Joseph Alewisus Smith

[Smudge]

Player Name: (N/A)

Name: Joseph Alewisus Smith

Age: 20

Race: Human

Height: 6' 0"

Weight: 12st 4 (172lb give or take)

Physical Description: Slightly on the skinny side, Short dark brown hair and dull blue eyes are the only real features to his otherwise plain face. A shirt and pressed trousers are his day to day rig, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow (for he has this absurd notion of buying a long sleeve shirt, yet always rolling the sleeves up) calluses run the breadth of his palm, testimony to the earlier years of his childhood and the incessant military drilling of his father - Cont. His training was a formal, in-formalness. He never had to sit assessments or found a true sparring partner, all he ever had was his guardsman of a father endlessly throwing blow after wayward blow at his direction till nature took over and he learnt how to fend off the blows, blocking each swipe of his fathers sword with a shield and parrying back every thrust with one of his own.

Possessions: Hand and a half sword, relic of his fathers. Aside from that he carries nothing much else to his name.

Property: Small House in Marn, Minimalistic furnishings, what one would need to live by.

Powers or Strengths: Due to his upbringing he's rather adept with sword and shield and has a rather strong constitution, illnesses are rare for him. Ego, or at least he'd call his ego a strength, comments and remarks that may dishearten others seemingly bounce off his shiny exterior.

Weaknesses: He's about as magical as a teaspoon due to his upbringing, he shied away from anything remotely magical and as he grew older he began to despise and hate it with such a passion, that anything that was magical within him is long dead and buried.

Women, as cheesy as it sounds he has a soft spot for women, moment his eyes clamp upon a girl he finds attractive the rest of him tends to go along with what ever they say, his morals and principles enter a murky grey zone when women are around.

Due to his height he is rather gangly and is far from the quickest when it comes to reactions, grace is not something you would associate with him.

History:

He's a bastard child born out of wedlock after a drunken night between a Marn city guardsman and a woman of the night, unusually though it was the father who wound up having to care for the child for reasons that have been lost in time. Having been brought up by a guardsman, he has developed a respect, borderline obsession for the ruling government and the city guard and it has warped his perception to the sense that in his eyes, they can do no wrong.

He'd lived his whole life in the city, flitting between several short lived relationships seeking to find some sort of female comfort to balance out the harsh training regime imposed upon him by his authoritarian father. He had a few near misses with the law, minor petty theft of the odd charm or trinket in an attempt to woo the aforementioned women, yet he'd always gotten away scot free.

As he grew older and the almost brainwashing tactics of his father began to set in, His loyalty to the guard and thus the city of Marn it's self began to show it's self, to the extent he would actively comb the streets performing his own idea of a "citizens arrest" and turning minor criminals, nothing more then small infractions of the law, onto his father for their arrest. With each arrest his admiration of the actual guard grew and grew to the extent he even formed a small group of vigilantes to take on other nefarious teenagers that roamed the street. Yet after several months of the group operating it was put down by his late father as he saw it as a mockery of the guard, something which caused Joseph a great upset and further increased the rift between father and son.

He lost most of his possessions, anything of any value at least as a result of having to pay off several debts to various store owners for pilfered goods that were previously used to charm, charmless women.

He currently lives in the city of Marn in a small house passed onto him after his fathers untimely demise. He's currently seeking to gain employment within the city guard to help stamp out the magic users that appear from time to time.


(Noticed you guys wanted some more guardsmen/people sympathetic to the government so I thought I'd fire up and tied in my back story to give him reasoning for it. Hope it's ok?)

[Saruna]

Hey there and welcome to Thar!

Please don't forget your periods!

I would like to see one more strength and one more weakness to get a better sense for who Joseph is as a person -- please don't feel like you have to put down physical attributes; I always like to see at least a little bit of personality so that players looking to get involved with the character will have a better idea.

In line with that sense, I would like a little bit more out of the history. While we don't have any hard rules regarding history length, we need enough to see how the character became the way he is at the start of rp. It's perfectly fine to incorporate your character into the current scheme of things -- as a matter of fact we love to see players doing just that! -- but right now it feels a little shaky. Is Joseph loyal to Marn in particular, or just the guardsmen? How does he feel about guardsmen who take bribes? Is he overzealous in his beliefs? Is he honorable, and if so in what ways does his idea of honor manifest?

What formative events happened during his childhood? Is there anything he wants to do more than being a guard? Is he a social person, or anti-social? Is he an intense, quiet person, or the life of the party? What are his goals? What angers him, what makes him happy?

You don't have to incorporate all the questions, but try to dig a little deeper to get an idea of what in particular made Joseph into this Marn-loving person. Did he have a close, loving relationship with his dad? Was he looked down on for not having a mom? How did not having a mom affect him?

Please don't be afraid to ask questions or give comments: you can put them here in the thread, in a pm to myself or any of the other mods, or hop into chat where other players are usually more than willing to talk characters and setting.

Should you make changes to your app please inform me via a reply to this thread so I know to come back in and look at it.

[Smudge]

changed

[Saruna]

Arrrgh, I just realized I forgot to ask you to clarify how skilled he is with sword and shield. Has he had formal training, or is his skill more of a fend-off-other-poorly-trained-blaggarts? Can he hold his own with someone who has had formal training for five years? Ten? Does he own a shield or is the familiarity from a different time?

[Smudge]

Amended.

[Saruna]

Good deal.

Something I missed earlier: in his history you mention that he had pilfered goods from store owners. Is he a successful thief? If so go ahead and stick that in his strengths.

alrighty, one last thing one of the other mods brought up: men can join the guard around 16 or so -- why is Joseph only looking to join the guards now? Unless you want to rp out the training from the get go, it's perfectly okay for you to make him a young guard. If it's for other reasons that he didn't, that's fine too.

Just those two things and you should be good to go!