Player Name: Takhys Username: takhys Current/former characters: None.
Sleeper Character: Uther Doul Username: doul Canon: China Mieville's Bas-Lag books. Canon point: Approximately six months after the events of 'The Scar'. Age: 40 Appearance: Most obviously, Doul is a physically imposing man. That he is tall (6'2"), broad, and clearly someone who is accustomed to demanding physical work is reinforced by a commanding physical presence. His confidence and comfort with his own body is apparent no matter what he is doing.
That he prefers to keep himself covered up is more for other people's comfort than his own: Doul has numerous scars, old and new, ranging from minor wounds all the way up to a particularly vicious Probable Scar that starts just under his ribs, winds over his hip, and inner thigh. As a Probable Scar, at times his old wound shifts from a healed injury and enters a state of flux where it can be both healed and fresh. This flux doesn't happen often and, if it goes against the tone of the game, can be ignored entirely.
In canon, he has a weapon known as a Possible Sword which is a weird artifact that requires a gearbox worn on the hip and a series of wires woven through the muscle of his right arm and emerging as metal brads in the palm of his hand. Since he's not able to bring his sword into the game, I would like to ask that he's allowed to keep the scarring that would've come of the body modification.
Personality: There is a general consensus that Uther Doul appears profoundly, achingly sad, as if he has been through some great, unknown tragedy. This is likely reinforced by his reluctance to speak aloud; when given the choice between talking or being silent, Doul will nearly always choose to hold his tongue. His homeland, High Cromlech, is known for being a silent city that praises the ability to avoid talking. Now that he is in the world at large, he is silent less out of social obligation and more because he prefers not to speak unless necessary.
In contrast to his long periods of quiet contemplation, Doul has the need to be profoundly violent. He has spent years participating in holy gladiator fights and working as a mercenary for a pirate city, neither of which lead to easy living. In both these cases, he can descend into a traditional, terrifying battle madness. That said, he would like to believe that he does not kill without good reason.
He is an intensely private man and while he abhors the limelight, he is not entirely adverse to having power. Like anyone, he wants things to go his way, but his preferred method for achieving his goals is through subtlety and manipulation. Ideally, he would like people to do as he wishes, but to believe that they are following their own desires. While good at using people, he is not so very good at connecting with them -- whether this is some innate Doulishness, a bit of culture from High Cromlech or further proof that he's not entirely human is up for debate. In all his years on Armada, there was really only one person that could have been considered something akin to a friend. (Admittedly, when it became necessary he quite literally crucified that friend to the mast of a ship.)
History: Uther Doul is from the world of Bas-Lag, a pseudo-Victorian, steampunk reality that has been heavily influenced by Lovecraft. In Bas-Lag, humans are not the only sentient race, nor are they necessarily the majority. In general, it's wise to remember that bad things happen to good people, all manner of crawling horrors are real, and they do want to get you. In terms of tone and general feeling, it's similar to Mignola's BRPD'verse.
In the canon material, much of Doul's backstory is intentionally left vague while conflicting accounts are given by various characters about his 'known' history. Personally, I feel that this is an important part of the character and don't really ever plan to reveal too much of whatever brought him to the point that he is at. That being said, it is generally agreed upon that Doul was born and raised in High Cromlech, a city-state known for its silence and that it is organized around an oligarchical necrocracy where a certain caste of the preserved dead, the thanati, rule and appear as "liches with sewn-shut mouths, with beautiful clothes and skin like preserved leather," while the living, also known as the Quick, are bred to serve. At the bottom of this social stratum are the vampires (ab-dead) who are forced to beg for food.
After leaving High Cromlech, Doul went out into the world to study the Ghosthead Empire. These people (creatures?) were notable for their ability to manipulate and 'mine' probability, creating incredibly powerful weapons that strike every target possible in every possible method simultaneously, buildings with unreal floor plans, and instruments capable of altering reality -- all of which were apparently fuelled by stripping the world its possibilities. No description still exists, but Doul theorizes, based on his knowledge of his probabilistic 'might sword', that they appeared differently based on preference or preconceived notions of the viewer. However, is it said that nothing is known with any certainty about Ghosthead physiology or appearance, save that it was unlike that of any modern race.
After he returned from his time studying the Ghosthead Empire, Doul brought back the 'might sword', along with a few other artifacts, and learned how to use them. Most humans lack the ability to use any of these artifacts and this fact reinforces other hints given that Doul may not be purely human. In any case, he repaired and installed the necessary equipment to operate the sword - the visible components being a small clockwork box on a belt at this side and a series of raised, metal touchpads on the palm of his right hand connected to wires that run along and under his skin.
While learning to use the might sword, Doul continued to travel around the world of Bas-Lag, and eventually he ended up in Armada -- a massive, mobile flotilla of ships that functioned as a small nation. Within this nation, there are many different ridings, each with its own form of government. It is seen as a curiosity that Doul is close friends with the Brucolac, the ab-dead leader of Dry Fall riding.
Doul ends up working as a bodyguard for The Lovers, a pair of nameless, scar-covered humans, who run Garwater Riding. It is while he is in this capacity that the events of 'The Scar' take place. Briefly, the Lovers decide to capture an avanc -- a giant, transdimentional fishmonster -- tether it to Armada and pull the whole nation towards the Scar in order to mine it for probabilities. At its most simplistic, the Scar is a place where reality breaks down and anything is possible. The best way I can think to describe it is that the Scar emits a sort of 'radiation' (Torque) which mutates reality as we understand it.
At first this plan of the Lovers' is heralded as a brilliant idea, but as Armada gets closer to its goal, unsettling things begin to occur: one of the crew is lost in an airship only to be recovered days later, swearing that he was there when Armada was pulled into the Scar and that he is either doomed to repeat it all again, a copy from a different, but Possible future, or, and this is suggested later on, lying at the behest of Doul who knows better than anyone what could go wrong when exposed to too much of the Scar's cacotopic energies. (I know this is very odd and very complicated, but I have no problem with explaining it further upon request.)
Thanks to a battle with other forces (who are not really relevant to Doul's backstory) the final outcome is that one of the Lovers choses to leave Armada and continue into the Scar, the avanc is released, and Armada is devastated. This is where canon ends.
Following this point, I have assumed that Doul has continued to work for the remaining Lover to stabilize and repair Garwater and Armada as a whole. He will be arriving at Sky of Diamonds just after the death of the Lover.
Powers/skills: While never explicitly stated in his canon, it can be inferred that Doul has a greater than human ability to understand and select beneficial probabilities. A similar example in comics would be Domino's powers. Her abilities manifest through her unconscious action and her own physical involvement in a stressful situation, while Doul's talent is a purely conscious effort and best used by channeling it through an artifact from the Ghosthead Empire. While it has been hinted that he has the knowledge (and inhuman ability) to both repair and built new probability mining devices, they would be exceedingly difficult and dangerous to construct and if I went mad with power and chose to go with that particular plotline, I would contact and discuss it further with the modteam.
In times of great stress and generally for plot purposes, Doul suffers from 'probability sickness'. This results in his incapacitation for a few days (while I am swamped over with RL/work/whatever) and necessitates removing himself from public. While his 'old wound is acting up' the rules of probability and chance tend to be unpredictable in his general vicinity. e.g. don't play cards around him or check on Schrodinger's cat because the dratted thing will be in both states at once.
His skillset includes such useful things as: sailing, a variety of hand-to-hand techniques and a familiarity with a variety of weaponry (sword and pistol as favourites), knowledgeable in hands-on engineering, scientific method and practice, first aid, fluent in multiple languages (Salt, Quiesy, Ragamoll, etc.), excellent memory and lateral thinking capabilities, and highly literate.
Uther Doul | The Scar
Name: Takhys
Username:
Current/former characters: None.
Sleeper
Character: Uther Doul
Username:
Canon: China Mieville's Bas-Lag books.
Canon point: Approximately six months after the events of 'The Scar'.
Age: 40
Appearance: Most obviously, Doul is a physically imposing man. That he is tall (6'2"), broad, and clearly someone who is accustomed to demanding physical work is reinforced by a commanding physical presence. His confidence and comfort with his own body is apparent no matter what he is doing.
That he prefers to keep himself covered up is more for other people's comfort than his own: Doul has numerous scars, old and new, ranging from minor wounds all the way up to a particularly vicious Probable Scar that starts just under his ribs, winds over his hip, and inner thigh. As a Probable Scar, at times his old wound shifts from a healed injury and enters a state of flux where it can be both healed and fresh. This flux doesn't happen often and, if it goes against the tone of the game, can be ignored entirely.
In canon, he has a weapon known as a Possible Sword which is a weird artifact that requires a gearbox worn on the hip and a series of wires woven through the muscle of his right arm and emerging as metal brads in the palm of his hand. Since he's not able to bring his sword into the game, I would like to ask that he's allowed to keep the scarring that would've come of the body modification.
Personality: There is a general consensus that Uther Doul appears profoundly, achingly sad, as if he has been through some great, unknown tragedy. This is likely reinforced by his reluctance to speak aloud; when given the choice between talking or being silent, Doul will nearly always choose to hold his tongue. His homeland, High Cromlech, is known for being a silent city that praises the ability to avoid talking. Now that he is in the world at large, he is silent less out of social obligation and more because he prefers not to speak unless necessary.
In contrast to his long periods of quiet contemplation, Doul has the need to be profoundly violent. He has spent years participating in holy gladiator fights and working as a mercenary for a pirate city, neither of which lead to easy living. In both these cases, he can descend into a traditional, terrifying battle madness. That said, he would like to believe that he does not kill without good reason.
He is an intensely private man and while he abhors the limelight, he is not entirely adverse to having power. Like anyone, he wants things to go his way, but his preferred method for achieving his goals is through subtlety and manipulation. Ideally, he would like people to do as he wishes, but to believe that they are following their own desires. While good at using people, he is not so very good at connecting with them -- whether this is some innate Doulishness, a bit of culture from High Cromlech or further proof that he's not entirely human is up for debate. In all his years on Armada, there was really only one person that could have been considered something akin to a friend. (Admittedly, when it became necessary he quite literally crucified that friend to the mast of a ship.)
History: Uther Doul is from the world of Bas-Lag, a pseudo-Victorian, steampunk reality that has been heavily influenced by Lovecraft. In Bas-Lag, humans are not the only sentient race, nor are they necessarily the majority. In general, it's wise to remember that bad things happen to good people, all manner of crawling horrors are real, and they do want to get you. In terms of tone and general feeling, it's similar to Mignola's BRPD'verse.
In the canon material, much of Doul's backstory is intentionally left vague while conflicting accounts are given by various characters about his 'known' history. Personally, I feel that this is an important part of the character and don't really ever plan to reveal too much of whatever brought him to the point that he is at. That being said, it is generally agreed upon that Doul was born and raised in High Cromlech, a city-state known for its silence and that it is organized around an oligarchical necrocracy where a certain caste of the preserved dead, the thanati, rule and appear as "liches with sewn-shut mouths, with beautiful clothes and skin like preserved leather," while the living, also known as the Quick, are bred to serve. At the bottom of this social stratum are the vampires (ab-dead) who are forced to beg for food.
After leaving High Cromlech, Doul went out into the world to study the Ghosthead Empire. These people (creatures?) were notable for their ability to manipulate and 'mine' probability, creating incredibly powerful weapons that strike every target possible in every possible method simultaneously, buildings with unreal floor plans, and instruments capable of altering reality -- all of which were apparently fuelled by stripping the world its possibilities. No description still exists, but Doul theorizes, based on his knowledge of his probabilistic 'might sword', that they appeared differently based on preference or preconceived notions of the viewer. However, is it said that nothing is known with any certainty about Ghosthead physiology or appearance, save that it was unlike that of any modern race.
After he returned from his time studying the Ghosthead Empire, Doul brought back the 'might sword', along with a few other artifacts, and learned how to use them. Most humans lack the ability to use any of these artifacts and this fact reinforces other hints given that Doul may not be purely human. In any case, he repaired and installed the necessary equipment to operate the sword - the visible components being a small clockwork box on a belt at this side and a series of raised, metal touchpads on the palm of his right hand connected to wires that run along and under his skin.
While learning to use the might sword, Doul continued to travel around the world of Bas-Lag, and eventually he ended up in Armada -- a massive, mobile flotilla of ships that functioned as a small nation. Within this nation, there are many different ridings, each with its own form of government. It is seen as a curiosity that Doul is close friends with the Brucolac, the ab-dead leader of Dry Fall riding.
Doul ends up working as a bodyguard for The Lovers, a pair of nameless, scar-covered humans, who run Garwater Riding. It is while he is in this capacity that the events of 'The Scar' take place. Briefly, the Lovers decide to capture an avanc -- a giant, transdimentional fishmonster -- tether it to Armada and pull the whole nation towards the Scar in order to mine it for probabilities. At its most simplistic, the Scar is a place where reality breaks down and anything is possible. The best way I can think to describe it is that the Scar emits a sort of 'radiation' (Torque) which mutates reality as we understand it.
At first this plan of the Lovers' is heralded as a brilliant idea, but as Armada gets closer to its goal, unsettling things begin to occur: one of the crew is lost in an airship only to be recovered days later, swearing that he was there when Armada was pulled into the Scar and that he is either doomed to repeat it all again, a copy from a different, but Possible future, or, and this is suggested later on, lying at the behest of Doul who knows better than anyone what could go wrong when exposed to too much of the Scar's cacotopic energies. (I know this is very odd and very complicated, but I have no problem with explaining it further upon request.)
Thanks to a battle with other forces (who are not really relevant to Doul's backstory) the final outcome is that one of the Lovers choses to leave Armada and continue into the Scar, the avanc is released, and Armada is devastated. This is where canon ends.
Following this point, I have assumed that Doul has continued to work for the remaining Lover to stabilize and repair Garwater and Armada as a whole. He will be arriving at Sky of Diamonds just after the death of the Lover.
Powers/skills: While never explicitly stated in his canon, it can be inferred that Doul has a greater than human ability to understand and select beneficial probabilities. A similar example in comics would be Domino's powers. Her abilities manifest through her unconscious action and her own physical involvement in a stressful situation, while Doul's talent is a purely conscious effort and best used by channeling it through an artifact from the Ghosthead Empire. While it has been hinted that he has the knowledge (and inhuman ability) to both repair and built new probability mining devices, they would be exceedingly difficult and dangerous to construct and if I went mad with power and chose to go with that particular plotline, I would contact and discuss it further with the modteam.
In times of great stress and generally for plot purposes, Doul suffers from 'probability sickness'. This results in his incapacitation for a few days (while I am swamped over with RL/work/whatever) and necessitates removing himself from public. While his 'old wound is acting up' the rules of probability and chance tend to be unpredictable in his general vicinity. e.g. don't play cards around him or check on Schrodinger's cat because the dratted thing will be in both states at once.
His skillset includes such useful things as: sailing, a variety of hand-to-hand techniques and a familiarity with a variety of weaponry (sword and pistol as favourites), knowledgeable in hands-on engineering, scientific method and practice, first aid, fluent in multiple languages (Salt, Quiesy, Ragamoll, etc.), excellent memory and lateral thinking capabilities, and highly literate.