Custom: Full
Character Name: Detraeus (self-given); Essireth (name given by his former owners); Niahm Rivardin (name given by his mother - he would not recognize this name if he heard it)
Race: Oblivionite
Gender: ♂ Male
Class: Archer | Battler
Appearance:
- Physical -
◘ During his apprentice stage, if possible, I'd like for his hair to be drawn wildly curly, loose, and thick (think Merida, but cut shorter and deep purple instead of red), like this: [link]. Adept stage and up, he'll have his hair braided into tight ‘corn rows’ that hang just past the bottom of his shoulder blades and are fastened with black beads at the ends
◘ Dark, very saturated purple/brown skin
◘ Facial structure: thick lips, broad nose, defined chin, large 'eyes' (large sockets) - slightly rounded face shape as a child and young teen, but squares off as he ages into a grown man
◘ Scars all up and down his arms, legs, and chest
◘ Etched ‘glowing’ markings carved into his shoulder blades, lower back, chest, ankles, biceps, the top ridge of his right ear, and his wrists - detail shots of the specific markings to come
◘ Slightly malnourished as a young child due to abuse and neglect, but once left to his own devices, he feeds and arms himself, growing more fully into his body - even fully grown he is relatively short compared to most Oblivionite men, but he's built like a wire whip, lithe, fit and dangerous (as a fully-grown adult, despite his shorter stature he leans more towards built than lithe, with a focus on upper body strength - lots of definition in his chest/arms/shoulders due to archery).
- Dress -
◘ As a child, the most crucial part about Detraeus' dress style is that he almost always finds ways to cover his markings. Because of what they symbolize, he's disgusted by them and goes to great lengths to make sure no one sees them, thus: a bandanna to cover his forehead or (potentially) a cloak with a hood, wrappings/bindings or leather guards to cover his wrists and biceps, long pants and boots to keep his legs hidden, and ear cuffs or some similar lightweight covering there to keep the markings on them covered (technically the only important one to keep covered is his right ear, since that is the one that's marked). During his apprentice stage Detra is especially poor and will not be able to cloth himself in anything too fancy (not exactly his style at that age either).
◘ As he approaches and develops into adulthood, both Detraeus' confidence and rebellious nature towards the world strengthen, and he stops clothing himself as he once did, often preferring to wear just pants, boots, bangles at his wrists and the belts for his bow, quiver and equipment, displaying the markings and scars his past has left on him openly as a challenge to anyone who would judge him for it.
Biography/Background: TRIGGER WARNING: References to child abuse and slavery. Read at your own discretion.Though he has no way of knowing this, Detraeus was born 'Niahm Rivardin' to two pureblood oblivionite parents. He breathed his first breath in a dark room under a shoddily-constructed roof on the northernmost shore of Eowyn proper. His mother’s first words to him were, “My apologies in advance, little soldier, for one day you will inherit the weight of my sins.” At that time, she manned a significant portion of the smuggling trade into the heart of Soudul, including the transport of spies and crucial information for the Orderite army: a traitor in name and in practice. The profit she earned from her risky trade was largely squandered upon paying off healers for her ailing mate, Detraeus’ (Niahm’s) father, but to no avail. Before her son reached his first name day, her mate shut his eyes for the last time.
At approximately two years of age — still too young for his memory to serve him — Detraeus began paying for his mother’s sins in full, as promised. Largely thanks to her trade and her reputation, as well as the lack of anyone around to tend to him properly for large portions of the day, he was kidnapped by slave traders of the darkest sort: desert scavengers who preyed on the outlying villages near battle-torn land. His kidnappers carted him, along with a stock of several other similarly-aged Oblvionite children, across the Malro Desert, over the south sea and back to a dark, underground, but lucrative business hiding deep within the murky underbelly of Serenia’s outwardly glistening capital city.
There, Detraeus was sold. Before he was old enough to recognize his mother’s name, he became a single parcel of merchandise. Nameless at that point and called simply Essireth — 'puppet' in the Orderite tongue — Detraeus grew up as an object, treated worse at times than an animal in a pen. From the bits of conversation he picked up on as he grew up, Detraeus learned of Soudana, the dark goddess of the Oblivionites — his people — and he vowed that since his tormentors hated her so, he would worship her to his dying breath. He named himself Detraeus, ‘warrior,’ to spite their slur on him, and he held this self-given name as well as his worship for his goddess close to his heart, two precious things which could never be ripped from him.
At age eight, thanks to a slip of fate, willful determination and extreme patience, Detraeus managed, miraculously, to escape his captors. He bound up his markings — the equivalent of glowing ‘brands’ which distinguished him as property — absconded from the heart of the capital city and fled to Serenia's main port where he stowed away within the cargo hold of a fishing vessel bound for Eowyn. Upon arrival on Eowyn's shore, Detraeus became for the first time in his life his own person, but was, as ever before, completely dependent upon himself for his survival.
Still a child, malnourished, and homeless, he lived primarily off of the pity of the resident dockworkers and fisherman in the area for several months, performing menial tasks for them in exchange for scraps of food or fish too small to sell well. He worked, begged, and stole shamelessly at this stage in order to keep his stomach fed and his body clothed. Eventually, he managed to inspire lasting pity in one of city's permanent residents — an aging leatherworker, recently widowed — who took him under her wing more long term, providing him with reliable meals and a place to sleep on the floor of her shop in exchange for help with daily tasks.
His true journey begins, however, when he chooses to start travelling northward, ever farther from the land of his nightmares, and toward a continent he has seen only in his imagination, his homeland: Soudul.
To this day, Detra despises Orderites. The sight of feathered wings gives him a sweeping rush of combined panic and loathing that curdles inside him, and he clings to this passionate hatred when he is at his worst, making his desire to rid the world of Orderites' stain on it his reason for breathing when he has nothing left to live for.
Most of the time, though, he is not nearly that dramatic. Though his emotions are volatile and his temper as explosive as a firani in heat, he has layers of his personality that are still untapped: the person he would have been, buried beneath the layers of warped bitterness that experience taught him. With the right influence, he could become a brutal weapon for Soudana's army, merciless, blind and driven by his hate. If he encounters the right sources, however, fate may yet turn the tides in his favor…
Personality: Detraeus is willful, stubborn, and intensely independent. Stripped of his family and any recognizable support source since near infancy, he has long had only himself to rely on — only himself he could trust, and only himself to keep him going. He has depended for most of his life on his own stubborn refusal to cave in and his fierce sense of determination and independence to carry on.Because of his childhood circumstances, Detraeus finds it very difficult to trust people of any stripe and keeps his personal boundaries private and well-guarded. He walls his more personal emotions and thoughts inside a barricade of exterior emotions that fluctuate between chilly disinterest and an explosive temper. His fight or flight instinct guides most of his young life, distilling nearly every encounter down to him either reacting aggressively, standing his ground bristled and ready to pick a fight, or him turning tail and fleeing with panic that he'll be attacked, beaten, or killed.
He finds communication difficult on multiple levels. Though he may well have been a powerful extrovert were he raised under more traditional circumstances, his early life taught him nothing of how to interact day-to-day with anyone, his age or otherwise, and he finds even casual conversation difficult and awkward. To add to this reluctance to speak, Detraeus becomes aware early on after fleeing to Eowyn that he picked up an 'accent' to his words — not simply an Orderite accent, but worse still the specific, tailored speech of the Orderite upperclass. The accent of those he served, and the accent he was trained to perform with. As such, he despises the sound of his own voice, particularly as a child, and after escaping, he spends long portions of his time alone simply listening to the way the travelling vagabonds and traders speak, and quietly attempting to match their intonations himself. A personal exercise in scrubbing the taint of his upbringing out of his voice.
Strengths: Detraeus has a will to live as powerful as a weed growing through concrete sidewalk. He is deliberate, analytical, methodical, and patient to the bone. It is that final blessing (his patience) which likely earned him his freedom to begin with. Given that he lead an incredibly limited life in its early stages, Detraeus learned young to pick modest, achievable goals and pursue them tirelessly. He can spend a day in a single spot, in a single position, waiting for the single perfect moment, and that is the moment he will take his shot (metaphorically or literally). Should he fail, he starts over and prepares to perform better the next day. There is no room in his mind for absolute failure, only temporary setbacks.
Though he cannot read or write (since he was never taught), Detraeus is intelligent, and applies his intelligence every day. He's observant, a quick learner, and adapts himself well to most new environments.
Weaknesses: Communication and empathy. Because he spent so much of his early life focusing entirely on himself — keeping himself going, keeping himself alive, keeping his head together — it was never a part of Detra's mental pattern to worry about anyone else or what they thought. Survival meant putting himself first, always. He could not afford to spare any energy worrying about others. As he grows, this isn't always the case anymore, but it is still not a natural part of his thought process to consider others when he makes decisions, and it often shows.
He can also be ruthlessly violent when provoked, easy to anger and take offense, perpetually guarded, bitter, and cynical. Detraeus has a tendency to 'see enemies everywhere' so to speak, and is quick to pick up on the worst in people while downplaying or ignoring their kindnesses altogether. He is chilly and distant, and his fear of rejection, attachment and vulnerability all play into him generally making himself very difficult to get along with.
Fears: Powerlessness. The thought of being made completely helpless again — a puppet without agency to be manipulated at will — terrifies Detra like nothing else. Any situation where he feels helpless petrifies him, and thus he clings to his sense of control desperately. On a more concrete, day to day level, Detraeus also fears things as simple as touch, to a certain extent. His invisible comfort zone of personal space is wide, and he begins to feel extremely uncomfortable when people invade it. Something as simple as a brush to the shoulder or a bumping of hands can make him tense or startle.
On an emotional level, he fears attachment, because his mind connects personal attachment to a form of dependency, and dependency to a form of helplessness. He thus forms relationships with extreme care and reluctance, and in general prefers not to associate himself permanently with anyone. The easier it is for him to cut a person out of his life entirely, the more comfortable he is with that relationship.
Life Goals: 1. Spill a pound of Orderite blood for every time he was ever told, "Open your mouth," "Get on your knees," or "Roll over." He has no idea what the official count is, but figures if he shoots every Orderite he sees on the spot from the day he first picks up his bow to the day he dies, he might come close to meeting his quota.
2. Sink several arrows slowly and methodically into various portions of Andorynn Wymrith's body and then sit back and watch him die. Andorynn co-lead the slavery rink that took Detraeus prisoner, and though he was only one of a countless slew of perpetrators, he took special interest in Detra, giving Detraeus personal incentive to want to watch his death as it happens.
Catch Phrases/Mottos: "Don't touch me." | "Perhaps you'd like to eat your own s**t and die?" | "I don't 'need' anyone. How could I possibly need something I've never had?" | "Life is about living, that's it. You live and then you die. I don't understand why people feel they need to decorate it in 'purpose' like fake jewelry." | “When all else fails, wait. Everything happens eventually.”
Tidbits/Quirks: Detraeus is painstakingly neat and organized. Accustomed to having little to nothing to call his own, he keeps a rigorous personal inventory of the things he does own and takes precise care of all of them. For a significant portion of his young life, verbally reciting a checklist of the resources at his disposal and inspecting them physically to assess their condition and value to him was a nightly ritual - a daily log to ascertain what he'd gained, what he'd lost, and what he had left to work with for the following day.
Detraeus is also, whenever his situation permits it in the least, hygienic nearly to a state of obsession. He never feels clean enough. Always feels the stain of something on his skin, and can nearly rub himself raw when left to his own devices trying to wash himself; he's nearly given himself hypothermia in the colder months trying to wash in rivers and lingering too long, shivering but unwilling to get out because the job doesn't feel done yet. He overcomes this compulsion to some extent when he gets older, but whenever something upsets him strongly or he's made to feel off balance, hyper-obsessive cleaning is something he often resorts to as a form of comfort or self distraction.
Thoughts on the Other Races: As stated, Detraeus despises, and will always despise, Orderites. This is a fixed attitude that he will hold onto his entire life. This hatred carries over to anything with Orderite blood in it; Orderite hybrids get no special pass. As far as he's concerned, they're still tainted and deserve to die as much as purebloods.Although he recognizes that Oblivionites are "his people" his reluctance to trust anyone still applies to them, and he quickly learns that — at least to some extent — his wariness is justified: Oblivionites are just as capable of making judgments, alienating, and posting a threat to him as anyone else. Detraeus is, however, most likely to take the word of an Oblivionite over anyone else, particularly as a child. He considers Oblivionites as a whole to be superior to the other races, though this opinion does not necessarily carry over to include himself. Although he might occasionally apply a 'better than you' attitude to someone else, it is generally for show, because (especially when he is young) Detraeus feels disgusted with himself — as though he is a broken, tainted individual unworthy of his birthright as an Oblivionite.
Detraeus applies his usual wary, automatically distrusting attitude to all Dovaa by default. He honestly has very little opinion one way or another about their race as a whole and thus simply treats them as strangers who may very well be dangerous to him.
Detraeus quickly picks up on and adapts a 'hybrids are a lessor breed' attitude, especially on the surface and (again) especially when he is young. As a child, this attitude is mostly a crutch for him to lean on — i.e., even he, as pitiful and disgusting as he considers himself to be, can be of value compared to hybrids. As he grows older, he will begin to recognize the untapped power of hybrids and — after being at least partially alientated from his own 'homeland' — begin to feel more at home amongst hybrids (fellow outcasts - fellow persons who have been thrown out by society and labeled as trash) than anywhere else.
Thoughts on the Great Engagement: Detraeus has no political opinion of the Great Engagement, but due to his personal experiences with Orderites, given the right opportunity and introduction, he would leap at the opportunity to spill Orderite blood regardless of outside reasoning. He needs no extra excuses; he wants his vengeance more than he wants anything else, particularly in his younger years.
Thoughts on the Dragons and Drakeins: As a boy, Detraeus is rightfully wary of dragons, sees them as vicious, dangerous beasts, and avoids them as much as possible. As he grows and his strength and skills improve, he begins to consider hunting them an amusing and even thrilling sport - a great excuse for a good adrenaline rush and a test of his aptitude. Detraeus has never thought twice about the dragon's side of the bargain when he kills one - they are animals, and like all animals, they are valued for certain aspects which he is more than willing to take advantage of should he have the strength to down one.
Statistics:
- ◘Lvl. - 1
◘Exp. - 0
◘LP - 50
◘Eng. - 50
◘Int. - 2
◘Atk. - 5
◘Def. - 3
◘Luk. - 1
