[hider=Masef][B]Name:[/b] Masef
[B]Age:[/b] 22
[B]Gender:[/b] Male
[B]Species:[/b] Human with a questionable ancestry.
 
[B]Physical Description:[/b]
[INDENT]Swarthy, aquiline featured and with dark, curling hair, Masef has always been possessed of a certain grace in form that took him from wiry and skinny as an adolescent into a flowing grace reminiscent of the elves. When he was a boy, he was pale of skin, but it grows darker with age. His eyes are similarly dark, but seem to be turning into a more amber color of late. In Vendish fashion, the land he grew up in, he goes clean shaven with hair tied back, and has turned the heads of more than a few in that country of light skinned people with his exotic look. His clothing reflects his most recent travels; a sand colored cloak with a deep hood that helps reflect sunlight back over a much-scuffed breastplate of lamellar scale. He now wears a bronze ring through his ear, signalling that he belongs to the Masad tribe of the Ibir.[/INDENT]

[B]Skillset:[/b]
[INDENT]Masef was trained by Brand of the Nightwood, one of his youngest, and so he learned the Vendish methods of using a longbow, though Sigur and Quinn are undoubtedly his superiors with those weapons -- and he took training from them as well, as they were older than he. He also was taught the lore of the ranger, at least in the Nightwood and surrounding terrains that enabled him, later on, to adapt to survival in the Tahzad desert and surrounding canyons and river valleys. He adapted. In combat, he favors ranged fighting, but if forced to close combat, he relies on a hatchet or a large knife, rather than a sword or something of that nature, preferring the practicality of a tool that can also be a weapon. He's also learned to touch the edges of a magical talent, though its development has come with a price. While it matters little in the rich green Vendish lands, he has become adept at finding water where it is hard to find such. His thirst for lore remains as ever, and he is versed in the knowledge of things. His favorite part of being a ranger was learning.[/indent]

[B]History:[/b]
[INDENT]Masef wasn't even a toddler when his parents were killed in an ambush on their caravan upon the Pilgrim Road leading into Vendland, near enough the Nightwood that Brand found the survivors, including his dying mother and the baby she'd given her life to shield. She breathed his first name, nothing more, and expired. Brand, not being hard-hearted enough to leave a boy to fend brought him back to his other adopted children to take care of while he tracked the bandits to their lair and rooted them out root and stem.

As one of the youngest of the brood, Masef was also the one that would follow a sound into the wilderness, climb a tree just for the challenge and find his way into trouble in Bosfyrd with the village girls. Things seemed to whisper to him, even in the wild, though it might be a voice embedded in the wind or the way some rocks were aligned. He always found particular interests in some of the ancient ruins of the Nightwood, often spending time exploring them even though others had looted their treasures in long past days. As he grew older, there seemed to be the hint of powers and abilities neither he nor his adoptive father could fathom, and that was what led him away from Brand.

He bid a fond farewell with a promise to return and see him again, and then headed down the Pilgrim road that took the life of his parents. He followed the trail, using an amulet of his father's, all the way into the Tahzad desert, where he quickly acquired the language and learned the fundamentals of survival in the deserts and hills, plateaus and valleys, of that arid region, particularly around Daramalsh, the Great Whore. Working from that infamous city, he managed to glean a little about his father's ancestry; he was originally a member of the Masad clan of the Ibir tribes that set out as an adventurer and a merchant, afflicted with a wanderlust. When he located his father's clan, to their great surprise, and related his story to the. 

They held a great celebration and hosted him for a few years as he familiarized himself with his ancestral desert home and took work that kept him afloat; eschewing mercenary work, he preferred to scout and survey, work with treasure hunters and academics looking to explore the ruins in the region -- a passion inherited from his days in the Nightwood. Of his mother, they could say little -- they knew her not, or that Jalal had married.

One such expedition took him into the depths of the ancient city of Mari, into a crypt none had found before. There, bathed in a fey light, he found more answers to disturb him, such as an ancestor by the name of Qazar the Cruel, the Warlock King of Mari, and the reason the Ibir were nomads (after their city was destroyed, and Qazar with it) that had been waiting for centuries for a suitable vessel to pass by that he might possess and live again. For reasons unknown to him, though Qazar's spirit claims its because he's a 'half-breed', he was not fully possessed by Qazar, but instead wrestles with the intruding consciousness within his skull, vacillating between his hunger for knowledge (including magical power) and caution against Qazar's power-mad ambitions.

Then, one day, he felt an overwhelming compulsion to return to the Nightwood; no news reached him where he was, but he bid the Ibir adieu and set north to see his adoptive father and beloved mentor. He heard the news further up the Pilgrim road, and that only hastened his step; he bought and sold horses along the way so that he could fly up the road more rapidly, exhausting the modest income he'd built up. Some things were more important than money.[/INDENT]

[B]Psychological Profile:[/b]
[INDENT]Masef seems like an easy going, rougish sort, but he lives by a strong code of ethics imparted by Brand -- he might have grown into selfishness left to his own devices, but has always been surrounded by family of one sort or another. His siblings under Brand's wing as well as the Masad. Sometimes, it translates into an 'us versus them' mentality with Masef, but he generally is a man that will not harm innocents and noncombatants, even if there is some profit to it. He was raised better than that. Some of Brand is in him in that he cannot help but lend a hand to someone in a plight.

Masef has learned that once he gives a promise, he is compelled to keep it -- that's how he wound up on the road North before the news even reached him that Brand died. As best as he can reckon it, he was compelled north the day Brand died. It's happened before, but never quite like that, and he still isn't sure what it means. In any case, he is learning to be wary of promises, though the promise to see Brand again apparently is now a promise to see Brand honored properly. 

Masef is naturally inclined to be a talker, an amiable companion and a man that enjoys good company and a story, but his ancestor, Qazar the Cruel, is different and sometimes that bleeds out -- he finds himself impatient when he would be more tolerant than before, and sometimes, when engaged in 'frivolity' starts tapping his fingers or toes in irritation. Inside his skull, there is a war on for control, and he's learned the hard way that taking the offered magic means letting more of Qazar in -- right now, he has a few minor spells at his command, and that already has Qazar doing more of the talking. Masef doesn't want to go there...except, well, he owes Brand much and he knows his siblings. There is no doubt he is riding into war, and with the knowledge and powers of a great and fell Warlock riding along with him. He understands, from Brand's strong imparted morals, that a ranger is a guardian, and his burden as a guardian is to ensure that Qazar the Cruel does not dominate again. The problem is, however, that Qazar is tempting.

Both Masef and Qazar are fans of knowledge and lore, it's one of the areas where they are in complete agreement, though Masef worries that the Warlock's spirit might try to use the gained knowledge to further the goal of usurping Masef.[/INDENT]

[B]Equipment:[/b] 
[list][*] A longbow, carved from Vendish yew and maintained. Masef isn't the strongest archer, but he's damned precise. His arrows are a mix.
[*] A hatchet, though wickedly curved and with a counter-weighted spike on the back of it that has many uses against armor.
[*] A kindjal, long and nasty. Damascened steel.
[*] His skinning knife.
[*] A poinard, which is good for getting in between the cracks of armor.
[*] Pouches, belts and sash overlaying it, all containing many different essentials of survival. Notably, waterskins, though he's less worried about them as the lands get greener. He also carries various spell components and things that seem of mystic significance.
[*] His armor; lamellar acquired in the desert lands.
[*] Cloak and clothing -- he has not gotten anything in more locally-appropriate coloring, though tan tends to blend well in a variety of environments.
[*] Horses; a couple of them, he rides them in shift. These were acquired nearer to Bosfyrd than not, as he's bought and sold (at a loss) all the way up the road trying to make record time without killing the animals.
[*] His father's amulet, as well as a bronze ring through the ear to symbolize his membership in his father's clan.
[/list][/hider]