Sarvan
Mar 15, 2024 0:14:42 GMT -5
Post by liamp on Mar 15, 2024 0:14:42 GMT -5
Sarvan Pelis
Gender:
Male, he/him
Age:
165
Race:
Moon Elf
Nationality:
Crescent Isles/Moonglade
Appearance:
A tall, messy moon elf with pale greyish skin and blue tinted greyed hair. He has a tired face, worn from exploration, his only energy visible through bright white eyes that contrast harshly with dark pupils. His hair and beard are unkempt, his clothes faded, and boots ran to the cracking soles. Glass wine red jewelry drips and lulls from his ears, wrists, and ankles.
Personality:
Sarvan has a jaded personality for such a young elf, and lacks proper social skills. His mannerisms are from vaguely a century ago, creating an odd combination of overly polite yet short conversation, a critically studying gaze, and tired, relaxed body language. He's lost the art of small talk, often getting straight to the point. There's no promise that this 'point' makes sense to anyone else, though. He may seem melancholy, but above all, he's curious- studying people, animals, actions, and words as if searching for something deep and profound in every small detail. He strongly appreciates even the most minuscule, mundane parts of life, yet doesn't shy from the louder, the more abrasive.
History:
Sarvan, while young, had a childhood surrounded by loving care of the community of the crescent isles. He grew up watching the martial fighters, fishing with his siblings, painting, and wandering the island. He fostered an explorative spirit, sneaking to docks to listen to stories from seafarers, wading through busy inns to catch stories of far away places, and pausing before import market stalls on the way to sell fishing hauls. These interests grew to an obsession. As soon as he hit the age where his community saw him as fit to make his own decisions, he said his goodbyes, promising to return. Promising treasures and trinkets from distances untravelled, peoples undiscovered, paths untrodden. He left his home spry and yearning with a full heart, crowded in amongst a merchant ship headed to Capitol landing. The thrill of travel wore off within days of being on the ship, as he found his fellow crew to be misanthropic, doing business for gold. He was isolated on the ship, deemed young and naive. He was in solitude the remainder of sail.
Arriving in capitol, the docks seemed worse to him than the ship itself- and after laboring the day away unloading the ship and getting his pay, he ran toward the bustling streets. The colors, crowds, and music renewed the burning interest that had been dormant and gnawing in his skull. He felt as though his chest was pulling him all throughout the city, fighting the overwhelming sensation of joy and fulfillment. As his pay was chipped away, he explored to no end. He slept little, partied frivolously, ate lavishly, and took to the company of many friends he would never forget. The trip, in this moment, was worth it- until he explored too far.
Arriving in capitol, the docks seemed worse to him than the ship itself- and after laboring the day away unloading the ship and getting his pay, he ran toward the bustling streets. The colors, crowds, and music renewed the burning interest that had been dormant and gnawing in his skull. He felt as though his chest was pulling him all throughout the city, fighting the overwhelming sensation of joy and fulfillment. As his pay was chipped away, he explored to no end. He slept little, partied frivolously, ate lavishly, and took to the company of many friends he would never forget. The trip, in this moment, was worth it- until he explored too far.
He was not a man of tribulation, and being so forcefully met with people suffering under it, began to tear at him. The poverty of the landing was crushing, and he began to see the injustice and cruelty, the pure indifference of those with full stomachs and pockets that walked through the slums and paid no mind. He ran through the last of his pay here, trying to help what he could, and understand that which he was confronted with. But he couldn't make sense of the city, the sprawling population resting above suffering, crowding and choking nature. He would think back to the pessimistic views of his old crew, and begin to agree- especially when those views were webbed around him from the mouths of beggars and impoverished.
He decided to run, with nowhere to go. He caught a ship, anywhere out of here. A mercenary ship.
He decided to run, with nowhere to go. He caught a ship, anywhere out of here. A mercenary ship.
He and the crew were sent off to Dragon's Cradle to hunt some creature. The details, Sarvan doesn't truly remember, as they never got to complete their mission. Their camp was attacked by bandits in the broad daylight, confident, merciless thugs that took everything of worth and killed any who fought back. Sarvan and two others survived. One of the two others, a sharp-tongued halfling skilled with a mace, died from wounds sustained in the battle after days of traveling. The last, a fellblood, abandoned Sarvan in the night, taking what resources they had gathered together. So, our moon elf trudged through days to the dock the crew had landed in, eventually begging a departing ship to let him on. They declined, preferring to leave him to death rather than spare the food.
He stowed away, eating stale remains of rations and drinking from nearly empty bottles left near the dark corners he slunk through. When they landed, it was in King's Valley, where Sarvan fled to the wilds. He would watch tribes from afar and learn the ways they survived, taking these lessons to heart and retreating to seclusion. After a decade, he believed that untouched nature was the true justice, the balance of equal creatures being the only solace in life. No complications, no society, only the ecosystem in its prime. He lived in the wilds, speaking not a word, hunting, cultivating, and tracking for decades.
Near the end of a century in this lifestyle, a young human girl wandered across his makeshift camp, lost and bloodied. Sarvan helped the terrified child recover, and after bandaging her and offering her food, got her story of what had happened. Her tribe had been attacked by creatures she didn't recognize, large beasts that overwhelmed their fighters. A slaughter the child had barely escaped. Sarvan did his best to comfort her, resorting to his own comfort- the cyclical nature of the wilds, that her tribe had fallen to. He tried his best to explain that such was the way of life- but the child was inconsolable. With nowhere for her to go, Sarvan couldn't leave her to the glade alone and injured. He'd help her heal, then leave her with the next tribe he came across.
This short healing period passed, as did tribes, and before either of them realized, they had been travelling and hunting together for 2 years. The child had renewed a kindness in Sarvan, and Sarvan had grown a love of life in the wilds within the child. He saw her as his own daughter, his own family, as she saw him.
They had gotten separated one night, through ways Sarvan still can't recognize, and he spent days searching for her. Until he found the remains of a small humanoid child, being picked clean by a haggardly pack of scavenger birds. Sarvan instantly broke. This, he saw, was not balance, it was not just. A child who could no no better, in the charge of a man who did everything he could, was not the right target to be taken from this world. When he imagined the fear she must have felt, he sobbed. He fell to the ground, and did not rise for hours. When he did, he was numb, empty. The next few days, he went through the motions, merely survived.
When he regained his feeling, he was soured to the wilds he'd called home for a century. He found pain in every hunt, guilt in every step. He could not live this false peace he had made for himself. So he approached a tribe and made his way to the nearest docks, scrounging some small coin and dusty, discarded clothes. He almost dreaded the sight of a ship again- but watching the wind run through dropped sails and flapping clothes, he saw it as his only chance to leave, to understand what he had run form so long ago.