DM Handle:  wordsmith17

 

Contact Info: wordsmith17[at]gmail[dot]com

 

Character Count: 0

 

Character Name: Marden Coll

Nationality: Cairhienin

Age: 24

 

Physical Characteristic:  Hair is a dark chocolate brown, wavy, not long enough to be pulled back, and a little shaggy but overall not unkempt;  He sports a small pointed beard and mustache as tends to be popular off and on among Cairhienin nobility; Eye color is a very pale hazel, somewhere between pale green and ochre; He is tall compared to his family, though still hovering around average Cairhienin standards...  approximately 5'6"; weight is approx 165 lb

 

Physical Description:  

 

Marden has a bluff, honest face, which might have been an extremely effective tool in the game of Daes Dae'mar had he developed any kind of interest in it.  His frame is somewhat different from those of his almost delicately sized family:  his bone structure seems stocky and built to support heavy musculature like you might find on a blacksmith, though his actual muscle tone is somewhat wiry and lean.  The resulting effect makes him seem lankier and more akward than he actually is, and he always likened his proportions to those of a horse bred from a Dhurran and a Tairen Warmblood…  two totally different breeds.  His older brother would jibe that Marden must be adopted or of another father, and the one time his mother overheard this comment her reaction was so intense that it was almost a year before his brother picked up that line of teasing once more, carefully out of her earshot.

 

Personal History:

 

Marden’s family is of middling nobility, descended from a long line of horse breeders.  They tend to be a dour, pessimistic bunch, and Marden’s mother tends toward erratic mood swings and somewhat paranoid fancies that keep the household frequently on edge.  It seemed more frequently than not that she practiced Daes Dae’mar on her two sons even more unscrupulously than she did with other Houses.  Marden’s older brother always had a cruel barb to impart, and although Marden himself was optimistic and personable, occasional undercurrents of his brother’s particular brand of wit began to show through under duress.  Marden tended toward mood swings as well, though in a way that could be likened to the Cairhienin Feast of Lights:  On normal days he could boast a level head and a friendly disposition, a very tightly controlled, unremarkable mask.  When the mask failed, it failed entirely.  He could become a completely different person, aberrant and unpredictable, but only ever in a short-term capacity.  

 

His father often traveled to Tear, on some business or other about horses usually, and Marden found himself allowed to go along as he grew older.  When they took up rooms in the city, the Stone captured his imagination in ways that bookkeeping and keeping track of the family accounts never could.  His tutor had always talked to him passionately about engineering; old battles, construction of fortifications,  abatis and cheveux de fris, trigonometry and projectile motion.   Such concrete things always held his attention over more abstract lessons, like the Great Game.  His Great Game would forever be found in the logic and order of a stones board.

 

It was the third time he went with his father to Tear that he was old enough to really go off and do his own thing for the duration of the trip.  Over a very expensive game of cards one night, the other young Lordlings gossiped and bantered in increasingly drunken tones.  Finally, a topic came up that would have been shushed down on a dryer night: men channeling the True Source, and the amnesty.  The thought was a terrifying one, upon initially hearing it, but subsequent trips found him keeping a weather eye out for the supposed training grounds, or perhaps one of the black-coated men.  The realization slowly dawned on Marden that he was more than just morbidly curious; he found himself frequently dwelling for hours on what it would mean to wield the Power, to become a weapon, a part of something greater.  He envisioned himself partaking in great battles, protecting the world, moving mountains… perhaps literally… for the greater good of the world.  The taint was barely an afterthought, something that might be some minor hindrance in the distant future.

 

It never actually occurred to him that things wouldn’t happen exactly as he envisioned.  Rotting away and dying, mad and alone and tortured… That was for other people.  Being killed by the Source, if he was even capable of learning in the first place… or being killed simply for what he might become.  His blindness to any options other than what he imagined was more than just the invincible mindset of youth.  Marden’s optimism with each passing year was becoming more and more pathological, a flat denial of anything he did not want to believe.  Blatant disregard would see him moving forward.  And perhaps part of it was the unrecognized but deep-seated need to be anywhere than where he was.  His unfortunate response was to grasp at the most dangerous straw he could find, and to hold it clenched tightly to his chest.

 

The day he turned 24 saw him halfway to his destination in Tear, leaving his family with no word aside from a vague note.  He sought out the recruiters in the city, where he learned eventually that his training would take place elsewhere.  The rip in the Fabric of the Pattern in front of him on the night he was escorted away was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

CCd