Post by Lorrevan Ruuz on Feb 25, 2015 15:20:45 GMT -5
Lorrevan Ruuz
"Wicked Ruse"
Beastfolk | Twenty-six | Male |
C. Evil | Warrior | Mercenary |
appearance,  "Having the stature of an adult male of unknown lineage, garbed in a distinctive light breastplate and carrying a long foreign sword. Disdain emanates from this man, and I should hate to see the state of the quarry he's leaving behind." - from "Mercenaries of the West" - - -'Ruse', as his companions and clientele have come to call him: five feet, eleven inches tall; weighing one hundred and forty-four pounds. He is a collection of the products of his way of life: scars, tattoos, trophies; symbols of stature and ferocity, but also of shared history. His appearance can be rather striking when compared to that of the citizenry, with bright streaks of gold in his otherwise black hair and motifs of dragons clawing across his torso. He obviously lives outside of civilized society, and in fact is often mistaken for a foreigner of Sendaikuni, for his preference of their clothing and their weaponry. Perhaps unexpectedly, a great deal of Ruse's look is based in sentiment, or in his identity as a whole. The metal cuffs around his wrists and neck are tied to companions of his adolescance; the long tendrils of wrapped hair that hang all the way down his back, having never been cut, are standing respect to a familial tradition and the memory of his late father. On the inner edge of his right forearm, thick, black letters spell out RUSE across his skin, a sort of formal acknowledgement of his reputation and identity. - - - On Heritage. Lorrevan's countenance doesn't immediately betray his phantasmal heritage, but more than a few features that wouldn't merit a second glance are actually signs of his bestial bloodline: His dual-colored hair and the red undertones of his eyes-which become a more significant identifier at night, as they catch the moonlight-, or his sharp canine teeth, which never breach his smile, are good examples. A more visible bestial trait, in a trio of gill-like ridges on the edges of his neck, is hidden beneath his massive collar, which he rarely removes. | personality, Preface. On Alignment Lorrevan is a bad person; he would say this to anyone's face. He actively rejects the notion of moral reflection and can at times rain disdain upon those who do. "You can't expect any better of this world than to eat you alive", he might say, before dismissing the subject in conversation. While having his reasons, especially as Ruse, the man shows little regard for human lives or concern for reducing collateral damage, and answers to no moral authority. Enemies are to be destroyed utterly and without mercy, and if that means a child has to die because his father died the wrong soldier, that is a burden that Wicked Ruse has conditioned himself to carry. - - - Lorrevan is a stoic man: pensive, serious, and often displeased with the world. He concerns himself primarily with survival and his business, preferring solitude to interaction and solidarity to cooperation in the field. His morality is cut and dry, survival or death, and he has proven himself to be far more tenacious than he ever was moral or sympathetic. Nonetheless, he is not without the capacity for attachment. Rather, he scorns himself for it, both the desire to be with others and the desire to be alone: one is terrifying, whilst the other is inherently cowardly. There was a time when he yearned so only for strength, whilst internally feeling great weakness: his mind has since moved on, but he yet still occasionally feels the sting of his complicity. Socially, he is adept at dealing with people on an impersonal level, and isn't bothered-rather, is quiet relaxed-when dealings with what a normal person might consider "shady characters". He has a talent for seeing the circumstances and the weakness behind an outlaw, and so feels at ease among them. Only when feelings and values, things that no self-respecting criminal would dredge up, become topics of conversation do tensions mount. For this reason, Lorrevan tends to avoid what he considers "normal" folk: the young, the noble and pampered; people who don't understand the stain of weakness. |
history,
In the far northeast of Terra Heroum, beneath the Draconian mountains along the straits between the west's great river and the sea, a peaceable village of fisherman and sailors, Osan, was to be the birthplace of Lorrevan Ruuz. Accessible from greater Ba'dagar by land and from as far as Cydonia by boat, the village enjoyed a steady trickle of adventurous travelers and traders from all across the Heroum.
He had never met his mother, who had passed while giving birth to him. He'd been told that she was elvenkind, a maiden of Cydonia, saved by his father along the west river from some blunder with her boat. It was her who'd given him the name Lorrevan, an elven name. His father had lived in Osan his whole life, a strong-hearted beastfolk with the blood of some great sea serpent of ages past. He would tell such grand stories about it, the sea serpent, when Lorrevan was a child. The man suffered no ounce of his gusto for the death of his love, it seemed. He never understood that.
He went by Lorr back then, a nickname he's tolerated from a few very close individuals since his childhood. Those years were full of fish and salty wind; of incredible sunny days and the sloshing of waves against the side of his father's boat. He was three or four the first time he'd gone out to fish; the boy could swim better than he could walk. and took more than one tumble out of the boat by the time he was old enough to work the nets. He learned the routes of Osan's territories: the west river crossing and the route to Ba'dagar, and up the north mountain where herbs for cooking and for medicine grew in abundance.
Chapter One.
Lorrevan was eleven when his father was killed. A group of five young lads had ventured carelessly up the mountain to challenge their parents' warnings of danger, and no one had been the wiser to their mischief until one came screaming into town, bloodied and burned and flanked by a great black shadow. Lorrevan remembers the boy's face, sputtering and leaking tears, unable to form words for the few seconds they stood face to face. He remembers the Wyvern's talon coming down, and the boy crumpling into a heap as the giant creature's weight took him. The shocking images of the boy's face before and after, life having been suddenly ripped from him, will never leave his memory.
The rest is a blur of horror and repressed trauma. The elderly couple that would take him in recounted to him that his father had caught up with him moments later, and in an act of desperate valor had broken his carving knife off in the creature's neck. Startled, the Wyvern became aware of how far it had ventured and retreated, but not before breathing a swathe of wicked flame down on the father and son who stood below them. Lorrevan had survived with only his left arm burned: his father, who had tackled him to the ground to shield him, was burnt to cinders. It was another six weeks after his recovery before he could do more than eat and stare blankly at the floor; another six months before he could even pretend to be a living Terran.
There wasn't much in the way of meaning to his life after that. He was numb, torn from familiarity with the other adolescents. He to this day hasn't done a great job of processing his ordeal, and he could no longer take to the sea without being overwhelmed with the emotion of it all. It was around this time that he fell in with the first group of troublemakers to really take root in his little village. The place had changed over the years: there was more traffic, more money passing through, and so the town invited trouble.
It was with these kids, these other young people with nowhere to be, that he could at least feel something that hadn't become stagnate but for old memories. He could get away from everything he was and everything he'd been with them, and that was all that afforded him any peace. He stood out here: he'd lost everything, and so feared nothing, and was always willing to take a scrap that extra step over the line that no one else dared cross. He wasn't sadistic or cruel, but wouldn't back down, and dealt a great many injuries to his fellows over posturing blown out of proportion.
It was around this time that the name "Ruse" first started to circulate in the northwest.
Chapter Two.
Lorrevan left Osan when he was fourteen: he had always wanted to, since the accident with the Wyvern. The village mourned and things were never really the same, but life went on, and the children displaced by the atmosphere the tragedy had created were slowly trickling back into their old lives, leaving Lorrevan more and more alone in his desperate need to escape his life. He took more risks, picked more fights, and one evening, found himself at odds with a whole party of travelers, most of them adults, and all of them a little shady. Needless to say, they beat him to a pulp, but they'd heard his moniker before, and after some sour negotiation, offered him a place. "You work for your food, and for your place." They'd told him. He refused at first, and later found himself chasing them as they made their way out of town.
He had to go.
It was different, living with these people. They camped in the brush, only going into town to conduct business or pick up goods. They were bandits and mercenaries, a dozen or so in all, and he wasn't the youngest. One woman kept an infant right there in the camp. It was altogether like a tiny mobile village, and while at first he felt like a stranger looking in, it didn't take long for him to realize that everyone here had their own reason not to live like a normal Terran. They fought with Terrans and with monsters, sabotaged trade shipments and raided merchant cartels. Some of their targets had been formerly employers, and some were themselves feared gangs and mercenary groups. They themselves were targeted on a number of occasions, and it's to the credit of his incredible companions that he survived long enough to come into his own skill.
Of course, not everyone was lucky enough to survive like he did. While he established an identity, tallied his trophies and earned his keep, the people who he'd grown to see as family were dying all around him. It made sense to him, before long, why they would pick up some miscreant from a backwater fishing village and adopt him into their group: because someone died almost every season. The lifestyle shaped him, defined him, and gave him everything he needed to survive on his own. As the years past, he carved out a reputation in fear and loathing as the mercenary RUSE, and after a particularly bloody job split from what remained of his companions, using his reputation for violence and ruthlessness to draw away the threat of retribution to himself. They may be the only people alive whom he can still consider friends.
He had never met his mother, who had passed while giving birth to him. He'd been told that she was elvenkind, a maiden of Cydonia, saved by his father along the west river from some blunder with her boat. It was her who'd given him the name Lorrevan, an elven name. His father had lived in Osan his whole life, a strong-hearted beastfolk with the blood of some great sea serpent of ages past. He would tell such grand stories about it, the sea serpent, when Lorrevan was a child. The man suffered no ounce of his gusto for the death of his love, it seemed. He never understood that.
He went by Lorr back then, a nickname he's tolerated from a few very close individuals since his childhood. Those years were full of fish and salty wind; of incredible sunny days and the sloshing of waves against the side of his father's boat. He was three or four the first time he'd gone out to fish; the boy could swim better than he could walk. and took more than one tumble out of the boat by the time he was old enough to work the nets. He learned the routes of Osan's territories: the west river crossing and the route to Ba'dagar, and up the north mountain where herbs for cooking and for medicine grew in abundance.
Chapter One.
Lorrevan was eleven when his father was killed. A group of five young lads had ventured carelessly up the mountain to challenge their parents' warnings of danger, and no one had been the wiser to their mischief until one came screaming into town, bloodied and burned and flanked by a great black shadow. Lorrevan remembers the boy's face, sputtering and leaking tears, unable to form words for the few seconds they stood face to face. He remembers the Wyvern's talon coming down, and the boy crumpling into a heap as the giant creature's weight took him. The shocking images of the boy's face before and after, life having been suddenly ripped from him, will never leave his memory.
The rest is a blur of horror and repressed trauma. The elderly couple that would take him in recounted to him that his father had caught up with him moments later, and in an act of desperate valor had broken his carving knife off in the creature's neck. Startled, the Wyvern became aware of how far it had ventured and retreated, but not before breathing a swathe of wicked flame down on the father and son who stood below them. Lorrevan had survived with only his left arm burned: his father, who had tackled him to the ground to shield him, was burnt to cinders. It was another six weeks after his recovery before he could do more than eat and stare blankly at the floor; another six months before he could even pretend to be a living Terran.
There wasn't much in the way of meaning to his life after that. He was numb, torn from familiarity with the other adolescents. He to this day hasn't done a great job of processing his ordeal, and he could no longer take to the sea without being overwhelmed with the emotion of it all. It was around this time that he fell in with the first group of troublemakers to really take root in his little village. The place had changed over the years: there was more traffic, more money passing through, and so the town invited trouble.
It was with these kids, these other young people with nowhere to be, that he could at least feel something that hadn't become stagnate but for old memories. He could get away from everything he was and everything he'd been with them, and that was all that afforded him any peace. He stood out here: he'd lost everything, and so feared nothing, and was always willing to take a scrap that extra step over the line that no one else dared cross. He wasn't sadistic or cruel, but wouldn't back down, and dealt a great many injuries to his fellows over posturing blown out of proportion.
It was around this time that the name "Ruse" first started to circulate in the northwest.
Chapter Two.
Lorrevan left Osan when he was fourteen: he had always wanted to, since the accident with the Wyvern. The village mourned and things were never really the same, but life went on, and the children displaced by the atmosphere the tragedy had created were slowly trickling back into their old lives, leaving Lorrevan more and more alone in his desperate need to escape his life. He took more risks, picked more fights, and one evening, found himself at odds with a whole party of travelers, most of them adults, and all of them a little shady. Needless to say, they beat him to a pulp, but they'd heard his moniker before, and after some sour negotiation, offered him a place. "You work for your food, and for your place." They'd told him. He refused at first, and later found himself chasing them as they made their way out of town.
He had to go.
It was different, living with these people. They camped in the brush, only going into town to conduct business or pick up goods. They were bandits and mercenaries, a dozen or so in all, and he wasn't the youngest. One woman kept an infant right there in the camp. It was altogether like a tiny mobile village, and while at first he felt like a stranger looking in, it didn't take long for him to realize that everyone here had their own reason not to live like a normal Terran. They fought with Terrans and with monsters, sabotaged trade shipments and raided merchant cartels. Some of their targets had been formerly employers, and some were themselves feared gangs and mercenary groups. They themselves were targeted on a number of occasions, and it's to the credit of his incredible companions that he survived long enough to come into his own skill.
Of course, not everyone was lucky enough to survive like he did. While he established an identity, tallied his trophies and earned his keep, the people who he'd grown to see as family were dying all around him. It made sense to him, before long, why they would pick up some miscreant from a backwater fishing village and adopt him into their group: because someone died almost every season. The lifestyle shaped him, defined him, and gave him everything he needed to survive on his own. As the years past, he carved out a reputation in fear and loathing as the mercenary RUSE, and after a particularly bloody job split from what remained of his companions, using his reputation for violence and ruthlessness to draw away the threat of retribution to himself. They may be the only people alive whom he can still consider friends.
- It's been four years. -
[b]STAR OCEAN: Til the End of Time[/b], Albel Nox [i]Lorrevan Ruuz[/i]
played by RU who found us by AFFILIATION
