 Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:55 am
Quote: Hedyn pob drwg yw diogi / Laziness is the seed of all evil.
Name: Ieuan ap Madoc
Name Meaning/Nicknames:
Ieuan // Old Welsh form of John, Biblical name meaning 'God is gracious'
ap Madoc // Son of Madoc, Welsh name meaning 'fortunate'
For reference that's pronounced YEY-an ahp mah-doc. (Welsh: fun for the whole family.)
Gender: Male
Age: Biologically and mentally about 17 years old. Chronologically Ieuan was born in 1070, so technically he's 941.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Race: Human
Special Arts:
Spellsinging // A Fae magic form based off (you guessed it) music. Theoretically powerful, Ieuan's abilities are weakened by being in the mortal realm, as well as by the fact that he wasn't taught very much to begin with.
Archery // Ieuan is an excellent bowman on his own merits, and can magically augment it for extra oomph. Knocking an apple off someone's head? Piece of cake.
Character Looks: Ieuan is pretty short, barely 5'6" and unlikely to grow any further. He's usually deeply tanned from spending a lot of time outdoors, which is also how he collects the cavalcade of bumps and bruises he's usually sporting. As a child his mother took care of his blond hair and in Faerie a lesser servant did it, so he hasn't quite gotten the hang of taking care of it himself. It's not stylishly messy, it's messy messy. Ieuan's most notable feature are his eyes; once a nondescript blue-gray, prolonged exposure to the Fair Folk's magic turned them bright orange.
Alignment: Good (with a 'values from a different era' margin of error)
Personality: Ieuan has a straightforward and unsubtle personality, something which has a history of making him a pawn in the schemes of more cunning people. He's not stupid by any means, but he has one of those minds that tends to try to cut through knots rather than bother untangling them. He perceives the world in a very black-and-white way. Initially cautious of others, he's very affectionate and loyal to those who gain his trust, but openly hostile to anyone who has proven themselves unworthy of it. This is doubly true if they were someone he did once trust.
Ieuan's relationship with his resident Virtue, Diligence, is quite close, even though he's kind of lazy when allowed to be. Although essentially sexless, Diligence takes such a briskly maternal attitude towards him that Ieuan thinks of it as a her. While he occasionally gives her grief and resents her badgering, he's reliant on her to help him navigate the modern world and grateful of her presence.
History: Ieuan was born in 1070, to a family of peasants living on the borderlands between Wales and England. Although his parents and older siblings were loving and provided the best environment for him that they could, it was not a very pleasant place to be a child. Their home village was amongst the places taken over by the Norman invaders, and had fallen under the control of a cruel baron who demanded high tithes from his laborers alongside expecting them to build him a castle and other fortifications.
When he was nine, his oldest sister was killed by one of the baron's men. Ieuan's grief-stricken parents took their remaining children and tried to flee into the Welsh hills in search of a refuge. However, they were soon pursued, and in the resulting chaos Ieuan became separated from his parents and soon found himself lost in the wilderness, miles from home and terrified that every noise might be the hunting party on his trail.
Sleeping in a tree, he was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of hooves and hunting horns. It proved not to be the baron and his men: it was something far stranger. What Ieuan saw, as he scrambled down the tree to try to flee, was a hunting party of the Welsh Fae - the Tylwyth Teg - out hunting the lucky white hart. Remembering his mother's stories of the Fae and their strange powers, Ieuan was seized by a desperate hope: rather than running away (as might have been wiser) he ran towards them, begging for their help. Pleased by the boy's boldness, the party's leader - no lesser being than the King of the Tylwyth Teg - decided on a whim to take the human child with them, to become a servant and playmate for his youngest son.
From Ieuan's perspective, his time in Faerie lasted only a dozen years, all of them dominated by Prince Llywelyn. Llywelyn was quite sincerely attached to his new servant almost from the start, and this had many benefits for Ieuan, who was pampered with fine food and clothes, and educated in the skills he would need to be of use to Llywelyn. Ieuan has many happy memories of time spent hunting or exploring with his companion, or simply sitting around talking. However, Prince Llywelyn is one of the Fair Folk, and if there's one thing that's true about the Fair Folk it's this: they are jerks. Selfish, mercurial, easily offended jerks.
The full extent of this became clear as the two aged into teenagers and the friendship between them intensified into a romance. Given something to actually be jealous and selfish about, Llywelyn became increasingly overbearing, snarling over every perceived slight or infidelity, no matter how small or outright imaginary. Matters came to a head after Ieuan, in a moment of weakness, confessed to Llywelyn that he missed his family and worried about what had happened to them. Angry that he didn't have his servant's complete affection and undivided attention, the spiteful prince conjured up an image to let Ieuan see exactly what his family's fate had been: a gruesome execution at the hands of the vengeful baron. Although Llywelyn almost immediately regretted it upon seeing Ieuan's horror and fury, it was too late. And when the prince wouldn't apologize, Ieuan finally stopped being able to forgive him.
The following day Ieuan begged the King's permission to return to his own people, ignoring the warnings that more time than a dozen years had gone by in the Mortal Realm. Bored with having a mortal around anyway, and amused at the prospect of spying upon his servant's reactions upon seeing all that had changed during his time away, the King permitted it.
When Ieuan emerged from Faerie for the first time, it was to discover centuries had passed. The castle his family had labored to help build was a crumbling ruin; their village had become a bustling town full of strange and terrifying machinery and impossibly large buildings; even the language had changed, as few people spoke Welsh, and even those who did spoke a very different dialect than he himself knew. It was overwhelming.
Fortunately for Ieuan, he found an unexpected ally when exploring the castle ruins. Upon touching a stone he and his favorite sister had secretly carved, a strange spirit took residence in his head. Diligence, she introduced herself as. And he . . . would need her help if he was to adapt.
Diligence's kindly urging has helped him begin to navigate the modern world, though he still has a long way to go before he will feel very comfortable in it. She was the one to push him to come to Mitomi, hoping that the school would be a good place for him to adjust.
Any weapons/armor you have: None. He had a longbow when he first returned to the Mortal Realm, but the police confiscated it after a small misunderstanding. (. . . It's a long story.) He's looking to get a new one.
Any items you have:
Tylwyth Teg Ring // A small wooden ring, set with a pale green stone. If need be, Ieuan could use it to open up a gate into Faerie and return to his former home. Time flows very differently there, however, so even an hour's visit might consume a full day in real life - or a week, or a month. Although he doesn't realize it, the ring also allows the Fae to track his movements and spy on him.
Any skills|abilities|mystical powers your character has: Spellsinging's basic rules are as follows: spells are tied to specific notes, which can either be whistled or sung. Ieuan usually uses snatches of folksong he knows, but there's nothing preventing him from using any song that has that same set of notes in the same arrangement. If for some reason he can't make noise, he can't cast a spell. Because it's a Fae form of magic, spellsong can go funny in the presence of iron.
Archery Enhancement // Ieuan sings to his arrows, allowing them to behave in supernatural ways. Fly straight through a windstorm? Can do. Hit a hidden target? Can do. The two things they can't be coaxed to do are go for a longer distance than his bow allows, and (for inscrutable spellsong reasons) navigate corners. This also won't work on any arrow with any iron component.
Lure // This spell lets him draw a target towards him. It's intended as a hunting spell for luring prey, but it can be used for any creature. However, a human or creature of human-level intelligence will probably sense the spell, and with sufficient willpower could resist it. If they're carrying iron, resisting becomes quite easy.
Character Flaws:
Ignorant // Ieuan is at heart a medieval peasant. This . . . can cause the occasional knowledge gap. Both in big things (he's working hard to learn modern English, but still can have trouble expressing himself) and small (a lot of technology mystifies and/or frightens him). With Diligence's aid he is not quite as clueless as he might otherwise be, but . . . it's still kind of a problem.
Skittish // Related to Flaw #1 (he's not convinced vacuum cleaners aren't vicious), but also thanks to having been a servant of the Tylwyth Teg, who are, as a whole, a pack of assholes. When you've spent 12 years (and 9 centuries) being a pawn in the antics of a group of easily bored and even more easily offended creatures, being wary is a natural reaction.
Overly Obedient // Ieuan has never not been subservient to someone. While it only applies to those he doesn't completely distrust (as a certain royal pain in the a** discovered), he mostly tends to do what people tell him to do, even when he's not sure why they want it. If they're ordering him around it must be because they have the authority to, right?
Friends in the Realm: TBA
Enemies in the Realm: TBA
Lover: The guy just had a completely life-changing breakup, so . . . not so much?
Pic: 
Theme Song: The Waterboys - The Stolen Child
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