Name: Alastair Kenelm
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Birthplace: Wales
Religious Affiliation: Druid
Secular Affiliation: None
Level of education: He is literate and can speak a couple of languages (English, French and Portuguese), but has had no formal education. He knows a lot about druidism (obviously), and he also knows much about the occult due to his journeys.
Social status: He is seen to most as a traveller and a healer. Some call him a heretic, and those who have seen him practice magic have called him a witch.
Occupation: Herbalist and ‘hunter’
Appearance: Alastair stands at around 6ft and is of slightly over average build. His active lifestyle and dangerous job have left him with a fairly decent physique for his age, with toned (but not massively large) muscles. He has strong facial features and an intimidating glare, but this can be counterbalanced by his humble smile. His hair is shaggy and grey, and extends into a fairly neat beard. His eyes are a greyish blue, and those that look at them close enough can see the constant pain that he is in. For reference see
this.
As for clothing, Alastair wears a long black coat over a brown waistcoat and a grey shirt. He wears dark brown (almost black) Spanish breeches and a black pair of cavalier boots. An addition to this he wears a baldric on which he carries his Khopesh and a leather belt-bag containing various potions and ingredients.
Personality: Alastair is a kind but tortured soul. Whilst he has a decent moral compass and tries his best to help others, he is ultimately driven by a thirst for vengeance and will resort to using dark arts if he believes it is the lesser of two evils. For the most part he tries to keep to himself, not wanting to attract too much attention for fear of others discovering his magical abilities. When he does talk however, he tries to be very polite and will offer wise words where he can.
Skill set: Alastair is pretty skilled at fighting with his Kopesh, but will not fight so well with other more ‘standard’ swords. He is fairly good at hand to hand combat. He has a lot of arcane/occult knowledge, but for the most part he is only willing to use a few spells. He is a very good herbalist.
Languages: He is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and knows some basic French.
Bio: Alastair Kenelm was born of a long line of druids dating back to ancient times. His grandmother always told him that the bloodline contained within it the ability to use magic, but he (like most of his family) dispelled this as myth and legend. His upbringing, although different from most, was not particularly eventful. He was taught to honour the gods and to become one with nature, and it was a rather peaceful existence. His family had long abandoned any practices of sacrifice or dark rituals, and only the dead knew of such things.
When Alastair was around eighteen he met a girl named Ruth and it was love at first sight. She needed little convincing when he asked her to run away with him, and it was not soon after that the two had their first child – a son named Conn. Eventually she gave birth to two more, a second son named Harry, and a daughter named Cass. The young family lived in relative peace for ten years, travelling around the north of Wales and only going to towns when they really needed supplies.
The nomadic life wasn’t always easy though, and one nasty winter they were forced to find a shelter in which they need not pay for. This led to Alastair leading his family to some ruins in an old valley, one which he knew to be his ancestral tombs. Conn, unlike his siblings, was not scared of this place; in fact he found it someone soothing. Every night they went to sleep in that place Conn was awoken by a whisper in his ear, but would open his eyes to find no-one there. It was on the ninth night at this place that Conn decided that the whispers were coming from the crypts, and so ventured into them. They were dank and ancient, with little light, but Conn was drawn to a particular tomb where there sat on its roof a bound black grimoire. Conn left the tomb soon after and kept his search and his find a secret from his family.
Fast forward four years to when Conn had just turned fourteen, and the family was starting to slowly drift apart. By this time Conn had spent three years memorising the grimoire, and it had slowly turned his mind. He would now pray exclusively to Morrigan, much to the bewilderment of his family, and would laugh when he saw the suffering of others. His younger siblings began to fear him, for he would taunt them and beat them with little reason. His parents grew weary of him and contemplated sending him away, but they loved all their children too much to do so. But then one day it was too late.
It was during a full moon whilst his family was celebrating that Conn decided to make his first blood sacrifice. He grabbed the Kopesh that Alastair had brought off a Greek merchant, and without so much as flinching, walked up behind his mother and slit her throat. His siblings began screaming in terror and confusion, and Alastair simply dropped to his knees in agony. “Morrigan will bless us for this. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the rewards.” Conn tried to tell them, but it was in vain. Alistair’s grief quickly turned to anger and desperation as he launched himself at his son with a dagger, easily overpowering the young boy. He drove the dagger into Conn multiple times, leaving him mortally wounded. It was the worst thing that he had ever done, but he did so to protect his other children. He took back the Kopesh and the mysterious grimoire which laid beneath Conn. Then, not able to watch the life slowly fade from his own son, he grabbed Harry and Cass and quickly rushed them off to a nearby village. For three days he sat paralysed with grief in the atic room of an Inn, unable to eat or sleep. His two remaining children were fairing no better, and it was only when Cass fainted from hunger and exhaustion did he snap out of his trance.
Knowing what needed to be done, he left Harry with enough gold for food and board, and told him to regularly give his sister vials of a potion that he had brewed. Then, as the sun went down he went to bury his son and wife. But to his horror when he returned to the site of the tragedy he only found his wife, further mutilated than before and with her heart ripped out. He did not believe that Conn could survive such mortal wounds, but he could feel a darkness there and he became worried for his other children. He rushed back to the Inn but Harry and Cass were nowhere to be found, having disappeared without a trace or sighting. He knew it was Conn, and upon reading his grimoire he realised the full extent of the darkness that had taken over his son.
In the seventeen years since then he has hunted Conn around Britain, over the channel and down into the Iberian Penensula, desperate for vengeance and for answers. He himself learned all there was to learn from the grimoire before destroying it, and has since picked up other various tricks and spells. Although he hasn’t yet come across Conn again, he has just missed him on multiple occasions. His hunt has opened his eyes to a darker and larger world than he knew existed, one where magic and monsters truly exist, and he has felt obligated to fight darkness whenever it has crossed his path.
Recently his blood scrying has led him to Sintra.
Notes: Alastair uses a small array of magical abilities. In truth he knows many powerful and dark rituals from the grimoire, like how to restore life, but would never use these himself. Below are some of the abilities you can expect to see Conn use:
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Blood boil – Alastair is able to gradually raise the temperature of his foes to boiling point, thus killing them. However to do this he must cut himself and let his own blood drip over a fire whilst he chants. This is not only dangerous for him, but is easily interrupted.
•
Blood scrying – By dripping fresh blood (be it his or another’s) onto a map he is able to highlight a location of importance to him. He uses this to track down Conn but he always appears to be two steps ahead.
•
Soothing touch – He knows some chants which, when combined with his potions, can help heal a variety of afflictions. None of these solutions are instant however, and can take days or even months to fully work.
•
Raven’s eye – Using this ability he is able to see things that most can’t, such as demons, ghosts and the remnants of magic. However his vision is generally much poorer and darker in this mode, and it leaves him incredibly vulnerable to any sort of attack. When using this ability his eyes turn white.
