PLAYED BY: Riley Aspen
CHARACTER NAME: Chulainn
GENDER: Male
CLASS: Mage
AGE: 31
RACE: Syndar (Feral)
HAIR: Red
EYES: Green
OCCUPATION: Hunter, trapper, trader, and teller of tales.
KNOWN SKILLS: Chulainn lives off the land, able to forage and trap to sustain himself. While not possessing the borderline magical panache of a Bard, he is more than capable of drawing an audience with song and story both. His skill with the blade is not meager, nor is his prowess with his Syndar birthright of arcane magic. While idle, he likes to practice small handcrafts, like scrimshaw and whittling.
SYSTEM SKILLS: Arcane 1 + 2 ; Armor Proficiency ; Thrusting Weapons ; Two Handed ; Ranged ; Trade: Hunter ; Traps/Devices ; Meditation ; Mana Transfer (F) ; Syndar Mana Reserve (F)
BIRTHPLACE: Chulainn isn’t entirely sure where he was born – he would suspect that his tribe of origin existed in the forests about the Cul’Claimete region in the Kingdom of Richtcrag, based on the information he has been able to scrape together, but anything more specific is lost to him.
APPEARANCE: Chulainn makes an effort to hide most of his physical features – fair skin and locks of curly, red hair can be seen from beneath his hood, and blue-green eyes can be seen from behind his wood-carved mask. He is taller than most, though usually sits or stands with a slight, predatory hunch.
NOTABLE TRAITS: Chulainn makes significant effort to hide his face behind a wooden mask. The mask bears a rune upon its brow – you’ll have to ask what it means, if it means anything.
RELATIONSHIPS: Chulainn is standoffish to most, but he seems borderline subservient to Arden Halifax of the Newhope Expeditionary Guard – though neither seem to mention their association apart from that they’re ‘good friends’. He can be seen frequently sharing stories at the fire with an Ulven healer who calls herself ‘Bryn’. Most perplexingly, he seems to frequent the periphery of the Blades of Sol’s encampment, sometimes lending a hand here and there, but more often than not just watching, like a wolf sitting just outside the firelight.
BACKSTORY –
The man we call Chulainn isn’t one you would consider a wide-eyed optimist. He has early memories of Faedrun, but most of what he remembers was either the horror and death which followed the last mass exodus from the old world, or stories of his early life that were related to him by his caretakers. Chulainn is a Feral Syndar who is adrift from his own society – his people and his culture are as alien to him as they are to you or I. He was left behind in the care of a Celestine, one who had been born to his tribe and since acted as a liason, as his tribe fled their homelands under the warning of a grave misfortune which would soon befall the land and claiming that a child would only slow them down. The Celestine named the child Elias, and brought him to a village of Serous Syndar to be raised among their people while the Celestine looked for another Feral tribe that would take the boy in – though, realistically, the Celestine didn’t expect to find one any time soon, what with how insular the local Ferals tended to be. Thus, the boy was abandoned yet again, this time in the hands of far less willing and altruistic caretakers.
From a Syndar’s point of view, it was little more than an eyeblink after the boy arrived that rumors of undead creatures decimating isolated Syndar communes reached Elias’ new home. Not long after that, the Syndar people retreated from their scattered forest communes and into cities as the grave reality of the undead plague came to light. When even their greatest cities fell, it was a mad rush to the docks, in hope that somewhere they could find a new home – but the captains knew their charter, they weren’t sharing that information, not that their crew cared. In the heat of the moment, death by starvation at sea was a deeply desirable alternative to being killed and reborn as a shambling abomination. And, through all these travels, little Elias was dragged along, the Serous unwilling to simply abandon him to his fate despite his unfortunate nature and Feral blood.
Travel by sea leaves little room for the cold, distanced hand that the Serous had taken to using with their Feral charge. The ships leaving Faedrun were packed body to body, and supplies were scarce at best. Fish could be harvested and rain could be collected to shore up the stocks, but rationing left both passengers and crew deeply irritable, the haughty Syndar so deeply accustomed to their nearly post-scarcity lifestyle back on Faedrun. Thus, the casual, cold disdain and bigotry of low expectations directed toward young Elias blossomed into barely-veiled spite. Words once murmured behind closed doors and out of earshot were now spoken aloud for impressionable ears, all-too-audible whispers that the child was cursed and brought nothing but death and misery in his wake, that they should have just tossed ‘it’ in the river and let Solar sort ‘the thing’ out.
Little Elias didn’t fare much better in the months which came after the boat reached Mardrun. The Serous tried to return to their old ways, but the second failed harvest forced them to realize that this new land was harsh and unforgiving to outsiders. The only thing which spared them from the choking grasp of Mardrun’s winter was a chance meeting with an Ulven hunter by the name of Stigandr. The trapper offered his services, sharing meat furs with the weary travellers, and seemed unperturbed with the Syndar’s casual disdain for their savior, almost in spite of the aid he was offering.
About the fire, to those willing to listen, he shared tales of great Ulven heroes and their mighty deeds, and chilled legends of the terrible Mordok and warriors who fought back against them. While most were willing to listen while food was prepared, all but the most curious souls filtered away, more interested in their own lives than that of the stranger. Eventually, only Elias remained at the fireside, transfixed by this stranger’s tales. Over time, the two began to talk, with Stigandr sharing his stories and Elias sharing what little he remembered of his upbringing. Stigandr saw in the boy – now, moreso a young man – a kindred spirit, and eventually returned to make Elias an offer. Shortly thereafter, trade between the settlers’ ship and a local Ulven pack was forged, and Stigandr once more vanished into the forest. No one really questioned where Elias had gone, most simply assuming that the Feral boy had returned himself to where he belonged.
Now, some years later, a Syndar wearing a rune-engraved mask emerges from the forest. He calls himself Chulainn: a man of many skills, and a seeker of glory and tales worth telling.
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RUMORS: Those who speak of Chulainn rarely speak well. There are some who say that his face was brutally scarred, and he hides it behind a mask out of shame. Others claim him a man-eating monster, and that the mask is simply his way of blending in with civil society for some reason. Regardless, Chulainn will rarely deny any allegations put his way, usually resorting to a retort of “Find out for yourself”. Similarly, he will not remove the mask to prove any of them wrong.