#gauntlet.intro

[aymericxandros]

⇲ Here comes AYMERIC XANDROS. Someone keeps telling me he looks just like CHRIS EVANS. HE is a 38/142 year old BASILISK. I also heard that while HE can be GENTLEMANLY & DETAIL-ORIENTED but also sometimes gets a little COLD & SNAPPISH. He has aligned himself with NO-ONE for now, but who knows what might change their mind. HE HAS run the gauntlet.

⇲  BIOGRAPHY

PAST: His family was never wealthy. In fact, Aymeric was born into the lowest class dwelling within Baeshra. His parents kept their heads down. especially where it concerned the power of their only child. Aymeric’s parents believed that he was blind from birth, his eyes a glossy white and the pupils unnaturally small. And while it was true that their son seemed to follow whomever had his attention by sound, they were unfortunately and gravely mistaken in their assumptions. As he grew older, and at the age of six, Aymeric petrified his father in place — not with fear, but into solid stone. It was a complete accident, but one that began a turn for the darker in the young chapter of his life.

Life was a whirlwind from there. His mother, in fear of what her son could do, worked tooth and nail to keep a meager income until she all but sold her son to a self-proclaimed soldier trainer — a promise that he could produce the best stock for the gauntlet. Aymeric’s mother didn’t care about her son’s winning … she merely wanted him out of her life, and at seven years old that was the last he saw of her. Operating with a thin blindfold to keep himself from harming another person accidentally, Aymeric trained with this “soldier trainer” every day until it came time to run his gauntlet. In a fight to the death with low expectations for the nobody, poor, blind boy Aymeric unleashed what he’s considered to be a curse from birth purposely. He cut down his opposition with ruthless efficiency and claimed victory, then quickly claimed his neutrality from the whole ordeal, hoping to sink back into relative nothingness.

PRESENT: Aymeric lives a simple life, and that’s how he prefers it. Working as a rather successful architect, he’s risen well-above his station early in life and remains incredibly humble about it. There are very few individuals he’ll allow himself to grow close to, and even then he barely has anyone he can consider a friend. Part of his unease is a fear of harming another with his power, but the rest remains with disinterest in the civil war of Baeshra. He’d much rather use his hands for building than destroying, after all.

Aymeric has kept the answer of his vision a rather private secret: he can see (though he’s incredibly color blind, and his vision is more heat-based than not), but he’d prefer that people believe he is wholly blind rather than know the truth. You can find him at his shop wearing his red-tinted sunglasses and working on his blueprints. If you’re interested in his work, you can commission a building and he’ll send some of his finest carpenters to a job site after he finalizes his designs … but keep out of his personal business. And don’t ever mention his gauntlet.

Connections:

Slow-burn: She’s caught his eye (no pun intended) but Aymeric is careful, always looking to keep his distance. He’s had small flings over his 142 years but he’s never committed himself to anyone. It’s obvious he has intimacy issues, but the root is that he wants to be sure he doesn’t accidentally petrify someone he actually cares about ... but he’s soft for her, in his own way. He looks out for her, even if he goes about it all in the more awkward way. Mostly he wants to help ensure they’re not caught in the crossfire of the conflict in Baeshra.

Honestly I really need anything and I promise I’ll add something definitive here when I flesh Aymeric out a little more.

[beautyinhxll]

Here comes VERENA ABASCAL. Someone keeps telling me they look just like IVANA BAQUERO. SHE is a 24/374 year old DRYAD. I also heard that while SHE can be DILIGENT and QUICK-WITTED but also sometimes get a little IMPATIENT AND TEMPERAMENTAL. They have aligned themselves with the GEMINI ALLIANCE for now, being A MEMBER of the ROUGE FACTION but who knows what might change their mind. SHE HAS run the gauntlet.

Verena comes from a small community of dryads, first situated in Spain and then traveled overseas to the Americas (after a torturous voyage with no greenery in sight). She came to America in the mid-1600s so it has always been her home, and she has watched it grow and expand. Except of course until the head of the Rouge Faction stole her and her family (most of which died over the years). The Baeshra people put these dryads into a hibernation until the early 20th century. That was when Verena woke up to the smell of corruption, blood, and death. It didn’t take long for her to focus this anger and pain of losing her family into fighting, into the gauntlet. And she won.

She has seen the bloodshed throughout the years, countless gauntlets, America’s wars, what was once a beautiful land lay to waste. It has made her angry and numb. She works at the harbor, anything to be outside near the wind and fresh air, even if trees aren’t in abundance where she works. The hustle and bustle of the harbor keep her mind occupied so it doesn’t wander to somewhere dangerous. She has turned her back on her origins, only seeking out greenery when she grows weak. She has some house plants at home but they are nothing like the Americas once were, what she was supposed to live in hundreds of years ago.

She surprisingly doesn’t hold resentment towards the Rouge Faction. Sometimes she tells herself she was weak before she was found. Sometimes she tells herself her family didn’t love her, and the Rouge Faction does. Sometimes she is grateful for the new start, for she is strong and fierce and her own master. It doesn’t take a scientist to see she has been brainwashed, either by others or her own doing.

[maddoxbl]

*waves* hi everyone! I’m Chloe. I will slowly be getting to my bios but here is my first word-vomity one (Maddox was in a short-lived roleplay where the bios were long af. I tried to lessen it but idk)

Here comes MADDOX BLACKTHORN. Someone keeps telling me they look just like JASON RALPH. HE is a 28 year old BANSHEE. I also heard that while HE can be INDEPENDENT and HUMBLE but also sometimes get a little OBTUSE and QUIET. They have aligned themselves with NO ONE for now, but who knows what might change their mind. HE HAS NOT run the gauntlet.

PAST:

He was bullied in school for being adopted. He was taunted for not having a “real” family, but Maddox always played it off like it didn’t matter. He loved his adoptive parents. They were mom and dad, and in primary school he gladly went to church with Mr and Mrs Blackthorn, but as they became more zealous he pulled away. They noticed him less, staying out longer with their peers, being missionaries in their communities and attending mass.

As puberty began, Maddox’s nightmares got worse, vivid, and his sleepwalking occurred more often, cutting up his feet. He barely had peach fuzz on his lip when his parents started whispering about exorcisms, an archaic, extinct practice. The screaming got more violent, even shattering glass and somehow shaking the house at night. This wasn’t mere adolescence. Thankfully Mr and Mrs Blackthorn didn’t follow through with the empty threats, but they shipped their only son off to a boarding school; he was someone else’s problem now, and they could focus their time on God’s will.

It was here, with a mansion full of strangers, that Maddox began remembering his nightmares the day after, and therefore became afraid to sleep. He didn’t take good care of his body, he shook in class and his roommates complained about his late-night pacing. He suffered years of being afraid to sleep at night, and instead of going home for the summer after graduation, he traveled and studied. He’d always been in-cognizant to the political economy and supernatural beings, only being fed the prejudiced rubbish his pious parents and all-boy’s school cared to share with him. From his findings, Maddox learned what he might’ve been, a banshee. After months of seeking help and growing estranged from the only people he’d had in his life, he met a supernatural couple who took him under their wing. ‘Go to medical school,’ they offered. ‘Learn anatomy, so you can put words to your visions. You won’t be able to stop the death from happening, but being able to explain it may help, to get it out in some form, be it in art or writing or verbally or some other way may help.’ He’d never thought of it that way, but he soon loved these two, and took their words like gospel. Everything they said seemed to be just right, and made perfect sense.

He never fully understood how to control his powers, if they could even be considered that. After obtaining his medical degree he moved to Baeshra to be with people of ‘his own kind’ and hopefully learn more about himself and his past. Maybe in due time he wouldn’t be terrified of sleeping.

CURRENT:

For as long as he can remember, Maddox Blackthorn hasn’t been a stranger to nightmares. He even keeps a fresh glass of water next to his bed, in the almost regular event that he wakes up parched or sweating or gasping in fright. Again, it’s nothing new.

The nightmares keep him up at night, pouring coffee day in and day out, an endless cycle of jitters. A walking zombie, the thought keeps popping up in his head. Not 28 Days Later, but Night of the Living Dead. He knows he’s not violent, he drowns in blood and gory images at night. He has the stomach for it of course, working in the morgue and helping the Police Department on some grisly cases. But Maddox Blackthorn would much rather be alone, for everyone’s sake.

Strangers falling off cliffs, car crashes that he feels in his chest, gunshot wounds that leave him slick with sweat upon waking up before the birds could even begin to sing. This is why he paced at night, why his bed was made more often than used, why he drank hundreds of dollars worth of coffee. And again, it’s getting worse. He has to make some change, find some people to help him, to get better. People like him, hopefully. And with the gauntlet looming over his head, he practices fighting, afraid his clock will run out before he has the chance to get any answers to his millions of questions.

TL;DR (I get it)

Maddox was adopted by religious parents who threatened to exorcise him when his banshee abilities began. He was eventually shipped off to an all-boys school where the nightmares only got worse and he became afraid to fall asleep. After graduation, with poor health thanks to not sleeping or eating well, he met a supernatural couple who spoke of Baeshra and told him to get a medical degree, to de-stigmatize the horrific images he saw every night. He moved to Baeshra afterwards and became a forensic pathologist. He is still pretty new and doesn’t know many people, hence being neutral.