[hider=Taranis]
[b]Marvel Character[/b]:
Thor

[b]Name[/b]:
Taranis

[b]Identity[/b]:
Publicly Known as Taranis

[b]Gender[/b]:
Male

[b]Age[/b]:
Complicated. The Tuatha De Denann were once mortals who ascended to godhood via the grace of the fair folk and their affinity with Mother Earth. While they did once manifest in the mortal realm, they have since retreated to fairy, the home of the fair folk. As a land beyond the normal rules of time, it’s hard to say how much time has past for them since they walked the earth. Suffice it to say that it has been more than 200 years of our time since one of their number was seen and more than 2500 since Taranis and the rest of the pantheon became gods.

[b]Team[/b]:
Currently Unaffiliated

[b]Physical Description[/b]:
Standing at more than two metres in height and built like bear, Taranis is a giant among men. His skin is worn and as pale as milk, occasionally dappled with freckles but more frequently with old scars. He has a wild, untamed beard with a consistency more common in gorse bushes than facial hair and a mane of hair to match. Around his neck is a Torc of corroded metal. It probably once had some form of design on it, perhaps a snake head or dragon, but time has worn it into a plain band. On his chest is faded tattoo of a wheel that once symbolised his role as a god of travel and exploitation, now rendered a little obsolete by the invention of the aeroplane.

Taranis wears a pair of trousers of rough wool, stained with the grime of centuries. In the most sever of weather, he also wears a brown cloak. True to his feral, druidic nature, he never wears any form of foot ware and his soles have therefore developed the texture and thickness of old leather.His face is worn by weather and time but not by ill temper. He has deep smile lines under his beard and his face is frequently split by a grin or creased in raucous laughter. His eyes are deep and black, occasionally flashes of white rearing and vanishing in the depths. Taranis’s voice is deep and earthy, bringing to mind the smoke of an open fire and taste of dark beer.

[b]Powers[/b]:
Taranis’s flesh, bones and muscles are many times as dense as any humans, allowing him to take punishment enough to slay any hundred mortals. His strength too is vastly superior, easily enough to tear down a fortress and rip apart its inhabitants. He can use to winds to bear himself aloft and fly from place to place, but with more of the essence of the wind blown leaf than the soaring eagle. With much more skill, he can direct storms and hurl lightning. For the most part though, he doesn’t interfere with the natural course of meteorological events, letting Mother Earth’s systems do their work. A sure sign of things being dire is when Taranis begins summoning the storm to hi side. As one of the Tuatha De Danann, the mortals made gods, he is unageing and will not be struck down by disease or infection, his life ending only in combat. As well as that, his status as one of Mother Earth’s chosen gives him some sway in the animal kingdom. Beasts tend to act deferentially to him and plants will gladly bend to let him pass or give him shelter, despite him no longer being a mortal druid. Finally, a gift from Mother Earth, Taranis hears all tongues as his own and can be understood by all that stand upon her soil.

Abilities:
As a mortal, Taranis trained as a druid first and a sailor second. Of his grove, he was trusted to spread their teachings from the shelter of the British Isles (then a series of warring and disparate factions) to the mainland of Europe (then an even more chaotic group of warring and disparate factions). As such, he knows much herblore and medicine, though most of both have been rendered obsolete by modern advances, as well as how to communicate with Mother Earth and interpret her wishes. The boats of his day were a very different affair from those we have now but Taranis can still make himself useful at sea, especially when it comes to predicting storms; they come when someone has seriously pissed him off. He is also trained as a warrior, using the short swords of Celtic Britain. Similar in length and style of use to Roman Gladiuses, they have a stabbing point and a flared edge for hacking and slicing. The style most Celts employed was to batter the opponent into submission, moving too fast to be hit and burying their opponent in agile attacks. As almost no Celts could afford armour, it was that or wait around to get stabbed. Thus, Taranis’s style of swordsmanship is an all out assault with nothing held back for defence, a particularly deadly tactic given his extreme strength. He prefers not to have to use weapons though, favouring his fists and feet as weapons. When fighting unarmed, he brawls like you would expect a man of his strength to; punching hard, pulling people into crushing holds and throwing them through walls or into the air.

Weaknesses:
Taranis’s weaknesses are not psychical, but tactical. As a god and a warrior, he can have few mortal rivals. But his godhood is not an unchangeable aspect of his being. He is only a god through the grace of Mother Earth and unageing through the generosity of the fair folk. Without their blessings, Taranis would be no more than a man a long, long way out of his time. A man, it’s worth mentioning, whose immune system has not developed any immunities to modern pathogens or diseases. However, the sever the connection between Taranis and Mother Earth would be very, very difficult. As one of her champions, he lives for no other purpose but to serve her will. To break the bond between them would require him to do sometime unforgivable, such as damage the natural world enough that it will take a millennia to heal. His immortality, gifted by the fair folk is part of a deal between Mother Eart and the fae, would disappear along with his godly powers.

Items/Weapons:
Taranis takes one weapon with him wherever he goes; a sword named Caledfwlch (Caled-Wulch with a Scottish ch) or, to give it its more common name, Excalibur. When the druids were being hunted from the Earth, Taranis reclaimed this ancient and revered sword. He vowed to return to humanity’s greatest hero when he returned to Earth. Mother Earth approved of this, hoping that the removal of one of her greatest gifts would make humans see the folly in hunting down her chosen servants. As it was, Excalibur proved too entrenched in the human consciousness to disappear completely and, though history, several copies appeared. They were wielded by great men and did great deeds. In the end, though, the blades broke or the kingdom fell. And, in Fairy, the true sword bided its time.

And now Mother Earth, sensing the great dangers to herself and humanity in the coming years has sent Taranis back to his home to return the sword. Being more than a little tired of Fairy, he was relieved and the envy of all the Tuatha De Danann. Taranis knows that, as a god, he will never bear the sword of kings and heroes and is quite glad about that. A simple man at heart, he has never wished for great titles or mighty swords. Fists and feet are weapons enough and the responsibilities of being a god are more than enough for him. So he carries the sword with him wherever he goes, offering any that wish the chance to try and draw it. The one to draw the sword from the scabbard will be granted powers not seen since the ages of gods and heroes, enough to shatter empires and bring dynasties to their knees and will signal that Earth’s reckoning is nigh. Perhaps fortunately, no one has yet been able to even make the blade shift in its sheathe.

Personality:
A man out of his time hardly covers quite how alien Taranis’s perspective is. When last he stood upon the soil of the mortal world, Christianity was not yet a major religion. Steel had only recently begun to be used as a commonplace metal. The Roman Empire still dominated the known world. That said, Taranis is a remarkably uncomplicated man. He is strong, brave and kind, wishing nothing more than to lift loads to heavy for other and fight battles that others cannot. He knows that he is a god and immortal in a world of mortals, just as he remembers (somewhat cloudy) his own time as a mortal. Taranis is also patient, having had to deal with the capricious fae for time out of mind. Although the complexities of the modern age often elude him, he is slowly learning to grasp the different elements and nuances of this alien culture. Somethings in today’s society make him laugh and remember good days of home and hearth. His laugh is the bellow of a billowing gale, moving all in its wake. His wrath, however, comes as lightning on a summers day, sudden and terrible with no warning other than the furrowing of his brows, like twisting storm clouds.

Origin:
Along with the rest of his pantheon, the Tuatha De Danann, Taranis was once a mortal man, a druid who was beloved of Mother Earth. In an event that has not been repeated since, he and his fellows ascended from mortality to godhood, shedding their fleshy bodies for aspects of the elements they represented. Unlike some gods, the Tuath De Danann still retain an element of mortality; they can be killed. It’s not easy, however, as they are far together than any mortal and posses formidable abilities, both magical and mundane, that dissuade all but the most determined assassins.

Some time around 200 BCE, the Tuatha De Danann retreated from this world and into Fairy, the domain of the fae. The persecution of the Druidic people dismayed Mother Earth and she sought to keep her favoured children from harm. She bade them take shelter with the fair folk and so they did. When Taranis left, he took with him the sword Caledfwlch, promising to return it one day. They left this earth and did not return until 2012 AD, when Taranis stepped out of a wood in Scotland and directly into a large tractor. It is a little difficult to say how long they perceived their exile into Fairy to be, as time there is less of an absolute and more of an opinion. Suffice it to say that each member of the pantheon is now sick of songs and stories, tired of dances and debaucheries and utterly bored of the fae. Not that they are foolish enough to say so. 

Background history:
Once mortal, now god, Taranis has existed in one form or another for what we perceive to be in excess of 2500 years. When the Tuatha De Danann walked the earth and involved themselves in the affairs of men, they would lead men to be heroes and lords to be kings. Taranis believed greatly in exploration and seeking out the undrawn corners of the map, often encouraging sea faring men to take their voyages just a little further, to look just a little longer. Now, it seems, the earth is truly mapped and there is no more sideways to explore. Humanity will have to start going up and out into the stars or down and into the earth. As one Mother Earth’s champions, Taranis would much prefer them not to cut the soil and instead advocates sailing the stars.

Upon arriving back on the earthly plane, Taranis was more than a little confused, as might you be too if you accidentally skipped two and a half millennia. The trees were the same but the animals that scampered between them seemed subtly different. And, as he wandered out of the shelter of the trees, he discovered a much less subtle difference; a large, yellow JCB tractor. And in this context, ‘discovered’ means ‘was hit by’. After freeing the confused farmer from what he took to be some sort of mobile jail, Taranis stalked the local countryside in search of a lord or chief who he could get answers from. After causing something of a ruckus at a market with his command of the winds, his presence became known to SHIELD. Naturally, they dispatched an agent to apprehend him. That agent was Jie Wan, otherwise known as [color=fff200]Goldenstar[/color]. When she arrived, she saw a barrel chested man with long, mangled hair, a dirty face, bare feet and a sword. Not unreasonably, she decided to subdue him first and ask questions later.

Only [color=fff200]Goldenstar[/color], Taranis and the few people with the clearance to read an executive level SHIELD mission reports know what transpired on that lonely Scottish country road but the events are far more widely known. First, the 21st century was introduced to Taranis by agents of SHIELD and he was presented to the world by the organisation’s leaders. Secondly, [color=fff200]Goldenstar[/color] came away from the encounter with a new power. The arcs of lightning that crackle from her fingertips are, Taranis claims, a gift from Mother Earth but he seems curiously reticent and refuses to elaborate further to anyone but her.
[/hider]