Tortoise
World Traveler
TokyoPewPew
Timemaster
Sylvan
Fading Memory
X Fiendfyre X
Khandov
Andronicus23
Lucid Dreaming
Manny's a 24 year old guy who's just trying to find his way in the big wide world. 6'6, but skinny as a rake and with about as much experience with grass, he's nothing overly remarkable, despite the raggedy braids. He rocks around in a beat up old Chevy pickup, he always has a smile on his face and a beer in the backseat, next to his prized violin. Despite appearances, he's not as broke as he would seem at first. A steady income from busking, working as a sandwich artist and selling just a little weed on the side. He's also a mean card player when it comes to blackjack, although he doesn't play for money very often. Matchsticks is fine for him.
Manny is a downbeater. He hears the beat as an endless country fiddle song, bowing and bowing as the background to his life. His particular powerset is focused around empathetic abilities, as well as aiding others. He can innately sense the mood around him like nobody else can, and more than that, can influence it. Many a fight has been disarmed before it began by a few easy words from Manny, and he's not exaggerating when he shows off the notches on his belt. Perhaps a little unethical, but he doesn't see it that way. His other powers include being able to increase the potency of fellow beathearers's abilities, as well as minor healing- he can't bring someone back from the brink, but setting a bone or mending a slip with the kitchen knife aren't an issue for him.
Shockingly, Manny's parents weren't huge on 'The Man.' In an age of ever increasing connectivity and straight-lacedness, his parents were quite the opposite. His grandparents attended Woodstock, smoked dope and got through life, and his parents were Boomers to the extreme. Only a life of ignoring modern technology and the fact that they're decidedly average have stopped them from being Yuppies, and Manny's friends were all of a similar ilk. His family holidays were to nudist camps, his parents would smoke a six pack a day and tell him not to do the same, and he grew up hearing about the evils of corporations and how Mother Nature isn't always something to be ignored.
Thankfully, however, that wasn't his entire upbringing. Modern school taught him the values of 'Big Pharma,' and he's a relatively well-rounded person. Whilst he considered taking a major in botany, the obscene prices of student loans, coupled with a want to do his own thing in life meant that he took a year backpacking, where he picked up playing violin in order to earn a bit of cash on the road. He's visited every six out of seven continents in the world, but returned to his native US just in time to hear the Beat start to pound through life.
He realised that he was a Beathearer when he was twenty two. Slowly but surely, he worked out his abilities and how they worked. He considers himself fairly lucky that not only did he hear the Beat as a type of music that he could play, but his abilities are easy to conceal, easy to pass off as being absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and easy to practise. Well, apart from his ability to buff up the powers of others. That's by far his most unrefined skill.
Unfortunately though, not much has changed since he began to hear the beat. He still works as a sandwich artist, still busks on the side, still sells the same stuff he sold a few years ago, and still keeps his Beatsmithing on the down low. Something has to change in his life, but he doesn't know how or when that's going to happen.
Really, just looking at a picture should tell you all you need to know. Laid back, bit of a joker, midnight toker. He likes a decent beer, a decent steak and a decent place to rest his head with some decent friends. Really, there ain't nothing unusual about Manny Redwood.
