[hider=Zhelk ]
Name: Zhelk 

Age: Unknown, but elderly in aspect

Race: Irradiated Mutant, Possibly Ghoul

Sex: Male

Skills: Proselytizing the word of Atom, radiation manipulation, subterfuge 

Personality: At first glance, he appears to be nothing more than a deformed, hunched over mutant, and gives off a frightful presence. However, when required he can whip himself into a frenzy of oration that can inspire even the most doubtful of Atom’s servants to throw down their lives for their new god. 

Zealous and utterly convinced of Atom’s truth, he is half-crazed but also deeply intelligent when it comes to the skillful use of Atom’s gifts. 

Weapons & armor/clothing: Wears a long sickly green tattered robe embroidered with various intricate designs sacred to the Church of Atom and which keeps most of his body covered. Where his skin and body does shows through the torn fabric, it can be seen to be covered in a variety of pustules, sores, lesions, and necrotic flesh. His face is partly obscured by both his hood, and bandages wrapped around his face, but his eyes are still visible and glow an unearthly green. He wears an old leather belt around his waist attached to which is a variety of bottles filled with glowing green liquid, along with various alchemical substances and poisons sacred to the Children of Atom. He also carries with him a well-worn bound book that is secured tightly to his side at all times. The book, supposedly, contains visions and insights from Atom himself. 

He also has with him a medium-size staff which serves as both a walking stick, a weapon, and a religious instrument. Attached firmly to the top end of the staff by a metal chain is a spiked censer which encases a highly radioactive rock that is believed to have fallen from the sky as a gift from Atom himself. Zhelk uses this as a flail-like weapon to attack enemies and the radiation it emits, which is quite potent, more often than not is enough to make them succumb. Those that bear Atom’s gift and are immune, however, would be unaffected: which is where the large metal spikes come in. 

Occupation(s): Wandering Atomic Monk, and Prophet of Atom

Faction: Chuch of The Children of Atom

Backstory: Zhelk was originally known by another name, and was once a young impudent wastelander who happened upon the first of Atom’s worshippers, long before even the city of Megaton was constructed. He was at first, of course, highly skeptical of the cult and its practices and even outright dismissive. After unknowingly drinking highly contaminated water, he was shown a series of lucid visions so potent and so impossible to explain that it was utterly impossible for him to deny the reality of Atom any longer. He threw himself wholeheartedly into his new faith, and his piety and zealotry outshone even many of his fellow brothers and sisters in the church. 

Eventually, he was forced to leave due to his...unnatural worship practices, most of which even his fellow Children of Atom thought too extreme. These included refusing to bathe in anything but the most putrid irradiated water and regularly scrubbing himself with pollutants, radioactive substances, and all manner of foul concoctions in hope of gaining favor with Atom. He was not born with an immunity to radiation, and his body swiftly began showing signs of decay and unnatural sickness. However, despite constantly appearing as if he was at death’s door, he never died, and indeed eventually began to thrive off the substances he regularly imbued, which made him all the more convinced that Atom had looked on him with favor.  He has now crossed the line and become something not wholly human, but also not entirely inhuman either. He is not quite a ghoul, but is almost certainly a form of one.  Ferals he has encountered do not attack him, and indeed he has found that like many of the so-called “Glowing Ones” he too can manipulate and use radiation as both a source of healing, and to call down upon his enemies. Where he trods, Atom's glow follows and he is almost a living conduit of radioactivity.  

Since his conversion, Zhelk has wandered the wasteland spreading the word of Atom and has become something of a legend within the Children of Atom. Some have heard of the “Wandering Radiation Monk” and welcome him with open arms as a prophet and great holy man, others fear and shun him thinking he is some kind of demon. It doesn’t matter to him either way however, he knows the truth of Atom. He has seen his holy light, and felt his presence.  There can be no doubt: Atom is the one true god of this world, and all must serve him.  
[/hider]