Thomas Forgewright
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 9:57 pm
Player Name: James Ryan
Name: Thomas Forgewright, previously known as Alex McCleary
Age: 20
Race: Human, hearty stock from the highlands
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 330 lbs, much of that muscle
Physical Description: He's got a bit of extra baggage, but he's strong. Think of a heavy Viking warrior and you've got this guy pretty much set. His skin is light. His hair is dark brown and worn relatively short, almost never combed. He has a modest beard and mustache, both well groomed.
Possessions:
Clothing/Armor
A dark red tunic, heavy brown pants, the rattiest brown boots that can be imagined without showing his feet through the material and a brown leather apron blackened from soot and coal with a front pocket.
Jewelry
A simple silver chain necklace, used as a focus for some smith-work.
Weapons
Strapped to his side while not in town is a warhammer shaped like a squared fist, etched on every surface with runes and symbols. This is not a craftsman's tool, but a weapon, and Thomas's best showpiece. Pugilist, a hammer that can only be described as anger incarnate in metal, a one-handed weapon that strikes like a two-handed maul. Ideal for taking out pesky armored bandits, this warhammer will hit anything its path crosses and deal what is representative of damage to it, though usually only temporarily in odd cases. Illusions will be partially scrambled, though through no fault of the spell, ghosts will be decorporealized, though the hammer lacks the fine control to destroy them in their fully incorporeal state, a psychic projection will have psychic feedback, etc. Generally, the more it has to stretch to ‘reach’ something’s essence, be it physical or otherwise, the less the effect seems like damage and the more it seems like annoyance. The craftsmanship is modeled after dwarven work and might be mistaken for a dwarven apprentice's showpiece, but a skilled eye can tell that most of the symbols are not dwarven but of a highland script that shares some similarities. There's no real 'special' technique, but Pugilist really doesn't want to be wielded. It hates everything. The enemy, the armor, the hand wielding it, that rock in the background, those bushes, really everything. It is hate and anger incarnate, and as such, it makes swings reckless, needing at least moderate skill to make any use of its power without bashing one's own kneecaps in. Thomas would be better picking up another tool or fighting unarmed. It would take him months if not years to attain the skill needed to use Pugilist properly. Thinking unless someone runs into him outside of Marn, it'll never be a detail as it'll be in his shop in a safe. One cannot help but swing full-out with the Pugilist, and as such an unskilled user is likely to break something they do not intend to, like their opposing shoulder.
Other
A thin flask made of adamantine with a pungent smelling liquid inside (a batch of dragonskin oil in the making *see below). A few gold pieces to get him started off, papers denoting his new identity and his new possession of a bit of land far outside of town as an excuse for his arrival. *A few vials of "Dragonskin", a special oil used to handle dangerous magical items. Used like a lotion, dragonskin oil increases a user's hands' toughness and resistance to magical effects. It is extracted from animal bones, herbs and tree sap, treated and fermented in a bottle made of adamantine for a few months before achieving potency.
Powers or Strengths:
Forgewright is an arcane smith, and as such, a pretty dang good mage to be able to create the items he does. He focuses his magics on crafting however, and can cast only a small array of the spells he can imbue into a weapon or armor. It is at least enough to cover himself should he find himself unarmed so he may beat a hasty retreat from mundane assault. His spells tend to be more archetypal than direct 'castings', so he can do them in subtlety and without the grand arm waving and chanting in Draconic tongues.
Spell list: he may change the shape of crafted items slightly (a few cubic inches of shape alteration), enhance a living being's physical attribute such as strength or healing rate moderately (minor strength boost, tireless hammering, small cut mending, finger regrowth given time), detect density and makeup of earth, stone and metallic materials, and conjure a small, hot flame, similar to a focused blowtorch, good for starting a forge or doing minor repair work.
From frequent applications of Dragonskin Oil, it's rare to find Thomas' hands any more vulnerable to being pierced, cut, or broken than the average block of hardwood, though they are still flexible and flesh-like. They also have some resistance to magical and elemental damage, though not much. He can force aside auras and unfocused blasts of moderate strength with all but minor harm to his flesh, but he won't be juggling fireballs.
Forgewright's skill with weapons is little over that of a commoner child that play-fights with sticks. He has some instinct with how a sword works that goes beyond fighting experience, but that won't do him much good should he find himself in a fight.
As far as his crafting goes, it takes a long time. While a normal smith can churn out a sword of reasonable quality in a day if he doesn't botch the job, Thomas is a lone smith trying to pull off superior work. With no shop help and much to get done even mundane work can take a while longer than normal. Arcane smithing compounds the issue, and it can take weeks if not months to complete a reasonable piece. The maximum power of his current work in standard enchantment can produce a basic flaming sword or more accurate bow, though he can give weapons armors and tools personalities that come out in different ways, such as a knife that always falls near the user's hands if they're ambushed, or a hammer that hates everything.
Source
Thomas isn't a great natural mage or heir to a magical bloodline, though his mundane crafting skill is prodigal. His power as an arcane smith doesn't come via a direct link like a sorcerer, but as a gift from a spirit, much like the magic of a cleric. A forge-soul, a primal sort of magical entity born of the hearts and souls of craftsmen and their love for their work. Thomas' prodigal skill at a forge made him a perfect host for one such soul that was abandoned in the Changer's war. The 'fire muse' as Thomas calls it speaks to Thomas in emotion, pushing him to use its power in an attempt to create a larger pool of creative energy to draw upon. It has no real goal, but it has a hungry, survivalist outlook that is just aided in happenstance by Thomas' success.
Weaknesses:
Thomas has a major issue with appearing proper. He seems to have a hard time keeping an area clean, and even a worse time minding his manners in a time he should be proper in. He also has a strong disregard for those who take offense to his gruffness, on many occasions turning down viable employment because he felt the person wasn't 'the sort' that deserved his work.
Physically, Thomas is relatively healthy besides a weak ankle which tends to give out if jarred. The joint started acting odd after he ripped a tendon in it. Lacking any sort of real care, it healed improperly. Usually he can account for this imbalance if he expects a sudden strain such as catching a heavy load, but a bad move can bring him to his knee or knock him on his rear. Also, due to the pain from his running speed is limited to a brisk canter.
Thomas has a white knight syndrome that gets him in trouble from time to time. He's started more than a few fistfights (and lost more than his fair share) over avenging the mistreatment of others. While his stature often mean he doesn't need to fight many such conflicts, he has little beyond a bit of brute strength to back up his bravado.
He also has poor planning issues. As careful as Thomas might be, he always derails whatever general plan he has in favor of immediate entertainment or satisfaction. He's more likely to spend his money on beer and junk-food than on his necessary paperwork supplies.
History:
Born to a peasant family in the Northern reaches of Eyropa, a boy with the mundane name of Alex MacCleary was handed a life of poverty. Given no other consideration, he would’ve lived as so many others did in farm labor, barely clinging to enough copper to have what life required of him. Luckily for this boy, his blood betrayed enough of a spark of talent that he was drawn to the hammer and anvil. [Age 11] Becoming an apprentice for the local ferrier, he began what would become a lifelong affair with the forge. [Age 14] His work quickly matched that of his master (to surprise of his master and to the relief of his family’s financial status), but it was not horseshoes and tool repair that got him recognized by his future master. His talent awakened, his body became host to an astral spirit. A dwarven foundry flooded and abandoned during the late Changers' War was not far from his home village. The forge-spirit, long since starved from its isolation sniffed out the sparks of a starting craftsman and latched onto Alex for dear life.
The boy made a single blade, a tiny dagger suitable as a boot-knife. His devotion to this small piece betrayed the potential he had, for it became a work of love that he labored on for days. By the end of his work, the dagger was perfect, albeit simple. More importantly, the dagger had gained a weapon’s soul; a magical spark that surpassed the bounds of a normal enchantment. While weak, this dagger was faintly alive. The weapon was used for a while, but eventually it found a home with another who needed its aid, given by the boy as a gift. [Age 16] In the nearby city where the dagger found itself, an illegal enchanter took notice of this item and became curious. Eventually, through a few lines of questioning and sufficient palm-greasing, he managed to track down the boy at his forge where in the intervening years, the boy had managed to discover on his own many techniques that masters would spend as much time teaching apprentices of his age.
Impressed with the innovation and inherent magic that the boy seemed to wield around a forge, the artificer told the then horrified Alex what he was doing and offered to allow the boy to become his apprentice. Alex originally declined and threatened to turn the man in. For months, he swore he would never forge again, but the call of metal and forge proved too strong in the end. Alex returned to his work and the next time that the enchanter offered his tutelage, he accepted. Not shy to take advantage of a situation, the boy negotiated to have his family cared for in his leave. Once the boy was taught the fundamentals of magic, the artificer focused on educating him in the art of enchantment. Through trial and practice, the pair learned how to harness and somewhat understand the power that the boy was able to imbue into items he made. Moreover, they learned how he could direct these efforts with the structure of more traditional enchantments to produce desired effects. The fruit of these labors ended up being a warhammer that to this day he keeps at his side.
[Age 20] As topics became more advanced, the specifics of the magic held by master and that held by apprentice began to slow progress to a crawl. Due to this difference in techniques, the boy who had since become a young man mutually ended his apprenticeship under his master. Both believed that it was time for the young man to learn through trials in the world. Advised to leave his old life behind, the young man signed over what small wealth he had to his family, reported his own death and took on a new name to match the person he had become; and so did Thomas Forgewright enter the world.
Name: Thomas Forgewright, previously known as Alex McCleary
Age: 20
Race: Human, hearty stock from the highlands
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 330 lbs, much of that muscle
Physical Description: He's got a bit of extra baggage, but he's strong. Think of a heavy Viking warrior and you've got this guy pretty much set. His skin is light. His hair is dark brown and worn relatively short, almost never combed. He has a modest beard and mustache, both well groomed.
Possessions:
Clothing/Armor
A dark red tunic, heavy brown pants, the rattiest brown boots that can be imagined without showing his feet through the material and a brown leather apron blackened from soot and coal with a front pocket.
Jewelry
A simple silver chain necklace, used as a focus for some smith-work.
Weapons
Strapped to his side while not in town is a warhammer shaped like a squared fist, etched on every surface with runes and symbols. This is not a craftsman's tool, but a weapon, and Thomas's best showpiece. Pugilist, a hammer that can only be described as anger incarnate in metal, a one-handed weapon that strikes like a two-handed maul. Ideal for taking out pesky armored bandits, this warhammer will hit anything its path crosses and deal what is representative of damage to it, though usually only temporarily in odd cases. Illusions will be partially scrambled, though through no fault of the spell, ghosts will be decorporealized, though the hammer lacks the fine control to destroy them in their fully incorporeal state, a psychic projection will have psychic feedback, etc. Generally, the more it has to stretch to ‘reach’ something’s essence, be it physical or otherwise, the less the effect seems like damage and the more it seems like annoyance. The craftsmanship is modeled after dwarven work and might be mistaken for a dwarven apprentice's showpiece, but a skilled eye can tell that most of the symbols are not dwarven but of a highland script that shares some similarities. There's no real 'special' technique, but Pugilist really doesn't want to be wielded. It hates everything. The enemy, the armor, the hand wielding it, that rock in the background, those bushes, really everything. It is hate and anger incarnate, and as such, it makes swings reckless, needing at least moderate skill to make any use of its power without bashing one's own kneecaps in. Thomas would be better picking up another tool or fighting unarmed. It would take him months if not years to attain the skill needed to use Pugilist properly. Thinking unless someone runs into him outside of Marn, it'll never be a detail as it'll be in his shop in a safe. One cannot help but swing full-out with the Pugilist, and as such an unskilled user is likely to break something they do not intend to, like their opposing shoulder.
Other
A thin flask made of adamantine with a pungent smelling liquid inside (a batch of dragonskin oil in the making *see below). A few gold pieces to get him started off, papers denoting his new identity and his new possession of a bit of land far outside of town as an excuse for his arrival. *A few vials of "Dragonskin", a special oil used to handle dangerous magical items. Used like a lotion, dragonskin oil increases a user's hands' toughness and resistance to magical effects. It is extracted from animal bones, herbs and tree sap, treated and fermented in a bottle made of adamantine for a few months before achieving potency.
Powers or Strengths:
Forgewright is an arcane smith, and as such, a pretty dang good mage to be able to create the items he does. He focuses his magics on crafting however, and can cast only a small array of the spells he can imbue into a weapon or armor. It is at least enough to cover himself should he find himself unarmed so he may beat a hasty retreat from mundane assault. His spells tend to be more archetypal than direct 'castings', so he can do them in subtlety and without the grand arm waving and chanting in Draconic tongues.
Spell list: he may change the shape of crafted items slightly (a few cubic inches of shape alteration), enhance a living being's physical attribute such as strength or healing rate moderately (minor strength boost, tireless hammering, small cut mending, finger regrowth given time), detect density and makeup of earth, stone and metallic materials, and conjure a small, hot flame, similar to a focused blowtorch, good for starting a forge or doing minor repair work.
From frequent applications of Dragonskin Oil, it's rare to find Thomas' hands any more vulnerable to being pierced, cut, or broken than the average block of hardwood, though they are still flexible and flesh-like. They also have some resistance to magical and elemental damage, though not much. He can force aside auras and unfocused blasts of moderate strength with all but minor harm to his flesh, but he won't be juggling fireballs.
Forgewright's skill with weapons is little over that of a commoner child that play-fights with sticks. He has some instinct with how a sword works that goes beyond fighting experience, but that won't do him much good should he find himself in a fight.
As far as his crafting goes, it takes a long time. While a normal smith can churn out a sword of reasonable quality in a day if he doesn't botch the job, Thomas is a lone smith trying to pull off superior work. With no shop help and much to get done even mundane work can take a while longer than normal. Arcane smithing compounds the issue, and it can take weeks if not months to complete a reasonable piece. The maximum power of his current work in standard enchantment can produce a basic flaming sword or more accurate bow, though he can give weapons armors and tools personalities that come out in different ways, such as a knife that always falls near the user's hands if they're ambushed, or a hammer that hates everything.
Source
Thomas isn't a great natural mage or heir to a magical bloodline, though his mundane crafting skill is prodigal. His power as an arcane smith doesn't come via a direct link like a sorcerer, but as a gift from a spirit, much like the magic of a cleric. A forge-soul, a primal sort of magical entity born of the hearts and souls of craftsmen and their love for their work. Thomas' prodigal skill at a forge made him a perfect host for one such soul that was abandoned in the Changer's war. The 'fire muse' as Thomas calls it speaks to Thomas in emotion, pushing him to use its power in an attempt to create a larger pool of creative energy to draw upon. It has no real goal, but it has a hungry, survivalist outlook that is just aided in happenstance by Thomas' success.
Weaknesses:
Thomas has a major issue with appearing proper. He seems to have a hard time keeping an area clean, and even a worse time minding his manners in a time he should be proper in. He also has a strong disregard for those who take offense to his gruffness, on many occasions turning down viable employment because he felt the person wasn't 'the sort' that deserved his work.
Physically, Thomas is relatively healthy besides a weak ankle which tends to give out if jarred. The joint started acting odd after he ripped a tendon in it. Lacking any sort of real care, it healed improperly. Usually he can account for this imbalance if he expects a sudden strain such as catching a heavy load, but a bad move can bring him to his knee or knock him on his rear. Also, due to the pain from his running speed is limited to a brisk canter.
Thomas has a white knight syndrome that gets him in trouble from time to time. He's started more than a few fistfights (and lost more than his fair share) over avenging the mistreatment of others. While his stature often mean he doesn't need to fight many such conflicts, he has little beyond a bit of brute strength to back up his bravado.
He also has poor planning issues. As careful as Thomas might be, he always derails whatever general plan he has in favor of immediate entertainment or satisfaction. He's more likely to spend his money on beer and junk-food than on his necessary paperwork supplies.
History:
Born to a peasant family in the Northern reaches of Eyropa, a boy with the mundane name of Alex MacCleary was handed a life of poverty. Given no other consideration, he would’ve lived as so many others did in farm labor, barely clinging to enough copper to have what life required of him. Luckily for this boy, his blood betrayed enough of a spark of talent that he was drawn to the hammer and anvil. [Age 11] Becoming an apprentice for the local ferrier, he began what would become a lifelong affair with the forge. [Age 14] His work quickly matched that of his master (to surprise of his master and to the relief of his family’s financial status), but it was not horseshoes and tool repair that got him recognized by his future master. His talent awakened, his body became host to an astral spirit. A dwarven foundry flooded and abandoned during the late Changers' War was not far from his home village. The forge-spirit, long since starved from its isolation sniffed out the sparks of a starting craftsman and latched onto Alex for dear life.
The boy made a single blade, a tiny dagger suitable as a boot-knife. His devotion to this small piece betrayed the potential he had, for it became a work of love that he labored on for days. By the end of his work, the dagger was perfect, albeit simple. More importantly, the dagger had gained a weapon’s soul; a magical spark that surpassed the bounds of a normal enchantment. While weak, this dagger was faintly alive. The weapon was used for a while, but eventually it found a home with another who needed its aid, given by the boy as a gift. [Age 16] In the nearby city where the dagger found itself, an illegal enchanter took notice of this item and became curious. Eventually, through a few lines of questioning and sufficient palm-greasing, he managed to track down the boy at his forge where in the intervening years, the boy had managed to discover on his own many techniques that masters would spend as much time teaching apprentices of his age.
Impressed with the innovation and inherent magic that the boy seemed to wield around a forge, the artificer told the then horrified Alex what he was doing and offered to allow the boy to become his apprentice. Alex originally declined and threatened to turn the man in. For months, he swore he would never forge again, but the call of metal and forge proved too strong in the end. Alex returned to his work and the next time that the enchanter offered his tutelage, he accepted. Not shy to take advantage of a situation, the boy negotiated to have his family cared for in his leave. Once the boy was taught the fundamentals of magic, the artificer focused on educating him in the art of enchantment. Through trial and practice, the pair learned how to harness and somewhat understand the power that the boy was able to imbue into items he made. Moreover, they learned how he could direct these efforts with the structure of more traditional enchantments to produce desired effects. The fruit of these labors ended up being a warhammer that to this day he keeps at his side.
[Age 20] As topics became more advanced, the specifics of the magic held by master and that held by apprentice began to slow progress to a crawl. Due to this difference in techniques, the boy who had since become a young man mutually ended his apprenticeship under his master. Both believed that it was time for the young man to learn through trials in the world. Advised to leave his old life behind, the young man signed over what small wealth he had to his family, reported his own death and took on a new name to match the person he had become; and so did Thomas Forgewright enter the world.
