartography was poor in comparison to his survival skills and become hopelessly lost. Half-starving, Van made the mistake straying into the expanding territory of a dire wolf pack. Luckily, the pack had also drawn the ire of the local monastery and a party of inquisitors were sent out to quell the threat. Drawn by the noise of Van defending himself, they rescued the boy from being savaged by a wounded wolf, with two dead pack members not far off.
The head of the party, Father Tovio Rolvson ordered to the boy to be treated and held at their camp for investigation. In a simple test of endurance to the cold, the simple brutal father ordered the bandaged youth exposed to the elements for the night to have Varya judge him for trespassing on their lord’s lands, even inadvertently. It would also conveniently save on paperwork if the boy died, as they could just report finding the youth frozen. Proving the Muraad legend true once again, Van managed to hang on through a mild storm with no more than a few minor cases frostbite. Father Tovio considered the sign versus the commensurate paper work and deemed that if truly was frostborn and loved by the gods, Varya would keep him alive through the rest of the hunt. Tovio outlined his plan simply, if Van managed to survive the hunt while essentially being bait, Tovio would overlook his offense, treat him, and would foster him.
Van soon realized that he had traded his old master for an even more brutal one. While he managed to barely survive the hunt, the brief three month stint at the monastery was less than pleasant. Food was still low, and Van was fed barely enough to survive in the icy halls. They worked him mercilessly doing scut work and instructing him for half a year in the tenets of Varya. Despite his extremely deficient starting point, the memorization ability drilled into Van by Skøld allowed him to catch up with ease. Soon Father Tovio decided to both ease his logistics concerns and garner points for a talented disciple and sent Van off to the Red Seminary.
Already inured to brutal conditions, the physical and mental training of the seminary was less of an issue to him with a few exceptions. Weak in the classical grounding most candidates imbibed from their families, Van struggled to initially excel. Similarly, his slight build and late growth spurt made training in most weapons painful, and Van concentrated on archery, the spear and the rifle in comparison to all else. The most difficult aspect of the seminary was neither of these things, but rather the social interaction and arts required to fit in. Frequent clashes with bullies, a tendency towards sullen brooding and a crippling issue with trust cause Van to struggle with making comrades. The few he does possess he defends with ruthless vigor.
Quote: Knowledge without power is useless. Power without knowledge is wasted. The only man to fear is one who possesses both.
P.S. I am still going to repost my first post with a few small changes. It deserves to be re-written though so I will have some time get on that.
