Samoa
08-22-10, 03:26 PM
Hi guys- After a period of absenteeism lasting better than two years, I've come to a place where I can take up the keyboard again and see a little action on Althanas. Wrae Launcey is still who I want him to be, but there are a number of alterations- nothing game-changing- I want to apply.
Here's the original (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5491).
Changes in blue, if it pleases you-
REVISED CHARACTER SHEET
NAME. WRAE LAUNCEY
AGE. 26 (-1, for continuity purposes.)
RACE. HUMAN
HAIR. RED-BROWN (From cherry brown, a color I've come to regard as just a wee bit too elaborate for Wrae.)
EYES. BROWN
HEIGHT. 5'11" (-2")
WEIGHT. 190 LBS. (+20 lbs. The physical alterations are intended to make Wrae less remarkable in appearance.)
OCCUPATION. SHIP'S NAVIGATOR (Semantics, mostly.)
ALIGNMENT. LAWFUL / CHAOTIC
PERSONALITY. Wrae is a quiet man. He listens with avidity to other perspectives, whether insightful, mundane or offensive. He tends to see the world as a series of opportunities to learn and absorb knowledge - or strong drink. Wrae is proud of his hereditary work ethic and maintains his physical fitness to face any task or challenge. He forgives easily but makes friends carefully; those friends he makes, he stands by. He values integrity, familial commitment, and a sense of opportunity in both himself and others. (Clarification, simplification, and the removal of flowery bits and pieces.)
APPEARANCE. Wrae is physically diminutive relative to the environment he works in, but healthy and in great shape nevertheless. His skin, though young, is worn and lined from sea air. His pronounced nose and square chin stand in contrast the high brow of the intellectual. His stare is as reflective as the ocean and disconcertingly assured. Wrae’s clothing is stained and worn but durable, and he wears a small collection of various charms as bracelets and hung from a rope necklace. His left palm and areas on both upper arms are scarred and discolored. (Same as above, really.)
HISTORY. Wrae Launcey was born into a successful family tradition of mercantile endeavor. His mother bore three other children over the next few years, a brother and two sisters. His father, a well known merchant, was a familiar sight at the head of any table, animatedly telling stories or conducting business. Wrae was brought up in view of the day he would be ready to manage his father’s trade.
It happened that when Wrae was fourteen years old a certain artefact came into his father’s possession which was rumored to be an astral key of some sort. A flat black aether-stone with a diameter of an inch or so was said to hold its secret as it lay encased in an elliptical case constructed of bone and coral. Proud of the acquisition, the elder Launcey demonstrated the various aspects of its simple beauty to his family that same day. The precious object had been wrapped in parchment, and this parchment was thrown into the fire. Wrae’s brother Troy, a curious thirteen year old, noticed markings on what was left in the hearth and took the remaining scraps to his bed. There he studied the markings all the next day, and having obtained oil and matches from a cupboard, approached his older brother with an idea. Troy proposed to borrow the artefact that night and perform an experiment he had thought up based on the burnt manuscript. Against his better judgment, always intrigued by his brother’s wilder sense of adventure, Wrae agreed to steal the item.
When the appropriate hour had arrived, Wrae, who had secured a key earlier that day, removed the artefact from a valuables chest belonging to his father. In their breezy second-level room the brothers opened the case and set the stone in its shallow central recess. With the fascination and anticipation of his age, Troy poured cooking oil over the stone and lit a match - an act only he would never explain. At that moment the two sisters, Lisa, twelve, and Margaret, nine, having heard the clumsy preparations, entered the room. Troy impulsively handed the match to his brother and hurried over to plead for conspiracy. Pushing past him, Lisa approached Wrae in horror at his crime. The match suddenly burned his hovering fingers, and he dropped it onto the wet stone. A white flame shot up with unexpected violence, washing away the ink of nighttime darkness. Instinctively terrified of discovery or accident, Wrae put his hand down directly onto the stone. His howl filled the house, and a distraught mother stumbled into the chamber. The bizarre situation that met her eyes consisted of all four children prone and paralyzed in unconsciousness.
Weeks passed and his father’s deep anger subsided. He sold the stone for much less than he had obtained it, and by doing so suffered considerable losses. Worry creased his mother’s face daily as all four children fell sick and she was forced to care for them in their beds for days at a time. Lisa in particular was ill, and within a month was at death’s door. Vomiting, aching and convulsing, the children fought to live. On the fourteenth night after the fatal but mysterious incident, Lisa passed away. The others, meanwhile, recovered over the course of the next year.
Life changed after all this. Wrae and his remaining two siblings were disconnected from their early social circles, and their father was losing ground in both business and mental health. Expensive medicines and doctors had drained rainy day funds, and the incredible disruption in family life tortured him daily. He took to the drink and his wife took up mending and cleaning for neighbors to support the weakened family. Troy had kept the papers even after the misery they had caused him, and studied them by night. A hunted, selfish nature gradually insinuated itself into his already impulsive and commanding personality, and he began to order local children into a sort of pecking-order of personal slaves. Wrae took up reading of his own to escape his trouble, tearing through volumes and charts in his father’s extensive library. He gave his most tender affection to thin little Margaret, and became apprehensive of his brother’s growing infamy.
One afternoon Wrae witnessed his brother’s fallen state firsthand. Troy had led several peers into petty theft. One boy, caught in his mother’s jewelry box, had denounced Troy to his parents, who had then confronted Troy’s parents. The ringleader had managed to escape significant discipline by his disheartened mother, but the shame remained. With the help of several other boys he had brought the frightened boy to an alcove under a rocky overhang near the shore. The boy was made to stand in the alcove while the others gathered in a semicircle around him and picked up small rocks. Wrae had been wading not far away with fragile Margaret, and noticed the scene at a distance. The boys began what was intended as a painful - but non-lethal - imitation of a heathen stoning. Troy, in a surge of resentful aggression, lifted and threw an especially large rock. Fortunately, the rock failed to hit the cringing victim; unfortunately, it did hit the underside of the jutting ledge, and the greater part of the mass emptied itself onto the child below. Wrae gaped in horrified unbelief; Troy hesitated in fear before running headlong down the shore toward his siblings. As the culprit approached, Wrae realized his younger brother was unaware of his presence. Troy came closer, and Wrae shouted his name.
Troy fell to a stop several feet away. His body heaved with greedy breaths. Sand and tears were on his distorted face as he rose from his hands and knees. Wrae had no idea what to say at this point, but clenched his fists until they stung in the salty creases that had worn thin with overwork under his father’s instruction at the docks. Troy snarled and moved to continue running, but Wrae stepped in front of him and took his sleeve in a rough grab. At that moment an event took place which was to further shape their destinies in ways they could never have dreamt, not even in the strangest fantasies that had plagued them since the inexplicable advent of their illness. Troy took both his brother’s arms in his hands to throw him away, and a searing pain ripped through Wrae’s body. He felt a terrible heat melting the core of himself, and a concentrated burning on his upper arms. Wrae tore away from the burning grasp and fell back screaming. Margaret wailed quietly from a few paces behind him, a shivering blade in the wind. Troy stood incredulous, gazing at his brother’s seared arms. A slow howl erupted from his throat as he threw himself at Wrae repeatedly in a blind act of unwarranted hatred. The older brother scrambled to avoid the onslaught, all the jealousy and frustration of his childhood rising in his stomach. A sudden wind sang across the beach. Fierce gusts became still fiercer, and the brothers found themselves swept off their feet. Troy struggled as he was thrown back against a scraggly tree; Wrae pressed himself desperately against the cool sand and felt agitated waves slashing over his body. A thrill of fear broke his heart as it had so many times these past months; braving the violence of the sudden gale, he turned to protect his sister. But Margaret was not there. Hatred filled his soul and he turned again toward Troy. But neither was his sister there. Troy’s gaze directed his toward the suddenly grey sky. And just as he looked up to the thick black clouds, his eyes met Margaret’s in the air as she ascended, enveloped in harsh winds that seemed to barely stir the fine folds of her dress. The winds subsided but the stormy carpet above continued to boil. As her feet slipped into the hidden atmosphere, her prostrate brother looked down to see the diminished form of the fleeing Troy. Wrae lay back in the unsettled waves, overcome.
Shortly thereafter, Wrae Launcey left his home on a courier vessel, unable to remain, plagued with suspicions and internal turbulence. His mother would not speak to him; his father never came home. Children were wary of this troubled neighbor. With little more than what he was wearing and a sailor’s knife belonging to his father, Wrae chose the seas at sixteen. The wind on his face made him feel strong and hopeful; the warm glow of a firepit on some deserted shore chased him into the shadows. He ached continually for the golden openness of freedom and the ocean. This was to be his life for the next twelve years: delivering news and supplies for private employers, arriving and departing; watching for marauders and engaging them as necessary. Launcey lived in flight, but also in search of what he did not know.
A recent endeavor involved the delivery of certain papers and items to an eastern island. In the process of delivery, Wrae found himself in the palace of a renowned Mystic, Ethio. In Ethio’s convening chamber were four orbs of an opaque obsidian that affected him quite deeply. The Mystic, in his spiritual superperception, took him aside and spoke at length with him about the laws of nature and elemental properties. Launcey, revealing details about his past experiences, threw Ethio into brooding thought. After some deliberation, Wrae was taken into his confidence, and Ethio revealed to him the nature of the elemental aether-stone that had so disrupted his childhood. Ethio explained that with incautious handling of the artefact, it could absorb living elemental matter into itself. Four children were present; had it been Wrae or Troy alone, or perhaps even the two of them, they would have disappeared into the depths of the obsidian relic, leaving their souls to haunt the stone perpetually. Instead, there were the four of them: each one had lost an elemental quarter of themselves. The shock had killed one, and almost killed the others. It was a wonder, explained the Mystic gravely, that they had survived at all. What must then have taken place is an elemental compensation of some kind; the remaining three elements became stronger, and an unstable void developed in place of the missing matter – an invisible scar much more troublesome than the ones left on Chaunce’s arms and hand.
Ethio gave Launcey a small collection of protective charms to wear on his neck and on his wrists, saying it was the least he could do for a man who had lived through such strange times. He then entrusted him with an ancient owl that glowed with the reflected eminence of the court in which it had been raised. The bird, Ethio claimed, was in fact a descendant of the Muses of ancient legend. With his blessings and an invitation to return, the Mystic saw Launcey off again to the next destination.
Wrae Launcey arrived at port in Scara Brae aboard a merchant courier. The crew was given partial leave of a week while repairs and resupply were carried out. While lodging in town, Wrae had received an intriguing message from a stranger. Taking fate in his hands, the navigator became- at least for the time being- an ex-navigator; the events precipitated by his decision to travel out to meet this stranger were to set the stage for his time in Althanas. But all this is related elsewhere (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5968).
SKILLS. Wrae is adept at most aspects of seamanship. His proficiency at ship maintenance is typical of the men and women that spend their lives at sea. Ship navigation is second nature after spending the greater part of his life involved in the trade. He is also fairly competent in mercantile interaction as a result of his upbringing. He can find his way just about anywhere, and is reliable in reaching a destination whether on foot or in water. His trade has of course brought him into occasional combat situations, so he can boast basic levels of ability in close quarters combat, either unarmed or with a knife. He has a casual acquaintance with the use of small arms but does not own any.
His elemental disruption promises emerging power, but at this time he has neither identified it nor is he able to make it useful. It does, however, give him a very pronounced vulnerability to - and fear of - fire. (As above, so below. Changes are only in wording and structure.)
EQUIPMENT. Wrae carries a compass and his father’s all-purpose knife at all times. He wears a leather belt, leather boots, and the bandit James' damaged, bloodstained coat. He also wears an assortment of necklace and bracelet charms meant to bring him good fortune, but almost certainly serving as no more than decoration. Wrae recently acquired (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5968&page=2) an aging tome, which further enclosed the deed to Stark Manor in Salvar and personal papers belonging to the now deceased Othello Stark. (Spoils from Ware most recent- and only completed- quest have been added.)
FAMILIAR. Ethio’s owl, Athi, is Wrae’s constant traveling companion. He is gold and brown with a black beak and large golden eyes. The owl reminds Wrae of the sister he lost to the sky, and of his journey in search of understanding and freedom. If in fact its previous owner was correct, it may be in some way related to the Muses of ancient myth. (Wording, wording, wording.)
And that's a wrap!
Here's the original (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5491).
Changes in blue, if it pleases you-
REVISED CHARACTER SHEET
NAME. WRAE LAUNCEY
AGE. 26 (-1, for continuity purposes.)
RACE. HUMAN
HAIR. RED-BROWN (From cherry brown, a color I've come to regard as just a wee bit too elaborate for Wrae.)
EYES. BROWN
HEIGHT. 5'11" (-2")
WEIGHT. 190 LBS. (+20 lbs. The physical alterations are intended to make Wrae less remarkable in appearance.)
OCCUPATION. SHIP'S NAVIGATOR (Semantics, mostly.)
ALIGNMENT. LAWFUL / CHAOTIC
PERSONALITY. Wrae is a quiet man. He listens with avidity to other perspectives, whether insightful, mundane or offensive. He tends to see the world as a series of opportunities to learn and absorb knowledge - or strong drink. Wrae is proud of his hereditary work ethic and maintains his physical fitness to face any task or challenge. He forgives easily but makes friends carefully; those friends he makes, he stands by. He values integrity, familial commitment, and a sense of opportunity in both himself and others. (Clarification, simplification, and the removal of flowery bits and pieces.)
APPEARANCE. Wrae is physically diminutive relative to the environment he works in, but healthy and in great shape nevertheless. His skin, though young, is worn and lined from sea air. His pronounced nose and square chin stand in contrast the high brow of the intellectual. His stare is as reflective as the ocean and disconcertingly assured. Wrae’s clothing is stained and worn but durable, and he wears a small collection of various charms as bracelets and hung from a rope necklace. His left palm and areas on both upper arms are scarred and discolored. (Same as above, really.)
HISTORY. Wrae Launcey was born into a successful family tradition of mercantile endeavor. His mother bore three other children over the next few years, a brother and two sisters. His father, a well known merchant, was a familiar sight at the head of any table, animatedly telling stories or conducting business. Wrae was brought up in view of the day he would be ready to manage his father’s trade.
It happened that when Wrae was fourteen years old a certain artefact came into his father’s possession which was rumored to be an astral key of some sort. A flat black aether-stone with a diameter of an inch or so was said to hold its secret as it lay encased in an elliptical case constructed of bone and coral. Proud of the acquisition, the elder Launcey demonstrated the various aspects of its simple beauty to his family that same day. The precious object had been wrapped in parchment, and this parchment was thrown into the fire. Wrae’s brother Troy, a curious thirteen year old, noticed markings on what was left in the hearth and took the remaining scraps to his bed. There he studied the markings all the next day, and having obtained oil and matches from a cupboard, approached his older brother with an idea. Troy proposed to borrow the artefact that night and perform an experiment he had thought up based on the burnt manuscript. Against his better judgment, always intrigued by his brother’s wilder sense of adventure, Wrae agreed to steal the item.
When the appropriate hour had arrived, Wrae, who had secured a key earlier that day, removed the artefact from a valuables chest belonging to his father. In their breezy second-level room the brothers opened the case and set the stone in its shallow central recess. With the fascination and anticipation of his age, Troy poured cooking oil over the stone and lit a match - an act only he would never explain. At that moment the two sisters, Lisa, twelve, and Margaret, nine, having heard the clumsy preparations, entered the room. Troy impulsively handed the match to his brother and hurried over to plead for conspiracy. Pushing past him, Lisa approached Wrae in horror at his crime. The match suddenly burned his hovering fingers, and he dropped it onto the wet stone. A white flame shot up with unexpected violence, washing away the ink of nighttime darkness. Instinctively terrified of discovery or accident, Wrae put his hand down directly onto the stone. His howl filled the house, and a distraught mother stumbled into the chamber. The bizarre situation that met her eyes consisted of all four children prone and paralyzed in unconsciousness.
Weeks passed and his father’s deep anger subsided. He sold the stone for much less than he had obtained it, and by doing so suffered considerable losses. Worry creased his mother’s face daily as all four children fell sick and she was forced to care for them in their beds for days at a time. Lisa in particular was ill, and within a month was at death’s door. Vomiting, aching and convulsing, the children fought to live. On the fourteenth night after the fatal but mysterious incident, Lisa passed away. The others, meanwhile, recovered over the course of the next year.
Life changed after all this. Wrae and his remaining two siblings were disconnected from their early social circles, and their father was losing ground in both business and mental health. Expensive medicines and doctors had drained rainy day funds, and the incredible disruption in family life tortured him daily. He took to the drink and his wife took up mending and cleaning for neighbors to support the weakened family. Troy had kept the papers even after the misery they had caused him, and studied them by night. A hunted, selfish nature gradually insinuated itself into his already impulsive and commanding personality, and he began to order local children into a sort of pecking-order of personal slaves. Wrae took up reading of his own to escape his trouble, tearing through volumes and charts in his father’s extensive library. He gave his most tender affection to thin little Margaret, and became apprehensive of his brother’s growing infamy.
One afternoon Wrae witnessed his brother’s fallen state firsthand. Troy had led several peers into petty theft. One boy, caught in his mother’s jewelry box, had denounced Troy to his parents, who had then confronted Troy’s parents. The ringleader had managed to escape significant discipline by his disheartened mother, but the shame remained. With the help of several other boys he had brought the frightened boy to an alcove under a rocky overhang near the shore. The boy was made to stand in the alcove while the others gathered in a semicircle around him and picked up small rocks. Wrae had been wading not far away with fragile Margaret, and noticed the scene at a distance. The boys began what was intended as a painful - but non-lethal - imitation of a heathen stoning. Troy, in a surge of resentful aggression, lifted and threw an especially large rock. Fortunately, the rock failed to hit the cringing victim; unfortunately, it did hit the underside of the jutting ledge, and the greater part of the mass emptied itself onto the child below. Wrae gaped in horrified unbelief; Troy hesitated in fear before running headlong down the shore toward his siblings. As the culprit approached, Wrae realized his younger brother was unaware of his presence. Troy came closer, and Wrae shouted his name.
Troy fell to a stop several feet away. His body heaved with greedy breaths. Sand and tears were on his distorted face as he rose from his hands and knees. Wrae had no idea what to say at this point, but clenched his fists until they stung in the salty creases that had worn thin with overwork under his father’s instruction at the docks. Troy snarled and moved to continue running, but Wrae stepped in front of him and took his sleeve in a rough grab. At that moment an event took place which was to further shape their destinies in ways they could never have dreamt, not even in the strangest fantasies that had plagued them since the inexplicable advent of their illness. Troy took both his brother’s arms in his hands to throw him away, and a searing pain ripped through Wrae’s body. He felt a terrible heat melting the core of himself, and a concentrated burning on his upper arms. Wrae tore away from the burning grasp and fell back screaming. Margaret wailed quietly from a few paces behind him, a shivering blade in the wind. Troy stood incredulous, gazing at his brother’s seared arms. A slow howl erupted from his throat as he threw himself at Wrae repeatedly in a blind act of unwarranted hatred. The older brother scrambled to avoid the onslaught, all the jealousy and frustration of his childhood rising in his stomach. A sudden wind sang across the beach. Fierce gusts became still fiercer, and the brothers found themselves swept off their feet. Troy struggled as he was thrown back against a scraggly tree; Wrae pressed himself desperately against the cool sand and felt agitated waves slashing over his body. A thrill of fear broke his heart as it had so many times these past months; braving the violence of the sudden gale, he turned to protect his sister. But Margaret was not there. Hatred filled his soul and he turned again toward Troy. But neither was his sister there. Troy’s gaze directed his toward the suddenly grey sky. And just as he looked up to the thick black clouds, his eyes met Margaret’s in the air as she ascended, enveloped in harsh winds that seemed to barely stir the fine folds of her dress. The winds subsided but the stormy carpet above continued to boil. As her feet slipped into the hidden atmosphere, her prostrate brother looked down to see the diminished form of the fleeing Troy. Wrae lay back in the unsettled waves, overcome.
Shortly thereafter, Wrae Launcey left his home on a courier vessel, unable to remain, plagued with suspicions and internal turbulence. His mother would not speak to him; his father never came home. Children were wary of this troubled neighbor. With little more than what he was wearing and a sailor’s knife belonging to his father, Wrae chose the seas at sixteen. The wind on his face made him feel strong and hopeful; the warm glow of a firepit on some deserted shore chased him into the shadows. He ached continually for the golden openness of freedom and the ocean. This was to be his life for the next twelve years: delivering news and supplies for private employers, arriving and departing; watching for marauders and engaging them as necessary. Launcey lived in flight, but also in search of what he did not know.
A recent endeavor involved the delivery of certain papers and items to an eastern island. In the process of delivery, Wrae found himself in the palace of a renowned Mystic, Ethio. In Ethio’s convening chamber were four orbs of an opaque obsidian that affected him quite deeply. The Mystic, in his spiritual superperception, took him aside and spoke at length with him about the laws of nature and elemental properties. Launcey, revealing details about his past experiences, threw Ethio into brooding thought. After some deliberation, Wrae was taken into his confidence, and Ethio revealed to him the nature of the elemental aether-stone that had so disrupted his childhood. Ethio explained that with incautious handling of the artefact, it could absorb living elemental matter into itself. Four children were present; had it been Wrae or Troy alone, or perhaps even the two of them, they would have disappeared into the depths of the obsidian relic, leaving their souls to haunt the stone perpetually. Instead, there were the four of them: each one had lost an elemental quarter of themselves. The shock had killed one, and almost killed the others. It was a wonder, explained the Mystic gravely, that they had survived at all. What must then have taken place is an elemental compensation of some kind; the remaining three elements became stronger, and an unstable void developed in place of the missing matter – an invisible scar much more troublesome than the ones left on Chaunce’s arms and hand.
Ethio gave Launcey a small collection of protective charms to wear on his neck and on his wrists, saying it was the least he could do for a man who had lived through such strange times. He then entrusted him with an ancient owl that glowed with the reflected eminence of the court in which it had been raised. The bird, Ethio claimed, was in fact a descendant of the Muses of ancient legend. With his blessings and an invitation to return, the Mystic saw Launcey off again to the next destination.
Wrae Launcey arrived at port in Scara Brae aboard a merchant courier. The crew was given partial leave of a week while repairs and resupply were carried out. While lodging in town, Wrae had received an intriguing message from a stranger. Taking fate in his hands, the navigator became- at least for the time being- an ex-navigator; the events precipitated by his decision to travel out to meet this stranger were to set the stage for his time in Althanas. But all this is related elsewhere (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5968).
SKILLS. Wrae is adept at most aspects of seamanship. His proficiency at ship maintenance is typical of the men and women that spend their lives at sea. Ship navigation is second nature after spending the greater part of his life involved in the trade. He is also fairly competent in mercantile interaction as a result of his upbringing. He can find his way just about anywhere, and is reliable in reaching a destination whether on foot or in water. His trade has of course brought him into occasional combat situations, so he can boast basic levels of ability in close quarters combat, either unarmed or with a knife. He has a casual acquaintance with the use of small arms but does not own any.
His elemental disruption promises emerging power, but at this time he has neither identified it nor is he able to make it useful. It does, however, give him a very pronounced vulnerability to - and fear of - fire. (As above, so below. Changes are only in wording and structure.)
EQUIPMENT. Wrae carries a compass and his father’s all-purpose knife at all times. He wears a leather belt, leather boots, and the bandit James' damaged, bloodstained coat. He also wears an assortment of necklace and bracelet charms meant to bring him good fortune, but almost certainly serving as no more than decoration. Wrae recently acquired (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=5968&page=2) an aging tome, which further enclosed the deed to Stark Manor in Salvar and personal papers belonging to the now deceased Othello Stark. (Spoils from Ware most recent- and only completed- quest have been added.)
FAMILIAR. Ethio’s owl, Athi, is Wrae’s constant traveling companion. He is gold and brown with a black beak and large golden eyes. The owl reminds Wrae of the sister he lost to the sky, and of his journey in search of understanding and freedom. If in fact its previous owner was correct, it may be in some way related to the Muses of ancient myth. (Wording, wording, wording.)
And that's a wrap!