Trueman Thorn

[amnesiack]

Concept: Heretical priest of the Cult of Wood.

Character Name: Thorn

Lifepaths: Village Born, Acolyte (Cult of Wood), Village Priest (Cult of Wood)

Age: 25

Stats: Pe:B4 Wi:B5 Ag:B4 Sp:B4 Po:B4 Fo:B4

Attributes: Re:B4 Ste:B5 He:B5 MW:B10 Hesitation:5 Faith:B6 Resources: B0

PTGS: Su:B3 Li:B5 Mi:B7 Se:B8 Tr:B9 Mo:B10

Skills: Doctrine B3, Forest-Wise B3, Herbalism B3, Oratory B2, Read B2, Religious History B3, Staff B2, Suasion B3, Symbology B3, Write B2

Gear: Clothes, Traveling Gear, Shoes, Herbalism Tools, Quills & Inks, Paper & Scrolls

Circles B2

Affiliations: The Cult of Wood B2 (free from Nazarite and Vested), Fort Brasser Militia B1 (granted to all players by GM at game's beginning)

Reputations: Student of the Esoteric B1 (among Truemen only)

Relationships: Rose (sister, minor), Rominoff (missionary of the Church of Fore, minor)


Traits: Nazarite, Vested, Faithful, Dreamer

Beliefs:
- My dreams come from the Forest; I will follow their direction above that of any mortal.
- Passivity is weakness; I will not be weak.
- I must seek the hidden faces of the Forest; therein lies the strength that the other Truemen have forgotten.

Instincts:
- Always keep my herbalism stocks full and close at hand.
- Always keep wood on my person.
- When confronted with danger, pray for the Forest's Blessing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nazarite replaces Tonsured in the Acolyte (Cult of Wood) lifepath. Instead of a shaved pate, Truemen (members of the Cult of Wood) keep their hair and beards completely uncut. All other effects are the same.

I'll add character background and world background when I get a few minutes later.

[luke]

nice. very simple.

This character will develop very quickly in a lot of directions at once. Play him for 10-12 sessions if you can and repost him!

also, your Faith is B6. That's cool. But what' up with that 2nd Belief then? That seems like a Belief of self-reliance. Self reliance impinges on the second and third questions...

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to understand your choices.

-L

[amnesiack]

That belief has been somewhat problematic for me. It's tied to the background of the cult of wood, so I'll go into that first. Bear with me; I tend to be verbose.

Over a thousand years ago, the Cult of Wood was formed by a council of seven spirits who sought to protect themselves and a small group of mortals from the wars that raged between the other spirits. They took those mortals and hid them in the furthest depths of the forest and taught them the peaceful arts of medicine, farming, and husbandry. Though the spirits were not warriors and armed their followers only with the miracles of their Faith, they protected their people with quick, hidden guerilla wars. All Truemen (as the wood cultists became known) were bound by the spirits to protect life (through violence if necessary) and avoid destruction.

In the intervening years, nearly all of this has been forgotten. The Truemen now simply think of the Forest as their god, and serve it as a single entitiy, though their prayers and Faith are still rewarded. Though the Truemen have always been a peaceful people, they have now become completely passive as well. They no longer act as protectors or guardians, but simply as healers and teachers, people who clean up messes that have been made without ever stepping in to prevent them from happening. There are a few dissenters among the priests of wood, and their ideas are not quashed, for the Truemen love knowledge and debate, but neither are they given much credence.

Thorn was drawn to the disparate and esoteric teachings of the temple when he was an acolyte. He has sought hidden knowledge, and been rewarded with dreams that tell him he has a special purpose. Also, when I told my GM that Thorn would be a studen of the fringe teachings of the cult, he sent me this:

"As a student of Esoterica, you are bestowed with the following knowledge. The forest has seven faces and a hundred hands. One of the faces is sleeping, another is running with sap. One if them is turned inward. However, there are two faces that are hidden, and they are not revealed to the lay people or even to some devout truemen. You have met two priests who consider themselves devoted to the secret forest, the hidden faces. They call them the face of the unknown and unknowable and the face of the righteous traitor.

Most priests do not understand or study these teachings. Some of your fellow acolytes told you that you were being lead into heresy. Only once did the Root of the temple, the oldest priest, warn you against them: he said that you were too young yet to drink so deeply."

Thorn has recently been dismissed from his post as a caretaker of a small village temple and sent to join the newly-formed Forst Brasser militia in order to have someone there to represent the cult's point of view in the region.

So, all that is to say that Thorn's view of the doctrine of the Forest is that the cult has become weak in it's passivity, and while its current works are noble, they are incomplete because of this weakness. He seeks to learn and embody the forgotten strengths of the Forest in order to act as a true guardian again.

In that respect, beliefs 2 & 3 are closely linked, and were trying to represent this overall view, but I had trouble expressing that succinctly and ended up whitling it down to what you see now.

Some beliefs that were originally considered and discarded were:

- In order to save the good, one must sometimes cut away the bad.
- The Forest has a purpose for me that is different from that of the other Truemen; I must find and fulfill that purpose.
- As the Forest protects me, so must I protect others.
- All life is sacred, but I will fight to protect the innocent if I must.

There were various reasons why I scrapped these. The first one was too broad and ephemeral. The 2nd was too close to the dream one that I still have in the current write-up. The other two just felt a bit too cliched and boring for me. I wanted something that would throw the character more into direct conflict. That's how I ended up with what I have now.

Suggestions of how to better represent all this in his beliefs would be welcome.