| {Full Name} |Thomas James Finch
| {Nickname} |Tom
| {Date of Birth} |October 23rd.
| {Age} |176
| {Gender} |Male
| {Sexuality} |Are you sleeping with me? Not your business.
| {Relationship Status} |Widowed
| {Role} |Warlock
| {Occupation} |Contractor
| {Face Claim} |Joe Manganiello
| {Dialogue Color} |Skyblue
| {Appearance} |Tom dresses the part of the working man that he tries to be. Complete with steel toed work boots, blue jeans or tan cargo pants, and a worn leather jacket, few could mistake him for much else. Beyond this Tom rarely is clean shaven and maintains his rough around the edges appearance quite well. Longer dark brown hair, pale skin and the beginning streaks of grey complete his appearance as a hardworking man who has been through plenty in his life.
On a handful of occasions Tom has been know to clean himself up quite well. When he feels the need to dress the part Tom favors dark slacks, grey button ups and thigh length dark over coats. More often than not this is in response to a need for him the look the part of the almost two century old Warlock that he is. Though the occasion rarely calls for it.
| {Habits & Quirks} |
- A master pencil spinner, the skill comes from his constant work with drafting tables and the need for large wood pencils for marking boards on the job. Consequently, he is quite good at it, much to the annoyance of those around him.
- Patently refuses to speak to anyone before his first cup of tea. Don’t bother he will ignore you.
- Will not drive automatic cars on principle, he will ride in them but he refuses to drive them
- Compulsive locker. Tom checks the locks on his home and vehicle twice before leaving them and twice when returning.
- Writes in all capital letters. A holdover from an earlier time in his life, Tom’s handwriting is always in capital letters regardless of what he is writing.
- Painting, for all his potentially destructive and self destructive behaviors Tom is an excellent painter.
- Music, another strange hobby of the Warlock, Tom plays the violin and quite well though his voices is questionable at best. A student of the classics Tom is not prone to playing anything newer than Berstein for whom he makes an exception. Beyond that the only sheet music to be found in his household is from the classics Bach, Beethoven, and so forth.
- Native American artifact collecting is Tom’s hoarder hobby of choice though his home is more museum than anything else sorting objects from: Cree, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Choctaw, Piqua, Ma-chis and his favorites; Navajo.
- Fishing and hunting, a strange hold over from Tom’s early years he has maintained his skills as a hunter over the years out of habit.
- Chess, both playing and the collection of Chess boards. While not a Grand Master, Tom is quite good at the game.
- Drinking, an unfortunate taste that has haunted him for many years
- Autumn.
- Historical documentaries, he has a fascination with depictions of what has happened throughout history, especially when it pertains to his own life.
- His cabin up the coast in Maine where he use to spend his time when it was too cold or too snowed in to manage construction.
- Reading, Tom has read libraries in his lifetime and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
- Magic, some say that power can be addictive and in Tom’s case it certainly borders on the edge. No one could accuse him of being a slacker in practice or experimentation. Though he swore off petty use of magic when Claire died almost forty years ago. Now he turns his mind to seeking out new spells and new uses for the Art.
- Listening, one of the few things good that has come of his time sitting in bars is that Tom is excellent at listening to those who need to pour their heart out to someone who will listen.
- Ignorance.
- Over indulgent men, while this might be rather hypocritical of Tom it explains some of his own self loathing.
- Oathbreakers, Tom cannot stand people who break their promises.
- Poor leaders, these are the people that get people killed.
- Racists
- Philistines, please think for yourselves for the purpose of thinking. Just use your brain.
- Joy and happiness Swarms of insects, hates them. Truly hates them.
- The loss of a loved one. There is nothing more terrifying to Tom than losing someone he loves.
- Spiders, bloody spiders. Insects he hates, spiders scare him witless.
- Failure. An extension of his fear of losing a loved one but in the end Tom fears failure most of all.
- Tom is well versed in Dark Magic. Much to the horror of anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of witnessing it.
- He is one the only living members of the Lowry Gang.
- He served as a Pinkerton for several years after Reconstruction though he left the Agency soon thereafter to move north.
- Whispered by those old enough to have heard of it supposedly Tom has plumbed the depths of the blackest magic.
- Tom has sworn off another romance after Claire, though his heart wavers.
A savant with fire and kinetic magic Tom is a user of magic that is born once in an age when it comes to this kind of magic. Beyond this Tom is a reader capable of taking imprints from rooms left by their previous occupants.
His grasp of Dark Magic is undocumented at best though it would appear extensive.
| {Limitations} |Tom’s ability to read rooms is limited by time constraints, more than a few hours and the trail runs cold quickly. Beyond this Tom’s more powerful manifestations of magic can take a physical toll on his body through repeated use; which is why he does his best to refrain from grand displays of magic.
| {Personality} |♦ Hard working ♦ Self Medicating ♦ Protector ♦ Vengeful ♦
Thomas can be accused of a handful of things, being concise and rude are two of them. Among the others can be counted arrogant, honest, and caring. Shaped by the last seventeen decades and more than enough violence to fill several life times most find Thomas to be an acquired taste. To those who do acquire the taste for Mr. Finch they discover and intelligent creative man lost to grief from four decades prior. A life fighting someone else's battles has caused Tom to become the sort of man to have on your side when the night closes in. One of the Hive’s protectors Tom will stop at nothing to keep safe the handful of things left to him that he cares about and the members of the Hive fall into that group; even if some may find him distasteful.
Once Tom was a kind, strong man; a soldier and a man driven by a pursuit of a greater good and a higher calling. Those who knew him then knew him as a reserved but happy man and at times even playful. Though those days are gone now, sometimes the way Thomas use to be can be seen in how he interacts with his few friends. Never one to hurt those who does not deserve it and not nearly so quick to anger as he once might have been. Time has aged and tempered Tom making him into the beginnings of a bitter old man with a slowly hardening heart.
| {Place of Origin} |Wilmington, North Carolina.
| {Background} |Born twenty years before the start of the Civil War in America Tom Finch was a confederate defector early in the war. Two years prior the young man had discovered his powers of magic and come to learn that one of his Ancestors had been a wise man from the edge of spain. With her death centuries before the blood line had gone dormant. Tom’s birth had heralded an awakening of magic in his blood line that had not been seen since his great great great Grandmother. At first the young boy had been thrilled by the power. With each day that his powers grew he practiced more, until one day it finally got out of hand. While practicing near his family's home he had caught an entire field on fire. The resulting blaze killed the entire family that were their neighbors, including his intended.
For the next two years Tom swore off the use of magic. With the start of the war of Northern Aggression Tom did his best to stay out of the fighting and protect his family and his home. Such things are not meant to last however as the Confederacy came for the family’s crops and livestock. In the end Thomas was forced to use his powers again, this time he did so knowing full well what would happen. When the flames died and every soldier had been burned to a crisp the young Warlock saw nothing but fear and loathing in his family’s eyes. From that day forth Thomas set out on his own and never looked back. Six months later what remained of his family was killed by looters. During the course of the war Thomas did his best to help where he could but he soon realized that this was not his war.
With the end of the civil war Thomas moved home to Wilmington, however his peace was not to last. In 1864 Tom Finch joined a group known as the Lowry Gang. A group of outlaws who stole from the Reconstruction era soldiers and lawmen in and around Robeson County. Tom Finch ran with the gang until Henry Berry Lowry disappeared in 1872. On the heels of the man who had helped him to find a purpose once again. Traveling west the next years of Thomas’ life are not well documented and he never speaks of them but many suspect that it was during this period that he learned to better control his magic from the Shamans and medicine men of the native tribes he crossed paths with. When Tom finally returned to the east coast he was fluent in a half dozen native languages including Navajo.
Following this period Tom finally moved further North along the Eastern seaboard where he was destined to meet Claire. Some say that all people are destined to meet a single person who is to be their other half in this life. If that is the case then Tom found that in Claire on the coast of Maine while he was building home along the coast, well away from the pains of his past.
Like so many things in Thomas’ life this too was destined to pass. After five long years of happiness Claire passed from a fever in the winter of 1977. Much of Thomas current life can be attributed to the passing of Claire. It was at this time that Thomas abandoned any restraint he might have had in a mad self destructive dive into the depths of Dark Magics. Two years later Tom would visit Claire's gravesite one last time to enact a ritual which would haunt him for the rest of his days. The day after, Tom packed the remains of his home and moved south to Salem Massachusetts. There are few who remember much of Tom’s induction into the Salem Hive as it was swift and few questions were asked by the previous leader. Within a year Salem had a new contractor, architect and carpenter. And the Hive had a new watch dog, though many question how rabid he might be.
| {Extra} |Thomas speaks one of most difficult languages for a native english speaker to learn and speaks another five which are all but extinct. Tom’s CCW includes the Griswold revolver he used in the Civil War.
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