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 Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 3:27 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:55 pm
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Name: Kaldru Dajale
kaldru - from estonian kaldruut (diamond)
dajale - from albanian djalë (son)
Blood colour: #206888
Gender: Male
Symbol: A pretty sweet diamond
Profile: Kaldru is an industrious little troll. Truly a product of his lusus' badgering and nitpicking, he is rarely at home for any great length of time. While he has all the amenities one of his hue could expect squirreled away deep underground, he finds being outside and being productive, whether that means hunting, trapping, gardening, or constructing, much more enjoyable. While Mim's countless drones certainly can take care of any need he might have, he is constantly driven to improve himself and make himself busy (as well as keep himself out of her way) thanks to her incessant lecturing about the value of self-motivation and efficiency. Idle hands make for dull trolls, and even at his young age he's determined not to be dull! Even if he's not terribly good at the things he's practicing yet, he's determined to do his best at them.
Kaldru is also a very social troll. Despite living in a remote area, his access to a main road has led him to the wonderful habit of roaming away from home to explore and visit the small settlements in the hills of Busthind and the sprawling delights and lush woods of Four Fronds. Mim doesn't mind, as long as he takes several drones with him (and doesn't notice the several more that station themselves along his path, creating a sort of telephone wire of connection for her); getting out and communicating with other trolls is the only way he'll ever see just how ridiculous troll society is, after all! Dajale is very much a product of his raising, in that regard; he has no problem greeting others regardless of their caste, and will often regard anyone with the same general friendliness. He thoroughly enjoys talking to others, and perhaps just as much he enjoys hearing their experiences and what is different about their lives than his own. It's fascinating to him, being that he lives out in the middle of nowhere and surrounds himself with nature and the wilds quite often, and he'll take any opportunity he can get to soak up as much of his native culture as possible.
In truth, Kaldru agrees with his lusus' repeated denouncement of the hemospectrum, but with one exception: he doesn't understand why the queen should be above all of them. While he learned very quickly not to voice that opinion or, indeed, many of his thoughts on the 'natural' way of things (and perhaps should be quite grateful that he was not in terribly cull-happy company), it is a thought that simmers below his carapace almost all the time. If anything, he feels as though the so-called queen should be more of a guardian than a leader; certainly she has to keep the horrorterror looming over them all in check, but does that connection make her fit to lead? For all others, he doesn't understand why what one bleeds should make a difference in status; in his ride hitching and exploration, he has seen both high and lowbloods with strength, smarts, style, and skill. While he knows he hasn't seen a huge slice of the population, he certainly hasn't seen a massive collection of outliers, has he? Trolls should all work together to improve themselves and their lives, and the hemospectrum does indeed get in the way of that. He isn't quite sure if they're all 'cogs,' as Mim so delicately insists, though he does appreciate the imagery of each of them being part of a vast, interwoven machine of society.
At least, to the extent that he's considered it. He certainly isn't poetic by any standards; he simply feels as though each troll has a natural place and they should work their best to fit into it... but he also feels as though it is one's self and not their blood that should dictate that.
Apart from this one hiccup, the boy is very much a lusus' troll. Clearly he respects her emphasis on being useful and efficient, and towards that end he also falls in line with her idea that trollish emotions are, in many ways, extraneous. Enough, in fact, that Kaldru views the concupiscent quadrants and society's focus on how wonderful and necessary they are as a sickness. He doesn't quite understand the intricacies of everything Mim lectures him on, but anything that is such a hindrance to so many must be some kind of disease or defect in his eyes. He resents adults telling him that he'll 'get it' when he's older. The 'lesser' quadrants are much more admirable to him, each being a way to offer support and stability to trolls; it frustrates him to no end that others don't seem to get this! The ideal and best state of a relationship, to him, is moirallegiance, and it is a sore spot in his side that such a beautiful companionship of balance and support is considered inferior to states of passion and discord.
Ultimately, though, despite all these heavy issues being pushed upon him by an overbearing lusus, Kaldru is still a child, and generally a happy one at that. He tries to be cheerful and finds joy in his self-assigned tasks and wandering; for the most part, he simply avoids heavy thought and discussion in favor of lighter chatter and active pass times. He has a very lacking sense of danger, finding the thrill of trapping and hunting nothing but exciting, and he is likely quite lucky that his excursions following other trolls has not led to any sort of harm on his person.
Realistically, he is somewhat spoiled; as long as he stays out of Mim's way and isn't idle, she seems to trust him to do as he wishes, and he's rarely told 'no' on anything. Those times when he is denied, his cheerful veneer is quick to crack, leaving him upset and downright sulky at times.It is often hard for him to understand subtle reasoning and thoughts, and he'll quickly withdraw into a confused pout when something doesn't fit his expectations. While he may not through direct tantrums, Kaldru is quick to let others know they've upset him in some way, and it isn't a stretch to imagine him arms crossed and lip poked out overly far in an effort to express his displeasure.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:58 pm
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Strengths:
Organized: Thanks to Mim's tireless emphasis on efficiency, Kaldru is very organized. He takes time to plan out his building and activity experiments, and even when he hops onto a passing transport, he generally has several routes of action planned out. Very little is out of place in his hive, and he even has his own method of understanding and navigating the tangled tunnels of his lusus' drones. He is generally fairly prepared for events or happenstances and can usually be relied upon to keep things neat and tidy.
Friendly: Kaldru loves meeting people. He enjoys talking to them, hearing their stories, and learning what he can from them. It doesn't matter if it's the brightest seadweller or the rustiest mudblood, he is happy to sit with them, share a snack with them, and get to know them.
Resourceful: All the time 'playing' outside of his hive has made Kaldru rather resourceful. While he's not (yet) a survival expert, he does know how to make some basic, but effective traps, and he can build basic shelter given a bit of time to put it together. He's decent at growing plants, and he's even made a rain collector for his hut so he doesn't have to go all the way down into the tunnels for his proper ablution chamber or to get a bit of water. These skills transfer into a decent knack for problem solving, even with low or unprocessed resources.
Flaws:
Stubborn: After being given such free reign on his activities, Kaldru is rather stubborn; he wants to do what he wants to do, and generally he's, well, stubborn about it. He's also quite adamant about his ideas if something is cemented in his head, such as, say, the ideals that Mim has been pouring into them. Changing his mind on a topic is very difficult without exceptionally concrete proof, and even then he's apt to sulk over it afterward.
Heedless: Kaldru doesn't think about danger. Whether it's following a caravan of travelers down the road, exploring the foothills near dawn, or even stalking a strange beast into the woods, he does things for the experience and the purpose. The potential danger of an action rarely enters into his head as he's far more focused on the task itself than the risk it could pose to him. He's not exactly fearless... danger just gets dropped from his mental equations.
One size fits all: Kaldru has rather specific expectations about how things work or how things should be in the world, and sometimes he finds it difficult to deviate from these things. Generally, it involves methods of doing; how to swing an axe, how to tie a knot - usually involving maximum efficiency. There's a right way, and a wrong way, and anything that isn't the right way is wrong. This does extend to his views on other issues, however, such as the hemospectrum and emotions. When something doesn't fit his world view, he can become rather distressed, and he finds it extremely difficult to deal with cognitive dissonance. His efforts to understand and reconcile why something isn't right can sometimes be very stressful.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:01 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 8:04 pm
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Home: Located in the eastern foothills of Busthind, where the trees of Four Fronds begin to thin and give rise to craggy rock, Kaldru's hive is surprisingly remote and, to the odd passerby on the road nearby, rather lacking given his blood hue. Indeed, several times the young troll has been mistaken for one lost on his way to or from the Fronds, but no, the rather ramshackle wooden hut is indeed his hive. Or at least, a part of it.
The wooden hut, decently sturdy but certainly nothing to brag about, is actually a construction of his own hands, giving the blueblood somewhere to relax while playing and spy on travelers when they can be spotted on the road. Kaldru's actual hive is a sprawling mass of tunnels and chambers dug out by his lusus' drones. Several of the largest are decorated with items and amenities brought by troll drones, though Dajale spends much of his time in his own hand-built 'hive,' working on extending and furnishing it simply out of the enjoyment of doing it. Exactly how far down Mim resides isn't quite certain to anyone but her children, but it is safe to say it's quite far as visiting his lusus in person generally means that Kaldru is going to be missing for most of the day.
Kaldru's hut is set just off of the main road from Busthind and Four Fronds, and it sees a decent amount of traffic. He rarely makes trips to either alone, but he has a bad habit of tagging along with groups and hitching rides on passing transports that mistake him for a lost soul.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:30 pm
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Lusus: Kaldru's lusus is a massive, winding, scaled insectoid with an exceptionally bloated abdomen. She looks somewhat like a grotesquely swollen snake, if that snake was also segmented and had two (relatively useless given her immobility) large mandibles. Also, legs. So really, much more like a termite queen with snake features than the other way around. In addition, she has a continually expanding (and constricting, depending on what decides to have them for lunch) number of drones attending her, each linked telepathically and capable of speaking on her behalf at her will. For this reason, Kaldru very rarely sees his lusus' true form, being as she's sealed away in a deep, underground burrow, and it more often than not may appear to outsiders that his lusus is simply a lone, hand-sized snake-bug, as the multiple iterations of her drones have a tendency to stay hidden from sight when attending their duties.
Mim, as she is called, is a very no-bullshit kind of lusus. While she adores her first (and only, as her drones are identical daughters) son, she finds trolls on a whole to be utterly hopeless. While she's fairly certain the hemospectrum has some decent ideas, it gives far too much freedom to the castes for her tastes. Indeed, in her mind the only highblood worth respecting is the queen herself; everyone else, high or low, are ultimately just cogs in the machine, aren't they? And for that matter, she finds that trolls spend much too much time involving themselves with emotions. She understands they aren't mindless like her own drones, but their focus on romance and violence irritates her due to how badly it diminishes their efficiency in life. She feels if trolls spent much more time honing themselves and focusing on their skills and much less time falling in hate, pity, or lust with each other, they'd be a much improved society as a whole.
Indeed, she is very efficiency minded, chiding Kaldru for wasting time and making sure to encourage him to be the best troll he can be. She is apt to lecture him about the sickness of flushed emotions and quick to remind him that they are all, except for the illustrious queen, cogs in the machine, and they should do their best to get along and make life as smooth as possible for all of them.
Oddly, despite her insistence on doing things quickly, neatly, and with maximum skill, she does spoil Kaldru a bit. He has, essentially, no chores nor responsibilities, as her drones are "meant" to take care of all of that. His job, as it were, is to stay out of the way and focus on improving himself. Granted, she isn't quite sure what he should do to that end, but as long as he stays out of the way and keeps himself some form of busy then she is content. If nothing else, she may see his job as spreading her 'message' to other trolls, as she is extremely encouraging of him growing friendships, though quick to pick and chide him should he drift too far into admiration or dislike of another.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:36 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:40 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:59 pm
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:11 am
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:14 am
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:15 am
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:16 am
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