Shann Mehren
Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 10:25 pm
Well, I had already written this character when I discovered the Character Classifieds and found that resistance members of the Vitiable Paragon were already taken. However, this character is a human who would very much like to join the resistance if he is given a chance, so I have posted this application for your consideration.
Player Name: Shannester
Name: Shann Mehren
Age: 31
Race: Human
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 155 lbs.
Physical Description:
Many years of physical labor in a brick factory have left Shann fit and lean, although the constant exposure to heat, smoke and dust has prematurely aged his skin as well as given him the beginnings of a deep and constant cough. Recent events unrelated to his work in the factory have left him with drooping shoulders and a vacant stare. Thus, he appears much older than he is, even if he is in fact muscular and still in good health.
He has a non-descript if not unpleasant appearance: brown hair, brown eyes, an angular face with a round forehead, and an almost-straight nose.
He has managed to keep his job at the factory, barely, and not had any will left over to do anything else. Thus, his appearance is unkempt with increasingly ragged and dusty clothing.
Completely ostracized in his neighborhood, he has become silent and brooding, constantly alternating between rage and despair.
Possessions:
Shann has only two things which are important to him. The first is a whale-bone comb that had belonged to his wife, and which had been her treasured possession, an heirloom from her great-grandmother from a vanished tribe in the far north. In daylight the comb was ivory white with a pearlescent gleam. In firelight, the comb became translucent with veins of blue and silver appearing in a fine tracery. In moonlight, the comb glowed softly. In the light of the full moon it became incandescent. Shann knew the comb obviously had to be magical in some way, which was why he kept it carefully wrapped in a seal-skin pouch just like his wife used to. The pouch was also from that vanished northern tribe and, he believed, muffled the magic of the comb so as to render it undetectable. At least no one had noticed it yet.
His other precious possession consisted of the contents of another pouch which had belonged to his son. This pouch was of plain, frayed leather, and Shann fretted that its contents might be detectable, if they were in fact magical, which he was not sure about at all.
Shann had passed on his hobby of whittling wood to his son. While Shann was a decent whittler, making dice, animal shapes, whistles, and the like, his twelve-year old son surpassed mere whittling to carve...
Shann shook his head and opened his son's pouch to spill its contents on the table. With a convulsive twitch Shann peered about the room to make sure no one was watching, which, of course, was exactly the case. The carved, wooden pieces on the table were all tiny, exquisitely detailed, and representative of absolutely nothing that Shann could imagine. Shann had no idea how his son could have coaxed such shapes out of knotty twigs and branches. There were six pieces, all strangely geometrical. Two were hollow. The strangest one was actually the simplest: just a ring. This ring appeared to have two edges, but if he traced one, the ring really had only one edge that somehow twisted and deceived the eye in an unsettling way.
Powers or Strengths:
Shann has no inherent magical powers. He does have a few simple strengths honed by adversity, the ability to survive despite his poor upbringing. As well, despite a cough that is becoming more constant, he is in good physical condition.
Although he has no magic himself, his two possessions certainly have magical qualities that may prove to be of benefit in the future, if he can figure out how to harness their powers. Right now, he has no idea what they can do. Indeed, being the child of Marn that he is, it has not even occurred to him to investigate their potential magical abilities. They are merely the treasured memories of his lost wife and son.
Weaknesses:
Shann is a normal, entirely unremarkable man, who is about to be thrust into extraordinary circumstances for which he will be woefully unprepared. He has no martial training, although he can handle himself in a fight. His personal drawbacks are, of course, considerable: a moody temperament marred by cycles of rage, grief and deep depression. If something doesn't happen very soon, his depression will consume him. He needs to find something that will give him new purpose or he will certainly end up taking his own life.
History:
Shann has no important history until he met his wife. He was born dirt poor in Marn. His father died in a factory accident when Shann was very young. His sickly mother, who had nearly died in a miscarriage herself, raised him all alone in a quiet and somber room on the edge of the residential district. Thus, Shann grew up half among decent Marn society and half in the historic district. When his mother wasn't ushering him off to congregation, Shann was typically up to no good on the streets.
His mother passed away when he was fifteen, at which point he dropped out of school and ended up on the streets, primarily the historic district, which was where he met his future wife.
Oona showed up one day, ragged and pretty, and the rest was history: he got his job at the brickery, got them a room in the residential district, got Oona pregnant, and finally they got married. The good citizens of Marn would not have much do with the Mehren couple. The Oona woman with her silvery hair was obviously an outsider and probably a half-breed. No one would give her work, and she was a favored target of the City Guard. Shann dutifully took her to congregation at least every once in a while, where they were ignored. Shann could never understand why his fellow Marnites would not accept the lovely, foreign woman. He could not see past the blinders of his love. Any decent person could see that there was just something about her that reeked of magic. Suspicious neighbors made it a point to observe her carefully and report her regularly to the authorities.
Things settled down a bit with the birth of Gregor. The boy was an obviously normal baby who, thankfully, took after his father. Folks became more accustomed to Oona's exotic appearance, and the years rolled by.
The trouble began when Gregor was about 9 years old and began carving his first shapes. Shann remembered the first one: the boy had somehow taken a knotty twig and turned it into a palm-sized disk upon which was carved a spiral. If there was one shape that was associated with magic, it was the damn spiral, and Shann did his best to impress upon his young son not to show his carvings to anyone. Shann also tried to stop his boy from carving, but the boy somehow always found a knife and a chunk of wood and his carving habit seemed to become an obsessive one.
Also, around this time, Oona was questioned by the City Guard when an awning collapsed upon a small child -- and the child was unharmed. Several onlookers claimed she used magic to save the child from harm, despite Oona's protestations.
That was when Shann began to question Marn's obsession with magic. How could magic be evil when it was used for good? Why would a harmless woman be persecuted if she had done a good thing? It made no sense.
After that, it seemed like that whenever anything unusual happened in his neighborhood, the City Guard would magically appear to question Oona. Shann feared that all of his neighbors had turned against his family.
His boy Gregor also began to demonstrate strange behaviors. Twice he disappeared only to be found outside the city gates, searching, he claimed, for a good bit of wood. If it was one thing a child did not do, it was wander outside the walls of Marn, and Shann's family became a subject of great interest to the authorities.
Shann recalled the single event that convinced him that Gregor had somehow inherited magical abilities from his mother. Gregor had become a target of bullies and was constantly being harassed and beaten. One day Shann walked home from work and he heard Gregor's voice cry out in fright. Shann rushed around the corner just in time to see Gregor throw some carved pieces from his pouch around him on the ground. A collection of boys about to rush Gregor suddenly looked around in confusion. With the appearance of Shann, the boys turned their heads toward him, then dashed off. Shann could not help but wonder if the carvings had hidden Gregor from the bullies' view. Gregor would only say he was playing.
It was those small, carved pieces Shann now kept with him at all times, along with his wife's comb.
Gregor kept carving oddities that filled their room. Nothing Shann did seemed to dissuade the boy. When, finally, they came in the night to steal his family. The only things Shann had been able to save were the comb and six geometric pieces. Everything else was stripped from their room. Shann, brutally questioned himself and found to be innocent, was informed in no small terms that he needed to forget about his unnatural wife and son.
And so it was now, his family disappeared, Shann left with nothing but two small pouches containing mementos of his lost loved ones. Shann has been reading the Vitiable Paragon and wondered how he could participate. He believes firmly that the government of Marn is completely evil and needs to be overthrown at all costs.
Player Name: Shannester
Name: Shann Mehren
Age: 31
Race: Human
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 155 lbs.
Physical Description:
Many years of physical labor in a brick factory have left Shann fit and lean, although the constant exposure to heat, smoke and dust has prematurely aged his skin as well as given him the beginnings of a deep and constant cough. Recent events unrelated to his work in the factory have left him with drooping shoulders and a vacant stare. Thus, he appears much older than he is, even if he is in fact muscular and still in good health.
He has a non-descript if not unpleasant appearance: brown hair, brown eyes, an angular face with a round forehead, and an almost-straight nose.
He has managed to keep his job at the factory, barely, and not had any will left over to do anything else. Thus, his appearance is unkempt with increasingly ragged and dusty clothing.
Completely ostracized in his neighborhood, he has become silent and brooding, constantly alternating between rage and despair.
Possessions:
Shann has only two things which are important to him. The first is a whale-bone comb that had belonged to his wife, and which had been her treasured possession, an heirloom from her great-grandmother from a vanished tribe in the far north. In daylight the comb was ivory white with a pearlescent gleam. In firelight, the comb became translucent with veins of blue and silver appearing in a fine tracery. In moonlight, the comb glowed softly. In the light of the full moon it became incandescent. Shann knew the comb obviously had to be magical in some way, which was why he kept it carefully wrapped in a seal-skin pouch just like his wife used to. The pouch was also from that vanished northern tribe and, he believed, muffled the magic of the comb so as to render it undetectable. At least no one had noticed it yet.
His other precious possession consisted of the contents of another pouch which had belonged to his son. This pouch was of plain, frayed leather, and Shann fretted that its contents might be detectable, if they were in fact magical, which he was not sure about at all.
Shann had passed on his hobby of whittling wood to his son. While Shann was a decent whittler, making dice, animal shapes, whistles, and the like, his twelve-year old son surpassed mere whittling to carve...
Shann shook his head and opened his son's pouch to spill its contents on the table. With a convulsive twitch Shann peered about the room to make sure no one was watching, which, of course, was exactly the case. The carved, wooden pieces on the table were all tiny, exquisitely detailed, and representative of absolutely nothing that Shann could imagine. Shann had no idea how his son could have coaxed such shapes out of knotty twigs and branches. There were six pieces, all strangely geometrical. Two were hollow. The strangest one was actually the simplest: just a ring. This ring appeared to have two edges, but if he traced one, the ring really had only one edge that somehow twisted and deceived the eye in an unsettling way.
Powers or Strengths:
Shann has no inherent magical powers. He does have a few simple strengths honed by adversity, the ability to survive despite his poor upbringing. As well, despite a cough that is becoming more constant, he is in good physical condition.
Although he has no magic himself, his two possessions certainly have magical qualities that may prove to be of benefit in the future, if he can figure out how to harness their powers. Right now, he has no idea what they can do. Indeed, being the child of Marn that he is, it has not even occurred to him to investigate their potential magical abilities. They are merely the treasured memories of his lost wife and son.
Weaknesses:
Shann is a normal, entirely unremarkable man, who is about to be thrust into extraordinary circumstances for which he will be woefully unprepared. He has no martial training, although he can handle himself in a fight. His personal drawbacks are, of course, considerable: a moody temperament marred by cycles of rage, grief and deep depression. If something doesn't happen very soon, his depression will consume him. He needs to find something that will give him new purpose or he will certainly end up taking his own life.
History:
Shann has no important history until he met his wife. He was born dirt poor in Marn. His father died in a factory accident when Shann was very young. His sickly mother, who had nearly died in a miscarriage herself, raised him all alone in a quiet and somber room on the edge of the residential district. Thus, Shann grew up half among decent Marn society and half in the historic district. When his mother wasn't ushering him off to congregation, Shann was typically up to no good on the streets.
His mother passed away when he was fifteen, at which point he dropped out of school and ended up on the streets, primarily the historic district, which was where he met his future wife.
Oona showed up one day, ragged and pretty, and the rest was history: he got his job at the brickery, got them a room in the residential district, got Oona pregnant, and finally they got married. The good citizens of Marn would not have much do with the Mehren couple. The Oona woman with her silvery hair was obviously an outsider and probably a half-breed. No one would give her work, and she was a favored target of the City Guard. Shann dutifully took her to congregation at least every once in a while, where they were ignored. Shann could never understand why his fellow Marnites would not accept the lovely, foreign woman. He could not see past the blinders of his love. Any decent person could see that there was just something about her that reeked of magic. Suspicious neighbors made it a point to observe her carefully and report her regularly to the authorities.
Things settled down a bit with the birth of Gregor. The boy was an obviously normal baby who, thankfully, took after his father. Folks became more accustomed to Oona's exotic appearance, and the years rolled by.
The trouble began when Gregor was about 9 years old and began carving his first shapes. Shann remembered the first one: the boy had somehow taken a knotty twig and turned it into a palm-sized disk upon which was carved a spiral. If there was one shape that was associated with magic, it was the damn spiral, and Shann did his best to impress upon his young son not to show his carvings to anyone. Shann also tried to stop his boy from carving, but the boy somehow always found a knife and a chunk of wood and his carving habit seemed to become an obsessive one.
Also, around this time, Oona was questioned by the City Guard when an awning collapsed upon a small child -- and the child was unharmed. Several onlookers claimed she used magic to save the child from harm, despite Oona's protestations.
That was when Shann began to question Marn's obsession with magic. How could magic be evil when it was used for good? Why would a harmless woman be persecuted if she had done a good thing? It made no sense.
After that, it seemed like that whenever anything unusual happened in his neighborhood, the City Guard would magically appear to question Oona. Shann feared that all of his neighbors had turned against his family.
His boy Gregor also began to demonstrate strange behaviors. Twice he disappeared only to be found outside the city gates, searching, he claimed, for a good bit of wood. If it was one thing a child did not do, it was wander outside the walls of Marn, and Shann's family became a subject of great interest to the authorities.
Shann recalled the single event that convinced him that Gregor had somehow inherited magical abilities from his mother. Gregor had become a target of bullies and was constantly being harassed and beaten. One day Shann walked home from work and he heard Gregor's voice cry out in fright. Shann rushed around the corner just in time to see Gregor throw some carved pieces from his pouch around him on the ground. A collection of boys about to rush Gregor suddenly looked around in confusion. With the appearance of Shann, the boys turned their heads toward him, then dashed off. Shann could not help but wonder if the carvings had hidden Gregor from the bullies' view. Gregor would only say he was playing.
It was those small, carved pieces Shann now kept with him at all times, along with his wife's comb.
Gregor kept carving oddities that filled their room. Nothing Shann did seemed to dissuade the boy. When, finally, they came in the night to steal his family. The only things Shann had been able to save were the comb and six geometric pieces. Everything else was stripped from their room. Shann, brutally questioned himself and found to be innocent, was informed in no small terms that he needed to forget about his unnatural wife and son.
And so it was now, his family disappeared, Shann left with nothing but two small pouches containing mementos of his lost loved ones. Shann has been reading the Vitiable Paragon and wondered how he could participate. He believes firmly that the government of Marn is completely evil and needs to be overthrown at all costs.
