I'm pretty much going to port over my character from the last RP; almost word-for-word the same character sheet. Please tell me if something needs tweaking.

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[hider=Pic][img]http://i.imgur.com/OiD6NQ6.png[/img][/hider]

[b]Name:[/b] John 'Exile' Rourke.

[b]Weapon:[/b] Hand-crafted [url=http://www.enemyforces.net/firearms/ak105_3.jpg]AK-105[/url] which he built himself and keeps hidden from those who work for The System, though he would never use it unless he were to leave Barrowside for any reason. He also has a hand-crafted [url=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mseZa-zzV7s/T6gYHa4MAhI/AAAAAAAADHo/I3j_ohALIBY/s1600/WeaponCollector+urban+Tanto+survival+knife+prybar+pry+bar+tool+escape+multi+tool+heavy+duty+kit+tactical+for+sale+Combat+Fighting+for+sale+%25288%2529.JPG]survival knife[/url] made from paracord and metal from one of his scrapped AK builds, along with a much smaller, but similarly made, [url=https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jCob16OUGzw/UnflW0ufBfI/AAAAAAAAAVA/8twmR1ivB1I/s640/blogger-image--1940710972.jpg]shiv[/url] which he keeps on him at all times. He stays in shape, but he only has limited hand-to-hand combat knowledge, thus he prefers to fight with a weapon, or not at all.

[b]Estimated Age:[/b] Between 27 and 29.

[b]Personality:[/b] John has always been a cautious optimist with a heart of gold, though his mannerisms can come off as strange or eccentric to others. His general mood tends to be anywhere between relaxed and content, though he can also be unpredictable in certain situations. He has been known to talk to himself on occasion, which causes others to put his sanity into question. Some suspect it has something to do with his life before coming to Barrowside. Even if he is insane, it's only mild, and he has never hurt anybody while in one of his more odd states of mind, so people tend to roll with it. In most cases, he tends to muse aloud about the human condition, good vs. bad, morality, government, things like that. Some people refer to him as something of a philosopher because of it. One way or the other, he is a friendly person who is easy to talk to, most of the time, and you can usually look to him to cheer things up.

[b]Brief Background:[/b] As far as anyone knows, John was born in a community similar to Barrowside and raised to be an intelligent man with several marketable skills. That's the gist of his story, though if he wanted to go deeper, he would tell you about how Rockwell was run by people who didn't want anyone to get too smart, to help keep any sort of organized revolution from starting. He says that Barrowside is ruled under more reasonable conditions, but it's still imperfect. He says that Rockwell kept people in check by setting up a church and coaxing people to look to a higher power for answers, with government-appointed pastors. "It was an... effective form of control... and the greatest reason that I consider myself to be an atheist."

His parents were revolutionaries, in a way, who saw the oppressive nature of their government and wanted to replace it with a more democratic system. They always thought that knowledge was the answer, and this rubbed off on John to a great extent. He became an avid bookworm, and studied every piece of nonfictional writing he could get his hands on. Through his studies and self-teaching, he gained a broad array of basic and intermediate knowledge on several subjects, not the least of which was English. He began writing at an early age, and he often drew a crowd of people who listened to his stories. He always wrote about someplace where nothing could hurt you, where there was plenty of food and water, no disease, no zombies; a place where everything was peaceful and you didn't have to worry or care about anything.

During his late teenage years, a point at which his parents considered him to be an adult, they organized a protest against the government of Rockwell. He doesn't say anything other than the protesters were shut down, brutally. Over a hundred arrests, his mother among them, several executions, including that of his father, and even stricter rules for the entire community. It was at that point that John grabbed what he could and left Rockwell, assuming the name "Exile" and searching for a better place to stay. He eventually stumbled upon Barrowside after travelling for roughly a year, barely surviving on ancient food stores he found along the way.

In truth, there was no rebellion. Rockwell was destroyed by an overwhelming force of raiders who killed everyone who resisted, along with some who didn't. John was lucky to be captured and taken into their ranks. He appeared to them younger than he was, so they took him in and tried to push their customs on him. He went along with it, but did not forget what his parents taught him. His knowledge allowed him to plan an escape, and he even managed to get away with a gun; a rusty old AK. He could tell it was in dire need of repair, so he took to learning how it worked, and thus his interest and talent in gunsmithing came to fruition.

Between evading the raiders' search parties and looking for food, he barely had time to work on the old rifle, and no time for reading any books he came across or writing anything else. Between the dehydration and practical starvation, he began to lose his sanity. He kept himself going though, and at one point stumbled upon a "prepper" shelter built from a shipping container. He managed to find plenty of food and water inside, and was able to take a true pause to think about what to do next. He knew the raiders would keep looking for him, and they weren't far behind, so he had to either kill them or somehow mislead them. He could only think of one surefire way of doing so, and it was going to hurt.

After taking some antibiotics and painkillers he found in the shelter, John cut his hand on a broken window at a nearby house and let it bleed as he walked in a random direction. He kept it up for about twenty minutes before he cleaned and bandaged the wound, leaving a blood trail roughly a mile long. After making sure he did a proper job of cleaning the wound, he ran off in a different direction, hoping that the pint of blood he spilled was worth it. After a few days and no more sign that the raiders were following him, he continued forth, unmolested by any further pursuit. He traveled alone for about a month before running into a caravan who happened to have some parts for the rifle. He managed to get it into working condition on the condition that he give it to the caravan. He got a pretty sturdy knife in exchange, along with information on where some other gun parts might be found. He thanked the caravan for his hospitality and left him a short story he had re-written from before the fall of Rockwell.

The information lead him to an old gun store with files of blueprints and build instructions, including one for an AK-105. He managed to scrounge together all of the parts necessary to build the carbine, and was able to do so with the help of some manually operated machines and tools, though he figured he should learn to build one without such help. He kept another complete set of parts and continued on, thinking he wouldn't start until he needed to. After a couple more weeks of travel, he found Barrowside, where his AK and knife were confiscated. He considered breaking out, valuing freedom over community, but he learned after about a month of being confined to a cell that he had lost more of his sanity than he thought.

He came around as soon as he realized this and managed to get out of the cell, though he then had to bargain for a good skill, thus where his English knowledge came in handy. He just barely managed to become an English teacher and was even allowed all of his belongings back, except for his [i]completed[/i] weapons. He has since used the parts he had to build another AK and keep it hidden from The System, along with a pair of knives. He has since established himself as a respectable man with a kind heart and great writing skills.

[b]Misc:[/b] In short, John is a jack of all trades, with his specialties lying in gunsmithing and his vast knowledge of the English language, though he keeps the former secret and fronts as an English teacher. John is a very intelligent and articulate person, using plenty of vocabulary which in a post-apocalyptic society would seem superfluous, unnecessary, or even archaic. He often takes his off-time to write short stories, or work on his novel, "The Oasis."

Although he's not very good at using guns, he knows several guns down to every pin, rivet, and screw, and makes a habit of trying to construct some; outside of the prying eyes of The System of course. He has a particular interest in AK-type rifles, fascinated by their relatively simple construction and high tolerances. With the lack of any precision tools, a lot of his builds end up being fancy paperweights. Some of the guns he turns out are functional, but far from perfect. He has only managed to craft exactly two shooters worthy of any true merit, and that was with a vast array of spare parts he found before coming to Barrowside.

[b]Level and category:[/b] Level 5A.