Kelly Roarke
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 5:04 pm
Name: Kelly Roarke
Race: Human (1/4 Elven)
Gender: Male
Age: 25
Occupation: none, yet, but he will start looking if/when he decides to stay in Terre Haute
Magic: he can change small amounts of any of the four elements into any of the others by mentally focusing on the transformation he wants. So far, however, he has only discovered how to change earth (mineral and organic stuff) into water, and can usually only do this to objects that weigh less than 50 lbs and are not alive. Also, he has only once succeeded in transforming something that he couldn’t see and doesn’t know how to repeat this.
Appearance:
Kelly’s face is best characterized by contrast. He has the slightly elongated, angular bone structure and pointed chin of an elf, yet he managed to inherit his father’s bold and somewhat hawkish nose. Uncommonly strait black hair, which hangs to a little below his shoulders, frames a pale complexion. His large eyes are a shocking bright blue under dark eyebrows and lashes. His lips are full enough to boarder on the effeminate without quite closing in on it. Usually hidden by his hair, the tips of his ears are just pointed enough that they might suggest Elven blood to someone who was either very used to it or specifically looking for it. A modest gold hoop dangles from each earlobe.
If Kelly is slightly more narrow-shouldered and lithe looking than the average human, he is also blockier than the average elf. At about 6’2”, his height, at least, doesn’t stand out. To the casual observer, he just looks like a slim, long-limbed, rather beautiful human guy.
Personality:
Kelly prefers large groups of strangers to solitude, but he prefers solitude to commitment of any kind. Most people see him as a polite, outgoing, witty person; but he rarely-to-never lets anyone past these superficial aspects of his personality. His idea of a great time is getting drunk with a tavern full of perfect strangers, perhaps singing a few off-key verses or gambling for quarters, then going home with a pretty girl who understands as well as he does that the relationship won’t last longer than a week.
For the most part, this works out pretty well for Kelly, but his attitude runs in cycles. Here’s how it works. He moves to a new town and has a great time partying with different people every night. Then, he starts to get just a little bit settled in. It suddenly strikes him that he has loads of acquaintances but no real friends. He pretends not to notice or care, but gradually starts to feel left out and lonely. He holes himself up for a while and gloomily contemplates his lot in life and his options. Finally, he decides that what he needs is to find someone he can really relate to, fall in love, and settle down. With a renewed sense of purpose, he sets out to find the perfect mate. He soon gets distracted by a poker game or whatever, remembers how much fun the free-spirit lifestyle has always been, and decides commitment is for losers anyway. He moves to a new place to avoid accidentally creating any interpersonal connections. Who knows if Kelly will ever break this cycle – he almost did, once – or which direction he will go if he does?
There you have the essence of Kelly, but there’s more to him than the little he divulges to others and what could easily be observed about him if anyone wanted to take the time.
He hates confrontation of all kinds. He tells himself, and others when it becomes necessary, that this is because confrontation too often leads to closeness. Secretly, he hates the idea of hurting another person. If he absolutely has to fight, he can and will – this situation has arisen often enough that he’s actually fairly good with his fists or a knife – but he will go to great lengths to avoid it. If he ever gets angry, he stuffs it deep enough that he doesn’t even realize he’s feeling it.
Another secret about Kelly: he’s a bit of a brainiac. He’s never been a fan of formal education, but he has always taken a guilty joy in learning and philosophizing. A few books make up a part of his sparse permanent belongings, and he tends to frequent the library whenever he’s in a town that has one. Because he doesn’t like people to see him reading or know that he enjoys it, he does a lot more of it in his solitary and reflective periods than in his social ones. He loves people watching and trying to “figure people out” as much as he hates it when people try to do the same to him. He blames this love of knowledge on his Elven blood.
Kelly attributes his sometimes-irresistible draw to the natural world to the same source and treats it equally as if it were a hideous birthmark. He’ll even go so far as to lie if anyone catches him slipping away to go for a hike. It is only when he is on his own with nature that Kelly really feels at peace, however. When he’s swimming alone in some pristine lake or sitting on a lonely beach or in a secluded forest glen, he can finally let go of all the pretences, all the pent-up emotions he didn’t even realize he had. Sometimes, this experience scares him so much that he’ll avoid nature for months, but he always goes back.
One thing Kelly isn’t ashamed of is his fierce sense of competition. He prides himself on being a fairly fast middle-distance runner, so he’ll enter races whenever he has the opportunity. Every so often, he’ll even splurge and engage in a battle of wits, like chess. He is constantly competing privately in every aspect of his life. If he comments on someone’s impressive ability to hold his liquor, he is secretly counting just how many drinks the other man has and making sure to better it by one. He doesn’t particularly care whether or not anyone notices just so long as he wins. He realizes this obsession with winning is silly, but everyone has to have something to be proud of.
History (Family and Personal):
Kelly comes from a line of small farmers from a small, rural community. The people in this community are all human, rather set in their ways, and intolerant of non-humans.
A band of elves traveled through once, however, and set up an uneasy residence for a couple of weeks. Kelly’s grandmother was a particularly rebellious teenager at the time, so of course she felt the urge to taste the forbidden fruit. Her parents were furious when she ashamedly explained how she had gotten pregnant, but they didn’t let this show publicly and swore their daughter to secrecy to avoid bringing scandal to the family. To the family’s relief, when the baby was born she looked just like everyone else in the family and acted like a normal human child. So Cara grew up believing her father had died in some war or other before she was born.
Secrets have a way of coming out, however, and this one found its means of expression through Kelly. When the dark-haired boy with evidence of his would-be angular face was born to parents whose families had been blond and soft-featured for generations, his grandmother had to spill to keep her daughter from being accused of adultery. Cara and Barry’s marriage was tense from then on, but they didn’t want to draw attention to the situation by splitting up.
So, Kelly grew up as a symbol of his family’s shameful secret in the midst of an unstable marriage. Still, some level of love remained in the family, and there were good times, especially in the winter, between the stressful plantings and harvests.
Kelly never really felt included in his homogenous and tight-knit community – to start with, he looked nothing like them. But he was naturally outgoing and his parents had taught him to mind his manners. He didn’t have any real friends, but most of the adults referred to him as “that nice Roarke boy” and most of the other kids at least tolerated him.
By sixteen, however, Kelly was finally fed up. When he said goodbye to his mom and dad, they were sad to see him go but were also relieved to a certain extent. So he left with no real plan besides getting out and seeing what the world outside of his own little town was like. He found a ship captain that would let him sail for free as long as he would join the crew for the duration of the trip. This sounded like a pretty good deal to him, so he signed on.
He wandered for the next nine years, working various odd jobs and following the cycle described earlier. Usually, he stayed in one place anywhere from two days to three weeks, but once, he almost stayed put.
That was the one time in his life that Kelly fell in love. He was twenty, then, and the girl was the town beauty. He thought she was perfect. He even convinced the town’s blacksmith to take him on as an apprentice to show her that he had prospects, and in the process discovered he was pretty good at finite metal work. Needless to say, after six months she got tired of him. So he swore off love and left broken-hearted.
One morning, Kelly arrived at a city called Marn. It looked rather dark, but he thought he might as well give it a try. He saw a few guards, but avoided them and so managed not to be questioned by any of them. He went into the city in search of information and new acquaintances.
Equipment:
- The clothes on his back (a plain, well cut shirt, loose pants, a nice if worn coat, a pair of boots)
- A few books
- Some dried fruit and bread and a water bottle
- A small knife in a sheath at his hip
- Enough money to get him through two weeks or so on a slim budget
Race: Human (1/4 Elven)
Gender: Male
Age: 25
Occupation: none, yet, but he will start looking if/when he decides to stay in Terre Haute
Magic: he can change small amounts of any of the four elements into any of the others by mentally focusing on the transformation he wants. So far, however, he has only discovered how to change earth (mineral and organic stuff) into water, and can usually only do this to objects that weigh less than 50 lbs and are not alive. Also, he has only once succeeded in transforming something that he couldn’t see and doesn’t know how to repeat this.
Appearance:
Kelly’s face is best characterized by contrast. He has the slightly elongated, angular bone structure and pointed chin of an elf, yet he managed to inherit his father’s bold and somewhat hawkish nose. Uncommonly strait black hair, which hangs to a little below his shoulders, frames a pale complexion. His large eyes are a shocking bright blue under dark eyebrows and lashes. His lips are full enough to boarder on the effeminate without quite closing in on it. Usually hidden by his hair, the tips of his ears are just pointed enough that they might suggest Elven blood to someone who was either very used to it or specifically looking for it. A modest gold hoop dangles from each earlobe.
If Kelly is slightly more narrow-shouldered and lithe looking than the average human, he is also blockier than the average elf. At about 6’2”, his height, at least, doesn’t stand out. To the casual observer, he just looks like a slim, long-limbed, rather beautiful human guy.
Personality:
Kelly prefers large groups of strangers to solitude, but he prefers solitude to commitment of any kind. Most people see him as a polite, outgoing, witty person; but he rarely-to-never lets anyone past these superficial aspects of his personality. His idea of a great time is getting drunk with a tavern full of perfect strangers, perhaps singing a few off-key verses or gambling for quarters, then going home with a pretty girl who understands as well as he does that the relationship won’t last longer than a week.
For the most part, this works out pretty well for Kelly, but his attitude runs in cycles. Here’s how it works. He moves to a new town and has a great time partying with different people every night. Then, he starts to get just a little bit settled in. It suddenly strikes him that he has loads of acquaintances but no real friends. He pretends not to notice or care, but gradually starts to feel left out and lonely. He holes himself up for a while and gloomily contemplates his lot in life and his options. Finally, he decides that what he needs is to find someone he can really relate to, fall in love, and settle down. With a renewed sense of purpose, he sets out to find the perfect mate. He soon gets distracted by a poker game or whatever, remembers how much fun the free-spirit lifestyle has always been, and decides commitment is for losers anyway. He moves to a new place to avoid accidentally creating any interpersonal connections. Who knows if Kelly will ever break this cycle – he almost did, once – or which direction he will go if he does?
There you have the essence of Kelly, but there’s more to him than the little he divulges to others and what could easily be observed about him if anyone wanted to take the time.
He hates confrontation of all kinds. He tells himself, and others when it becomes necessary, that this is because confrontation too often leads to closeness. Secretly, he hates the idea of hurting another person. If he absolutely has to fight, he can and will – this situation has arisen often enough that he’s actually fairly good with his fists or a knife – but he will go to great lengths to avoid it. If he ever gets angry, he stuffs it deep enough that he doesn’t even realize he’s feeling it.
Another secret about Kelly: he’s a bit of a brainiac. He’s never been a fan of formal education, but he has always taken a guilty joy in learning and philosophizing. A few books make up a part of his sparse permanent belongings, and he tends to frequent the library whenever he’s in a town that has one. Because he doesn’t like people to see him reading or know that he enjoys it, he does a lot more of it in his solitary and reflective periods than in his social ones. He loves people watching and trying to “figure people out” as much as he hates it when people try to do the same to him. He blames this love of knowledge on his Elven blood.
Kelly attributes his sometimes-irresistible draw to the natural world to the same source and treats it equally as if it were a hideous birthmark. He’ll even go so far as to lie if anyone catches him slipping away to go for a hike. It is only when he is on his own with nature that Kelly really feels at peace, however. When he’s swimming alone in some pristine lake or sitting on a lonely beach or in a secluded forest glen, he can finally let go of all the pretences, all the pent-up emotions he didn’t even realize he had. Sometimes, this experience scares him so much that he’ll avoid nature for months, but he always goes back.
One thing Kelly isn’t ashamed of is his fierce sense of competition. He prides himself on being a fairly fast middle-distance runner, so he’ll enter races whenever he has the opportunity. Every so often, he’ll even splurge and engage in a battle of wits, like chess. He is constantly competing privately in every aspect of his life. If he comments on someone’s impressive ability to hold his liquor, he is secretly counting just how many drinks the other man has and making sure to better it by one. He doesn’t particularly care whether or not anyone notices just so long as he wins. He realizes this obsession with winning is silly, but everyone has to have something to be proud of.
History (Family and Personal):
Kelly comes from a line of small farmers from a small, rural community. The people in this community are all human, rather set in their ways, and intolerant of non-humans.
A band of elves traveled through once, however, and set up an uneasy residence for a couple of weeks. Kelly’s grandmother was a particularly rebellious teenager at the time, so of course she felt the urge to taste the forbidden fruit. Her parents were furious when she ashamedly explained how she had gotten pregnant, but they didn’t let this show publicly and swore their daughter to secrecy to avoid bringing scandal to the family. To the family’s relief, when the baby was born she looked just like everyone else in the family and acted like a normal human child. So Cara grew up believing her father had died in some war or other before she was born.
Secrets have a way of coming out, however, and this one found its means of expression through Kelly. When the dark-haired boy with evidence of his would-be angular face was born to parents whose families had been blond and soft-featured for generations, his grandmother had to spill to keep her daughter from being accused of adultery. Cara and Barry’s marriage was tense from then on, but they didn’t want to draw attention to the situation by splitting up.
So, Kelly grew up as a symbol of his family’s shameful secret in the midst of an unstable marriage. Still, some level of love remained in the family, and there were good times, especially in the winter, between the stressful plantings and harvests.
Kelly never really felt included in his homogenous and tight-knit community – to start with, he looked nothing like them. But he was naturally outgoing and his parents had taught him to mind his manners. He didn’t have any real friends, but most of the adults referred to him as “that nice Roarke boy” and most of the other kids at least tolerated him.
By sixteen, however, Kelly was finally fed up. When he said goodbye to his mom and dad, they were sad to see him go but were also relieved to a certain extent. So he left with no real plan besides getting out and seeing what the world outside of his own little town was like. He found a ship captain that would let him sail for free as long as he would join the crew for the duration of the trip. This sounded like a pretty good deal to him, so he signed on.
He wandered for the next nine years, working various odd jobs and following the cycle described earlier. Usually, he stayed in one place anywhere from two days to three weeks, but once, he almost stayed put.
That was the one time in his life that Kelly fell in love. He was twenty, then, and the girl was the town beauty. He thought she was perfect. He even convinced the town’s blacksmith to take him on as an apprentice to show her that he had prospects, and in the process discovered he was pretty good at finite metal work. Needless to say, after six months she got tired of him. So he swore off love and left broken-hearted.
One morning, Kelly arrived at a city called Marn. It looked rather dark, but he thought he might as well give it a try. He saw a few guards, but avoided them and so managed not to be questioned by any of them. He went into the city in search of information and new acquaintances.
Equipment:
- The clothes on his back (a plain, well cut shirt, loose pants, a nice if worn coat, a pair of boots)
- A few books
- Some dried fruit and bread and a water bottle
- A small knife in a sheath at his hip
- Enough money to get him through two weeks or so on a slim budget