[center] [color=a2d39c][h1]The Lord of Black Seas [/h1][/color] [img]http://cdn.vanillaforums.com/pennyarcade.vanillaforums.com/editor/0i/oyx6l1iumzzd.jpg[/img] [b]Name:[/b] [color=a2d39c]Trenton Baker[/color] [b]Title:[/b] [color=a2d39c]The Lord of Black Seas[/color] [b]Three-word description:[/b] [color=a2d39c]Mystical Necromancer Pirate.[/color] [hider=Appearance] [color=a2d39c] Trenton is a man of average height and muscular build, with the strong arms and weathered skin of an experienced seaman. At all times his eyes glow with a dull green light the color of sea-foam, an effect that becomes more pronounced when he uses his powers. He wears his matted black hair down on his shoulders, and no matter where he is or what he's doing, it is always damp with sea foam. His face wears a goatee and often a cocky grin or an outright snarl, and his body has only ever been witnessed wearing one thing - a tattered overcoat over a grey tunic and trousers, with a cutlass sheathed at his belt and all manner of belts slung around his waist. The air around him is heady with the stench of the sea - salt water and seaweed and dead fish and brine. There is no warmth in his flesh - his chest can never be seen to rise or fall with a breath, and where the beating of his heart should be there is only silence. Any mortal who looks upon him comprehends his nature almost immediately, instinctively. Trenton is not a corpse, but nor is he a living man; he is a man who stopped living one day without ever dying.[/color] [/hider] [hider= Magic/Skills/Abilities] [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d2/39/ee/d239ee75bf7fac21633ed6eb59713e5d.jpg[/img] [color=a2d39c] Trenton has enormous power over souls - living, dead, and everything in between. He can call the souls of the living back into their bodies and force them to serve him, but this is no resurrection - this is undeath, because the existence of one soul is one of tortured unlife. He can feed on souls to sustain himself, and has to if he wants to make constant use of his powers. Most frighteningly, however, he is even able to rip particularly weak souls straight out of his victim's bodies, killing them instantly and binding them forever to his will. Oh, he's also an exceptional swordfighter and sailor, but that all seems a bit less important when you can create undead armies en masse whenever you want. Finally, he is capable of traveling very, very quickly wherever there is the ocean, for he is intimately familiar with the strange seas of the next world, and often dips in and out of them to speed his travel.[/color] [/hider] [hider=Inventory/Holdings] [img]http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/4d03215d-8bc8-4f99-8631-32e60118200d/94bf14ed-a7b8-47f7-85ce-54a0cdb0ce35.jpg[/img] [color=a2d39c]Trenton's most prized possession is, of course, his ship - [i]The Hangman[/i]. This massive warship is thoroughly haunted, crewed by spirits enslaved by its Captain and boasting a hold full of plunder from this world and the next, some of it living and screaming to be set free. She sails all across the outskirts of the world, for she is far faster than any natural ship and needs no wind to glide across the waters. The effects Trenton keeps on his person are more limited - his cutlass, an old blade forged in bygone times, bears a powerful enchantment - the power to rip the soul from any man slain by it. This is, of course, entirely superfluous, as Trenton is more than capable of doing so on his own, but he wields it anyway (mainly because he is fond of it). In his pocket he keeps a chunk of black obsidian about the size of a knife blade, which he categorically refuses to answer any questions about.[/color] [/hider] [hider=Myth] [color=a2d39c]There are many stories about what lays beyond the edge of the world. Some say that off the far corners of the map there is only an endless sea, a vast expanse of rolling waves that extends forever. Some speak of a strange land where the sun never rises, where the stars burn with green and black fire and the sea churns with all manner of serpents and stranger, fouler things. Still others claim that this is the land of the dead, where the souls of saint and sinner alike languish in eternity, staining the water like blood. The stories all agree about one thing, at least - only one man has ever sailed those waters and returned. His name has been lost to time, but every sailor in the world knows his tale by heart. He was a humble sailor, a deckhand who always did as he was told. His ship was off on an expedition of exploration, a noble quest to discover what lay beyond the western edges of the map; a fool's errand, of course. They sailed for months, through driving rain and baking sun alike. The crew all begged the captain to turn from this course, return home before they all starved, but he had gone mad with his hunger for glory, and could not be swayed. The crew began to talk of mutiny, but by then it was too late. The tales all differ as to what happened next - perhaps they found the edge of the world and sailed straight off it, or maybe a storm came upon them and blew them into the next world. Maybe they came upon some stranger passageway still. Whatever happened, the sailors had found what they sought, but it brought them no joy. Time left them; sanity left them. They might have drifted in those black seas for a hundred years or maybe just for a day - they breathed the air of this land, they counted its stars, they wept in fear of the things that swam in its waters. At long last the ship struck land - a towering mountain of black obsidian that stretched up to rend the heavens. It was here that the sailors heard the song of the next world, and it was here that they were unmade by it. All except one, that is. It is unknown if this sailor was an evil man before he touched the shores of the dead, or if the unholy powers that possessed him made him so - either way he had gone mad with hatred and cruelty, and refused to die. The vessel that had borne him to this place was unworthy of him, so he raised a mighty warship from the black seas and sailed away with a crew of dead men. It is said that he still haunts the seas of both worlds, preying on any vessel unlucky enough to run afoul of him, feasting on their souls and enslaving their corpses to become fuel for his dark desires. Or so the stories say.[/color] [/hider] [hider=Personality] [color=a2d39c]Trenton is more than a terrifyingly powerful necromancer and scourge of the seven seas; he's also a sneering, petulant jerk. He lives only for amusement and the fulfillment of his every whim, and will happily kill or enslave anyone who opposes him on any level (as well as a lot of people who don't). He is deeply sadistic and hedonistic, and enjoys tormenting people and keeping them as his 'playthings'. Easily bored, he'll almost always throw his toys out the second they stop amusing him; the plunder in his ship's hull exists only to please him, as he'd much sooner take what he wants than pay for it. Trenton, unlike many of his villainous contemporaries, has no delusions of eloquence. He is a coarse talker, a childish bully, and a generally wholly unpleasant man. He treats the lives of his minions, his slaves, and pretty much everyone as being wholly disposable, worth only what they can provide to him in the immediate short term. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to find anything to like about him whatsoever. [/color] [/hider] [hider= Sample Post] [color=a2d39c]The moon was full as the battle raged across the decks of the two ships that had pulled up alongside each other. One was a resplendent warship that bore the orange colors of the port city of Geldren; the other was ragged, and sailed under no banner. The night air rang with the sound of flying spells and crashing steel as the two forces engaged each other - one made of warm flesh and iron will, and the other of bone and meat and foul magic. Trenton Baker, Captain of [i]The Hangman[/i], kicked open the door to his quarters and strode out on the deck to see what all this commotion was about, his blade in one hand and a half-empty bottle of Melaronian wine that was, it had to be said, fairly disappointing. A sailor armed with a trident and undue bravery roared a war cry and charged the captain, aiming to run him through. Trenton tossed the bottle off the side of the ship and stuck his hand out, eyes pulsing green, and his attacker stopped in his tracks, twitching and sputtering at the mouth. A green mist leaked out of his eyes and floated towards the captain, who grinned as he inhaled the feeble soul. The man fell to the deck, convulsing, and a moment later was still. "Thought you could take me in the dead of night?" Trenton roared at nobody in particular. "I [i]am[/i] the feckin' dead of night!" On his right a rotted zombie tackled a sailor and began to tear at his flesh, filling the sea air with screams. Trenton's eyes pulsed again as the corpse found the man's throat, and the mangled body rose a moment later, sword still clutched in its hand, and immediately rounded on its former allies. Trenton dove into the fray, hacking and slashing with his blade, cutting his enemies limb from limb and soul from body. The battle had been going poorly for the would-be heroes when it was just living against undead - with Trenton himself involved, it quickly turned into a slaughter. It wasn't long before those remaining alive threw their weapons on the deck, and Trenton ordered them all lined up on their knees. The pirate captain strode up and down the deck, reviewing each of his captives silently. A mass of dead flesh walled the men in on every side, all perfectly still, their dead eyes radiating with his power. At length, Trenton paused in front of one man, more of a boy, really, who was shaking and almost mewling in terror. "What's your name, lad?" He asked, bending over so his visage was a mere inch away from the boy's face. The youth recoiled and gagged with fright, bringing his hands over his eyes as though that would make the world go away. "I said," Trenton repeated slowly, "[i]What's your name?![/i]" He grabbed the boy by the collar and threw him to the deck, kicking wildly at his head in a sudden fury. "I asked you what your name was! Not gonna look at me, not gonna talk to me, huh? Gonna cut you up and feed you to your friends, snotty little..." His rant trailed off into indistinct yelling, the blows still raining on the lad's head and neck as he rolled and begged and tried to swap away the kicks, until at last he fell still. Trenton strode away, and the boy rose to his feet a moment later, stepping back to join the mass of the dead. "Where's your captain? I didn't already kill him, did I?" Trenton asked the captives, and with a quivering hand one of them pointed down the line. "H-he's over there, sir," the pointer said and Trenton strode in that direction, stopping only to shove over a random prisoner with his foot and let out a laugh as he did so. He stopped in front of the man who looked like the captain, a grizzled old seaman clad in an officer of Geldren's dress uniform. The pirate crouched down to look at him face to face, and to his credit the other man showed no signs of fear. "Hi," Trenton offered, and cocked his head as he stroked his prisoner's weathered cheek. "So. Who the shit are you?" "I am Captain John Feldrich of the Royal Geldren Navy-" was all the man got out before Trenton struck him across the chin, a sneer on his face. "Blah, blah, Captain Arsehole. Let me guess, sent to kill me by your king or your queen or some big shit because something that 'belonged' to them belongs to me now, yeah? Well," he spread his arms around the scene, "That didn't go too well, did it? Laugh with me!" Trenton tilted his head back and howled with a deep belly laugh, and around him dozens of dead jaws sagged open and emitted a groaning, clattering sound that was something like laughter. The prisoner's head stayed high. "I do not fear you, creature. I am an honest man and I say my prayers each night, and your unholiness holds no terror -" Trenton giggled at that, rising to his feet and patting the man on the head. "Oh, you're a fun one. I think I'll keep you," he announced as he turned his back on the prisoners. "Throw him in the brig with the others. Kill and eat the rest." The sound of screams and curses rose in the night air behind him as Trenton strode back to his quarters and slammed the door behind him.[/color] [/hider] [/center]