Beak
Jun 8, 2024 3:08:56 GMT -5
Post by Beak on Jun 8, 2024 3:08:56 GMT -5
Gender:
Female, She/Her
Female, She/Her
Age:
Hard to say, precisely. She died a warrior's death in her young adulthood, then remained dead for millennia before her eventual reanimation. She remembers nothing of the span between her first and second lives; to her, the time passed almost instantly, as surely and with the same feeling as the time between when one falls asleep at night and when one awakens in the morning. She suffered a mortal wound, "fell asleep," and then "woke up" in the modern era. Since awakening, she has been roaming the land for somewhere around fifty years in her current form, and has not felt herself aging any further in that time. So... how does one measure her age, then? Mid to late twenties, if one considers her time alive and the level of youthful vigor she seems to have retained permanently. Seventy or so, if measuring by how long she has been "awake." Three to four thousand or more, if counting her time "asleep" as well. Beak is as youthful as she is ancient.
Hard to say, precisely. She died a warrior's death in her young adulthood, then remained dead for millennia before her eventual reanimation. She remembers nothing of the span between her first and second lives; to her, the time passed almost instantly, as surely and with the same feeling as the time between when one falls asleep at night and when one awakens in the morning. She suffered a mortal wound, "fell asleep," and then "woke up" in the modern era. Since awakening, she has been roaming the land for somewhere around fifty years in her current form, and has not felt herself aging any further in that time. So... how does one measure her age, then? Mid to late twenties, if one considers her time alive and the level of youthful vigor she seems to have retained permanently. Seventy or so, if measuring by how long she has been "awake." Three to four thousand or more, if counting her time "asleep" as well. Beak is as youthful as she is ancient.
Race:
Lizardfolk (Undead - Skeleton)
Lizardfolk (Undead - Skeleton)
Nationality:
Originally from an ancient, now no longer existent village in the Marsh Flats region.
Currently living with Rena Brighteyes and the Blackfeather clan in the Crescent Isles region.
Appearance:
This strange and eccentric lizard woman can be described one of two ways, depending on how deep one may be willing or able to look.
This strange and eccentric lizard woman can be described one of two ways, depending on how deep one may be willing or able to look.
Appearance (At First Glance):
![](https://i.imgur.com/OP7GNvh.jpg)
Beak is a mysterious and anonymous yet apparently aged and feeble old woman. Dressed head to toe in a faded yet still all-concealing purple or maroon hooded cloak, gloves, and boots, every aspect of her identity is hidden. Even her tail--the only feature that betrays her racial identification as lizardfolk--is covered in wrappings, with not a single scale left exposed.
A mask fashioned from an ancient lizardfolk's skull hides any trace of a visible face. Sun-bleached, forever fixed in that leering sort of skeletal grin, the mask's narrowed snout emerges from the hooded cloak in a manner reminiscent of Plague Doctors. This, one supposes, is where she earned the diminutive nickname "Beak," the only form of identity she offers when asked.
![](https://i.imgur.com/OP7GNvh.jpg)
Art by Awful Feline Art
Beak is a mysterious and anonymous yet apparently aged and feeble old woman. Dressed head to toe in a faded yet still all-concealing purple or maroon hooded cloak, gloves, and boots, every aspect of her identity is hidden. Even her tail--the only feature that betrays her racial identification as lizardfolk--is covered in wrappings, with not a single scale left exposed.
A mask fashioned from an ancient lizardfolk's skull hides any trace of a visible face. Sun-bleached, forever fixed in that leering sort of skeletal grin, the mask's narrowed snout emerges from the hooded cloak in a manner reminiscent of Plague Doctors. This, one supposes, is where she earned the diminutive nickname "Beak," the only form of identity she offers when asked.
Appearance (Her Secret Revealed):
![](https://i.imgur.com/kmAKHSY.jpeg)
Perhaps a sufficiently observant or magically gifted adventurer noticed this detail about her right away, or perhaps the revelation only hits in hindsight. Either way, the first realization about this "old woman" is the largest: That skull she wears is no mask, nor is she wearing it. No, Beak is a true and actual skeleton, reanimated by unknown means and now masquerading as a living being. Ironically, the mysterious identity-concealing woman has been showing her true face all along.
Her gloves, boots, and wrappings covering her tail are all attempts to conceal the fleshless bones beneath, of course, and her reliance on telepathic communication allows her to pretend that her skull is an unmoving mask. The way she carries herself as a feeble old woman is likewise an act; while she may be truly ancient by the technical definition, she is as youthful, athletic, and spry as she was the day she died.
![](https://i.imgur.com/kmAKHSY.jpeg)
Art by Awful Feline Art
Perhaps a sufficiently observant or magically gifted adventurer noticed this detail about her right away, or perhaps the revelation only hits in hindsight. Either way, the first realization about this "old woman" is the largest: That skull she wears is no mask, nor is she wearing it. No, Beak is a true and actual skeleton, reanimated by unknown means and now masquerading as a living being. Ironically, the mysterious identity-concealing woman has been showing her true face all along.
Her gloves, boots, and wrappings covering her tail are all attempts to conceal the fleshless bones beneath, of course, and her reliance on telepathic communication allows her to pretend that her skull is an unmoving mask. The way she carries herself as a feeble old woman is likewise an act; while she may be truly ancient by the technical definition, she is as youthful, athletic, and spry as she was the day she died.
Personality:
Beak maintains a mostly jovial, if slighty sarcastic wit about her, appropriate for her grandmotherly act. She is the type to call people "dearie" and to draw far more amusement than she should from calling herself an old woman (technically, she's not wrong! Ehehehe~)
However, just as her robes and wrappings disguise her bones, her playful bantering covers an underlying source of pain and longing. The circumstances of her death have left her feeling bereft of purpose, and this is something she yearns to fix. She can come across as cold or aloof when she seems not to care about the struggles of the day, about who sits atop what throne in which region, but she is merely suffering from a deep depression related to her own circumstances.
She wants to care. She wants to believe again. She takes no pleasure from taking no pleasure. She wants to feel like there's some sort of point to getting involved in worldly affairs like she used to, a point to making friends and allies and attempting to make the world a better place. Perhaps the right companions can give these old bones of hers some spark of life once more, assuming she can find anyone who won't judge her for her... ah... condition.
Beak maintains a mostly jovial, if slighty sarcastic wit about her, appropriate for her grandmotherly act. She is the type to call people "dearie" and to draw far more amusement than she should from calling herself an old woman (technically, she's not wrong! Ehehehe~)
However, just as her robes and wrappings disguise her bones, her playful bantering covers an underlying source of pain and longing. The circumstances of her death have left her feeling bereft of purpose, and this is something she yearns to fix. She can come across as cold or aloof when she seems not to care about the struggles of the day, about who sits atop what throne in which region, but she is merely suffering from a deep depression related to her own circumstances.
She wants to care. She wants to believe again. She takes no pleasure from taking no pleasure. She wants to feel like there's some sort of point to getting involved in worldly affairs like she used to, a point to making friends and allies and attempting to make the world a better place. Perhaps the right companions can give these old bones of hers some spark of life once more, assuming she can find anyone who won't judge her for her... ah... condition.
History:
Before the Marsh Flats were all-consuming marshes, there used to be various villages and communities dotting a plain. Once, there was a tribe called the Ibekki. They were invaded. A warrior named Abek fought the invaders. She died. Now she's back.
If this all sounds like a glossed-over, uninterested retelling of what should be important events, this is the source of Beak's pain. It is precisely because she lacks that feeling of importance that Beak finds herself so empty in her new unlife. She knows not how long she remained dead, but when she rose again, the entire valley was gone. Where once there were villages, where once there were leaders waging wars for control, now there was nothing but empty marshland. This perspective taught her a nihilistic, fatalistic worldview: Did any of what she fought or died for matter, truly? In the end, her whole civilization succumbed to the marsh anyway.
Perhaps there was a difference between the factions vying for control. Perhaps, if the Ibekki had repelled the invasion, they'd resume their lives of peace and prosperity as they always had. Perhaps, if the Ibekki had fallen, the invaders would have ruled tyrannically and crushed the innocent without mercy. Perhaps, at the time, Abek truly believed the distinction between them was of vital importance to the future of the entire plain... but in the end, one of them won, and then the entire plain was gone. The oppressed and the liberated died all the same, all bones littering the same lonely swampland.
Why had Abek bothered to give her original life for some ruler of some land that doesn't even exist anymore? What had that gained anyone or anything at all?
Nor could Abek explain why exactly she had returned. When necromancers raise minions, or when walking corpses occur naturally, they lack awareness, do they not? Yet here she stands, as lucid--downright eloquent, even--as she ever was in life. Abek's name was lost not because mindless bones were raised without it, but because Beak consciously chose to discard it out of feelings of nothing mattering anymore... and even then, her new name came from simply rearranging the letters, as if deep down she still wishes to keep a trace of it. Still, all Beak knows is that she rose some unknown yet presumably long span of time after she fell, with all of her wits and no masters or answer to the question that has haunted her ever since: "What now?"
Scorned for her undead nature and disconnected from the state of the world, she withdrew to life on the margins, even her old name no longer important enough to keep. She's nobody. She's just Beak. But... is she truly happy this way? Perhaps, deep down, she longs for something--or someone--to believe in again....
Before the Marsh Flats were all-consuming marshes, there used to be various villages and communities dotting a plain. Once, there was a tribe called the Ibekki. They were invaded. A warrior named Abek fought the invaders. She died. Now she's back.
If this all sounds like a glossed-over, uninterested retelling of what should be important events, this is the source of Beak's pain. It is precisely because she lacks that feeling of importance that Beak finds herself so empty in her new unlife. She knows not how long she remained dead, but when she rose again, the entire valley was gone. Where once there were villages, where once there were leaders waging wars for control, now there was nothing but empty marshland. This perspective taught her a nihilistic, fatalistic worldview: Did any of what she fought or died for matter, truly? In the end, her whole civilization succumbed to the marsh anyway.
Perhaps there was a difference between the factions vying for control. Perhaps, if the Ibekki had repelled the invasion, they'd resume their lives of peace and prosperity as they always had. Perhaps, if the Ibekki had fallen, the invaders would have ruled tyrannically and crushed the innocent without mercy. Perhaps, at the time, Abek truly believed the distinction between them was of vital importance to the future of the entire plain... but in the end, one of them won, and then the entire plain was gone. The oppressed and the liberated died all the same, all bones littering the same lonely swampland.
Why had Abek bothered to give her original life for some ruler of some land that doesn't even exist anymore? What had that gained anyone or anything at all?
Nor could Abek explain why exactly she had returned. When necromancers raise minions, or when walking corpses occur naturally, they lack awareness, do they not? Yet here she stands, as lucid--downright eloquent, even--as she ever was in life. Abek's name was lost not because mindless bones were raised without it, but because Beak consciously chose to discard it out of feelings of nothing mattering anymore... and even then, her new name came from simply rearranging the letters, as if deep down she still wishes to keep a trace of it. Still, all Beak knows is that she rose some unknown yet presumably long span of time after she fell, with all of her wits and no masters or answer to the question that has haunted her ever since: "What now?"
Scorned for her undead nature and disconnected from the state of the world, she withdrew to life on the margins, even her old name no longer important enough to keep. She's nobody. She's just Beak. But... is she truly happy this way? Perhaps, deep down, she longs for something--or someone--to believe in again....
Recent Developments:
![](https://i.imgur.com/L1oYC53.png)
(Note: This is the character growth and development since Beak has debuted and started roleplaying in Charon. You can see all of this in action in the record of her adventuring career in The Beak Book!)
Since her debut, Beak has made friends and... slowly... tried to warm up to the world. It turns out that many regions in the realm aren't as hostile to the undead as she'd initially believed, and that she might not have to put so much effort into hiding and disguises... but old habits die hard.
She's learned that the Ibekki were in fact the losers of that fateful battle, and that her entire people were most likely slaughtered to the last on the same day that she was. She has since shifted her attention to honoring them, somehow. If no one in this realm will remember them, or tell their stories... she will. She dreams of becoming an Ibekki Gri'kka--the clan's spiritual and political leader, the one tasked with maintaining and preserving their ways and ensuring their people shall always remain recorded in the great book-beyond-the-stars. Standing in her way is the fact that she was but a simple warrior, one who never had to learn any of the rituals or lore or anything at all about her people except defending them, and now there's no one left to teach her. Still, there must be some way....
The most surprising development to her, though, is that she's found love. Now living with Rena Brighteyes and the Blackfeather clan, she had the immense and immeasurable honor of performing the Ibekki newborn welcoming ceremony on their children Somber Hum and Morning Chimes, making them the first official additions to the clan, the first new names added to the great book in over three thousand years.
In other words, she has long way to go, but things are looking up...?
![](https://i.imgur.com/L1oYC53.png)
Art by Marion Aurea
(Note: This is the character growth and development since Beak has debuted and started roleplaying in Charon. You can see all of this in action in the record of her adventuring career in The Beak Book!)
Since her debut, Beak has made friends and... slowly... tried to warm up to the world. It turns out that many regions in the realm aren't as hostile to the undead as she'd initially believed, and that she might not have to put so much effort into hiding and disguises... but old habits die hard.
She's learned that the Ibekki were in fact the losers of that fateful battle, and that her entire people were most likely slaughtered to the last on the same day that she was. She has since shifted her attention to honoring them, somehow. If no one in this realm will remember them, or tell their stories... she will. She dreams of becoming an Ibekki Gri'kka--the clan's spiritual and political leader, the one tasked with maintaining and preserving their ways and ensuring their people shall always remain recorded in the great book-beyond-the-stars. Standing in her way is the fact that she was but a simple warrior, one who never had to learn any of the rituals or lore or anything at all about her people except defending them, and now there's no one left to teach her. Still, there must be some way....
The most surprising development to her, though, is that she's found love. Now living with Rena Brighteyes and the Blackfeather clan, she had the immense and immeasurable honor of performing the Ibekki newborn welcoming ceremony on their children Somber Hum and Morning Chimes, making them the first official additions to the clan, the first new names added to the great book in over three thousand years.
In other words, she has long way to go, but things are looking up...?
Art Credits:
The first three pictures in this bio are by Awful Feline Art, which is something of a misnomer as the art and artist alike are both actually quite lovely.
awfulfeline.com/
The last one is by Charon forum and Discord regular Marion Aurea, who is also quite lovely.
The first three pictures in this bio are by Awful Feline Art, which is something of a misnomer as the art and artist alike are both actually quite lovely.
awfulfeline.com/
The last one is by Charon forum and Discord regular Marion Aurea, who is also quite lovely.