Lucius The Scarred
Nov 15, 2014 9:21:14 GMT -7
Post by Lucius on Nov 15, 2014 9:21:14 GMT -7
Lucius The Scarred
Height 7'1" | Weight: 220 lbs | Alignment: Neutral Evil
Gender: Male | Age: 19 | Birth Country: Earth | Village: Stormdale
History
Nifelheim; the land of mortals, the world between the hells of legend and the heavens of myth. In a world where men can become both gods and devils in their own right the word mortal seems to mean little. But to Lucius of Stormdale being mortal is both a blessing and a curse, ever he strives for an answer to his seeming immortality but ever does he revel in the utter fragility of others. Stormdale is a town at the very northernmost reaches of Earth, where the ground is hard packed with ice and snow year round and the trees reach for light that rarely comes. It's inhabitants are cold, fierce, and proud; dedicated, obsessed, with personal prowess and the glory found in battle. History
The town is one of a great many that are situated in the northern reaches, and all of them quarrel among themselves constantly, the men seeking foes to prove themselves against in battle, and the women searching for ever more esoteric ways to butcher those who would threaten their homes. Young in the village go through different stages of childhood, depending on their societal rank. The rich, the wealthy, have their children and young men and women learn how to tend the land, farm and sow crops, manage estates and have a firm economy to fuel the fires of war, the commoners are very nearly born with a sword clutched in their chubby fists and learn from the time they can walk how to fight. Many commoner children swing a knife before they learn how to speak.
When noble children reach their teens they are taught how to fence, typically for ritual combat, by this point however common children have already begun to master their first form of swordplay, if even only with a light wooden weapon. In their middle teens nobles go off to learn a trade, smithing, farming, sewing, cooking, common children take up a steel sword for the first time and are goaded into fighting a more experienced foe, usually their fathers regardless of the gender of the child, until they draw blood for the first time. This rite of passage happens at fifteen, and it is considered the first step to being an adult for the common children of the realm.
At seventeen children are taken on their first raid, many die at this age especially those who were frail as young children, but those who survive are considered adults, and often take a mate at this time.
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Lucius, a son of Stormdale, followed in the footsteps of his forebears like any other child of common rank. Though they were slightly different nonetheless. Firstly Lucius is a bastard child, his mother raped a noble of another town on a raid, and bore her son into the world back in Stormdale nine months later. He learned like any other common boy how to wield a sword and quickly became seen as a prodigy, in fact, he redefined the term, quickly learning and devouring that which older boys and girls still struggled with. Tall like his mother, and strong, fast and skilled he trounced the other boys he fought with to train, bruising them and even fracturing wrists.
Lucius's relationship with his mother was strained, not for any domestic reasons, but rather it was strained because most of the time, his mother was his trainer, and she was not easy on him. By the time he was fourteen he could do a ten kilometer jog without stopping for a breather, he could lift half his body weight in steel ingots, and his swordsmanship was a cut above all those in his year group.
-:-
Why was Lucius such a driven warrior, even at such a young age? Between his mother's hard as nails approach to childhood, and the general tradition of warriors born in the village, Lucius developed an obsession with physical perfection, prowess, skill. It ruled his life, and everything else bent around it like a bar of hot metal. On his fifteenth birthday his mother went on a raid to the village where his father still lived, and dragged him back to their home as a hostage. His mother was many things, but at her heart she was still a mother, she wanted the best for him, and the idea of him drawing any blood but his father's for his rite of passage was abominable to her.
His father never left the home, and a lot more blood than was customary was spilled that night. The village as a whole was always slightly wary of Lucius, he had the spirit of a true warrior, but his mind was warped, his sparring partners were injured universally, and after his fifteenth birthday, he began scarring them, even once taking a boy's finger with his blade. The warriors of the village began training him personally, and while he was an over-match for his age group, these were men and women who had been fighting all their lives. Soon he was the one being scarred, though strangely he did not see these marks as badges of shame, but rather of pride.
Eventually he took a knife to his own flesh, and traced new cuts that joined his battle scars together in a grim tapestry that covered much of his upper chest and shoulders.
-:-
His seventeenth birthday was, as for all young men and women of common birth, a raid day. He and his mother took to the tundra along with a dozen men and women from the clan, including one young woman who shared his birthday, she didn't return from that raid. Indeed only he, his mother, and two others, returned from the attack on a nearby town. They had been outnumbered and trapped, but they fought with all the skill and grace that their warrior heritage had bred into them, and Lucius claimed eleven more lives that night.
Something changed about him after that, his obsession with personal skill and prowess became an addiction, his body became honed to a knife edge, his skills in swordplay were unparalleled in the village. He went on fifteen more raids over the next two years, his personal tally climbing ever higher until he was revered as a son of the storm, a force of nature on the battle field. His mien grew bored of the battles, there was no challenge in the slaughter anymore, he needed to go abroad, searching for a challenge.
So it was that he left his village, searching champions of other towns to face him in single combat. Rumor spread across Earth of the scarred man who would not die, a pale specter of a man travelling from town to town, challenging the best fighters of the villagers to single combat, and slaughtering them in turn. His mind grew fey, obsessing over his battles, his kills, searching ever for someone who could finally give him the challenge he sought. And perhaps a death worthy of his skill.
Personality
Despite his apparent need to discover a challenge he is not so arrogant as to understand when he is outmatched, those who wield Chakra with abandon he avoids studiously as he sees them as 'cheats', and his desire to find someone who can out skill him with a blade is tempered by an almost animal survival urge that would see him cut many of his morals away to slaughter someone who could finally put him down. While he has his own image of perfection that he strives to attain he is well aware of his own faults, indeed perhaps because of his need to be better he is hypercritical of himself and will often put himself (mentally) in a far worse light than his skills would merit.
In battle he looses the thin veneer of charm that society has tried to force upon him and out comes the warrior born, a man born and bred to kill others, not in self defense, but as a matter of course, sport even. The taking of life is something that he sees as almost sacred, to end a fight with both of the participants still breathing is something he sees as a sin, and will go out of his way to make sure an opponent is killed even if they have already surrendered. Cowards in fact are people that Lucius takes great pleasure in killing, often taking them apart piece by piece with his sword, limning them like one would limb a trunk of a tree before finally slicing their throats.
He has a particular love of bloodshed, and gains an almost sexual enjoyment from seeing the viscous fluid running down his opponent's chest or arms. Speaking of sexual the young man has no sexuality of sorts and values people purely on their skill in battle as opposed to any aesthetic charm, though if pressed he would probably be heterosexual, if only through influence of the environment he grew up in. The enjoyment he gets from combat notwithstanding he very rarely lowers himself to any kind of pleasure, jokes and general humor are lost on him and, while he understands the concept, has no care for it. But again, in battle much of this veneer falls away to show the animal beneath and a sort of black humor forms in his mind as he makes artistic patterns with cuts upon his opponent's flesh or clothes.
He is somewhat driven, and this often leads to an appearance of him being emotionless,but like much of his character this is temporary, and his true nature comes about when he draws his blade. He feels a fierce joy when fighting someone of any kind of skill, but gets quickly frustrated, contemptuous, and angry, when someone falls to him too quickly, or is made out to be a skilled warrior and disappoints him. On rare occasions he will become somewhat unsettling, and will try to ingratiate himself with the person he is slicing apart, attempting to point out the beauty of the art he is inflicting upon them, rarely does he receive anything but screams.
Between battles he is quiet, a man of few words but is clearly possessed by a quiet drive to succeed, or even simply do. He has a great contempt for idleness or inaction, and if he has nothing better to do he will simply go for a run, or practice his swordplay. About himself he exudes a casual arrogance, born of being unbeaten for so long, the few times someone wounds him this arrogance falls away to be replaced with a focused sort of joy as he sets to dismantling his opponent piece by piece. While he is typically a blood-letter, a warrior, and killer, very rarely could this be ascribed to malice, he has no personal vendetta against the people he kills, he is not out for revenge and is not guided by any kind of hatred or prejudice, he simply kills, and is very, very good at it.
Appearance
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His teeth are straight, though not particularly white, and his breath has the smell of blood. Typically his personal hygiene is very good but he suffers from at least mild halitosis and has no way of curing it, not to mention a complete obliviousness to it's presence. his chest, shoulders and upper arms all bear the thick tapestry of scar tissue that paints a grim picture of his life story, the backs of his hands and wrists are similarly adorned, and the dents of shackles can almost still be seen from the few times he was jailed in his home for being too rough on his sparring partners.
He typically exudes an air of foreboding that wards away those smart enough to avoid his piercing gaze, this could be ascribed to his powerful figure, grim expression, or almost comical height which he only expects to increase as he hits his early twenties. The people of the north are tall strong people, and unafraid of that fact.
Light stubble adorns his cheeks some days, other days he is clean shaven, often depending on his whims.
For clothing he wears simple travelling leathers with some plates of assorted armor here and there. Rarely does he rely on his armor for duels however, often choosing to fight shirtless to further intimidate his foes with the lattice of scars on his chest. He carries two swords, a thick war sword that he carries over his shoulder while travelling, but removes and unsheathes long before any kind of expected battle, and for duels he bears a long Sabre at his hip, cruelly curved and bearing a rather ornate hilt. It has seen the blood of many men and women. Finally a plain knife sits in a sheath on his chest where he can easily get to it with either hand.
