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1 mo ago
Current i hear dies irae bells ringing in my ossicles every time i claw from the dirt and peer wistfully through the rpg tomb doors thinking, "one last job..." another bony finger of the monkey's paw curls up
3 yrs ago
i can't believe it's already christmas today
2 likes
4 yrs ago
*skeletal hand emerges from an unmarked grave* the drive thru forgot my side order
2 likes
4 yrs ago
Imagine having an opinion on rpg dot com
4 yrs ago
Let’s play a game where you try to sext me and I call the police
1 like

Bio

Maybe the real plot was the friends we made along the way. [Last Updated: April 3, 2022]


I'm 26 years old and I have learned not to share too much of my personal life on the internet. I work as an English and writing tutor at a local college.

I love literature and poetry, and I also enjoy writing, and I like to think I'm not half bad at it. I first started writing as a hobby with online roleplay at the start of 2010, and I've slowly drifted away from it in recent years. I enjoy most genres, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites, they would be sci-fi and high fantasy—heavy emphasis on the high fantasy. Some of my favorite characters have come from Elder Scrolls roleplays, since it appeals to the D&D nerd in me.

I have a tendency to get carried away with making my character sheets. I like telling their stories in the sheet sometimes even more than the roleplay itself, which depends on the roleplay itself of course. I want my readers to know how their background influences them as a person, how their personality bleeds into their appearance, and I love watching characters overcome their personal tragedies and finding their true selves as their identities shatter and reform like kintsugi. I've always been a fan of characters overcoming their weaknesses and obstacles and I try to make that show in many of my characters. Therefore, many of the narratives I explore come from a place of vulnerability, but I try to balance the heavy themes with light whimsy.

I also try to research whatever it is I'm writing about so that I'm not just spitting into the wind - unless that's what my character is doing, in which case I try to make sure that's made clear in my writing. It’s kind of hard to define my style, as I’m influenced by all sorts of literary movements and schools of criticism; dark romanticism, modernism, post-modernism, Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism—I have a lot of isms in my pocket. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite dark romantic authors, Dickinson is one of my favorite naturalist poets, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost—they’ve all in some ways informed my writing, as well as many others. I even tend to look to some of my fellow guild mates for inspiration or analyze what I like about their writing and see what I can do to improve my own through their example.




Prime Rib Boneheads
@Dragonbud
@Luminous Beings
@Maxx
@Shin Ghost Note
@JunkMail
Calcium Supplements
@megatrash
@ML
Rest in peace, @Polymorpheus
@SepticGentleman
@Byrd Man
@Skai
@Heat
@Chuuya
@Enarr
@Tiger


These Tickle My Funny Bone
You can find me in:

Currently in no roleplays.

Most Recent Posts


Name:
Pharasius Finch

Race:
Imperial

Family Origins:
Pharasius Finch was born in to an Imperial middle class family, his father was a soldier and his mother working within the Imperial City selling mortgages and so on. After his father came home leading an assault team against key Dominion targets, he was celebrated and honored, being promoted to commander, and the family went on a final tour with him to High Rock for tactical assessments following the strike. However, the Dominion’s assassination of the family left him orphaned in his mid-teenage years and forced him to live on the streets, stranded in Glenumbra, with nowhere else to go. He did what he could to survive while starving for vengeance, however he was not particularly strong-built and he was unfit to join the Imperial armies. Finch was forced to sit on the sidelines while at odds with the law.



"A little dirt hurt no one, come on, put your back into it. We can bathe in the river later."

Appearance:
A stringy physique doesn’t serve Finch very well to scare anybody who would see harm to him, and standing at 5’9” doesn’t do him any good either. He’s a scrawny build from the years of being a beggar and serving himself alone, barely a pinch of fat on him, and obviously hungry. He’s not totally helpless though, he does have some muscle on him from running and scavenging and working himself to the bone in nearly everything he does. He’s fast as hell, and was able to outrace law enforcement for a number of years. As an Imperial, he’s tanned and has black hair hanging to his shoulders, knotted up and dirty, contrasting with blue eyes, and thick stubble over his face. A number of nasty scars litter his body, some once infected and made the recovery process a little rocky. None of them, however, as severe as the ones you might find on a soldier. You would be hard pressed to find a patch of skin that isn’t smeared with dirt. Covered in tattered clothes and patches and rags, he pulls off the vagabond look quite well, but likely not able to contest with the Forsworn - for obvious reasons.

Age:
22

Equipment:
With Finch as he is now, he has nary a penny to his name. Raggy clothes and two leather flaps with string on them for sandals, and a blanket made from deer skin. In one of his secret caches surrounding the prison, he buried a small crossbow with a couple of bolts in it, inside of a sack. While he’s not much of a marksman, you don’t really need to be as long as you have one of those guys.



"There's two platoons coming over the north hill. If we take the east valley, we can pass them under the cover of the cliff face."

Favored Skills:
Highly Proficient
(Sneak: After all, you don't just steal things and hide from danger in plain sight unless you're the Gray Fox.)
Moderately Proficient
(Pickpocket: Finch has been lifting goodies from unassuming suckers for survival for the past five years. Tell him you want something that someone else has, you're gonna get it - but make no mistake, he is not a proud thief. That shame might be what holds back from ever mastering it.)
(Athletics: Finch has been running away from the law and from angry citizens for the past five years. Usually carrying something that didn't belong to him. He can turn tail and leave you in the dust.)
(Lockpicking: If you want something really bad, you learn to be real stubborn in getting that thing that you want. A couple bouts of fiddling with locks and Finch became quite the legerdemain.)
Somewhat proficient
(Marksman: He is actually not much good with a bow. In fact, he only has experience with a shitty crossbow, which does all the work for him. Finch just learned how to aim it in the right direction, shooting a brave squirrel under the best of circumstances.)
(Acrobatics: Finch does some climbing and jumping and balancing in his great escapes, but he is not much of a gymnast. He can go places, but lacks the conditioning to do so sustainably and or elegantly.)
(---)

Fighting Style:
Finch would be better served running toward the opposite direction or sitting high up in a tree, or hiding in a bush, with quite a few meters between his crossbow and the enemy. Otherwise, just use him for scouting.

Miscellaneous:
A very old, dulled, slightly rusty skinning knife is stashed away in the same cache, along with a number of lockpicks. Heck, he might even have at least one left on his person, hiding in... creative places.



"They're going to pay for what they did. I don't care what it takes."

Crime Committed:
Oh, Finch has many a petty theft and trespasses under his belt, however, he was never caught for those. No, the thing he was caught for this time was the stealing of a particular piece of illegal contraband, however, Finch was able to hide it away somewhere before he was caught...

Character Background:
Born under a soldier and Imperial estate agent, in the Imperial City, Finch had access to an early education and some fair amount of money. Nothing spectacular, nothing befitting of nobles, but it was suitable. When his father came back home after a tour, he’d sometimes show the young Finch around the barracks, sometimes show him how to shoot a crossbow and help him out when he had trouble pulling back the string. He was born in the city; he was no farm boy, so strength never played into his everyday life. His primary responsibility was to learn. Thinking was what he became good at.

It appeared he was set on a steady path, but everything changed after his father left to carry out a strike against a key Dominion target, something that might cripple their hold on a strong position. It was executed, and he came back sung as a hero. The father, Cassius Finch, was promoted to commander for his bravery and ability to lead, and he invited his family to visit High Rock with him while he met with the Breton leaders for tactical assessment following the strike. When they got there, they were given lodging, and one night a seventeen year old Finch wandered and looked in awe at the sights of Daggerfall under the full moons. It was that night that a Dominion agent assassinated his father, as well as his mother to eliminate any witnesses.

The assassin, as nimbly as he had entered, he had slipped away and from allied forces' grasp, melting through their fingers. The damage to Finch was done, coldly and efficiently. At the moment of their demise, the reality of war became too real, and his preconceived conceptions of object permanency were proven a fantastical daydream. Now he was on the streets, nowhere to go and with no one to take care of him, inheriting a wealth he could not access so far away from home. He found himself wanting, wishing for vengeance upon the Dominion. The first place he turned to were the Empire’s armies, but they would not take him, for he was unfit for the kind of hardships that soldiers were meant to endure. Nobody else wishing to take an Imperial child under their wing, Finch was forced to beg or otherwise serve himself. Putting him at odds with the law, he stole food and trespassed as he saw fit.

He still held hatred in his heart for the Dominion all this time. He would go out and sabotage their efforts if he ever could, but that was a fruitless endeavor. He never sought refuge with the Thieves Guild, since he never really took any pride in being a thief or vagabond. Neither did being a professional thief serve his longing for revenge. The Morag Tong no longer operated outside of Morrowind, and the Dark Brotherhood was ultimately destroyed, as told by the books he read in the Imperial City. He couldn’t take a sword up on his own. He wasn’t a fighter; he didn’t have the natural build for it, just as his mother was. He just kept as he did, and evacuating towns when he became too prevalent. His travels eventually brought him to Rivenspire, specifically in the town of Meir Thorvale.

While rummaging through things that did not belong to him, he came across a foot-locker, like a little jewelry box. He ended up breaking a half-dozen lockpicks just trying to open it, and when he did, all he found was a book. He nearly ripped it up out of frustration, but closer inspection revealed a darker secret. On the inside of the cover, it read “The Night Mother’s Truth”. Finch had thought all books relating to the Dark Brotherhood had been burned. He only had time to read halfway through before he heard a noise - he was discovered! Finch scrambled to his feet with the book in tow, sprinting around the city as fast as he could, leaving the ones chasing him behind and eating his dust. Word got around among the guard, and then it seemed half the force was cooperating to catch him.

Finch ran to the outskirts of the city, going to the backside of the wall just behind the barracks. There he lifted bricks out of the way to reveal a small compartment that hid bulging rucksack. He stashed the book there too and quickly set the bricks back in place and continued running. Eventually running into a platoon and becoming surrounded, he was commanded to surrender what he had stolen. Nothing save the rags on his back was on him. He was promptly escorted to the cells. In the meantime, the guard was left wondering where in the entire hold could he have hid that book, not ever suspecting it was under their nose.

Then, during the nights in his cell before his appearance in front of the count, all manner of thoughts and ideas creeped into Finch’s head - one being “where did that other person get that book”, another being the Night Mother herself, who she once was and who she might’ve been. Reportedly, she was destroyed along with the sanctuary she hid in – but from what he had read, her power was earned through a mysterious being named “Sithis”, who Finch had never heard of before. That she was made his wife through murdering her own begotten children. A thought of intrigue entered his head. What was to stop this Sithis figure from wedding another? Conceiving the reemergence of the Dark Brotherhood? What was stopping Finch from finding the right person, the right woman, not dribbling for revenge like Finch, no - something more primal, a woman who'd kill for its own sake. Such would be the seemly bride of the void?

Suddenly, the plot for finally exacting revenge against the Dominion began to form and the first pieces to an elaborate puzzle began coming together. It would be a hard earned victory should it ever come, he knew that, and the thought of the murderous path he would go down was haunting - even unsure if he would be able to carry it out, but he still saw no other options available to him. There were the daedra, and the Daedric Princes, but Finch still had his pride. He would let himself be a pawn or puppet of no demon's plot. He figured that he'd go his own way, let the Divines judge him as they might, he'd try to revive the Brotherhood on his own. Perhaps he'd let vengeance guide his hand. Perhaps he would guide a Brotherhood along routes different from the last one. Perhaps it was impossible. Even as he knelled and was chained down before the Count’s own feet, along with a number of other prisoners by his side, he thought that maybe he could at least see if he could. Surely, petty theft did not permit a death sentence... right? He still had a vendetta to carry out, Counts be damned.

Assassins have proven their worth.

Personality:
When a man’s hand is forced to beg and steal from a young age, he becomes pessimistic. Finch is something of an oddity in that regards and while there is undoubtedly lots of pessimism to go around, he keeps it contained, and tries to direct it towards his end game goal. He uses it as a sort of motivation to exact the revenge he wanted, and then tries to face the trials of everyday life with a smile, even if the smile is only a meager thing. At his core, Finch is well-meaning. Revenge and a life of begging has twisted that to absurd degrees, and the cruel reality of the world has made him distant and able to detach himself. He wants to make friends, but doesn’t, and usually paints all people with the same brush until a personal relationship is formed, and the old Finch starts coming through, the one before his family’s murder, the one before the begging and stealing.

After then, Finch is naturally generous and honest and he would share what little has with you without a second thought. If you have a favor, he’ll do it without asking too many questions. Perhaps it might have something to do with naivety, since normal life as he knew it stopped at age seventeen, and with any semblance of normalcy, he would fall back on what he knew. So he might come across as being younger than he is. Another reason could be that he’s just so desperate for a meaningful relationship he might just pour all the pressure weighing on his shoulders onto a listening ear. Finch has had a hard life for the past five years, and while he keeps a strong face, there is no doubt he’s suffering because of it.

Still, that is a hard point to get to. He's very suspicious and is very slow to trust, as conditioned by the last couple of years. Beggars are no community, they'd back stab if it meant getting ahead. The life is a gambit for survival, and Finch feels that he cannot hold that against them. It takes a personality more stubborn than he to get past the constant rejection and break through his pessimism before he begins to acknowledge someone's help or good intentions. He feels as though someone is always watching, making him dart around, move about, and look incredibly anxious - owing to his nickname "Twitch". In addition, he has an incredible hatred of the Dominion. While he doesn't necessarily direct this hatred upon all elves, he is particularly distrusting of them, and is even a little racist when discussing them. However, this has never led to an altercation, as he is more likely to flee than to fight.

Even a homeless beggar, Finch isn't stupid. After all, he's had an education until his late teenage years. While it is certainly nothing advanced or befitting a mage or noble, he has a keen mind and a penchant for quick learning. Indeed, what he lacks in physical aptitude, he makes up for cleverness and the ability to think outside the box. Back in school, Finch also had an interest in politics. Whether it be casting doubt in legal cases or oration, getting involved in government was an intriguing thought. However, now, a political tongue gets a beggar nowhere. Rather, being able to lie well enough to talk down the guard and assure him that, no, you didn't steal the cabbage - all the while being capable of convincing fellow beggars to cover your back and keep promises, as they hide the cabbage behind a crate until the guard leaves.


Font Colour:
Crimson, because there was no sanguine.
[/hider]
Who am I going to force a romantic relationship on? The warrior, sexy librarian, Katniss, or a hagraven? Decisions, decisions...
So the roster so far: I'm assuming that Dervish is submitting a Kung fu master since he put down h2h twice.

Shaft's(may his shaft ever be monumental) ranger sniper guy
Luminosity's fighter/striker amateur repair woman, breaking stereotypes the world over
penny pinching fat cat
Finch the thief, aspiring murderer
Faruq is a defender or something, and my phone keeps changing his name to Daryl
Gaela, the girl on fire
The token Orc berserker
Well-read wizard/sexy librarian
What is this? A knight of the nine? An alter with a conscious? Isn't pissed at all the human gods? Holy shit. Token elf. Also token religious guy.

GG big bad
<Snipped quote by Luminosity>

I think it would be interesting to see how their relationship would develop. They have very different upbringings, and they both have dealt with their hardships in different ways. While Fiona might chastise Finch's way of life, so they would butt heads often, but she might also have sympathy with him and bond over their mutual losses to the Dominion.

When you get the opportunity, of course, @Luminosity, this is what I was referring to. Take your time!
@Luminosity, did you happen to see the post where I was entertaining whatever interactions that might come between the characters? I'm interested in seeing what you have to say about it (good or ill).

That goes the same for anyone else. Wall Street CEO and the beggar, the orc, Faruq, etc. I think there's a lot of interesting potential, and I like the variety we have here.
Although, I do wonder how exactly an assassin who was careful enough to eliminate witnesses ended up caught in the first place; perhaps if the assassin got away with it, it would help with colouring Parasius’ mentality in both the ruthless effectiveness of assassins and that nobody is untouchable, as well as justice being a thing that is rarely served.

Something to consider, even though his parents died, would Parasius not be able to claim their inheritance and personal effects? I would find it rather hard to believe that his father, a soldier, would not accept that he may die in battle and leave his son behind, so he’d probably have something in place to support him. As well, if his father was a hero, would somebody not want to do even meager things to help Parasius out? Just something to consider.

I like these points that you made, and I'll admit that I didn't have a lot of time to think every detail through due to a tight time schedule. The assassin getting away is a good touch. I initially decided against that otherwise it would seem like a typical revenge arc against a singular individual. Instead, despite justice having actually been made in the assassin's capture and execution (which I'd say very likely happened after a loud struggle catching unwanted attention, then making a hasty failed escape), Pharasius directs his anger at the entire Dominion, which is many times more insurmountable and would be interesting to see someone attempt at reviving the Brotherhood for it to only be used as a weapon against it. Unless, we could paint the assassin as a faceless tool of the Dominion. Then the points you made in nobody being untouchable, assassination, and justice could be overlayed on that as well. That actually sounds very good.

For some reason inheritance did not come to mind when I had made the sheet. For convenience sake, we could say that all belongings were left in the Imperial City, and Pharasius witnessed first hand the apathy of the real world when no one would take him back home? Traversing war-torn land just to return a child home may not be in everyone's interest - especially in a place such as Daggerfall.

And no worries. I'll share any ideas I have with you guys, I'm not in it to win it. :)
@ConstableWalrus

...

You wouldn't.

<Snipped quote by Spoopy Scary>

Oh, he stole The Lusty Argonian Maid? Your bio said something else entirely.


I said bad literature, don't you dare insult that masterpiece.
<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

Totally being accused of murder isn't a big deal.


Finch just stole bad literature and they can't even prove it. :^)
@DervishMoved it back to marksman, then.

Also thanks for reminding me my love for Majora's Mask.
Better organized my sheet, tidied up the grammar, replaced marksman low proficiency with speech, added a paragraph to personality (as well as tidying up that section a bit).
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