Thar Shaddin

Name: Lucian Lael
Age: 27
Race: Human
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 150 lbs.

Physical Description: Lucian is of slight build and light bone structure, wiry and hard, sinew apparent with every movement. His eyes are light brown, flecked with gold and green and containing a depth of both feeling and coldness that is startling. He has sharp facial bone structure, but not unbecomingly so. Chestnut brown hair, hacked in a sort of uniformly short cut.

Lucian has dozens of scars across his body from a variety of injuries and wounds, ranging from accidents to being attacked by an astral creature. The most noticeable scarring is a swipe across his throat from said astral creature, the damage of which gives his voice a permanent rasp.

His clothing are simple trousers of cloth, brown, and an open neck, long-sleeve shirt of the same material, black. Moccasins he occasionally wears, but normally he is barefoot.

Possessions: Being an outcast of gypsy upbringing, Lucian owns very little and usually has but few things with him.

Strengths/Abilities:

Lip Reading - Though deaf, Lucian is a prolific lip reader. So as long he can see your mouth, there is a very good chance he can understand you (although he frequently does not show that he can). Even when he cannot see the mouth, he is very good at reading body language and expression to get an idea of what the person is thinking.

Truesight - An enchantment placed on his eyes by the old medicine woman after his accident, Lucian can see into a creature's eyes and know if they are speaking the truth, even get a sense for the content of their soul. Moreover, this enchantment makes him very resistant to being fooled or tricked by slight of hand or magical conjuring.

Elemental Affinity - Maybe helped because he has lived in unity with the nature so long. Perhaps because of a dryad's blessing. Undoubtedly sparked during a traumatic and scarring connection to magic far more powerful than anything he'd known while a prisoner of Marn, Lucian is in the midst of discovering the most infantile influence over things of elemental nature. The fire flares slightly brighter. A breath of a breeze in the room. Drawing water out of a soaked rag and into a puddle on the floor next to it. He does not know how or why, but he senses these things, far more aware of their nature than he ever thought could be known.

It feels, although language is difficult to put to it, that they are somewhat willing to agree with him to do certain things. Whether this agreement can be strengthened with discipline and practice, only time will tell.

Vibration - Lucian has compensated for deafness further by being sensitive to vibrations. This fairly exclusively is just an alert to movement or motion. The stiller the surroundings, the more effective this can be.

Kripla'Kra - Or the Dancing Fight, as it is roughly translated. It is a fighting style, largely based on erratic, seemingly unpredictable gyrations and flips and sweeping motions that are very indicative of its origin as a fire dance performed by the gypsies, who are believed to have in turn learned it long ago from the elves. It is fast and dizzying, demanding good coordination, excellent flexibility and stamina. Lucian is possessing all three requirements.

Further, Kripla'Kra does indeed breed a kind of unity with the earth, skilled practitioners drawing a kind of soothing peace from the kinship, allowing them to deal with stress and even heal more easily.

Over the years, Lucian has developed this art further away from the dance and made it more deceiving and unreadable, one move a mask for another.

Escape Artist - With exceptional quickness and agility (not to mention in his life as a gypsy requiring frequent practice), Lucian is skilled at getting away when he figures the situation is getting a little more challenge than what he wants to deal with. Rooftops, sewers- when he needs to run away, he can usually do so.

Deafness - A slight benefit to the situation, being deaf makes him immune to many types of magic that require audible commands to be heard and hence have their effect, as well as things like siren's songs and other musical enchantments.

Strength of Will - Being less than normal at physical strength, Lucian has taken a large number of beatings and injuries in his life. But all it has done is make him one of the hardiest people you are ever likely to meet. He has a very high thresh-hold for physical pain and abuse.

Weaknesses:

Deafness - Obviously, the disadvantages of being deaf are numerous. He is unable to hear shouted warnings, his unable to hear someone sneaking up on him, and is largely handicapped in communicating unless he can see your lips and thus interpret what you're saying. This makes him an outcast by default.

Underdeveloped Musculature - Never really capable of building much muscle mass, Lucian is below average strength for a man, being possessed of mostly hard sinew for quickness.

Weak Wrist - When Lucian was sixteen, both bones in his left wrist were broken with a blow from a thrown club while he was engaged in a brawl with some city boys. The bones healed but never set properly, causing him discomfort and even excruciating pain when too much strain is placed on it, usually in the context of lifting something. He has conditioned it to bear his own weight with fair reliability, but not always. He favors his right, despite his best efforts to find balance.

Tender Ears - No, not in reference to hearing. He is totally deaf. Rather, in reference to physical touch. He is very uncomfortable (almost to the point of paranoia) with people touching his ears, and if they get hit, smacked, or otherwise abused, they cause him terrible pain.

History:
Lucian's mother was a young gypsy woman of eighteen years when he was conceived. Presumably his father never knew of his conception, but that is entirely guess work on his part as he never knew his father, and no one in the gypsy caravan ever knew. His mother kept it a closely guarded secret that she was never able to share with him as she was carried off with a fever when he was six. But it was obvious, at least, that his father was not a gypsy, as he had lighter skin and hair than his mother or anyone else in the caravan. When his mother died, he became the responsibility of no one and everyone, belonging to no particular family in the caravan but being with them and not sent away for his mother's sake. He learned quickly enough that while they would defend him to the death from outsiders, he was an outsider among his own kind. They whispered to each other, called him "Gadje," when they thought he couldn't hear them.

And then it happened, the event to forever cement his status as an outcast.

When Lucian was thirteen his people had wandered further west than they ever had previously, deep into a harsh and wild land that was full of ancient forest and deep magic. One night when they went stopped to set up camp, Lucian wandered off to explore, as he had no tent to help pitch or firepit to build. He had not gone more than a few hundred yards when he heard a soft voice singing a lilting, sensuous melody, simplistic but inexplicably drawing. His feet moved of their own accord, finding their way through the ancient and creaking forest, unerringly drawing nearer to the sound despite that there was no trail to follow. How long he actually walked he never knew, but after what seemed an eternity he stepped into a ring of trees, and in their center was a clearing. In the middle of the clearing there was a stone altar, all over-grown with vines, and upon the altar sat the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. A woman, wearing a gold dress with a dagger belted to her waist, her skin pale and flawless, her long silver hair drifting on a non-existent breeze. Lucian thought he would collapse from the sight but his body forbade him and he stepped closer. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open as she sang her unearthly song, her voice somehow soft and deafening at the same time.

Then she opened her golden eyes and looked at him, still singing, not seeming at all surprised by him being there. She beckoned him closer with one hand and he came, completely beyond his own control until he was standing before her, unable to look away from her eyes, unable to stop listening. The world and his vision became gilded over as she gently stroked his forehead, her touch cold and skin unnaturally smooth. But none of his own sensations mattered, all there was to his world now was this beautiful creature.

If he had been capable of looking up into the ancient tree boughs that stretched above him, he might have seen the dozens of skeletons strung up in the trees, with distinctive teeth marks gnawed on them. If he had been able to care, he might have noticed that as she sang to him and caressed his face, the crooked, blood-stained dagger had come out of its sheath and was raising above him in the hand that was not stroking his forehead. But nothing distracted him from those eyes, those golden, entrancing eyes and that haunting, unearthly voice.

Until, by whatever fate guided his existence, he was overcome by the desire to touch her that he leaned forward, reaching for her face- which caused the swiftly plunging dagger to deeply gash the back of his shoulder, rather than bury itself in the flesh at the base of his neck.

The excruciating pain ripped him from the spell and he screamed, jerking away from the daemoness, whose perfect teeth had become needle fangs and whose golden eyes had become laced with veins of red. A terrifying snarl came from her now and she sprang after the stumbling, hysterical boy, fingernails now savage claws that she tore at him with (having lost the knife as it glanced off of his shoulder blade), coming within inches of tearing his throat out but just barely slashing it. Body aflame with agony, struck to the ground every time he tried to get up, Lucian tried to roll away from his unrelenting attacker, until in a moment of suffering he clutched at the earth and tore up a handful of dirt, which he rolled over with and flung into the eyes of the daemoness.

And then she screamed.

A terrible, earth-rending shriek of death and suffering that was far more agonizing than any physical torment that could have been afflicted. Sobbing hysterically, Lucian staggered blindly, feeling warm blood flowing out of his ears that he in vain tried to press closed with his hands. By some miracle he stumbled to the edge of the clearing, glancing behind him to see the daemoness blinking her eyes clear, her fully blood-red eyes that riveted on to him, freezing his heart. With a slavering snarl she rushed at him, with quickness far beyond the capacity of a mortal.

Blind terror propelled the boy forward, out of the clearing and into the woods, feeling that at any second he would be overtaken and-

But nothing. No tearing claws or hideous teeth tearing out his throat. He did not stop running, but looked back one last time.

By whatever enchantment made such a place to exist, the daemoness was trapped within the clearing and could not step beyond its edge. She clawed savagely at an invisible barrier, throwing herself against it in a crazed and furious attack, and then suddenly stopping, locking eyes with the fleeing boy. It was all Lucian could do not to collapse under such malice, such hatred, such utter and completely inhuman fury.

Her throat contorted, her face a horrible grimace-

And he heard the slightest bit of the most terrible sound he would ever hear again.

And then he heard nothing.


Two days later, just when the rest of the camp had given up hope of ever finding him in such a place, Lucian stumbled into the ring of light cast by the central fire. His clothing was torn to bits and wretched with filth and dried blood, scabbed and crusted trails of blood running down the sides of his face and neck, the flow showing its beginning in his ears.

He never explained to anyone what happened. After the first week, no one wanted to know. He could not hear them, did not communicate with them, did not acknowledge them. In turn, they did the same. Lucian Lael, though he lived with the caravan for the next three years, ceased to exist on that day.

He understood what it meant to be alone, holed up in your head with a terrible thought and a terrible sound. For years he would wake up screaming, seeing flashing, hate-filled red eyes, his ears in agony.

The only relief he found was in the fire dances. Despite that he was not important to anyone, just as no one was important to him, he was not denied what was considered the most important part of a young adult's education. He learned the secrets and techniques of Kripla'Kra from the old men just as the other young people did. Only he rarely joined in the large dances. Far, far more frequently he would go away and build is own fire, and there make his union with the earth.

It was after one such private dance, when he was returning to the main encampment when seemingly from the earth itself came Hraam, the old medicine woman of the gypsies. She had few teeth and less hair, but her dark eyes sparked with a mind flowing over with knowledge. Superstitious of the woman, Lucian had started to retreat, but Hraam beckoned him closer. Cautious in every sense of the word, he approached until he was within a few feet of her, only then realizing how tall she was, standing at least two feet above him. He could see her cracked and weathered lips moving in a slow chant, and then she suddenly threw a dust of some kind into his eyes.

It burned furiously, and for a moment Lucian thought that somehow this was a trick by the daemoness, coming to repay the injury done to her.

But then the burning ceased and he opened his eyes. Hraam was gone, but his vision felt different, as though a different pair of eyes were in his head. And from then on, when he looked into someone's eyes, he knew in his gut whether they were lying to him or not. He infrequently saw Hraam after that, but never spoke with her or learned exactly what she had done to him. All he knew was that he could see something of the soul of those around him when he looked at their eyes.


When he was sixteen, the caravan set up camp a few miles outside of fair sized city and, following his custom, Lucian wandered into the city alone. He explored the dirty back streets, ignoring how quickly the night came on until the streets were dark and the way out of the city no longer clear to him. Not greatly afraid but not too keen on being by himself in a city at night he began rapidly back tracking, only to find that things looked much different now in the dark than they had an hour ago. After a half-hour of fruitless searching he found himself in what he quickly gathered was the worst part of town to be in at this hour.

And then the trouble began.

His bare feet felt the vibrations of an approaching stride and he wheeled around to find himself looking at three boys, probably a bit older than himself. By the belligerent motions the leader was making, Lucian guessed that they had hailed him further down the road, but obviously he had not heard them. In the dark and with the drunken slur that he was no doubt speaking with, Lucian could hardly read his lips at all, but he had no doubt that the three of them had taken personal offense to his lack of response.

Well, great.

One of the central teachings of Kripla'Kra was that one did not wait for the enemy to make his move, just as the wind does not wait for the sea to say it is ready to be churned. The wind decides when it is time. In one blurred motion, he jumped straight up and snap-kicked, striking his opponent in the face with his heel.

He could not hear the scream, but he felt the blasting exhale on his foot as the brute stumbled backwards, blood gushing from his nose. The opportunity to do severe injury had been there- Lucian knew that he had the capability of doing a follow up kick to throat, an attack that could have killed the older boy.

But it seemed too much- there had been no threat on his life yet. And so he allowed the leader to collapse backward into the street and turned his attention to the other two.

They were altogether too drunk to fight well. Had they been sober he doubted he would've been able to survive the encounter, but his speed and moderate knowledge of Kripla'Kra served him well as he ducked, weaved, and circled his opponents in twisting flips and graceful maneuvers, tripping and attacking wherever he saw an opening. He lacked the strength to do major damage as they were all heavy set, likely the sons of common laborers. But each hit hurt and bewildered, even if he lacked the skill and strength to properly drive his strikes home.

And then as he bent sideways and planted his left hand on the ground in preparation for a hand-stand from which to deliver yet another kick, a heavy block of thrown wood flew in from beyond his peripheral vision and struck his wrist a little above the joint, eliciting a loud cracking from with his arm.

The world flashed bright white, his gag reflex nearly failing him, and he crumpled hard to the ground.

His vision was painfully blurred as he was brutally kicked in the ribs, so hard that it lifted him off the ground, driving his breath from him. In the dark he could see a face with blood still streaming from its nose, and then his head was whiplashed and his vision darkened as a boot kicked him in the face.

Subconsciously the boy curled up into a fetal position, and prepared himself to die.


When woke up he was alone. He could feel that his face was swollen and his wrist throbbed with his heartbeat. Movement of any kind caused brilliant pinpricks of light to flare behind his eyes and then be smothered in rolling clouds of black that threatened to close off his vision altogether. He laid there until morning came and someone found his body. Whoever it was assumed he was dead and went to pick him up to be taken to the graveyard, when a scream of pain from the body assured the do-gooder that yes, the body was alive and in quite a bit of agony.

The man who found him took him to one of the crowded city orphanages, the master of which reluctantly took the injured boy in.

The orphanage infirmary was brutal but efficient. They could not afford pain-killers or sedatives, and set Lucian's wrist as best they were able, as well as wrapping his ribs, a few of which were broken, not to mention the ointment and limited use of salves to spread sparingly across the purple and yellow expanse of skin that had become his body.

For two weeks Lucian lay on a cot and did not move or speak. The doctors eventually, upon a slightly closer examination, discovered he was deaf and at that point stopped talking or trying to communicate to him at all. But nothing they could do or not do bothered him.

All he could think about was the fight. About the first five seconds, when he kicked his opponent in the face, but then did not in the throat. And all he could think was, "If I had kicked his throat, he would not have been able to break my wrist and then destroy my body." Of course it wouldn't have been fair. His opponent wouldn't have been prepared, not even taken a swing at him.

But being fair had cost him heavily. And the lesson is one he carries heavily.

------

When, after a few more days of healing and rest, he escaped from the orphanage, he made his way with difficulty back to the clearing where his people had encamped.

It was gone. Everything. All that was left was a few blackened marks from the firepits. So they had left, not even bothered to come looking for him. He wasn't surprised, but further abandonment settled on him, and he understood in a new way what it meant to be alone.

The boy Lucian ceased to be there in that clearing, and the man has been wandering ever since.