Post by Tempest on Jun 24, 2008 11:00:07 GMT -5
Name:
Nikolai Dawes (He changes his last name every couple of centuries… and he's changed his first name so often he's virtually forgotten his original one… He's grown sort of attached to this one, though…)
Age:
(he appears to be student-aged, although he is hundreds of years old- his dragon form looks more indicative of his age) We'll say that he appears to be nineteen. He was actually born in the forests of Europe during the Dark Ages. Exact date? He was born in the year 473 AD. Yeah. He's REALLY old.
Power(optional):
Immortality, shifting into a dragon (think of this as more of a weakness- I'll explain later), and accelerated healing.
Desired Class:
Gardener/groundskeeper, part-time janitor
Personality:
Despite his age and race, Nikolai is pretty friendly, as long as you are friendly to him. Although he will lapse into periods of silence, he is by no means a taciturn fellow. On the contrary, he can become quite talkative when the circumstances encourage it.
At the moment, he is still reacquainting himself with modern speech patterns and the like, but he'll revert to old habits every once in a while.
His voice and tone are hard to place, linguistics-wise. Since he's had to jump from language to language as time progressed, he was virtually doused in accents.
When you try and bother him about his powers, he'll give you a nasty look and walk away. That is only because he was born human. It was a very painful sacrifice to give up his humanity for power and immortality.
When he is attracted to somebody, he typically tries to control it. A couple incidents in the past have left him wondering if pursuing anybody was worth the trouble it inevitably caused (all of the women he went so far as to kiss wound up either dead or burned.) Besides, spreading one's genes becomes less important if one does not die.
Of course, if he finds he is being hit on by somebody he doesn't find attractive (this has to be both mentally and physically, mind you. He hasn't lived through hundreds of years to date solely shallow people), he'll begin to take up the strangest habits to chase them away. Once he described the effects of the Black Plague in detail to a woman who'd decided to try and 'join him' for dinner at a restaurant.
Nikolai prefers to be in the background rather in the forefront of activity- he's like the people standing in the shadows of a picture depicting something important. He had a part, but it wasn't notable enough for remembrance.
Patience-wise, he's alright. In some matters, such as human arguments, he shows an extraordinary amount of patience. However, when it comes to certain aspects about his past and people harrying him about them, he will get perturbed.
He will shy away from disagreements and fights since he feels some responsibility aimed at keeping his dragon half under wraps. If he ever got too angry, it would definitely be a tragic turn of events.
He has a sense of humor, but hardly anybody ever gets his jokes, so he tends to keep them to himself.
In keeping with his dragon half, he has a liking for shiny objects and generally 'hoards' his belongings, just... gathering treasures until his human half realizes that it's getting ridiculous.
He also likes warm weather since his human's internal body heat works kind of funky- it's easier to warm by sunshine than generate heat by metabolism.
Appearance:
Hair: Flyaway hair of a deep black color (it isn't cut well, so it's all sorts of lengths)
Eyes: Silvery until he is close to being sent into dragon form- then they turn into the amber-gold of deep fire.
Skin tone: It varies from season to season. It gets pale in the winter (see picture) and gets tan in the summer (he gets occasional sunburns, but since he has healing powers, they go away within seconds of coming).
Body type: Built strong and lean. He's not nearly as bulky as a human as he is as a dragon. He blames it on metabolism since he eats several times as much as a normal human does but only has to eat every once in a while (it takes him some time to digest if he's not expending too much energy. His dragon form expends a lot more energy than his human form does and so has to eat more often.)
He stands at about 5'10".
Features: They tend to rest in a disdainful/angry expression when he isn't smiling. If one is observant, one can notice that his canines and the teeth directly behind and below them (six teeth altogether) are sharper and pointier than what passes for normal among humans… they are not like vampire teeth, though.
The left side of his face has some spidery markings- permanent remnants of a mishap that occurred during his transformation from a human to a dragon-being.
At the moment, he does have a lip ring- he got it because he'd been somewhat intruiged by the idea of carrying one's hoard on one's face.
Dragon form:
His dragon form is big and a metallic shade of black (ignore the purple tint of the picture...), about the size of a large house with his wings folded. It is well-muscled, but has a sort of grace in the powerful movements that it uses. For a dragon, he is pretty well-adaptable. Amongst the things he can do as a dragon are breathe fire and fly. Beyond that, his main attacking strategy is knocking things over and stomping on them and whatever things with his kind of weight do. (ignore the buildings in the picture- he's not that big)
Pictures:
Weaknesses, strengths?:
His shift into dragon form can be induced. With either extreme emotional or physical distress, his dragon form sort of "kicks in" and makes a bigger mess. So it's best to take care of a problem while it is still insignificantly trifling.
And when he is in dragon form, he loses memories and all of the things he might have done to his body go away. So tattoos are gone, piercings are gone, and his memories begin to vanish. After all, when a brain changes forms and connections, some things always get lost in the transfer.
So he might not be the best person to ask help on History homework with since his memory loss is completely random and it basically shoots holes in what he went through.
Yet it is necessary for him to revisit his dragon side at least once a century because that is what keeps him alive now.
He cannot control his actions when he is in dragon form. It isn't a good idea to get in his way when he is in his dragon form. If you thought he ate a lot when he was a human, you've NEVER seen his dragon form. Plus any and all form of discrimination between food sources is gone. He'd just as soon eat a pig as a cow as a horse as a human... as long as it's moving, he'll eat it.
Naturally, a form so big is usually a bit unwieldy. Maneuvering in tight spots was always a problem for Nikolai when he Turned.
Poisons don't have too much of an effect on him when he's in dragon form (However, they will mess with his healing when in human form).
Oh, and it isn't a good idea to let his blood (when he's in dragon form) get on you because it's like liquid fire. Really valuable, but quite painful to get, assuming he doesn't eat you first.
Other really valuable items that dragons have include teeth and scales. But it is not smart to go up to a dragon and try to rip a scale off or get it to lose a tooth (they grow back when he switches back to human, but he'd rather not lose any, ok?).
Switching from human to dragon is more painful than switching back. Let's just say that sudden expansion of muscles and having scales sprout out of your skin isn't preferable to shrinking and losing bulk.
Were-dragons are not like real dragons in one regard. You see, the old tales speak of the kinds of dragons that can be talked to, riddled with, and amused by conversation. Were-dragons do not think like that- they are often not in the dragon form long enough to develop the speech center of the brain and so will not actually listen to people if talked to. The only way this would ever change is if the Were-dragon spent more than a year in dragon form.
As it is, Nikolai does not know about this, but would probably not spend a year in uncontrolled gluttony and avarice to gain some moderate language skills anyways.
Naturally, he has a weakness for anything shiny or valuable... it can get pretty bad and he often shows a part of his personality that isn't too savoury when it comes to protecting his hoard. It's just a little avaricious of him, but it is in his nature.
Some history on the character?:
If I bothered to fill out all of the details, this part could potentially be too long to read in one sitting. So I'll start with the beginning, skim over the middle part, then skip to the end.
When he was a young man, he went on a journey to the mountains where myth said an immortal race lived. He hoped that he could trade all his worldly possessions for the chance to join them and live forever. As we all know, myth and rumor are often far from the truth. It's hard to explain exactly what happened up in those mountains, but Nikolai ended up trading half of his human self in order to gain power and immortality. Perhaps if he had known the pain and suffering it would cause him, he would have considered his actions in a different light.
But he was young and rash and he made a decision that would impact his existence forever in the space of a minute.
The first time he changed into a dragon, it was both exhilirating and frightening. He couldn't remember what he'd done, but he remembered the aftermath and the blood.
Oh, the blood was enough to make him wonder if he'd made the right choice.
Since then, he's been bouncing through the ages, learning and witnessing. He never took leadership positions and he made sure to keep to the areas behind the scenes, but he influenced things when he could... sort of a shadowy hand that reached out and guided the decisions of others.
I will not go into detail about the middle part of his life- it's long and repetitious. When one is immortal, it's easy enough to slip into habits.
Some of his jobs:
Alrighty… this is one long list…
Hunter, woodsman, clerk, moneylender, soldier (this happened more than once), sailor (this also happened more than once), smith, miner, actor, street musician, dancer, janitor, carpenter, farmer (he took a break from society), club owner (went back to society), hermit/woodsman (got sick of humans), and now he's back into the workforce and reacclimatizing himself to be amongst humankind once more.
He was out in the middle of nowhere when it occurred to him that he was bored. So he went into the nearest city and did some asking. Luckily, he heard about Foresta before anything else so that's where he applied first. Nikolai didn't trust himself to be able to fit into the main body of teachers and students, so he chose a position that would give him a chance to get away if he needed to.
IC: (if you already have this in another character form don't fill this out)
Code words:
Festina Lente
Nikolai Dawes (He changes his last name every couple of centuries… and he's changed his first name so often he's virtually forgotten his original one… He's grown sort of attached to this one, though…)
Age:
(he appears to be student-aged, although he is hundreds of years old- his dragon form looks more indicative of his age) We'll say that he appears to be nineteen. He was actually born in the forests of Europe during the Dark Ages. Exact date? He was born in the year 473 AD. Yeah. He's REALLY old.
Power(optional):
Immortality, shifting into a dragon (think of this as more of a weakness- I'll explain later), and accelerated healing.
Desired Class:
Gardener/groundskeeper, part-time janitor
Personality:
Despite his age and race, Nikolai is pretty friendly, as long as you are friendly to him. Although he will lapse into periods of silence, he is by no means a taciturn fellow. On the contrary, he can become quite talkative when the circumstances encourage it.
At the moment, he is still reacquainting himself with modern speech patterns and the like, but he'll revert to old habits every once in a while.
His voice and tone are hard to place, linguistics-wise. Since he's had to jump from language to language as time progressed, he was virtually doused in accents.
When you try and bother him about his powers, he'll give you a nasty look and walk away. That is only because he was born human. It was a very painful sacrifice to give up his humanity for power and immortality.
When he is attracted to somebody, he typically tries to control it. A couple incidents in the past have left him wondering if pursuing anybody was worth the trouble it inevitably caused (all of the women he went so far as to kiss wound up either dead or burned.) Besides, spreading one's genes becomes less important if one does not die.
Of course, if he finds he is being hit on by somebody he doesn't find attractive (this has to be both mentally and physically, mind you. He hasn't lived through hundreds of years to date solely shallow people), he'll begin to take up the strangest habits to chase them away. Once he described the effects of the Black Plague in detail to a woman who'd decided to try and 'join him' for dinner at a restaurant.
Nikolai prefers to be in the background rather in the forefront of activity- he's like the people standing in the shadows of a picture depicting something important. He had a part, but it wasn't notable enough for remembrance.
Patience-wise, he's alright. In some matters, such as human arguments, he shows an extraordinary amount of patience. However, when it comes to certain aspects about his past and people harrying him about them, he will get perturbed.
He will shy away from disagreements and fights since he feels some responsibility aimed at keeping his dragon half under wraps. If he ever got too angry, it would definitely be a tragic turn of events.
He has a sense of humor, but hardly anybody ever gets his jokes, so he tends to keep them to himself.
In keeping with his dragon half, he has a liking for shiny objects and generally 'hoards' his belongings, just... gathering treasures until his human half realizes that it's getting ridiculous.
He also likes warm weather since his human's internal body heat works kind of funky- it's easier to warm by sunshine than generate heat by metabolism.
Appearance:
Hair: Flyaway hair of a deep black color (it isn't cut well, so it's all sorts of lengths)
Eyes: Silvery until he is close to being sent into dragon form- then they turn into the amber-gold of deep fire.
Skin tone: It varies from season to season. It gets pale in the winter (see picture) and gets tan in the summer (he gets occasional sunburns, but since he has healing powers, they go away within seconds of coming).
Body type: Built strong and lean. He's not nearly as bulky as a human as he is as a dragon. He blames it on metabolism since he eats several times as much as a normal human does but only has to eat every once in a while (it takes him some time to digest if he's not expending too much energy. His dragon form expends a lot more energy than his human form does and so has to eat more often.)
He stands at about 5'10".
Features: They tend to rest in a disdainful/angry expression when he isn't smiling. If one is observant, one can notice that his canines and the teeth directly behind and below them (six teeth altogether) are sharper and pointier than what passes for normal among humans… they are not like vampire teeth, though.
The left side of his face has some spidery markings- permanent remnants of a mishap that occurred during his transformation from a human to a dragon-being.
At the moment, he does have a lip ring- he got it because he'd been somewhat intruiged by the idea of carrying one's hoard on one's face.
Dragon form:
His dragon form is big and a metallic shade of black (ignore the purple tint of the picture...), about the size of a large house with his wings folded. It is well-muscled, but has a sort of grace in the powerful movements that it uses. For a dragon, he is pretty well-adaptable. Amongst the things he can do as a dragon are breathe fire and fly. Beyond that, his main attacking strategy is knocking things over and stomping on them and whatever things with his kind of weight do. (ignore the buildings in the picture- he's not that big)
Pictures:
Weaknesses, strengths?:
His shift into dragon form can be induced. With either extreme emotional or physical distress, his dragon form sort of "kicks in" and makes a bigger mess. So it's best to take care of a problem while it is still insignificantly trifling.
And when he is in dragon form, he loses memories and all of the things he might have done to his body go away. So tattoos are gone, piercings are gone, and his memories begin to vanish. After all, when a brain changes forms and connections, some things always get lost in the transfer.
So he might not be the best person to ask help on History homework with since his memory loss is completely random and it basically shoots holes in what he went through.
Yet it is necessary for him to revisit his dragon side at least once a century because that is what keeps him alive now.
He cannot control his actions when he is in dragon form. It isn't a good idea to get in his way when he is in his dragon form. If you thought he ate a lot when he was a human, you've NEVER seen his dragon form. Plus any and all form of discrimination between food sources is gone. He'd just as soon eat a pig as a cow as a horse as a human... as long as it's moving, he'll eat it.
Naturally, a form so big is usually a bit unwieldy. Maneuvering in tight spots was always a problem for Nikolai when he Turned.
Poisons don't have too much of an effect on him when he's in dragon form (However, they will mess with his healing when in human form).
Oh, and it isn't a good idea to let his blood (when he's in dragon form) get on you because it's like liquid fire. Really valuable, but quite painful to get, assuming he doesn't eat you first.
Other really valuable items that dragons have include teeth and scales. But it is not smart to go up to a dragon and try to rip a scale off or get it to lose a tooth (they grow back when he switches back to human, but he'd rather not lose any, ok?).
Switching from human to dragon is more painful than switching back. Let's just say that sudden expansion of muscles and having scales sprout out of your skin isn't preferable to shrinking and losing bulk.
Were-dragons are not like real dragons in one regard. You see, the old tales speak of the kinds of dragons that can be talked to, riddled with, and amused by conversation. Were-dragons do not think like that- they are often not in the dragon form long enough to develop the speech center of the brain and so will not actually listen to people if talked to. The only way this would ever change is if the Were-dragon spent more than a year in dragon form.
As it is, Nikolai does not know about this, but would probably not spend a year in uncontrolled gluttony and avarice to gain some moderate language skills anyways.
Naturally, he has a weakness for anything shiny or valuable... it can get pretty bad and he often shows a part of his personality that isn't too savoury when it comes to protecting his hoard. It's just a little avaricious of him, but it is in his nature.
Some history on the character?:
If I bothered to fill out all of the details, this part could potentially be too long to read in one sitting. So I'll start with the beginning, skim over the middle part, then skip to the end.
When he was a young man, he went on a journey to the mountains where myth said an immortal race lived. He hoped that he could trade all his worldly possessions for the chance to join them and live forever. As we all know, myth and rumor are often far from the truth. It's hard to explain exactly what happened up in those mountains, but Nikolai ended up trading half of his human self in order to gain power and immortality. Perhaps if he had known the pain and suffering it would cause him, he would have considered his actions in a different light.
But he was young and rash and he made a decision that would impact his existence forever in the space of a minute.
The first time he changed into a dragon, it was both exhilirating and frightening. He couldn't remember what he'd done, but he remembered the aftermath and the blood.
Oh, the blood was enough to make him wonder if he'd made the right choice.
Since then, he's been bouncing through the ages, learning and witnessing. He never took leadership positions and he made sure to keep to the areas behind the scenes, but he influenced things when he could... sort of a shadowy hand that reached out and guided the decisions of others.
I will not go into detail about the middle part of his life- it's long and repetitious. When one is immortal, it's easy enough to slip into habits.
Some of his jobs:
Alrighty… this is one long list…
Hunter, woodsman, clerk, moneylender, soldier (this happened more than once), sailor (this also happened more than once), smith, miner, actor, street musician, dancer, janitor, carpenter, farmer (he took a break from society), club owner (went back to society), hermit/woodsman (got sick of humans), and now he's back into the workforce and reacclimatizing himself to be amongst humankind once more.
He was out in the middle of nowhere when it occurred to him that he was bored. So he went into the nearest city and did some asking. Luckily, he heard about Foresta before anything else so that's where he applied first. Nikolai didn't trust himself to be able to fit into the main body of teachers and students, so he chose a position that would give him a chance to get away if he needed to.
IC: (if you already have this in another character form don't fill this out)
Code words:
Festina Lente
