[hider=Marcel Gawain] [center][img]https://image.ibb.co/kPBLrx/m.png[/img] [h3][u] Marcel Gawain [/u][/h3][/center] [center][sup][sup][h3]Male Breton | 33 | Atronach[/h3][/sup][/sup][/center] [sub][h2][b]P[/b]rofile[/h2][/sub] [sup][sup][sup][hr][/sup][/sup][/sup] [indent] [b]§ [u] Birthplace [/u][/b] [indent]Camlorn Principality, High Rock[/indent] [b]§ [u] Appearance [/u][/b] [indent]Marcel would best be described as timid and cautious. While these are mostly personality traits, Marcel is a person who has taken these traits to heart, and thus, manages to look timid and cautious as well, the traits having seeped into his visage, his clothing, and his expressions. He is of medium length and build, although admittedly in pretty good shape. His expression is a calm one - although also a distant looking one. The man has a chiseled face, bony and oval, with questioning, distant eyes, a tiny mouth, and an aquiline nose. His sunken cheeks further accentuate his gaunt look and make his cheekbones stand out more. His rather high hairline, which, combined with the slight onset of hair recession, makes his head look somewhat bigger than it actually is. His brown hair has started to grey, with white streaks occasionally cutting through it. He has a trimmed, short beard, well groomed. Marcel prefers to wear simple clothes that suit his line of work, with a well-crafted but plain gorget covering his neck, a leather buff coat covering his torso, and baggy pants covering his legs. Even when dressed for an occasion, he opts to simply add more decoration on top of his usual attire, such as silken lining, reinforced collars and decorated sleeves. and He’s recently switched his suede shoes for riding boots, and bought a caped greatcoat alongside a fur-lined kolpak, to keep himself safe from the cold climate of Skyrim. [/indent] [b]§ [u] Personality [/u][/b] [indent]Marcel’s one of those sorts of people who are so nice it’s somewhat off-putting. Having gone through a good education, and having had good parents, he is polite, soft spoken, and nearly always means well, a bona fide nice guy. However, it’s this that makes him look unbelievable – he’s nice, sure, but he’s quiet, somewhat shy, and never seems to let people in his personal sphere, though the problem starts there. It’s hard to tell if he’s just hiding his true personality from people, or if the nice guy exterior really is also the interior. Despite his somewhat frustrating line of work, he has never been seen angry, not even once, and is well known for his soothing presence. His birthsign has reflected upon him in his personality, in that he never shows any outburst of emotion on his own, and in fact dulls others to a calmer, serene outlook with his lack of reaction to any emotion. An experienced witch hunter, he is cautious and prefers to plan every move, trying not to waste any of his time or energy. One can say he’s a nice guy – too nice, even, to a point it feels like he’s lying.[/indent] [b]§ [u] Background [/u][/b] [indent][hider=Marcel's Story] Marcel Gawain was born to a wealthy burgher family in Sun’s Dusk 4E 172, on a cold Tirdas day. His father, Adrien, was a government official, and his mother, Jeanne, hailed from a family of wealthy traders. It was certainly no marriage of love, but it wasn’t a loveless marriage either, and Marcel spent a rather uneventful childhood as part of the upper-middle class in Camlorn, spending most of his time eating pastry and tending to his small aquarium. As Marcel grew up, he was educated by his mother, and after her untimely death, his governess, Mme de Camarille. It was a simple life, and Marcel was a simple child, and a quiet one after his mother’s death. He grew up to be admittedly quite dull a person, but undeniably a nice, decent one as well. At 4E 188, Marcel was psychologically evaluated by a wandering Altmer diviner, who claimed that the boy’s dull, static nature was due to his birth sign, that of the Atronach – according to the man, the young lad was like a battery, draining all the magic and excitement in things. His father would realize that the diviner had used the word ‘magic’ in both senses of the word after witnessing Marcel read a magic scroll he had taken from the family archive while tending to his fish, get engorged in a ball of fire, and walk it off as if nothing had happened. His father decided to pay for his tutelage at the local Synod Hall, hoping that maybe his son was talented in magic, but the boy was never really accepted amongst the Synods, for they believed his presence somehow dulled the effects of their own magic. Thus, Marcel was well-educated in scholarship and magic, but never made into a proper mage. Following his son’s rather disappointing tutelage at the Synod Hall, Adrien Gawain decided to send Marcel to a proper university instead of making his son pursue a line of work where he wouldn’t be accepted as a peer. Marcel enrolled at the College of Ykalon, where he was taught history and natural sciences. He also picked up the hobby of fencing, which, combined with his natural talent of absorbing magic, would lead to his employment as a ‘Witch Hunter’ after the events of 4E 192. During Marcel’s second year of education at the College of Ykalon, a vile sorcerer had begun attacking the citizens of the city at night, either breaking in houses and absorbing the life energy of the inhabitants, or simply latching onto people on the streets and striking them with a touch of lightning. One Middas night, while walking back to their respective cottages, after attending the autopsy of a Spriggan, Marcel and the son of the Count of Ykalon were attacked by the ‘Lightning of Ykalon’, who, after paralyzing the Count’s son with magic, grasped onto Marcel’s face and attempted to shock the life out of him… and failed, Marcel having shrugged off the electricity and stabbed the Lightning in the side with his practice sword. The sword had acted as a conductor and led the electricity through Marcel’s body and back into the sorcerer, and crisped the bane of the citizens of Ykalon in an instant. Learning of these events from his son, and wanting to reward the young Marcel with a good position where he could continue his education and root out magical threats in the county, the Count of Ykalon employed Marcel Gawain as an apprentice Witch Hunter. Marcel was reluctant to be at such a position at a rather young age, and his rather sheltered upbringing also implied at possible failure in his newfound line of work. Fortunately for him, he was assigned as apprentice to Diarmid Goupeville, an old and experienced Witch Hunter hailing from the Reach, who used obscure magic to help him in his trade. Diarmid’s cordial nature and the wish to have a protégé meant that Marcel went through an extensive, but also good-natured and well balanced training. Unlike the Synods, this man believed that Marcel’s magic-dulling nature was a godsend, and made sure to capitalize on this, teaching Marcel the somewhat forgotten art of Mysticism – slowly, however, thanks to the boy’s muffling quality when it came to magic. The old man was glad to see that he had managed to earn a successor in his craft, and began giving Marcel more important tasks as apprentice – while the boy had simply been organizing letters, learning directions and gathering information, he now had a more active role, following Diarmid to the source of the complaints and helping him get rid of it. No doubt the man’s older age also had a part in this, but Marcel had undeniably progressed in harnessing his anomalous talent. Marcel became a witch hunter in earnest after a scuffle in the Wrothgarian Mountains, with the two hunters chasing a Vampire of the Lyrezi clan. Having followed the beast into a tomb, Marcel and Diarmid were almost butchered by the Vampire, who bore the power of invisibility and silence. However, Marcel was able to put an end to the beast’s unnatural life after stabbing it in the back while it was too busy trying to take down his master, and then chasing it to a flooded part of the tombs, where its invisibility was unable to make an effect on hiding its direction of attack. After witnessing Marcel emerge with the beast’s head, Diarmid decided that Marcel was no longer an apprentice. Deeming the young lad his successor, he gifted the boy with a gorget of spell absorption after turning in the bounty, apparently a favorite of vampire hunters and a gift that would be helping Marcel in his future, and promptly retired, satisfied with his apparent successor. The young witch hunter wasn’t very sure on what to do at that point. Having spent almost six years alongside his tutor Diarmid, he was an experienced hunter, sure, but not very experienced in living life itself. Deciding to go ‘wherever the wind blows’, he moved to Hammerfell, where he ended up accidentally becoming a member of a Cult of Meridia, and then to Colovia, where he had a short love life with a widowed noblewoman about fifteen years older than him. He moved to the Imperial City after the relationship was put on hiatus because of complications. Wanting a somewhat calmer life, he settled down in a room above a pastry in the Market District, where he spent almost half a year eating various forms of cake and educating wealthy residents’ children. He could not sustain this lifestyle, however, and eventually moved out and continued his original profession, wandering from village to village and rooting out problems (which more than often turned out to be products of pure superstition rather than actual magical threats). While Marcel was visiting Winterhold, The College suffered from further catastrophe and was cut off from the mainland thanks to losing its bridge. The mages, and Marcel, were saved by a Mercenary Company, whose mission was to lead a relief effort to the college. Although the mages would end up losing their lives in a boating accident, Marcel, not having gone with them, was left alone once more, and in unfamiliar company. It was amongst them that he learned that the land was under invasion from the Akaviri. Ever the gallant gentleman, Marcel would offer to sign up with the Company as soon as they made it to mainland. While things haven't gone great for them, with Marcel having almost lost his life in an ambush where he would barely avoid getting decapitated, Marcel's not the sort of chap to get bummed about things very easily, and has so far stayed a reliable if not tiringly decorous companion. [/hider][/indent] [/indent] [sub][h2][b]C[/b]apabilities[/h2][/sub] [sup][sup][sup][hr][/sup][/sup][/sup] [indent] [b]§ [u] Attributes [/u][/b] [indent][list] [*] Major Willpower [*] Minor Speed [/list][/indent] [b]§ [u] Skills [/u][/b] [indent] [list] [*][color=lightblue]Expert Negation[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Adept Alchemy[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Adept One-Handed Blade[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Apprentice Speech[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Apprentice Light Armor[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Apprentice Athletics[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Novice Acrobatics[/color] [*][color=lightblue]Novice Hand to Hand[/color] [*][color=olive]Novice Marksman[/color] [/list][/indent] [b]§ [u] Weaknesses [/u][/b] [indent][u][b]Battery:[/b][/u] Marcel is practically a magical coil, unable to cast anything conventional – he can only store, detect and reflect. Other schools of magic are beyond him, with disastrous results should he try to cast from scrolls. [u][b]Cutthroat:[/b][/u] Having received an almost fatal wound to the neck, Marcel has found it harder for himself to breathe since, not to mention that talking has become somewhat of a pain. [u][b]Magnetic:[/b][/u] Marcel's absorbent quality has a rather unpleasant effect of magnetizing magical effects on him. Spells often end up homing in on him even when targeted at someone else. [u][b]Static Space:[/b][/u] Marcel's presence makes mages uncomfortable and unable to focus, like a dog whistle would bother a dog. The stronger the magician, the stronger the effect. [/indent] [b]§ [u] Spells [/u][/b] [indent][u]Mysticism[/u]: Detect Life, Dispel, Reflect Spell, Spell Absorption[/indent] [b]§ [u] Tactics [/u][/b] [indent]Having been trained in the art of fencing, Marcel’s fighting style is heavily technical, and is based mostly on quick, debilitating strikes. Mostly having faced foes of the inhuman and primitive kind, Marcel does not have much actual experience of the usual, to-the-death fighting against capable warriors, at the very least, not as much as a trained warrior. Still, he has not forgotten the fencing lessons he has taken during college, and knows how to keep people at a blade's distance well.[/indent] [b]§ [u] Relations & Affiliations [/u][/b] [indent]Adrien Gawain - Father Ser Diarmid Gilfryd-Goupeville, 1st Earl of Goupeville - Mentor Theodora the Fair, Countess of Skingrad - Ex-lover Torchbearer Sidon, Leader of the Order of the Morning Star - Ex-colleague [/indent] [b]§ [u] Opinions [/u][/b] [indent][hider=Opinions] [b]Jorwen:[/b] Well, he was a sad, but well-meaning man. Sad to know that he was last seen surrounded by Kamal. [b]Solveig:[/b] She's gone. While the lack of her presence brings Marcel relief, it also seems to have taken down Sadri quite a bit. [b]Sadri:[/b] He's reached new lows since Solveig's leave. Marcel doesn't find him awfully amicable, given the situation he was in during the ship journey. [b]Sevine:[/b] Marcel's happy that she's not dead. It would be awful for morale, and she seems nice enough. [b]Leif:[/b] This man seems like the complete opposite of Marcel – an outgoing philanderer. Marcel wants to empathize, but is frankly unable to. [b]Sagax:[/b] His friend's death must have taken a toll on his psyche. Marcel feels sad about all the sorrow around him. [b]Keegan:[/b] While Marcel had slight dislike for the fellow, their attempt at saving a life together, and their mutual sorrow at their inability makes Marcel think of him as a comrade. [b]Tsleeixth:[/b] Another nice person trying to live his life with the trade of magic and sword. Hopefully Marcel won’t bother him. [b]Roze:[/b] She used to remind Marcel of her childhood loves because of her attitude - now she reminds them even more by being gone forever. Quite sad, honestly. [b]Rhasha’Dar:[/b] Marcel feels quite sad about the circumstances in which he perished, and has slight survivor's guilt, given that he died alongside Marcel. [b]Do’Karth:[/b] Even his convictions were broken, and his hopes smashed. He's gone. Marcel wonders what life will bring to him, given his lack of will compared to Do'Karth. [b]Daixanos:[/b] Quiet and effective. Good to know that he's on his side, and, well, yeah, good guy, Marcel would guess. [b]Dar'Jzo:[/b] Marcel only knows him as the cat who puked onboard. Maybe he's a good fellow aside from that tendency. [b]Narzul:[/b] This fellow eyes everyone with disgust. Why he bothers to be amongst them is anyone's guess. Perhpas he likes the negative attention. [b]Niernen:[/b] Another Dunmer. Her magic is potent enough to scare even Marcel, although outside of combat she seems a nice enough person to hang out with. [b]Wylendriel:[/b] Marcel enjoys Wylendriel's presence and her healing skills even moreso, although he feels that she hides some dark sorrow deep within herself. [b]Alim:[/b] Young, and looks like the sort of person Marcel would've envied and hated at the same time for his demeanor, back when he was a child. [/hider][/indent] [b]§ [u] Other [/u][/b] [indent]Marcel is heavily magic resistant, owing to his Breton heritage. He’s also a fast reader, for reasons unknown.[/indent] [/indent] [sub][h2][b]I[/b]nventory[/h2][/sub] [sup][sup][sup][hr][/sup][/sup][/sup] [indent] [b]§ [u] Cash [/u][/b] [indent]Around 150 septims[/indent] [b]§ [u] Keys & Lockpicks [/u][/b] [indent]None[/indent] [b]§ [u] Tools & Crafting Materials [/u][/b] [indent]-1 Needle Compass -1 Candle Lantern[/indent] [b]§ [u] Clothing & Armor [/u][/b] [indent] -1 [url=http://www.polishhussarsupply.com/sitebuilder/images/kolpak2-213x294.jpg]Kolpak[/url] -1 [url=http://westcoastcwc.com/images/store/Mounted%20Greatcoat.jpg]Greatcoat[/url] -1 [url=https://i.pinimg.com/236x/5b/4e/91/5b4e91787a50e9971e4b35f73be96447--wikimedia-commons-roma.jpg]Gorget of Spell Absorption[/url] -1 [url=https://royalarmouries.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/coatpic.jpg]Decorated leather buffcoat[/url] -1 [url=https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/aa/original/DP-12882-030.jpg]Quilted fencing doublet[/url] -3 Shirts -1 Blue silk sash -2 Linen Trousers -1 Pair of riding boots -1 [url=https://www.karlrobinson.co.uk/Images/Gallery/Scale%20gauntlets/Scale%20gauntlets%202.JPG]Scaled leather dueling gauntlet[/url] -1 Pair of gloves -4 Pairs of underwear[/indent] [b]§ [u] Weapon & Ammo [/u][/b] [indent]-1 [url=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FWe5pt_H51g/T0i1TnjGieI/AAAAAAAADUQ/e0bYLSXwJjg/s1600/entiere.jpg]Silver Smallsword[/url] -1 [url=http://c0728562.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/MI23277_HR.jpg]Steel Sword[/url][/indent] [b]§ [u] Potion & Arcane Supplies [/u][/b] [indent]-3 Potions of Cure Disease -3 Potions of Cure Poison -3 Potions of Restoration[/indent] [b]§ [u] Jewelry & Valuables [/u][/b] [indent]-1 Circular Locket, containing a tuft of hair and a portrait[/indent] [b]§ [u] Books & Documents [/u][/b] [indent]-1 Comprehensive Map of Tamriel[/indent] [b]§ [u] Food/Drinks/Ingredients [/u][/b] [indent]-1 Satchel, containing nuts and berries -1 Pouch full of madeleine cakes[/indent] [b]§ [u] Load Bearing Equipment [/u][/b] [indent]-2 Sword hangers with attached scabbards -1 Belt with satchels and pouches attached -1 Flask of water[/indent] [b]§ [u] Other [/u][/b] [indent]-1 Woolen Blanket[/indent] [/indent] [/hider]