@Mivuli - Hm, very well done character and I think you're right - nothing done to show a level of resolve like the others, though he did show bravery. The only concern here is namely - you'd have to be on your own until the group made it to the port. I don't him traveling all the way inland to the mountains, given his personality and history. Also, as long as he doesn't actually stab anyone for no reason, his personality is okay, haha. I'm just worried about being away from the group... I can whip some things up, though it might be tricky.
I don't mind waiting, though I hope you don't inconvenience yourself in the process. Do you have any suggestions on a middle ground where you don't have to go out of your way? And no, Tylan won't be irrationally sticking a dagger in anyone anytime soon, I think. XD Maybe I should rephrase that part a bit.
@lydyn Thank you for answering my questions! Here is my CS. I hope to get to discuss Tylan with you should there be any problems. (: Thank you.
Name: Tylan (Tie-ler-n) Hallaw Age: 21 Gender: Male Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Role in Society: Commoner Occupation: Sailor
Legend: The Battle Upon Red Waves was a bloody affair between rivaling bands of pirates and smugglers, scuffling for dominance of the black-market in the region’s seas. Scores of ships clashed over waves. Cannons became the song of the night as the sky turned black, and the waters even darker. Flaming arrows descended like thick rain, setting fire to ship and man alike. Hundreds of screaming torches fell overboard, only to be engulfed by the thrashing waves, pulled down to the seafloor for the fish to feast on. As the Battle waged on, a foreign prince watched from the shore, worried eyes flecked with gold from the flaming beacons on the water, for his betrothed was lost at sea, trapped on a galley caught in the corrupted wrestle for power and gold. They say that the ship appeared from nowhere, as though a curtain had been drawn and spliced, to reveal the standard of the princess’ father, rippling and tossed high in the ocean wind. The galley cut through the water, and at its head, steering it from storm to port, stood a skinny boy of ten-and-six. A commoner from the worst part of town, who’d never set foot on a ship before, but had at that moment taken to sailing as a fish takes to water. So skillfully did he maneuver the ship on his maiden voyage, that not one arrow had befallen the deck, as was discovered when dawn came and the galley was inspected for damage. So talented was he, that the princess raved about him to her beloved when they were reunited. “He crept forth from the depths of the stores,” she cried, “when the captain suffered an arrow to the shoulder.” The only casualty to be had aboard the princess’ galley. “He took over the wheel without a pause, and as the night grew dark, he grew only bolder. “He danced on the waves, a courteous lead. Oh, he was brave, no doubt can there be! He called for the crew to move down below, while he stayed on deck, and beckoned the blows. Fall they did, a relentless hail. But none struck us, with him we were hale. Arrows drowned in the water, and pierced not we. Cannons would not bother, sorcery it must be! And when a pirate flew onto the ship, he protected his deck, with a sword through the hip.” The boy-hero was commended for defending the galley and bringing the prince his bride, but he would give no name. During the ceremony of gratitude, after the prince had presented him with a bag of gold and the nobles attending struck up a dance in his honour, the boy slipped away soundlessly.
The thrashing waves enslave my heart as would a wife. The pirates and smugglers and nomads of the sea: they are my brothers.
Appearance: Tall, thin, and reedy, Tylan is extremely light – both on his feet and in terms of weight – with a mop of brown, unruly curls crowning his head. He is agile, with sinewy muscles and unadvertised strength.
Personality: Tylan can appear mischievous, bordering on childish. His behaviour is not malevolent, but slightly chaotic. Energetic, he comes across as high-spirited with his laughter and smirks. However, Tylan is just as likely to be chuckling at a joke, as he is to be scanning his companion for chinks in the armour, opportune for a dagger in the back should the need present itself. Innately dark-humoured, Tylan is – in reality – discerning and brooding, but does not oft give the impression of being anything other than immature. His juvenility is for the most part deliberate and exaggerated, a constant dramatic performance. Tylan is no fool, but acting as one has given him the occasional advantage, that he plays to the fullest. Behind the japes and façade, Tylan is intelligent, cunning, and prone to the occasional moment of sobriety and generosity.
Skills: Sailing (Master) – Tylan is most at home aboard a ship’s deck. He has sailed the far seas, knows of many a shipman’s tale, and can don a sailor’s tongue when it befits the situation. His stomach is iron-cast as well when he rides the waters, and seasickness does not plague him. He can scale a ship-mast as well as a squirrel shimmies up a tree, and is easily mistaken for a monkey when he leaps from the ropes and riggings of a ship. Knife-Handling (Master) – From deftly sawing through fisherman’s rope, to cleanly slitting a throat, Tylan knows intimately how to arm himself with daggers and knives. He isn’t half-bad at throwing them either, and his aim is something to boast of. Spearing (Expert) – Lighter than swords, but with a greater reach, the spear is no stranger to Tylan, who has found the weapon practical on both land and sea. Tylan has speared fish-bellies for dinner before when he tired of maritime provisions, and has fended off his share of incensed merchants in the markets with the nearest object – often a long skinny stick, abandoned by passing visitors. He knows how to flick his wrist just right to land a blow that thwacks against his opponent’s side, and how to drive the butt of the spear into another’s ribs and steal his air. He can also twirl a spear expertly behind his back, but that particular skill is reserved for cocky show-offs. Archery (Journeyman) – Tylan does not spend much time on land, but half of it is devoted to learning archery from a kindly traveller who frequents the ports once a full moon. He favours his blades, but the utility of a bow and arrow is not lost upon him.
Combat Flaws: Suited for nimbleness and haste, Tylan does not have the strength to wield or swing a sword for long. Shove a longsword into his hands and he is like to bleed before the fifth cut. Wounds sustained in battle will also take their toll on Tylan, whose health is admittedly not the strongest, which is why his defensive stance surpasses his offensive.
Personality Flaws: Tylan is untrusting, and skittish around the strange. He does not lend his loyalty easily, and will erect a fortress of suspicion around himself that takes twice as long to dismantle as it does to build. Similarly, Tylan is not to be trusted wholeheartedly. He will avoid base treacheries where possible, but should push come to shove, his survival will still take precedence over all else. This trait might make him selfish, and a craven, but it preserves him. Of course, his habit of overplaying his immaturity is another point to note.
Magic Spells: -
Abilities: (Tylan is a youth of one-and-twenty years, with humble experience to speak of. Furthermore, the persona he chooses to don makes it rather difficult for hardship to come his way and be endured, so that Jergal might bequeath him with Deep Magic, but this is open to discussion, which might be easier now that the character has been put into context.)
Backstory: Tylan is a baseborn lad, son to a whore. Bastards aren’t few and far between, but the shame they bear upon their names like a cross above their hearts can be potent enough to follow them through their lives. The brothel his mother resided in was located just to the side of the harbour, and Tylan’s earliest memory as a tyke included him dodging around merchants’ stalls and crates of fish. He remembers toddling up a damp wooden plank, feeling it rocking beneath his feet, only to be plucked up by the armpits. The well-meaning sailor didn’t want to contend with barely-whelped stowaways, but Tylan needed only to flash a precocious smile for the sailor’s resolve to dissolve. Few ships at the harbour could close themselves to a young boy with harmless flashing eyes since. Tylan feels most at home onboard any deck, and learnt that day to beguile and charm to attain his whims. His mother has long since passed, but Tylan found unlikely kin among the sea-bound. They entertain his company when they stop at port; bring him trinkets, and bawdy raucous stories of battle, trade, and women from far-away lands. When he was eleven he sailed for the first time on a maiden voyage. Though the journey was to a neighbouring port, and no further, it thrilled Tylan to no end. The rock and lull of the boat, the icy spray of the sea: he loved it all, and spent the next five years learning from the most lucrative of traders, pirates and smugglers how to man a ship, learning the ropes with deft hands. By the time he was ten-and-six and the Battle Upon Red Waves crossed his path, Tylan was no stranger to the seas, as the songs and stories would have others believe. Tylan had been aboard the galley, only because he’d called in favours from the captain, who was as familiar to Tylan as a brother. He commandeered the wheel when his brother-at-sea could no longer hold it, and when one of the princess’ knights presumed to demand he relinquish it, Tylan barked out a sharp order that the princess and her entourage be protected. Gods forbid that a grassland knight who knew only how to seat a horse between his legs try to command a ship. Like as not, the knight would only dash them against the rocks and corals. The galley-crew hastened to obey, and ushered the princess and her pesky knight away to safer quarters. Though there was a storm of arrows, there was no rain. Steering was no more difficult than it would have been on a warm summer’s day, and the fire around them made for adequate lighting. Tylan was blissfully fortunate: the pirates and smugglers had by then exhausted their supply of arrows, and the brief reprieve let Tylan breathe easy as he steered the galley into harbour, where an overjoyed prince was waiting for his love. Once Tylan was handed the reward he had tried to refuse, he climbed out the window, before the newly-weds could ensnare him once more with talk of uprooting him and making him their Master of Ships in the nation they would rule together. He was still a child, only six-and-ten, and he did not seek responsibility. He returned to his life of darting through the market, and sailing the seas, taking opportunities to man ships as they came. Tylan gradually shed the moniker Lord Stowaway of his youth as he grew older, living an unassuming life of adventures at sea and daily acts. He continues to play the foolish child, because the brazen pirates and smugglers he comes across so easily fall for his performance. Those who know how to roar with laughter become his fast friends. Those who do not can only swear, and shake their fists at him, because they have likely lost something to Tylan when they realise the act – a bet, valuables, or pride. And nothing hurts quite so much as injured dignity.
May I just take this time to express my interest, as well as kudos to you for thinking of such an elaborate, detailed, and immersive piece of work? Honestly, it's got a Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire feel to it, and I absolutely love it. Just one question though: must our character have magical powers?
Edit: Also, under Abilities, Deep Magic is mentioned. But what if our character has not undergone hardship severe enough to earn augmentation? Should we leave this section empty, or fill it in still, in the case our character later acquires Deep Magic? Thanks!
In the corner of the classroom, to the back, sat Tayika. His chin propped in his hands, he took the paper passed down the rows and scanned through the questions. Name, gender, pastimes and a self-analytical paragraph were required of him. Boring. Then, he frowned. "The Dear Anonymous Project" was printed across the top of the form. He could not recall what the project was about. He had either chosen to erase it from his mind in the interests of space-conservation, or simply been absent when the briefing had been made. He could not remember which, and could not care less. It was no less tiresome and no more interesting for Tayika to fill out the form in spidery handwriting, answering the questions with biting candour, and making a few passing requests at the end. He put down his pen and waved the form in the air until the teacher came down the aisle to collect it, keeping his head down to scratch out a chemical equation he wished to test out.
It will be an explosive reaction...or a violent one, he thought, satisfied, when he raised his head and noticed that most of the class had already deserted the almost-empty room. Tayika packed his bag, fingers flying over his desk to drop belongings haphazardly into his bag. Swinging his bag over his shoulder, he loped out of the classroom with an easy gait, streaming into the corridor.
There was no denying it: Isabelle felt hopelessly lost. There was a smattering of people already in the cafe, chatting, drinking, looking utterly at home. She felt out of place, as though she had no right to be there. Who am I to complain, though? she asked herself. She had let her parents down in the worst way, and if being sent away from home was to be her punishment, then she'd best take it into her stride. Even if it did make her miserable. Even if she missed the people she had left behind, without explanations.
For a few moments, all she could do was linger at the doorway, a sentinel standing guard, two hands gripping the strap of her bag like a vice. Isabelle's wide eyes swept the cafe, taking in a couple bent over a shared sundae, two young men having a talk, a girl with lank black hair who looked positively cornered by the boy who had approached her table. I know none of them, she thought, her heartbeat quickening gradually, and they know not me.
Her eyes slid back to the two men. She did a double-take, absorbing the way they interacted, the eye contact they shared. And Isabelle recalled her parents speaking about traditional relationships, their benefits, their normalcy. She remembered them insisting that, at the Academy, she would discover this for herself once more, in a conducive, healthy environment. Oh, Father, she thought faintly, seeing his towering face of concern looming over her. How wrong you were this time.
Recovering, Isabelle began to wend her way through the narrow aisle of tables and chairs, hoping to cross the room without incident and wedge herself firmly into a corner seat. Keeping her head down, she marched straight on, cheeks flushing with heat beneath the gentle glare of the ambient lighting. Isabelle slid into a seat, ordered a drink, and hid her face behind a book, feeling herself slowly come to terms with her new circumstances.
Theodora reached down from her stool to pluck a book from her bag. It was thick, heavy, and its paperback cover slipped like silk over her fingertips as she brushed its spine, inspecting it for marks, creases or tears that could have befallen it during the treacherous journey from home to bakery in a bag, vying for space with a laptop as it was mercilessly jostled about. It was obsessive and almost obscene, the way she caressed the book. But her heart could rest easy. The book was hale.
She cracked it open, cradling the spine in gentle hands, when she heard an apology from the boy, David. She glanced up over the top of her book, and watched Sumiko return to her feet, hand to her forehead. "I'm okay. Don't worry," Theodora heard. Her eyes lowered once more to the words on her page.
"Are you certain?" asked Theodora in a dead voice. "Do you require an icepack?" Timing it deliberately, she flicked her eyes upwards to land on Sumiko's in the space of a heartbeat, measuring the girl.
= I am not lonely. Simply alone. Familiarise yourself with the difference, dimwit. =
What is your real name? Tayika Craig
Are you male or female? Male
What is your age? 17
When is your birthday? 6 January
What grade are you in? Twelfth
What are some of your hobbies and interests? Chemistry experiments, dissections, reading widely-recognised theory papers and novels half the population currently undergoing pubescent transformations have never heard of. And no, I was not responsible for the scalpel and beaker of hydrochloric acid going missing from the laboratories. The culprit happens to be the same person whose locker is home to well-sought-after contraband, which would make for an incredible scandal if I told you so, hm? Such pedestrian transgressions. I have no business coveting or pilfering such possessions.
How would you describe your personality? More brilliant or interesting than the lot of you, which is why I prefer to avoid company, and company avoids me. If you desire an answer that is more politically-correct however, you may say I am intelligent, requiring constant stimuli, and unable to hesitate at the thought of tearing another asunder if they display a level of intellect below that expected of a Homo sapien. Some have called me ruthless, or enigmatic. They are simply weak-willed, bland creatures. I am still more brilliant and interesting than the general populace, however. That is not to be debated.
What has your life been like so far? Boring. Dull. Mundane. Need I go on? It would be worse if people tried to be friendly with me, but I can count myself fortunate in that respect.
What will you pick as your screen name (and alias if asked)? Bored
What are your thoughts on the project? It is a construct meant to engage the social outcasts of the school who would not be social outcasts if the education system were more competent at moulding character and holistic development, and whatnot. But I suppose that is neither in the job description nor an occupational hazard of a sub-salaried educator.
Anything else you'd like to add? The school requires more advanced laboratory equipment. Conducting experiments here is akin to knocking together stones in the bowels of a cave. And a revamped library. The likes of Marx, Pavlov, Watson and Freud would suffice.
Living in the GMT+8 timezone, with important assessments awaiting in 2016! Forgive me if my schedule refuses to cooperate
[center](Have this gif as an apology ahead of time)
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<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Living in the GMT+8 timezone, with important assessments awaiting in 2016! Forgive me if my schedule refuses to cooperate<br><br><div class="bb-center">(Have this gif as an apology ahead of time)<br><img src="https://49.media.tumblr.com/0df9be0807afaec230cfd9d0157ae8d9/tumblr_myxqvgh1WF1rbfgpwo1_500.gif" /></div></div>
Musoka
