Behold, my C.S.! [img]https://penraker.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/behold_his_mighty_hand_01.jpg [/img] [@Emuxe] Sorry for the length. I like to go all out on character sheets, loaded with details and too much drama. But don't worry, my posts will probably be short, plain and simple by comparison. :) [hider=Shertul] [center] [b][h1][color=DimGray]Shertul[/color][/h1][/b] [i]Note: if you're wondering what a "Fleshspinner" is, the information is found under "Special ability/ies" in unnecessary levels of detail.[/i] [img]http://abhishek.mit.edu/images/line.png[/img] [u][b][color=DimGray][h3]Basic Information[/h3][/color][/b][/u] [color=DimGray][b]Full Name:[/b][/color] Shertul the Unnatural. He outlived his family long ago. No more reason to keep his tribal name, outside of useless sentiment. [color=DimGray][b]Age:[/b][/color] 81, though it is impossible to detect his age by appearance. No wrinkles, no damage, no aging. Most Fleshspinners live well into their hundreds, or even their thousands. [color=DimGray][b]Gender: [/b][/color] "He" was once a man. No more. His reproductive organs are now dead and useless- furthermore, it's impossible to title any of his features as male or female. [color=DimGray][b]Birth Date:[/b][/color] The eleventh day of the tenth month. [color=DimGray][b]Race:[/b] [/color] Born humani, but now he is no more a human than he is a male. Race, gender, sex, age- it is all irrelevant to a Fleshspinner. They are only terms used to describe minuscule physical differences, which become vestigial as soon as one learns to change their makeup. [color=DimGray][b]Alignment:[/b][/color] Neutral, but leaning strongly towards Revenant. At the least, you will never see him become a Nephlim. [img]http://abhishek.mit.edu/images/line.png[/img] [u][b][color=black][h3]Appearance[/h3][/color][/b][/u] [color=DimGray][b]Hair Colour:[/b][/color] No hair needed. [color=DimGray][b]Eye Colour:[/b][/color] The art of Transcendent Flesh is as of yet far beyond Shertul, but he has learned to shift coloration at will. The shade of his eyes are unpredictable. That being said, he tends to gravitate towards pink and grey. [color=DimGray][b]Face Shape:[/b][/color] Shertul prefers to wear a grossly over-sized black cloak in public, to hide his extraneous limbs, but it isn't so easy to cover a face without drawing the very attention one seeks to ignore. His skull, therefore, looks to be almost elfish, riddled with sharp features, angular dives and dagger ears, topped off by an up-pointed knife of a nose. It is a cruel face, a dangerous face. When asked, he likes to tell people he is only half humani. Most assume the other half is elf. He doesn't bother to correct them. Though he has a third eye, for seeing magically, he has shaped it so that it blends-in when closed. And though his Fleshspinner symbol is proudly exposed, few outside of magical circles can identify it. The red crown is usually assumed to simply be a complex tattoo. [color=DimGray][b]Skin Tone:[/b][/color] A very pale, off-white shade covers most of Shertul's body, while an intricate and interwoven crown of red stripes adorns his forehead like a tattoo. At the center of the sanguine "crown", staring out above his middle eye, is the symbol of the Fleshspinners: [center][img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b0/35/7a/b0357a14b8be433410d9aa35670b1969.jpg[/img][/center] [color=DimGray][b]Height:[/b][/color] 5'2 feet tall, or roughly 155 centimeters. But he prefers to dip down on all six limbs when not in public. [color=DimGray][b]Weight:[/b][/color] 100 pounds / 45 kilograms [color=DimGray][b]Body Type:[/b][/color] Slender but toned: the body of a predator, for running after prey in short bursts like a lion, or long hunts as a wolf. [color=DimGray][b]Natural Markings:[/b][/color] None. All birthmarks and blemishes were long ago removed, in par with Fleshspinner tradition: "Let your body be immaculate, and without blemish, to show for all your perfection in flesh." [color=DimGray][b]Scar(s):[/b][/color] None. As with natural marks, scars are quickly healed over to hide any evidence of flaw. [color=DimGray][b]Tattoo(s):[/b][/color] None. Noticing a pattern? Fleshspinners simply change coloration, if they desire to mark themselves, as Shertul has done with the symbol upon his forehead. [img]http://abhishek.mit.edu/images/line.png[/img] [u][b][color=DimGray][h3]Personality:[/h3][/color][/b][/u] [color=DimGray][b]3 Words:[/b][/color] Guilt-ridden, introspective, moody. [color=DimGray][b]Like(s):[/b][/color] Shertul loves all magic. To him, it is the true source of power in this world. It would not surprise him at all to discover that Alithe and Raziel are simply embodiments of magical energy. Outside of the mystical, he holds a deep respect for the dwarves and their crafts. They, along with humani, are the only race he truly holds as equals. [color=DimGray][b]Dislike(s):[/b][/color] The whole idea of nature. Fleshspinners are often titled "unnatural" by those who consider themselves upright, and so it's no surprise that many of Shertul's kind have simply abandoned that entire bloated concept. This spreads into his views on the treants and elves, plus fuels his abhorrence of those who foolishly believe that forests and jungles should be protected as any more than a resource. There is nothing spiritual or special about a forest: it's simply a collection of plants trying to survive, the same as any living creature. It can also be fairly said that he is not too fond of centaurs, fae and elementals. He also doesn't like pets. The only animals you shouldn't eat are children. [color=DimGray][b]Want(s):[/b][/color] To escape his past, to convince himself that Rayu was wrong- that the Monastery is simply a place of magical study, and that it is no abomination to be what he is. Deep down, though, there is another ambition which he will not admit to any except himself: to finally abandon his concerns and his search to return to the Monastery, to the only place on this world that has ever been called home. [color=DimGray][b]Fear(s):[/b][/color] That Rayu wasn't wrong, that he's already sold his soul to the Revenants. If his life must lead him to that path, he can imagine a world where he does willingly swear himself to Alithe, but he [b]must[/b] know that it [b]was[/b] willingly. He cannot bear the idea of those years at the Monastery having been all for his recruitment. The thought makes him shudder. But it also sparks an idea. He is near to mastery of Flesh: he lacks only the most advanced of the most advanced techniques. He's certain he could teach others the art as his masters taught him; he could create his own Monastery, further from the wastelands and un-plagued by the foul shade demons. He may even gather together with other out-cast wizards and wanderers of different magical schools, to add further knowledge. A true, unaligned institute for true, unaligned magic. Such places have existed before and certainly some continue to exist now, but none teach Fleshspinning outside the Monastery. [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]Favourite...[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [color=DimGray][b]Colour(s):[/b][/color] Pink, white, gray, black. [color=DimGray][b]Time of Day:[/b][/color] The nighttime hours most in-between dusk and dawn. He has a habit of watching the stars, and the cool weather is nice in the frequent humidity of a land like Terra. [color=DimGray][b]Food:[/b][/color] [i]Everything![/i] Maintaining the extra limbs, magical eyes and ears, poison and disease immunity, blatantly ignoring all the laws of biology... it's a lot of energy. He needs unholy amounts of food to keep up. Starvation is a very real threat. [color=dimgray][b]Animal:[/b][/color] The one he is eating. [color=dimgray][b]Place in Terra:[/b][/color] The wastelands around the Monastery. The emptiness lends a strange peace, especially on quiet nights. [img]http://abhishek.mit.edu/images/line.png[/img] [u][b][color=DimGray][h3]Skills and Attributes[/h3][/color][/b][/u] [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]Skills[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [color=DimGray][b]Special ablilty/ies:[/b][/color] Shertul is what most call a "Fleshspinner": wizards who have forsaken spell-casting, instead focusing their magic on twisting the shape of their own bodies. [/center] [hider=Details on Fleshspinning (Optional Reading)] - - - [i]Note: This is really long and poorly written, so don't feel obligated to read it all. This is basically what happens when I shit on my keyboard[/i] Unlike other wizards, Fleshspinners keep their magic wholly contained within themselves. Their body literally traps the mystic energies like a cage, soaking them up to infuse it right into their own flesh. In this manner, a flesh-mage can forcibly alter their bodies in a myriad of ways. They can grow new limbs, wings, gills, and more. They can harden or soften their skin, and learn to perceive with senses lost on all others. It is rare, however, to find any lifestyle that requires more devotion, more concentration, or more time than the path of a Fleshspinner. It takes months or years to fully develop new parts, and it is an agonizingly painful process all the while. Furthermore, Fleshspinners must eat absurd amounts of food to satisfy the magic trapped in their veins. To make matters worse, they can never use healing magic, for it will "heal" them of the flesh-magic and revert them back to their native state. On the bright side, immortality is a simple thing for them. A few years into their training, they learn to heal themselves of the aging process. And when you can control your physical form down to even a cellular level, it's not a challenge to remove wrinkles and cure ageing-induced disease. For a Fleshspinner, the only sign of aging is the wisdom that comes only with centuries. Of course, it's no small task to teach such complex magic, so it is no wonder that the typical mage/wizard has no knowledge of Fleshspinning whatsoever. Most commoners are not aware that it exists at all. But, if one is willing to seek it out, there is a place which teaches this macabre power, out over the very edge of the Wasteland. It is called the Monastery of Flesh. Inside it's walls, you'll find [s]people[/s] creatures thousands of years old, some walking about like men, but others growing like fleshy plants or clinging to the walls like a moss of human skin.. They were all once people, but most aren't even recognizable as humanoids anymore. Of course, those are only the oldest of the old, the ones who have achieved "Transcendent Flesh": the power of instant transformation. The younger ones, the students, are more akin to monsters out of a fairy tail. Wings and sharp teeth, eyes in places they shouldn't be and as many limbs as spiders. With practice, anyone with a touch of magic (perhaps even dwarves) can learn to become like these creatures, immortal and in full command of their flesh. Unsurprisingly, flesh magic requires an intimate knowledge of biology, so that the aspiring practitioner will not accidentally destroy a kidney or two. It shouldn't come as a shock that a full half of the Monastery is devoted to a massive library, largely regarding the anatomy of the different races and sexes, so any mage knows exactly what they're working with when they begin to twist the shape of their bodies. As one final note, it should be said: because each Fleshspinner must learn their own bodies in painstaking detail, it is rare for them to work with the physiology of those originating in different races or genders. A Fleshspinner who was once a female elf will have difficulty applying their magic on any subject who is not also a female elf. Shertul may no longer be identifiable as a human or a man, but the fact remains that all his biology originates as such, and so he has only ever studied male humani anatomy in enough detail to control it. This limitation is only compounded by the nature of flesh-magic. It is so intensely personal that it cannot be efficiently transferred to anyone other than the caster. This includes the dead. Many a necromancer has discovered Fleshspinning with glee, only to have it followed with disappointment. [/hider] Shertul spent [b]decades[/b] in meditation, slowly changing his body. His bones have gotten both harder and lighter, his skin smoothed out, his hair fell out, his senses became attuned to the flow of magic throughout the world so that he can literally hear and see it, he grew a working pair of gills, he developed clawed and webbed fingers, and perhaps most surprising, he sprouted a full set of extra arms. He could suddenly move with lightening speed and strength. The only organs he could not develop were wings. Most Fleshspinners create wings for themselves at some point, but Shertul never could. He earnestly tried, for years upon years, yet flight never came. He still looks on Corva and Air Elementals with a bitter jealousy. Unfortunately, the lifetime of devotion spent creating his flesh as it is now equally means that he cannot easily change it again. While he heals with indomitable speed, truly growing new limbs or changing the chemical makeup of his body would still take months or years for every change. Fleshspinning is an endlessly patient process. And, of course, all this comes at a cost: the slow change is also a painful one. Without herbal medication (read: potions), the pain becomes overwhelming. Furthermore, Shertul can never use healing magic or have it applied to him, as the healing energies will attempt to "heal" his extra limbs and organs, slowly reverting him back to a normal humani. An eighty-one years old normal humani. Adding insult to injury, he must eat constantly. While Shertul has always been thin and short, all that he has added to his body by magical needs forces him to consume even more food than a "natural" being would. In a sense, he's feeding the magic as much as he's feeding himself. Starvation is a constant, all-encompassing threat whenever he takes the risk of leaving civilization. Even a day without food would be incapacitating, and two would mean certain death. On the bright side, if he doesn't starve to death or allow himself to be "healed", he'll live forever. [center] [color=DimGray] [b]Good at...:[/b] [/color] The Monastery has a bad habit of only teaching magic, and only flesh-magic at that. Very few practical skills were learnt in Shertul's eight decades of life. His only true skill is an incredible gift both hunting and fighting, though this comes not from skill but from biology. He is unfairly strong and fast, so much so that it covers his lack of practical experience. [color=DimGray] [b]Bad at...:[/b] [/color] Everything. He can't cook, he can't build, he can't sew or clean or manage time. It's a wonder he can walk. When it comes to day-to-day abilities, Shertul is lost. [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]Traits[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [color=DimGray][b]Good Habit(s):[/b][/color]() Perhaps it was those years of meditation, but Shertul has more patience than any humani you'll ever meet. [color=DimGray][b]Bad Habit(s):[/b][/color] He has a habit of taking everything too seriously. He has never had a sense of humor, and he isn't going to start now. Serious, moody, and dramatic till the end. Also, he constantly steals food off of other people's plate. No meal is safe! He'll point in another direction and, before you know what's happening, the flesh-mage has swallowed up your whole meal. In his defense, he'll die if he doesn't. On a lighter note, he tends to click his claws together when he's nervous. [img]http://abhishek.mit.edu/images/line.png[/img] [u][b][color=DimGray][h3]History[/h3][/color][/b][/u] [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]The Past[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [/center] Shertul's origin may sound odd to those who spawn from the lush forests and gentle streams of Raziel's land, but for the few who take residence in the Wastes, it is a common story. He was born to a tribe of wandering nomads. No destination. No origin that anyone can remember. They traveled in path with the few prey animals that survived in the desolation of Alithe's lands, living out of animal-skin tents and simple spears. It was a rough life. Nobody grew fat, nobody grew old; some didn't grow up. Shertul was small. They all knew he would not survive. The day his fate changed was the day he saw it on the horizon: a fortress of dark spires, rising proudly over the wastes. It was surrounded by shadow demons, even more than normal for the Wastelands, and a strange, totally indescribable [i]aura [/i]was felt from it. His young eyes, only a decade old, had never see anything like it. So powerful, so frightening. He's hands latched to his mother. She saw his fear and tried to comfort him, but she didn't hide the truth. It was at that young age he learned of the Monastery of Flesh, a institution altogether glorious and terrifying. His tribe explained to him that it was a city of magical "abominations", thousands of them, living unnatural lives that could lead only to destruction. The more she said, though, the less Shertul heard. He was already entranced. Before the spires were even out of site, he was begging to join. His child's mind couldn't understand their objections. It sounded like a warm place, with food to spare and beds to rest and magic to entrance. Most parents won't understand what his mother did next. She let him go. Not because he was ready, and certainly not because she changed her mind about the Monastery, but because she knew it was the only real chance he had at a life. Not a normal life, to be sure, but a life better than feeding on scraps out in the waste. When he arrived, two monks were already waiting on him. Their mutated eyes had seen him coming a mile away. They introduced him to the masters of the Monastery, who explained to him what this place truly was. The people there, the "monks", learned a macabre magic forbidden in other realms: Fleshspinning. The name alone almost made Shertul vomit, but he stomached it and listened. It was a very old order, a very strange one, that taught to keep magic wholly contained within yourself. Fleshspinner's bodies literally traps the mystic energies like a cage, soaking them up to infuse it right into their own flesh. In this manner, they can forcibly alter their bodies in a myriad of ways. They can grow new limbs, wings, gills, and more. They can harden or soften their skin, and learn to perceive with senses lost on all others. It frightened the young Shertul, but it was already far too late to catch up with his tribe. He had to stay, like it or not. Before he could become a wizard, however, he had to become a scholar. He had to learn. Reading and writing were lost arts on his people, but the Monastery educated him. They showed him what civilization meant. How could he not be loyal? So when the day came that he was offered the choice- either become a Fleshspinner or leave the Monastery forever, alone- he threw away his tribe's warnings and accepted without a thought. From then, the years flew by. Shertul discovered that time moves differently for an immortal. Months were the blink of an eye. Years meant nothing. But even in the blur of immortal life, he met a companion who's nature complimented his own: Rayu. She was, like him, raised in a life nothing like the Monastery. The similarities ended there, but sometimes opposites attract. Fleshspinners rarely reproduce. Their relationship was not sexual. But it was emotionally intense, in a way that can only be related to by those who have endured those friendships that last decades. Shertul honestly believed that he could never betray her. But he could. On one night like any other, Rayu and Shertul were looking out a window when a light appeared on the horizon. White. Blinding. It was growing brighter. Screams sounded off. Shadow demons flocked to it like sparrows. What could have only been a few seconds (but felt like hours) went past before Shertul could see clearly. A Nephilim had found itself surrounded in the Wastelands, and it was hardly a shock that that the Shades were feeding. It [i]was [/i]a shock when one of the Monastery masters, named Erison, leaped from the window to join in on the fight. There was no warning. The master simply ran to the Nephlim and began tearing into it like a beast. The shades held it to the ground while the Fleshspinner ripped it apart. When the melee cleared enough for Rayu and Shertul to finally tear their eyes away, he was surprised to find her angry. It took him hours to get the answer out of her, but apparently, Rayu was infuriated that a master Fleshspinner would get involved with the Nephilim/Revenant war. "It wouldn't be a problem," she said, "except... remember Vona?" Shertul nodded. Vona was a high-ranking Fleshspinner who, a few years prior, had been banished from the . The reason cited was "It is improper for a flesh-mage to enter into a religious war." But if that's the case, why was the Monastery overlooking Erison's unprovoked attack on a Nephilim? Why was he not banished? He tried to calm her down, but Rayu just went on and on about it, and the more she ranted the angrier she made herself. She told the Fleshspinner leaders, but nothing was done. Even Shertul didn't seem to care (and he didn't- what a Spinner does on his own time is nobody else's business). It came to a head two weeks later. Consumed with conviction that the Fleshspinners were just a magical arm of the Revenants, and the entire student-body was secretly being recruited, Rayu stole away dozens of irreplaceable scrolls and books from the library. She told Shertul in a hushed whisper that she would flee to the forests of Terra, or perhaps the home of the Corva. There, with no Revenants or Fleshspinners or master Erisons to stop them, him and her could build a new place of flesh-magic: a true, unaligned institute for true, unaligned learning. Her eyes were so bright with hope, but Shertul's stayed as cold as stone. He only said one word, "No", and her heart was broken. Still, it wouldn't be enough. He couldn't let her betray the Monastery of Flesh. He couldn't let throw everything they had away. And so, with a heart full of guilt and hands shaking with trepidation, he betrayed out his only friend. He told the Monastery masters. Shertul was assured by them many times: something would be done, he had nothing to worry about, just go to sleep and let the masters speak to Ruya themselves. When he awoke, the morning sun was streaming peacefully through the narrow windows, and his closest love's blood was splattered on the walls. She was gone. Rips of the stolen scrolls littered across the floor. Ask as he might, many times, the masters would never tell him what happened. Did she live? Did she die? Did she fight them first, or was she attacked in cold blood? He could feel his dear masters growing in hostility with each question. He had only two choices left: live in peace, never knowing what became of Ruya and if she's even alive, or flee and search for her alone. The Monastery was everything to him, but he couldn't stay there, haunted by the ghost of Rayu. If she was wrong about the Monastery, he could forgive himself. But if she wasn't? If she survived the attack, he could forgive himself. But if she didn't? He had to know. He left his home, in search of the lands he knew she would move to if her flesh was still moving. [center] [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]The Present[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [/center] Shertul hasn't forgotten what happened at the Monastery, nor can he, until he discovers the truth. Either he'll find Rayu out in the world, or his journeys will finally teach him the wisdom to forgive himself. Until then, he's cursed by guilt to keep looking for a friend he may never find. He has been in the forest for a long time now. Longer than he can remember. Longer than he [i]wants[/i] to remember. Occasionally, he comes across a fae or elven or centaurian habitat, and they'll allow him to stay for a day or two. But he can never linger- they will eventually find out what he is, why he's there. So he keeps his feet moving and his ears open. [center] [i][b][color=DimGray][h3]Memories[/h3][/color][/b][/i] [/center] [hider=Awakening] It is rare to find any lifestyle that requires more devotion, more concentration, or more time than the path of a Fleshspinner. This has been especially true for Shertul. Shertul, accompanied all the while by his dearest friend Rayu, once performed a rite known as the Carnal Awakening. No warning was given to them until the very morning it happened, before the sun had even risen over the Wastes, when guards in black cloaks came to drag them from their beds and enter them into a featureless, dark, empty room without any food or even a change of clothes. Then the door was locked, and they would not leave for years. They were kept alive only by the magics of the tower. And there they meditated, for years on end, locked in thought. While they sat in a trance, the seasons changed, people were born and buried, buildings were built and crumbled. Twenty years later, when the rusted old door finally creaked open again, they lifted their eyes and couldn't recognize themselves. They found that they could now [i]see and hear [/i]magic, not just sense it vaguely, and that they were aware of their surroundings in ways that they couldn't fathom before. Life was full of things that they felt had always been there, but they were noticing for the first time. Shertul had grown gills and arms and even a third eye. Rayu sat admiring her leathery, bat-like wings. They had awoken to a new world. [/hider] [/hider] (I never really post more than 3 paragraphs- I just happen to like making a 25,000 character C.S.) So what do y'all think? Criticisms and opinions are welcome, but be gentle :gray