[hider= Thomas, the Soldier Boy]
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WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER'S NAME? WHAT DO THEY PREFER TO BE CALLED?
[color=8dc73f]Thomas Drennerson[/color]

HOW ARE THEY BEST RECOGNIZED IN A CROWD?
The fresh-faced, slight young man in a well-maintained soldier’s uniform, usually glancing about nervously or rigidly standing at attention.

WHAT IS A STRANGER'S FIRST IMPRESSION UPON MEETING THEM? HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER SEE THEMSELVES?
On first impression, Thomas looks like a boy that’s about to jump out of his own skin. He’s nervous, awkward, constantly second-guessing himself and mumbling apologies to those around him. Everything he does is the result of careful, almost paranoid consideration, though the same can’t be said for everything he says. He sees himself more or less the same way, though you could add in a sense of inadequacy about his role as a soldier, stemming from the fact that he has never seen combat as well as his rather nervous demeanor.

WHERE DID THEY GROW UP? WHERE DO THEY FEEL AT HOME?
Thomas has lived all his life in the city of Glaifast. His mother was a young woman who worked as a barmaid in a sailor’s tavern on the docks, and she never liked speaking of his father very much. His earliest memories are from the fishing wharfs – the smell of salt and gutted fish, running with the other children across docks and through back alleys. The only place he feels at home now, of course, is his unit’s section of the Gleifast Army barracks – though as his fellow soldiers fell one by one to the sickness, even that place became more and more foreign to him.

WHO ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THEIR LIVES?
His mother dominated his life in his youth – he was a friendless boy, and she did her best to educate and raise him on her own. After she died and he enlisted, the most important people in his life became his fellow soldiers and his commanding officer, Captain Archibald. While it’s probably an overstatement to call them ‘friends’, the older and more experienced members of his unit had a certain fondness for the nervous boy, and though the Captain was often stern and demanding, Thomas still latched onto him as something of a father figure.

WHAT IS THEIR PROFESSION, SKILL OR LIFESTYLE? WHAT DO THEY THINK THEIR STRENGTHS ARE? WHAT ARE THEIR ACTUAL STRENGTHS?
Thomas is a soldier – trained mainly to fight pirates on the open seas, though his education did cover the fundamentals of modern warfare, though he never saw actual combat before the plague overtook the city. He thinks his best qualities are his ability to follow orders and respect his superiors – not very useful in the situation he’s found himself in. His actual strengths are his sense of loyalty, his deep moral convictions, his ability to empathize and, though it’s difficult to tell by looking at him, his near-bottomless reserves of determination and courage.

WHAT ARE THEIR FEARS, FLAWS AND SECRETS?
More than anything, Thomas fears failing in his duty as protector of the Legend’s Forgery. Though his authority as military attaché is largely in name only, he’s still taking it deadly seriously, and is terrified of disaster striking because of his incompetence and disgracing the final command of Captain Archibald. His flaws are his tendency to second-guess himself and his desire to have someone else tell him what to do – he has a lot of trouble taking charge or showing initiative. In addition, he’s dreadfully awkward and has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth when he’s trying to win people over. His deepest secret is that he never learned to read – his mother didn’t know either and he managed to fake his way through that part of training (or at least he thinks he did – in truth, his superiors just liked having a message boy they knew wouldn’t read sensitive documents).

WHAT DO THEY WANT MOST? WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY NEED?
Thomas wants, more than anything, to fulfill his duty to his city, his unit, and his fellow survivors and protect them all as best he can. What does he really need? To find his confidence, learn to forge his own path, and make his own choices about what he’ll devote his life to.

IF YOUR CHARACTER COULD HAVE ANY SUPERNATURAL ABILITY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
To heal people – to mend their wounds and cure their illnesses, to ease their pain, to keep them from dying and leaving him alone.

HOW HAS THE PLAGUE AFFECTED THEM? WHY ARE THEY ABOARD THE LEGEND'S FORGERY?
Thomas’s life has been defined by the plague. Though he didn’t know it at the time, his mother was one of the first cases of the illness in the city of Gleifast – he was right there by her side the whole time, caring for her as her health waned and her mental state deteriorated. When she finally wasted away and the tavern they had worked at was condemned, he enlisted in the army, lacking anywhere else to go. Not long after his training was finished, the plague had become a crisis that threatened to wipe out civilization, and he stayed in the barracks as one by one, his fellow soldiers displayed the tell-tale symptoms and were escorted away. A few months later, he was alone, remaining in the barracks in accordance with the last orders he had received. A few days before the Legend’s Forgery departed, he was called to the office of Captain Archibald, now wasted away to nearly nothing. Between bites of stale bread, the Captain informed him, in a moment of lucidity, that he was now the acting commander of the Gleifast Army, on account of his being the only one that was neither dead nor dying. He was to serve as military authority and escort of the last ship to depart from Gleifast Harbor, carrying the few survivors of the city to a promised safe haven – and so, for the first time in his life, Thomas found himself in a position of terrifying importance.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THIS CHARACTER CHANGE AND DEVELOP?
I’d like to see him gain a bit of confidence, of course, but more than that I’d like to see him embrace the softer sides of his personality – his empathy, his kindness, his determination to protect those closest to him. In addition, I’d like to see him find a new sense of purpose, beyond the tasks that have been given him.

PITCH A SMALL SUBPLOT THAT WOULD BE PERSONALLY MEANINGFUL TO YOUR CHARACTER.
Word arrives that survivors of the shipwreck have been captured by natives and are being held as slaves – Thomas, feeling that it is still his duty to protect the people of the Legend’s Forgery, resolves to rescue them by any means necessary.
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