The Basics

⚙ Name: Zhel⚙ Age: 200+⚙ Race: Viera⚙ Title(s): Ashborn⚙ Pronouns: He/Him⚙ Sexuality: Easily swayed⚙ Profession: Volunteer soldier⚙ Socioeconomic Class: Middling

Physical

⚙ Biological Gender: Male⚙ Height: Long⚙ Weight: 144 lbs⚙ Build: Well muscled, atheletic⚙ Bearing: Relaxed, smooth motions, nearly silent gait⚙ Voice: Soft-spoken, low, rich. Heavily accented.⚙ Distinct Physical Attributes: Particularly vibrant violet eyes
A body covered in white leylines
Ink black corruption up his hands and forearms and his feet and calves

General Details

⚙ Languages: Multilingual, Eorzean Common most recently⚙ Birthplace: The Redwood⚙ Current Residence(s): Foster's Hollow⚙ Religion: Spiritualist

Personality

Soft-spoken and cold in manner, Zhel comes across as a particularly apathetic and uncaring man to the casual observer. Those who take a closer interest will notice how his eyes follow the natural motions of a room, the way their bored glances easily turn into lingering stares when the object of their attention is unaware. Everything about him from his casual grace to his sudden, sharp flashes of cruel smiles paint him as a person unworthy of companionship.That does not stop him from demanding it.

Likes

  • Silence

  • Fog

  • Boating white rapids

  • Lean red meats

  • Stargazing

  • Fruit based alcohol derivatives

  • Dark berries

  • Fire and things associated with it

Dislikes

  • Someone demanding his attention

  • Garlemald

  • Wastefulness

  • Weapons made from magitek

  • Fire or things associated with it

Quirks

With most people, no matter how or where they're raised, one can expect to run into a series of things that are unique to or particularly speak of the person you're thinking of.Here are a few things peculiar about Zhel that a keen eye might observe when interacting with him.

  • Like most born hunters, Zhel takes comfort in the easy access to his tools and this is never more obvious than when he's unengaged. Idle hands find solace in spinning, twisting, flipping and tracing fingers over a standard hunting knife.

Biography

The Beginning

For over 100 years, Zhel did his duty protecting the tall boughs of the Redwoood he called his home. A fierce fighter and master tracker, he was tasked with sussing out potential threats to his peaceful community and either dispatching them alone or locating and informing his brothers of the threat to neutralise it together.It was a difficult life, a lonely one, a life that suited him perfectly.Then, with the terrible strike of a stray match courtesy of a Garlean incendiary meant for another location, his once beautiful home became a fiery death trap. The call rang out in the late hours of a long night, panicked shouts for evacuation as proud trees succumbed to voracious flame and crashed on top of animal and person with blind discrimination.It took hours to locate the scattered men of the Redwood, to find the last child just barely out of the village and start seeing him to safety, and Zhel stayed for every one of them.It was as he was leaving that he was finally defeated. Lost amongst the billows of acrid smoke trying to choke him, Zhel had no way to see his demise until it was upon him. The great, ancient trunk of a tree ravaged by flame buckled as he raced past and crashed down atop him.The world went black, and stayed that way until long after the flames had consumed every thing in their paths.

Waking Up

By the time his eyes opened again, what had been a hellscape of heat and death had burned itself out, leaving silence and ash behind. They burned, his eyes, streaming with tears that could do nothing to put out the sting of dry soot and flaky detritus inside them. It was that which he thought he saw when he tried to focus past the streams of smoke pulling up from the smoldering ground below, hovering over him in a protective crouch.Just ash. A dark smudge of his burned home stuck in his eye creating the vague outline of a figure. But no matter how he blinked, no matter how his streaming eyes tried to clear themselves, the figure remained. It was hunched around him, a barrier between himself and the tree that had tried to end him in a perfect shield of raw, chaotic energy.He called out to it in confusion with a ragged voice that ached in his scorched lungs, and sightless eyes looked down to his hand. He followed the gaze and only then did the hard press of cool stone register clutched tight in his fingers. It spoke to him, in a dozen voices, all overlapping and overwhelming and sudden. Flashes of lives he'd never lived, of knowledge he'd never acquired, shot in bright, violent bursts behind his eyes.Zhel thought he had no air in his lungs to cry out, but the sound of his hoarse, terrified screams rent the air of what was once the Redwood regardless.

Ashborn

They gave the refugees that fled the Redwood that name in the first village they came across. It came to them in whispers that travelled around the world to every new home each wayward soul sought out: Ashborn, the family forced to begin life anew.He only heard it in passing, spoken about the multitudes that passed through before him. He could never quite catch up to them, always a day or two behind by the time he had stopped screaming on the coal bright graveyard of his home. There amongst the charred bones of his brothers and sisters he learned how to be someone new, how to take on the lives of a multitude of others. He learned who - what - had saved him, and how it could save him again and again in the years to come.He named it his Shadow, and when it became obvious that he would never find the scattered remains of his broken clan, it was with his Shadow that he set out into the world.For a man who had only ever known to protect others, to keep the enemy at bay, travelling from one frontline to the next to fight in the world's never-ending wars was the obvious option. And so that is where he went; Ala Mhigo, Doma, Thavnair, Eorzea. Anywhere there was blood to claim, anywhere there was a home under threat, Zhel could be found doing for the souls that cried out in despair what he could not do for his own.

Free Hooks

Free for use without prior discussion or meeting

  • A Lingering Stare If you've found yourself the object of observation in a crowded room, if a pair of cold eyes have been following your every moment, Zhel may have been listening to your conversation from afar and gathering information. Tell him how you feel about it.

  • A Willing Soldier It's no secret that Zhel has little time between fights, and an experienced eye can pick up on his odd phrasing and dangerous posture easily. Need someone to fight for you? To kill? He doesn't really do anything else.

  • The Stray Farmer Zhel is never seen without a weapon, and his weapon of choice is more often than not a tool designed to cut grass. Wtf is up with that?

Rare Hooks

To be used with caution and regard to the difficulty with which any knowledge would be acquired

  • Moving Shadows Zhel's Shadow doesn't often come out without someone about to die, but it is its own living creature with thoughts, wants, and motivations of its own. In the darkness of the night, in a deep shadow cast on a bright day, has something moved out of the corner of your eye? Do you know what his Shadow is? Do you dare approach him to talk about it?

Deeper Hooks

Should be used with consideration

  • A Familiar Face Have you fought on the front lines? Were you saved by a cold, silent soldier with a scythe and uncommon speed? Do you recognise the face across the room as one you've seen before?

Exclusive Hooks

Only to be used after discussion with player

  • The Reunion When the Redwood burned a century ago, the viera that called it home scattered to the winds to fill spaces in the world around them as new people. Did you fight to protect the forest alongside Zhel so many years ago? As a young man, when hope seemed lost, did this unchanging face emerge from the smoke and destruction to guide you out? Do you, after all this time, remember the man most thought died?

⌘ I've been playing ffxiv since it launched and been role playing in the community for about 6 years.⌘ Outside of ffxiv I have many years of role play experience and am very passionate about writing and story driven character development!⌘ I am not, personally, comfortable role playing with anyone under the age of 18 regardless of content of said role play. Please respect that.⌘ I'm based in Scotland so my timezone is GMT and my sleep schedule is C H A O S.⌘ I role-play multiverse by default and will only change this to single verse on request so please remember to ask if that's your preference!Cheerful Cryptid#1337⌘ Important Note: Please try to remember that my interactions with you as Zhel and my interactions with you as myself have a very clear divide.I will always indicate to you when I am in character by using prose, quotations or the /em function. Anything outside of that should be treated as myself and not Zhel. The same is said for the reverse.