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Character Name: Orel von Walde Nickname: Rel to those that are close to him.

Race: Elf
Class: Noble Enhancer
Subtype: European (German)
Element: Metal

Gender: Male
Age: 425 years, middle-aged.

Family:
Orel von Walde is the only son of Viktor and Anna von Walde. He has one older sister, Victoria. Since his sister was the first child, she was named for his father. The von Walde family is the typical noble family. They have a family manor located in Far Plains close to the Elven Forests and a large plot of land. All of Rel's family members are still alive, father and mother included. He is in contact with them though it is usually not for anything more than pleasantries or favors if any of them choose to speak to one another.

Viktor van Walde is a very experienced magus. He spent the entirety of his life devoted to his magic skills and now in his later years spends his time on research and development of new spells and spell improvement. He's an average sized, pale skinned man who has almost no distinguishable features. His hair is cropped short and a shade of mousy brown and he has very dark eyes. Viktor has high expectations for all of his family members and this includes his wife, children and even distant relations. He was never particularly overbearing to his children when they were growing up but he does expect the best at all times. He is a firm believer that sons should be taught by their fathers and daughters should be taught by their mothers and so he spent a lot of time with Rel while he was growing up and instilling values into him. Viktor does not approve of Rel's lifestyle choice to become an Enhancer but he does have fatherly attachment to his son and a shared understanding in the love of magic. Rel and his father both remain on speaking terms.

Anna von Walde is a very prim and proper lady and instilled the same stereotypical noble values into her daughter. Being a noble she has slightly richer tastes as well. Anna is a very strong minded and stubborn woman with very strong convictions. She does not at all approve of what Rel has done with his life. Anna has always preferred her daughter Victoria and doted on her like a princess, even encouraging her to ignore magical calling to model herself into the perfect wife and mother. When Rel contacts the family Anna is not the one who will converse with him and will only find out afterwards, through her husband, how her son is doing. Anna is usually the parent who would be considered 'overbearing' though she was never insane about her expectations. She just had a stricter attitude toward the children than her husband did. Rel suspects that this is because she was the one who had to endure two years of carrying each of them and then the pain of birth. That would make anyone want their children to be 'worth it'.

Victoria von Walde is older than her brother Rel by 25 years. She's a very typical snotty noble female with rich tastes and a penchant for gossip. She was raised mainly by her mother and barely knows her father at all. Of course this meant that her mother favored her above Rel. She learned all things that a noble girl should know and decided in turn that her life's calling (with her mother's influence) was to remain exactly what she was, a woman to do all things women should do. Being the sort of woman she is, of course, she did not rely on her own ability for a living and instead on the man she married. Her husband is a halfway decent Artificer and they live at his family estate in the Nothern Elven woods. Growing up, Victoria and Rel had a typical sibling rivalry. They still speak to one another (though she shares her mother's intense dislike for his Enhancing) and she is usually the one that Rel will go to if he needs favors.

History:
Orel was raised on the von Walde Estate on the Far Plains. He was given a proper noble education in all things he'd need to be a part of decent society. At the same time he was surrounded by his family and their certain quirks. The way his family worked was that the father looked after all sons and the mother looked after and taught all daughters. It had been that way for generations and remained so in Orel's raising. He spent almost all his time with his father and took on many of his father's qualities. Viktor, his father, is a high level magus who is completely and utterly dedicated to magical arts. He passed such qualities onto his son but encouraged him to nurture the magic that called to him personally and follow that in order to gain as much power and knowledge as he could. In this way, Orel always focused on his magic and learning to best control his Metal elemental abilities.

With the nature of his family though, Orel was often overshadowed by his elder sister Victoria. Not only was she the eldest child and his father's namesake, she was the favorite of Orel's mother and his mother has a much stronger and outspoken personality than his father does (not to say that his father is a pushover, he just knows how to moderate himself). Orel began to strive to outshine Victoria at a very young age though he may, debatably, have always been the more promising and intelligent of the von Walde children. Rel began to seek out ways to gain attention. It also didn't help that his sister seemed to inherit all the good physical features of his parents and he got all of what he considered the bad. He developed quite a self esteem problem. As a child he would attempt only foolish and rambunctious stunts pulled by normal boys his age such as stealing his father's horse (in a roundabout attempt to show how well he could ride the horse) or climbing to the highest branch in the biggest tree he could find just because he could. Such attempts, of course, were childish and played off as something that boys did and so Rel started to stretch to greater lengths to be noticed. As a teen he started to run away when he had terrible mood swings and bouts of depression that were usually set on by mistakes or failures with his magic or punishment for things he found creative and his parents found to be a nuisance (such as remodeling his mother's jewelry using spells). The running began by ending up in the surrounding countryside and with random travellers if there were any to be had (despite how dangerous this could be) and by the time he was found by his manservant his depression was gone and replaced with immense curiosity towards the world outside their estate and the people in it. As a result his trips began to take him farther places and become more planned. He started to pack for such things and bring his notebooks and magical supplies with him. It was on these trips that Orel started to discovered the nature of the outside world past his own home and that he eventually found his first stepping stone towards Enhancing, body modification.

Orel found the art of piercing originally (not that he didn't know about it, but there was more to pierce than your ears). He'd never thought of anything more than earrings before. His whole family had pierced ears. But pierced ears aren't what caught Orel's attention, it was everything else. Orel began to return with holes and studs in places that you just didn't show in decent society. He discovered a masochistic need in himself that he couldn't ignore. He loved something about the pain. His trips started to become longer and more often than not, knowing that Orel would not listen, his manservant would accompany him if only to make sure the young man was safe. When he did return home after weeks away and decorated with new and more elaborate piercings, holes, and decorations his parents began to worry. Body decorations were not something that a boy his age should be wasting time on. And it was much too much time that he spent on them (and some of the things he did to himself were really mind boggling to them). Rel began to discover that he didn't want this negative attention towards things he enjoyed, because he did enjoy them, and after further experimentation and a few more journeys away, one day he just didn't come home. Orel had packed up all things that held value to him and all of his saved money and set out with his (current) manservant and his horse. He was still young, not truly even an adult yet, but his parents had begun to give up on keeping him home. The only action that was taken was by his father was to send more servants along with his son to make sure nothing terrible happened.

This began Orel's independent life. It probably began with the rebellion of youth but slowly turned into a completely life altering journey. As he traveled his experimentations grew more grand and elaborate. He began to try and find bizarre and painful ways to decorate himself in order to shock those who saw him. Rel would travel and seek out groups of people who seemed to know about body arts. He followed their directions to more knowledgeable modifiers, making small change here and there by selling the jewelry and trinkets that he could make with only his metalworking spells. These abilities also developed as the demand for flashier jewelry grew. He only worked on his elemental powers as much as they were needed.

For a boy raised in a noble lifestyle, the traveling was difficult. It was more than a few nights where he'd wish he was sleeping in his comfortable feather bed at home. His accompanying servants always did their best to mae sure that Rel was looked after and comfortable. But Rel was growing and aging and soon thought of home got father and farther from his mind. He would write his father occasionally and Viktor would give as much long distance support as he could (because despite his son's indiscretions, he was still his son and he wished for him to work through this 'phase' and seek out his life's calling). Rel's favorite places to visit were the few and far between cities and makeshift towns, especially those that were strong in trade. These places always seemed to bring in the most variety of people and Rel was fascinated by all the varying peoples and races that mixed (though it was usually overwhelmingly Elven).

Rel began to meet magic users and travelers of types he'd only ever heard rumors of from his home estate. The type of people that anyone's parents, of respectable reputation, would want to keep their children away from. Orel almost ignored the danger that he had the potential of getting himself into and threw himself whole heartedly into his pursuit of self-change with youthful vigor. It was at this point in his life, in these sorts of places, that Orel got his first and only tattoo. Piercings were now starting to bore him and the pair of tattooing, he discovered, was not as lasting or shokcing as he'd like. It was almost like fate that he saw his first Enhancer and felt that click in his mind. It was like that final puzzle piece in the confusion of growing up had finally slid into place and he saw the whole picture. He saw a whole new way to find that attention he craved. The first Enhancer he saw was one of the most intriguing and frightening people he'd ever seen and he couldn't draw his eyes away. That was what he wanted! That was what he wanted to evoke in people! The awe he saw on the faces of the crowd as that Enhancer passed through, his body contorted, hands shaped into vicious claws and spikes protruding from his shoulders, those looks are what he wanted when he passed through. Orel never learned that Enhancer's name and still young, had been slightly afraid to approach him, but the image burned in his mind and left a lasting impression. Rel began to seriously think on the life of an Enhancer, though he knew little about it, and decided after much thought that it was the sort of thing he wanted to pursue. He was not afraid at all. On the contrary, he was elated.

It was also in one city that Rel visited, in a not so reputable part of town, that he met someone who would become and remain one of Rel's only true long term friends and perhaps even more, Johannes. The meeting was about as unglamorous as one could get and consisted of Rel almost being killed for one of his usual stunts and Johannes (Jan) jumping in, much younger and impulsive then, to help. Johannes didn't seem quite sure what to make of Orel in the beginning, not knowing what he'd gotten himself into with the somewhat twisted young man, but the two seem to form a friendship and that friendship eventually, over time, led to something more (though it was never held for long). At such young ages (in comparison to the present) it was easier for them to form that sort of bond and as they got older it may only have been their mutual stubbornness (thought probably more) that kept them friends, kept them trying, continued to have them break apart, but still left them clinging to what they'd had in the past.

From this point in his life, with Enhancing as his goal, Orel found his way under the wing of an experienced Enhancer in order to travel and apprentice. It took much convincing to even be taken on, but the elder Enhancer saw how determined Rel was and found that he had just the type of mind to pursue this in his life. The only drawback that his master saw was that Rel took on enhancing for his own sick ego building and need for pain and almost ignored the physicality and violent means to which he could take the art. Rel seemed one of the few who did not want to use his Enhancing to harm others. He had so much potential for this sort of thing but even though he chose not to be violent, he certainly could with what he learned. Perhaps this made him just a tad bit more twisted than others.

Rel kept his family notified of his whereabouts and continued to receive support from his father in the form of money. He also kept contact with Jan as they both pursued their careers. Sometimes they would go without contact for extended periods of time, clashing and arguing from both of their hard headedness, only to meet up again at a later point for a drink and to catch up. These meetings never lasted long before they were both on the road again, Jan as a Bounty Hunter and Magus and Orel quickly devouring his studies in Enhancing. He seemed to eat up all his master told him and after having settled for a number of years, living in his teacher's home and soaking up the last essences of what he could be taught by an outsider, Orel moved on to settle on his own. With the money saved from his father, the little bits he'd picked up from his travels, and a significant amount given to him by his master (considered to be almost sponsoring), he set up his own home and began to pursue his own experiments and research. By this time in his life he'd removed mostly all of his bizzare piercings save a few and he found more satisfaction and pain in Enhancing than piercing could ever offer him (and most of the piercings got in the way of performing successful Enhancements).

Of course no elf's history or life is complete without fairies. Rel is no exception. He has had fairies in his life time like any other elf. When he was a child they were like playmates to him when he had such clashes with his sister. As he aged they became less and less necessary to him. Some fairies had more influence on him than others, depending on how he got along with them. If one didn't agree or mesh with his own personality he'd either kill it or make sure it was out of the way. Mostly fairies have always been more of a necessity of life to Rel unless he finds out that the fairy actually understands him. Those have been few and far between.

Present:
Rel has spent the years with continuing development in the art of Enhancing. He eventually gained enough of a proficiency to take on one apprentice who has since moved on in his own studies. He has gotten fairly reclusive and gained a reputation when he finally emerges from home. His skills in Enhancement have grown to mastery. He has his own home set in the Elven Forests and currently has a fairy that he somewhat gets along with. She has a very dominating personality and always stays home to keep the household running smoothly as she's given the highest status in the home under Rel himself.

Rel tries never to miss the opportunity to make himself into a spectacle. This means he never misses the festival. It also is a good chance for him to spend money and spoil himself. A few years even resulted in a bit of mild drama amongst some of his loose acquaintances from the city and he loves to try to recapture the fun of his youth and cause a stir. Still in contact with Jan, he's learned of the Bounty Hunter's loss of his fairy and so arranged to meet him for a drink at least.

He looks forward to it.


Personality:
Rel can be a difficult man to understand and get along with if only because his tastes tend to shift towards the bizarre. He has the rearing and tastes of a noble man. He enjoys the richer things in life (clothing, food, jewelry, decoration) and enjoys frivolously spending money on himself (and anyone who may be his obsession at the time being). As a child he felt overshadowed by his older sister and so as he aged his state of mind focused more and more on himself and gaining attention. When he finds someone that he feels he connects with he can tend to obsess over them in a need to retain their attention on him as much as he can. He shares his father's drive for magical proficiency and a complete dedication to his field of study. As he grew and continued to strive for attention and deepened his selfish focus on himself, he discovered the arts of body modification and with it he discovered a deep seeded masochistic need. He enjoys how alive the pain makes him feel in such a dry and almost emotionless home life. Orel experimented further with his masochism as he aged and as time went on his personal drive made him want to discover bigger and more creative ways to gain attention and to cause him that needed pain. It intrigued him that pain could be made into an art form and used to create, not destroy.

When dealing with others, Rel can often be viewed as aloof and distant while at the same time he draws attention from those around him for the way he makes himself look. As Enhancers are usually viewed as spectacles and often shameful or feared in some places, this has kept Rel from having many friends as he's grown. The friends and companions, even lovers, which he's had have all been curious about Rel's way of thinking and found it intriguing. Some have turned a blind eye to it to focus on the complete dedication and drive that he has and found, in a way, it to be admirable. Even so he's had a few relationships that have gone past the purely academic or friendly. Those more intimate relationships have always been more on and off because of his difficult and stubborn state of mind (and sometimes the other person as well) and so his list of ex-lovers remains very, very short. Orel is someone who finds beauty in the chaos of life and enjoys using his hands in the pursuit of what he views as his art. When not engrossed in his research, he is in search of rare metals and materials in order to use his elemental magicks to fashion his own body decorations and jewelry.

Orel's passions have deepened over the years but his reactions to them have gotten very much calmed down. While as a younger man he may have gone out often to search out new and outrageous ways to show himself off, now Rel is only seen out in public a few times a year and at most, once a month. He's developed a bit of a reputation and is almost like an attraction in the cities that he likes to frequent. He enjoys this attention and revels in it. The more attention he receives the more his confidence grows. The more Rel's confidence grows the more daring he becomes and he has, on occasion, gotten on a few people's bad sides for some of the flashy stunts he's pulled. It would be fair to say that more people dislike him than like him.

Appearance:
Pre-Enhancing
Rel was born to be a rather thin, pale and small boy with stringy black hair and large liquidy blue eyes that made him look (in his opinion) like some sort of odd insect. His growth did not seem to improve things very much. By the time he was past his teen years and into young adulthood his form had filled out enough that he had a wiry build though he was still dreadfully short in height and his eyes still retained that soft watery quality that he so disliked (though some had called it 'cute' and that was not a term he appreciated).

Semi-Permanent Enhancements
When Rel had finally mastered enough Enhancement skills he made a point to alter those things in his appearance that bothered him the most. These changes were very subtle and small and were strictly for his own aesthetic appeal. Rel had first just thickened his thin hair to have more body and hold shape when he had it cut or styled. Another change was a tiny adjustment to the shape of his eyes in order to narrow them to what he'd call a more 'exotic' shape. His eyes are now slightly more almond shaped than the more rounded eyes he had been born with. Another change to his eyes that Rel made was to brighten their color slightly. Instead of a washed out lighter blue, they are now a darker and more vivid shade. These Enhancing spells are some of the most basic in appearance shifting and are not very draining on Rel. He has to refresh the spells every now and again but it does not inconvenience him in the least.

Short-Term Enhancements
Rel uses certain enhancements when he goes out of the house or into public places in order to draw attention to himself. One Enhancement he always uses when he leaves home is to make himself taller and much more broad and muscular. Sometimes he adjusts and darkens his skin tone. Other short term changes are usually the newest and most difficult Enhancing spells that he has learned. These sorts of Enhancements do not last longer than a few hours and are very draining on his powers. Some can be fairly painful depending on the amount of change that he is doing to his own flesh and drastic physical changes require getting used to in terms of mass and weight.

How will he look at the festival?
Rel will be wearing his guise of a taller and broader elf. His skin remains extremely pale from all of his time indoors. Rel's ears are lined with varying sizes and gauges of earrings and cuffs, the bulk of his non-magical body decoration. He will be wearing his black hair slightly short on top with a few longer strands in the front that he's changed to a vibrant shade of indigo (of course with his permanent enhancement for thickness as are his eyes enhanced to be a brighter shade of blue). Rel's only other non-magical body modification (besides piercings) is the twisting tattoo of a serpent that begins with it's head on the back of his right hand, twists around his arm upwards, around his neck and then back down his other arm with the rattle tail on the back of his left hand. He's not yet decided on which dramatic and large enhancement he'll use, but it is sure to stand out and make quite an impression.

Rel will be wearing his usual manner of clothing and accessories. He's very eccentric in his style of dress and his tastes are very rich. Rel is usually extremely adorned with jewelry. He wears rings on every finger in addition to his many earrings and has a stud and 2 hoops in his left nostril. Most of his earrings and jewelry he has made himself. He used to have more piercings but has removed them over time leaving him with a few scars. His facial scars include a gashed eyebrow and a scar underneath his bottom lip. He has a few hidden scars on his back and various limbs from botched Enhancing spells, experiments and old piercings. Rel usually wears brightly colored patterned or embroidered shirts underneath of a leather tunic or vest. He sometimes wears long cloaks or robes for traveling over regular leather pants and boots. He's a man who makes himself obvious in a crowd for his own ego. If not enhanced or dressed flashy, he would easily dissolve into the masses with his ordinary and less than handsome looks.