Name: Taal Winterborne
Age: 31
Race: Half-breed Elven Troll
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 200lbs
Physical Description:
Taal is an odd amalgamation of Elf and Troll. He stands tall and it reasonably lean along his midsection, but his arm and leg muscles are larger then his slender Elven cousins. This odd mismatch of physicality leaves him looking almost disturbingly tall, where as the reality he is around the same height as a normal elf.
Due to the heritage he is cursed with, his strong troll features are made sharp by his Elven blood. He has very hawk-like features and his skin is tight around a strong bone frame, giving him a very predatory complexion. The most predominant of his features is that of his skin and eyes, taken almost directly from his dark-dwelling troll father, which is black with golden splotches.
His eyes are likewise golden-silver in color, an inherited trait form his mother, along with his sheer mane of raven black hair. Although not as silken and smooth as an elf’s it is still long, and has a reflective quality to it. Two long ears come from the side of his head and are likewise colored in black and gold.
Taal often dresses in rugged black clothing and leather strapped buckles, due to the amount of time he spends as his chosen profession of a hunter. He also wears loose clothing on the joins of his body to facilitate movement, as well as a scarf and sometimes a hood to protect him from the cold, as well as shelter his visage from sight.
All in all, his clothing and skin make him very dark-aligned, and often he is not seen in any form of finery, and is often dirty from sleeping under the stars, but oddly only seems to smell of fresh earth and fresh air. That at least was one good trait to inherit from his mother.
Possessions: Taal owns a bolt-action gnome rifle, which he uses for hunting and sniping, should the situation ever arise. The rifle itself was made for him in return for services to an engineer, and has not failed him to this date. He also carries with him several long, silver metal shells that are built for the gun, but these have to be custom made, although the specs are easy enough to be repeatable by a decent gnome engineer.
The only other weapons he carries are pretty mundane, being a long dagger and a long-straight bladed saber which is more used for slashing and dashing attacks. He has several smaller darts on him, but they are used more for distracting and wounding then killing, although it is possible.
Powers or Strengths:
Magic: Although of Elven blood, Taal has very little in the way of magic. He has only a couple of abilities, one being that he can partially step into the astral plane, his form becoming fuzzy and incorporeal so he can quickly move through undergrowth and some thinner walls.
He also has the ability of being a minor telekinetic. He can pick up small rocks, trip people, and shove opponents, but nothing so dire it could kill a person, unless they were shoved off of a building, perhaps.
Physical: Being partially troll has its benefits also. He is preternaturally strong, although not to the point of his father’s heritage, and has some form of regeneration. Although this does not cover lost limbs, he can reattach a severed limb if quick enough, and can heal minor wounds in a matter of minutes.
Weaknesses:
The Rage: Being partially of troll blood, he has very little control of what happens when he become enraged. This also manifests physically as his troll blood almost boils literally. His body cracks and grows, distorting as muscle tissue doubles and his maw pulls back to reveal sharp teeth, his clothing tearing to accommodate this new growth.
When like this, he disregards all weapons, magic and skills and goes in for the kill. Although this weakness makes him practically unable to determine friend or foe – with the exception of people he becomes really attached to, for instance – he also gains some form of heightened healing to keep him going, though again, not to the same level of trolls.
Taal is also deeply ashamed of his past. The death, the abandonment and his troll side all make him very untrusting, but on the flip side of the coin, incredibly gullible to friendships. It does not take much to make a new friend, although he seems to find some way of annoying or insulting someone somehow.
Taal also suffers keen headaches when he is hungry. His pains can sometimes get so bad that it sends him into a rage, as described above, due to his troll nature. This headache can only be removed by feeding on raw meat, and can even lead to him biting people and live animals if it gets too dire.
He is not as gifted at solving problems like his Elven kin, but does have some appreciation for beauty, although some people may find his tastes in women odd.
History: During the conflicts between troll and Elf in the far woodland areas, crimes were committed that could make a man’s stomach turn. One such crime was that of Taal’s mother and father. His mother was a soldier in the wood elf army and his father was a troll warrior, both of them hell bent on killing each other.
Of course, you can probably see where this is going.
Maybe not.
During a raid, Taal’s mother’s unit was captured and all were killed except her. After that the worst form of rape and torture known to their people occurred and due to the particular tenacity of troll seed, she was impregnated before the rest of the army came, slaughtering all of the trolls there, killing the one who sired the abomination that would occur.
During the pregnancy, his mother tried to self abort on several occasions, but with no success due to the child’s ability to heal, even in the womb. In her horror and shame, she had damaged herself to such a degree that she died of infection during childbirth. When the elders held the child aloft, they were disgusted that this black and gold skinned monster could ever exist.
It would have been more merciful to kill him then.
Instead, they handed the boy to merchants passing through the town, and gave them money to destroy the child on their behalf. Given the fragile emotional nature of elves, the stain of blood on their own hands would not do.
Of course, the compassion of humans is more tenacious than the child’s will to live, it seemed.
Rather than killing the child, the boy was adopted into the caravan and used as cheap, slave labor. As compassion turned to cruelty, the caravan runners felt that by just letting him live, the boy owed them everything. It was only at the age of around seventeen that he started maturing enough to realize that he was stronger, and not their slave.
The rage hit and with it came the deaths of three people. The rest – seeing him now as a monster – drove him from their encampment and left him to the wild to die in solitude. It was there that he should have died on several occasions, but his heavy fortitude and his instinct to hunt led him into the position he has now.
Being so inclined with nature, he hunts for survival, but has been know to venture into cities to take high-paying jobs or deal with the rest of the races all under the guise of a strange breed of wood elf.