Aredil

Name: Aredil
Species: Tawny Elf
Age: [—]
Gender: Male
Height: 6'8"
Weight: 245 lbs.
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown

Appearance
Facial Features: Aredil has a square-jawed, clean-featured face that accentuates his masculinity. His nose is large and central, though unbroken, his eyes are shallowly set below a stern and slightly lined brow, and his lips are moderately thin and almost always cracked by heat and weather. His cheeks are set just barely on the higher side of his face and are neither sallow or puffy but somewhere in between. He has pale brown skin color, almost tawny when he sweats, and it is unmarred but for a scattering of light freckles across his cheeks and nose.

His eyebrows are severe, but separate and defined. His hair is shorn closely and evenly, with no attempt at style or even care; it is frequently or always messy, and usually dirty as well. His ears are pointed in the manner of elves, making them a bit longer than human ears, and are angled outward from his head.

Physique: Aredil is built long and thick. His shoulders are wide and laden with heavy muscle, his arms likewise banded with thick bands of the steel-hard stuff that comes from work as a smith. His abdomen is almost as thick as his torso and just as thickly muscled as his arms and shoulders, as are his impressively large and muscular legs. The muscles covering his entire body are similar in size to the musculature of prize-winning body-builders, but in the functional fashion so admired by sculptors and artists throughout the entire universe.

Clothing: Aredil wears tough brown trousers, tied with cords around his ankles and knees to keep them tight and his legs uninhibited, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt—with extra portions of billow—which is open at his neck and kept tucked into his trousers. A tough leather belt is buckled at his weight, and his feet are clad in hard-soled boots. He carries an inflexible leather smithing apron with him at all times, and a bag of the same material carries his supplies and money.

Body Markings: His hands are visibly calloused. He has a thick scar running down the left side of his torso and various smaller ones across his arms, legs, and abdomen.

Armor: Aredil has yet to forge himself a suit of good armor.

Weapons
Battleaxe: His weapon of choice is a battleaxe that is fully five feet tall from the blunt cap at the base of its haft to the pointed tip of its double-head. It was smithed by Aredil personally from nickel-iron superalloy and is unmitigatedly heavy. The head itself is two feet wide at the widest places on the half-disc heads, which are about two-thirds again as long as they wide and completely solid. The haft of the battleaxe is the same metal, completely smooth, and wrapped with a single leather strap.

Daenys: Aredil has one priceless, irreplaceable possession, and that is his hammer. Used to forge and used to fight, the hammer is crafted from the uniquely valuable ore known to him as orichalcum and made by his own two hands. It is the very symbol, in his mind, of his status as a true master of the forge.

The hammer itself is effectively indestructible, assumably immune to all elements, and channels electricity with the same effectiveness as or greater effectiveness than gold, otherwise the best known conductor of electricity in his knowledge. The metal does not corrode, does not respond to polish, and has a natural gold-tinged silver color that almost seems to glow under sunlight and actually does glow in the light of a suitably hot fire close at hand. The head of the hammer is shaped on both sides like the base of an anvil and engraved with geometric and swirling designs, the grip textured lightly and shaped specifically for his hand. The distance from the base of the hammer haft to the upper ridge of the hammer head is 2'7", the head itself 7 1/2" wide and 3" thick either direction.

Aredil named his hammer Daenys, the name his father and grandfather named their hammers, in honor of his ancestral bond with the forge. It is a name that, in the additive language of his own family, means "temper" in the sense of the heat treatment of alloys.

Skills and Magic
Metallurgy: The skill of his smithing has gone past conventional method and knowledge; he is a true master artisan of metals, with a talent and instinct for valuable ore and metal. He believes that he can hear metals speaking to him, advising him in their forging. It is his desire in life to forge great metals.

Notably, he is a master smith in the mythically rare metal he knows as orichalcum. This metal is impervious to known levels of heat, conducts electricity almost perfectly and without any sign of detriment, and seems naturally resistant to known magic. Every orichalcum shard he has ever found actively resists magical enchantment and completely shreds weak enchantments. Effects of magic have an odd tendency to be rendered intangible against certain possessors of orichalcum shards or items. Aredil guards the secret of his orichalcum forging zealously, though he wields it as the skill in which he takes the greatest and most justified pride.

Magic: Although he, as an elf, could technically use magic, he actively and deliberately does not . It is notable, however, that he is neither incapable or inept in magical practice. He simply does not use it.

Strengths:

• Aledil is physically powerful in a primordial sense of the word. His strength, endurance, speed, and reflexes are akin to the naturally heightened and instinctively capital attributes of predators with long and illustrious histories. It is partly his choice of occupation, partly his choice of combatant lifestyle, but almost entirely genetics. Overpowering others and moving with lethal grace comes as naturally to him as it does to the wolves of old and untouched forests.
  
  
• Though he has none of the heightened senses of certain other species of elf, his awareness of his own senses can make it seem so. His sense of touch, especially, is a sense he is particularly and thoroughly aware of. In humans, the sense of touch has been mistaken for a sixth sense because it has the queer ability to sense supernatural qualities through the unique electromagnetic fields living and non-living, especially supernatural, beings give off. This awareness can give him an edge in the dark and makes him more aware of similarly supernatural beings.
  
  
• As a fighter, he is overpowering and dynamic, capable of using his battleaxe to intimidate as much as damage. He is fully aware of how ridiculously terrifying it is to see someone of his stature hefting such a monumental and savage-looking weapon, and utilizes that knowledge to its maximum capacity. Often he seeks to cause fear more than he seeks to cause injury.

Weaknesses:

• The awareness so natural to him is something of a curse, and often he finds himself roused more than once a night from noises and feelings that another would sleep through. As a result, he is often sleep-deprived. The physical fatigue of reacting even in his sleep is another unfortunate side effect; though he functions at his peak during all waking hours, tiredness is a frequent and seemingly ever-present struggle for him. His mental reactions tend to be slower than his physical ones, which can be a problem.
  
  
• Magic, a tool that he could probably use to devastating effect in combat or impressive effect in the world at large, is a tool he forsakes willingly and actively. As a result he is wholly reliant on his orichalcum hammer as the only defense he holds against magic. Against technology more advanced than what he is familiar with or able to acquire, the odds-evening capability of magic is completely lost and he is subject to the physical laws associated with science. Any reactions he makes against either magic or technology are always baseline physical, and his hammer is meager protection at best.
  
  
• Capable as he is, fearsome as he is, an experienced or skilled combatant with suitably tough nerves could match or better him blow for blow in real combat. This is primarily a result of his emphasis on shock value and use of brutally straightforward combat tactics. The former is easily ignored by a cool head, the latter outclassed by strength-backed finesse.
  
  
• His pride and greed can be huge stumbling-blocks for him.

Personality: Aledil is a dynamic, proud person with a bold heart and a keen mind. It takes only a few moments to learn whether you will love him or hate him. His brutal honestly is direct, sometimes even mean, and he pulls punches for no one. Because he is bold and honest, his entire personality has an indomitable, unbreakable air to it that makes him seem bigger and stronger just by the impressive weight of his confidence. The concept of tact is one that is lost on him, but so is the concept of cruelty. As a result he is an innocently dangerous person to be around, able to anger or soothe people without knowing he does it.

The former has a tendency to provoke predictable reactions from people, reactions to which he himself reacts without tact or consideration. It is his automatic instinct to crush opposition and assert dominance, an instinct he neither questions nor checks. As a result, he can seem angry and insufferable without feeling more negative feelings than irritation or basic anger. His temper has none of the flaming quality that could cause him to lose control, but it can be provoked to the point of implacability and, in such cases, it is excessively dangerous to be within reach.

The latter, of course, is just as unintentional on his part and he is usually unsurprised if and when it does happen. He has the automatic ability to soothe with his confident presence, the iron-hard quality that allows him to stand up to anyone and everyone. People who are ‘on his side' have a tendency to react with courage and strength whenever he is with them. This is a peculiar ability that results directly from his overflowing inner strength: nothing frightens him, and as a result he gives no fuel to the fears of his allies. Though accidental, this is probably his most innate and praiseworthy character trait.

Innocence is a peculiar quality that walks hand-in-hand with his brutal honesty and fearless boldness. He tells the truth, and because he tells the truth he expects others to tell the truth. When this expectation is not met, he reacts with the innocent, pure, and righteous anger of a person who understands the insult of being lied to and does not appreciate it. He is unashamed of fear, and because he is unashamed his courage flows through the whole of his being. When fear strikes his heart, his heart responds the way it does to anything: without guile, without restraint. Though this kind of innocence makes him a hard person to be around, it also makes his standards high and fair. A friend who gains his trust and respect is always a friend worth having, with no risk of a bad seed worming its way into his good graces. All this is made more impressive because he does it automatically and unintentionally.

Certain things about him are, of course, truly intentional. He can be mean when he wants to be mean, and he has none of the compunction against hurting others that a socially-minded person would have. Berating, brow-beating, and tearing down others is a thing he can do with ease and effectiveness that can shock and appall people who have come to know him as the large-hearted man he usually is. Being mean is something that does not come natural to him, but something he can and does do on occasions he finds them suitable.

A truly interesting character trait of his is his loathing for the natural world. Plants and animals are, in his opinion, objects to be used or cultivated specifically for use. As such, animals have a tendency to react badly to him; either in fearful obedience, the most frequent, or violent desire to escape. He has none of the assumed elvish respect and love for wooded areas, he does not like water more than as a liquid to imbibe, and scenery does not impress him unless it contains metal.

Metal is the love of his life, the work of his life, and the goal of his life. Orichalcum specifically is the desire of his heart. The mythic ore occupies a special place in his mind as a truly magical and truly valuable substance. His desire to attain it is well and truly greedy, and his pride in the ability to work it is all-but boundless. He has no respect for artisans other than other smiths, and even those he looks down upon as lesser than himself. This has translated into a general disrespect and disregard for species who are known to be poor in metallurgy, most notably other elvish races—particularly wood elves.

Zodiac Sign: August 1, Leo
Chinese Zodiac: The Dragon
Chinese Element: Metal

Known Life: Aredil had a father who was a smith, whose father was a smith, whose mother was a smith, whose mother and grandmother were smiths, whose father was a smith. It was a long line of smiths, most of them masters of their trade and all of them passionate about what they did. The love of metal, the love of good clean fire, and the honest work to be had when the two were combined—these things were family heirlooms of a sort, passed from father to daughter, mother to daughter, mother to son, and father to son over years.

Born into this tradition and open to it almost on a genetic level, Aredil passed his youth in the ways of the forge. Heat, metal, dirt, water, and sweat were the dominant features of his youngest years, though usually none of them involved him personally. Eventually it came to pass, like it had with his father before him, that he started to learn.

A true, natural virtuoso is to music what Aredil was to metallurgy. The craft his family loved and had worked with, had virtually perfected, was as natural and desirable to him as hunting is to a wild wolf. Size and strength constrained his capabilities at first, but his maturity carried with it the promise of higher skill and greater prowess until at last he could claim the physical strength that would become one of the roots of his craft. Of course, this strength did not come fully and in a rush. Exercise was a primary part of almost every waking hour, paused only by the acts of eating and drinking, and without it the desire of his heart would have been a distant dream just as untouched as the stars in the sky.

When he did reach maturity, metallurgy became a science and an art to him. His father gradually stopped seeking to teach him and started seeking to make suggestions and give worthy advice. Likewise, his older relatives came to gradually respect him as a fledgling smith whose ability was considerable. He came to view himself as the rising dragon of his family, an opinion with was the first stage in the growth of his indomitable character. A goal began to fashion itself in his mind from the very earliest: not to surpass his ancestors, but to unleash their trade, not to overshadow them but to illuminate the labor of their years. He wanted to create weapons, armors, and tools with such qualities as to make the works of other elves, of dwarves, and of humans seem feeble and incomplete by comparison.

It was not long before he realized that the metals his family forged were insufficient for the task. Nickel-iron superalloys could be called many things, among them effective and precise, but perfect was not one of them. Orichalcum became the subject of his thoughts; a metal so rare that it inspired myths, with qualities so shining that his oldest living ancestor, the smith whose skill began the line of smiths he hailed from, spoke of it with reverence. It was in his mind that even a shard of the unworkable metal, worked into an item of his choosing, would forever serve to remind others of the skill that raised him.

Luck, fate, or magic conspired to make his dream a reality, for orichalcum was available to him. A shard of the metal formed the basic working materials he desired and was the treasure of his family. It was this shard of metal that he stole from the grandmother of his father's grandmother, and it was this shard that he spent two years smithing, separated from his family and hidden in a carefully-prepared facility of his choosing. At the end of his struggle, or very near to it, it was the bitter taste of frustration that coated his lips as more and more of the metal was lost to his efforts to discover a secret to forging it. The secret of how he eventually emerged triumphant, of how he fashioned his mighty hammer, was a secret he revealed to one person. Soon after, he left his facility with the intention of making the long venture home, a venture that would consume time he could not predict.

Kool, you know Kira might like him despite his dislike for nature ... and wood elves. He might not like her very much though XD Anyways, it has everything.

*Approved*