Username: @tanderbolt
"Once you’ve been through hell you wonder how people live so carelessly.”
Name: Thomas Adkins
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Appearance: (Additional appearance information. Height, weight, outfit, etc. Here include any body alterations such as mechanical/missing body parts or anything of that nature.)
The only outfit he wears is his uniform, no matter the occasion. He even keeps his gas mask on, he feels uncomfortable appearing in public without it. Not many people have seen his face, but they say he’s pretty ugly and has an impressively messy beard underneath.
Color: Grey
Symbol:
Semblance: When he’s on the verge of losing consciousness, he can force himself to get up and keep fighting. He doesn’t heal or recover from his accumulated injuries at all, it merely dulls his pain allows him to endure beyond his normal limits of durability. The strain on his body means that it takes him a full day to recover afterwards, he cannot do it again until he has had this time to recover.
Personality: Thomas is a quiet man who keeps to himself. He is not introspective or philosophical beyond simply valuing his survival and cultivating qualities that further that goal. He trusts people who fight alongside him but doesn't know how to handle more normal social interactions, making him awkward in conversations. Pessimism comes naturally to him along with a general feeling of detachment, sometimes this manifests in the form of bleak humor that few others find funny. Thomas sees modern civilization as deluded and unprepared for coming disasters and harbors a particular hatred for politicians and the upper ranks of the military, but still believes there are some decent people around, especially among military veterans.
History: Thomas came from a poor mining town , built on a dust deposit far from civilization. The only opportunities were working in the mines or manning the fortifications that held off the Grimm. His parents left him little guidance, leaving him to be raised by his Grandfather, a war veteran. Grandpa actually encourage him when he roamed the streets picking fights with other youth who had nothing better to do, because he saw it as a way to toughen up. The years went by and Thomas grew stronger and more skilled, and became the first person from his town to be accepted to a huntsman academy. For once the people had something to celebrate, and everyone wished him well as he went to attend Atlas Academy.
Atlas Academy taught Thomas discipline and stoicism. He struggled in some of the more academic classes, but always earned high marks during combat assessments. Thomas enjoyed his time there until he heard that the situation in his hometown was growing worse and that there was an urgent need for more manpower. He left the academy to join the army as a regular soldier, not a huntsman, so that he could defend home in its hour of need.
The situation never got any better. Every Grimm attack led to more casualties, more suffering, and more Grimm. The frontlines were a perpetual meat grinder, where soldiers were just another resource to stem the tide. Thomas survived endless assaults and counterassaults, which hardened him even further. The commanders weren’t concerned about casualties, even artillery barrages that annihilated their own soldiers were acceptable as long as it kept the Grimm at bay.
Thomas could mark the passage of time by how long it had been since his unit had been resupplied and by how many of his comrades had died. After a while the generals made a decision that the town was no longer worth protecting (possibly related to the depletion of the dust mine), and pulled out any assets deemed valuable. Others, like Thomas, were ordered to hold their position until a nonexistent relief force arrived, under penalty of death for desertion. He obeyed this order and held out, fighting on as attrition slowly took its toll.
In the end only Thomas was left. All of the others who had fought alongside him had long since disappeared or been killed in battle, leaving him alone in the ruins. He scavenged around and survived for years, completely isolated from the rest of humanity. His life was without purpose or direction, just driven off an impulse to survive. His isolation was broken when he encountered a group of salvagers risking their lives to explore the ruins. In exchange for his help navigating the area, they offered him passage back to civilization. He accepted, because it finally occurred to him that there was a world outside of this warzone.
His years and experiences on the battlefield still haunted Thomas in civilian life. Legally, he was missing and presumed dead, and certain to be court martialed if he contested this. More practically, he lacked any skills other than fighting and had no support network. All the years of war have left him uneasy with peace and the comforts of everyday life, and given him little in the way of moral guidance. At present, he lives a reclusive life and takes jobs from anyone who needs someone who can fight, without any plans beyond simply surviving until the next morning.
