Syrathan

[Syrathan]

Name- Syrathan

Age- 26

Race- Half-elf

Hair- Black

Eyes- Ice Blue

Height/Weight- 6'1'', 176 lb

Physical Description-

Syrathan looks like a happy young man, one that may have a normal work schedule. He may have a sweetheart, or potentially even a recent bride, either with a child in her womb or on her hip. He may take a yearly trip to visit his parents in Keltaris. None of these are true.

Syrathan is a young man with a body type some would analogize to a fox. He is exceptionally agile, with no blemishes. In fact, he looks unsettlingly clean, a result of meticulous daily cleaning. He has pale skin and nicely filed nails, clean, brushed, nicely cut shoulder-blade-length hair, and carefully plucked eyebrows. If one would unclothe him, they would see the complicated brands that cover his skin from his collarbone to his waistline. These do not extend to his arms, stopping right before the shoulder. Not another soul has seen these brands. He applied them, the night he first tasted sentient flesh. For, you see, Syrathan has a stable diet of roots and variously prepared sentient races.

Possessions-

(Most of Syrathan's possessions were 'bequeathed' to him by victims.)

- A Gypsy horse, black blagdon with a stark white mane and long, silky feathering, named Paragon. The stallion used to be the horse of one of his victims. In fact, Syrathan killed and ate Paragon's old master mostly because of his coveting of the horse. Paragon has strong, horseshoes that have bludgeoned more than one who has spooked him. (This is not so much that he has been trained to use them as that it plays on his normal defensive reaction of rearing and bringing his front hooves down on what/womever frightened him)
- A black leather saddle, with two saddlebags filled with a linen blanket, kindling, and flint. Reins, bit, et cetera.
- An iron champron, peytral, and criniere, and mail croupiere, all also belonging to Paragon's old master.
- A set of brushes for care of the horse's mane and feathering, which Syrathan also uses for his own hair.
- A 39''-blade one-handed sword.
- A stabbing dirk, laced with silver in a proportion that does not compromise the integrity of the blade.
- A 'hunting' knife, used for carving and eating, both plants...and 'animals'.

- A surprising amount of bishani, nearing five hundred, stolen from victims.
- A whetstone.
- Some simple soaps.
- Grease and other tools useful for care of metal and leather items.
- A set of black linen and black leather clothing, including tunic, leggings, and cloak of black linen and gauntlets, boots, belt, and small pauldrons of studded black leather.
- A set of iron manica.

- A hunting falcon, black-feathered, trained to attack victims that attempt to run, named Bastion.

Personality-

To those few who meet him, Syrathan is a coy, cynical, cunning man who seems very in touch with reality for one who lives almost exclusively alone. He is superficially charming, as one trained in the mind would expect from one of his condition. Though he kills often and without remorse, he will not kill everyone, and his motive is usually either covetous or whimsical. He is quite mad. He has slept with over a hundred women, more than half of which he has killed. He feels unhappy with the world, killing not out of anger or sense of doing good but out of disappointment.

His cannibalism is limited to men. He can kill anything, but as twisted as he is, he cannot eat a woman. Syrathan has often pondered this oddity, but his thoughts have never revealed anything meaningful. What it really is is lingering guilt from his first kill, his mother. You see, Syrathan would like to be a cold-hearted killer, but remorse seeps into him no matter how hard he tries to keep it out.He is constantly disappointed in the world; there is some sort of qualitative expectation that the realm outside of his own mind lacks. This makes it easy to commit atrocities, as the world is worthless anyway, and produces a sort of Machiavellian egocentrism. He is motivated by the twisted hope that he might find another enlightened sentient, but that if he never does, it won't matter anyway.

Strengths-

Loner- Syrathan moves from place to place often, setting up camp in forest clearings near bodies of water when possible. This allows him to become invisible to the slow-communicating world of justice that is enough steps behind him that he usually has the slip on his would-be captors.

Omnivore- Syrathan can eat anything: roots, fruit, other plants, and anything with a pulse. He has been able to all but remove his own gag reflex, allowing him to eat whatever he wants.

Finesse- Syrathan is eloquent in most everything he does (barring his fits of enraged emotion), even in murder and cannibalism.

Fast Metabolism- Syrathan gorges himself on a regular basis, and maintains his health and athleticism with only a minimum of exercise. This is not a significant strength, but to someone like Syrathan, whom always has to look perfect, it is a boon indeed.

Fighting Ability- Syrathan can hold his own in a fair fight with his sword and dagger, his falcon, and his wits. One trained explicitly for war could best him alone, and an experienced veteran could best both him and his war animals.

Epicurean- Syrathan knows from trial and error how to cut and prepare the carcass of quite a few animals.

Stealth- Syrathan dresses mostly in black by habit and because it shows less dirt. The black also helps his stealth, which has been a strength of his since his lithe preteen years. Syrathan is naturally quiet as a matter of course, and his slighter-than-normal frame brought on by his metabolism allows further stealth ability. Syrathan has had no formal training in how to move undetected, but natural skill and logic have been enough so far in his life.

Neutral (Strength/Weakness)
Madness- His mental condition leaves him in a state that allows him to ignore most emotion if he chooses, makes him very charming and manipulative, and leaves him with an overpowered sex drive, coupled with next to no sense of love or affection.

- He is able to block out the emotion that he feels, but over time this has repercussions in the form of extreme bouts of deep depression. These, ironically, are the points at which his madness is at its least hold. These are also his most violent, as he would love to lash out against himself, but he cannot justify marring his perfect body.
- He is charming on a surface level, which adds to his ability to manipulate on the occasion that he would need to (bribing a guard or official, or seducing a woman, or perhaps getting out of trouble)
- He has slept with many women, and yet his fire has never been adequately quenched. Compounded by the fact that he cannot have a meaningful relationship.
- He is Machiavellian, willing to do just about anything, whether he is physically able to or not, to get what he wants.

Weaknesses-

Alone- Syrathan has never felt the desire to be with another person, either in companionship or romance. This has led to a lack of knowledge of the etiquette normal people take for granted. On the rare occasion Syrathan appears in public, he has a sly way of being able to avoid situations where he would need to use these skills, but if he is caught in one, he almost never acts completely 'normal'.

Impulsive- Syrathan does not know what he is going to do until he does it. This is what keeps him from being much more successful in the underground world. He has no long-term goals, not even a vague sense of future plans.

Madness- Syrathan is so chaotic that it makes him a less effective killer than if he were more controlled. This is especially prevalent during his times of depression.

Target- Syrathan, with his relatively large amount of possessions for a lone wanderer, is a target for thieves and brigands. Though he can hold his own, he has had items stolen from him before.

Fear of Magic- Syrathan has a fear of magic users, which maybe be better described as 'preference'. He will superstitiously not eat a magic user, and tends to kill them in a proportion greater than non-shifting persons.
(This stems from the first sentient meat he ate. The cat shifter was the first magic he had ever seen, owing to his small, Puradyne world growing up. The pure fear was a traumatic event for Syrathan, and he has not eaten a magic user since. He sees them as what his mother called 'demons'.)

Perfectionism- Syrathan is completely meticulous about grooming, both for himself, his animals, and his inanimate possessions. He purposefully avoids situations that would leave him or his animals dirty, sometimes going miles out of his way.


History-

Early Life

Syrathan was born the son of an elven smith and a human woman, the daughter of a local official near the center of the Eyropan Empire. He was a normal child, though unnaturally brave and glib. Though his father was a picture of a loving, strong father, his mother took complete control of his childhood, feeding him no meat and being strict about his upbringing. Syrathan always resented his mother, from the day he became able to feel the emotion. Still, he always 'loved' her as he was taught to be obligated to. Syrathan was always a bit of a problem child, going behind his mother's back on several occasions, in increasingly explicit and 'bad' ways.

At age ten, he received a knife from his father, who was the only person Syrathan himself can say he was attached to. The next day, he caught a rabbit darting across his path on a lucky pounce. The young Syrathan expected the rabbit to become docile in his presence, and when that hope was refuted, he felt so hurt that he cut off the rabbit's head with the knife. Returning home with the dead rabbit in his hands, he presented himself to his father, sullen and covered in blood spatter.

After insisting that he be cleaned, Syrathan unceremoniously presented the carcass to his father, who took it with a touch of worry. After Syrathan had thoroughly washed himself, his father asked if he would like to eat the rabbit, since he went through the trouble of catching and killing it. Syrathan agreed, but on the condition that he watch his father clean the rabbit and cut the meat. After watching him prepare and cook the meat, Syrathan, true to his word, had meat for the first time in his life. When his mother, strict about the terms of the boy's upbringing, found out about the rabbit, she was so furious that she decided she would take a holiday to her aunt's house in a neighboring village. Syrathan's father let her go without argument.

When his mother returned, she found that Syrathan had taken a liking to the taste of meat, having caught four more rabbits in her absence. The last he had prepared himself, having memorized the somewhat simple process from watching his father. That night, as Syrathan lay in his straw bed in the loft above the smithy, the still-blazing fire licking his face, he heard his parents speaking in harsh, yet quiet tones. He knew they were arguing about him. Oddly, he felt no fear or any negative feeling about it.

Three years passed until finally Syrathan's mother couldn't stand the sight or smell of meat any longer. In the night, she tried to take Syrathan and flee, but his father stopped her at the door. Lashing out in surprise, his mother sunk Syrathan's dagger, which she had hoped to keep secret until she could dispose of it in a place where neither he or his father could have it, into her mate's chest. Syrathan, literally shoving his mother out of the way onto the ground, knelt by his dying father, lifeblood seeping from one corner of his mouth, pouring from the wound. Syrathan could instantly tell that the knife had struck in a place that left no hope for survival.

"Pure chance," his father said contemplatively, gazing into his son's eyes. He looked as if he were to say something else, but he had not the time left, and expired. Syrathan grabbed the hilt of his prized knife and ripped it from his father's corpse.

Kneeling over his mother, the knife still dripping fresh blood, he whispered, "Why did you do that?" He hesitated a moment. "I enjoyed his company very much, you know. Far more than you." He placed the tip of the dagger in between her breasts. He looked up one final time into his mother's eyes and shoved down, then quickly up. Not looking back, he left the village with his things to his great aunt's house.

His aunt, a well-liked elderly woman living alone, supported by locals, received him with horror at the news that brigands had murdered his parents. He had never been a very emotional person, so it was easy to hide the now-clean knife and weave a common tale of bandits and hiding in the loft. He had never been attached to his mother's aunt either, which made it simple not to confess.

He lived with his aunt for another five years, barely eking out an existence on now-shared donations from villagers. One day in early winter, he decided to leave, tired of living with the same old faces. His aunt, understanding as always, asked him to stay until she could sew him a new tunic and leggings. Syrathan agreed, not for the sentimental, but for the practical value.

A week later, he was on the road, with not much to his name. Gone were his days of snatching rabbits, but he was still agile, lithe enough to slip onto the back of a carriage or into the bag of a distracted traveler. Still, life did not satisfy him. On a spring morning after a hard winter, Syrathan, relatively thin and frail, had spotted a large cat when walking in the forest looking for food. He drew his old knife, an implement put to good use over the years. Stalking up on the rear of the feline, he was surprised at how little the cat seemed to notice he was there. With that thought flashing through his mind, he leaped toward the lazing cat.

As his hand grasped a handful of loose skin and fur, the cat seemed to first take notice of him. The cat instantly shifted to human form. Startled, Syrathan still plunged the knife into the man's temple. He sat back on his haunches, breathing heavily. At that moment, his stomach growled considerably. Driven mad by hunger, looking first at the body, then the knife still in his hand, he knew what he had to do.

That night, Syrathan experimented with different muscle groups, and after trial and error, had a full stomach for the first time since leaving his aunt's village. However, the moment of transformation from beast to man had turned another man into a beast. Syrathan had the taste of human flesh at the moment when any food was a delicacy, and now he knew what the future menu was.

Syrathan entered a small town near the site and, using stolen money, had a smith reforge his knife into a long, thin dirk, suited well for stabbing. As an afterthought, he asked the smith to add a small quantity of silver to the metal. The smith was wary, for the silver was more expense than Syrathan would pay for. However, he agreed after Syrathan said he would stay and pay off his debt. He didn't.

Syrathan has been at large ever since, roaming the Eyropan Empire. His current haunt is the land south and west of the Thar of Shaddin, a backwater region perfectly suited to his preoccupation. However, this can make it hard for him to eat, owing to the rather low number of passers-by and sparse fauna population. At times, Syrathan can go without food for as long as three to four days.

[Saruna]

Approved.