Name: Círdan Ancalimë
Description: Cirdan is slightly under average height for his race, and is also slightly more heavily set. He has shaved off his hair, leaving only a fine brown stubble behind. He is dark skinned for an elf , coming close to the color of an Egyptian or Indian, in our world. Cirdan is primarily defined by two features, both of which relate primarily to his skin. The first is that he is covered in scars, some fine and some very heavy. The second one is that he has been tattooed many times, mostly in different tribal patterns. These are primarily on his arms and torso, although there are a couple on his face. His most notable scar is something that looks like claw-marks that cross over his face from his right temple to the left side of his jaw. These have damaged both of his eyes, leaving them covered in a cloudy white film. For an elf , Cirdan is incredibly heavy set and muscular. He is still lighter on his feet than most human, dwarf, or orc opponents, but he applies a strange mixture of light and heavy movements in his combat. Yet most of his muscle is dense rather than bulky, giving him a deceptively thin frame underneath his clothes. This has given him an advantage over many attackers, who expect to be able to bowl him over with ease, and find themselves instead confronted by something more similar to a rock wall. Cirdan customly wears a modest combination of light pants and long sleeved shirt, usually in shades of brown. He wears tall, well worn boots suitable for long distance travel, and also often has a hat nearby. He is also always seen wearing a sash of various colors that binds around his waist. If he is not wearing it, Cirdan is, to the best of his ability, never far from a large, military style rucksack that rides on his hips and over his shoulders.
Age: 283. Physically, he would look about twenty eight.
Race: Elf
Nation: Wanderer. Comes closest to calling the Orc Jungles home, but only because he is most familiar with the lay of the land. It has been many decades since he has spent any length of time in Elinshire.
"Class": Monk
Weapon: Cirdan is familiar with almost all forms of weapons, although he is most experienced with pole weapons like the glaive, bo staff, and naginata. He is, of course, also familiar with a bow, but he would rather fight with a mid range weapon like a sword, especially in close combat. As a monk, though, his most deadly weapon, naturally, is his own body. Cirdan does not travel with many weapons. He keeps a dagger in his boot, as well as a set of double bladed and spiked brass knuckles in his bag. But, if in combat, he will often choose to disarm his opponent of his or her weapon and use that instead.
Magic : Cirdan's magic is a rare and almost completely unpracticed form of body magic, which he learned after losing his sight. This magic is based in the slow development of the body's natural rhythms over long periods of time, therefore taking very little of the user's will and energy. This magic slowly amplifies his ability to tap into the physical potential that is normally unreached, most notably the "sixth sense" which allows him to sense the presence of things around him, and allows him to navigate the world despite his blindness.
Despite having been so dedicated to the practices of illusion magic in his youth, Cirdan can no longer practice illusions because he cannot see, and therefore has no "base" from which to build.
For a brief time, in an effort to regain his sight, Cirdan studied shapeshifting. However, by the time he mastered it sufficiently to shift into a new form, he had come to accept his blindness, and the magic that allowed him to counter it. After that point he did not practice, but in a serious situation he may be able to work some shapeshifting magic.
Bio: Círdan Ancalimë was born into a semi-noble Elvish family that had been serving as top spy- assassins for the Council of the Wise for many generations. From the moment of his birth, Cirdan was trained in the arts of deception and assassination. He became just as at home in the fancy rules of high society as he was in the dirty slums. He was praised for his incredible talent in illusion magic, and was expected to go on to become one of the greatest assassins in the past millenium. Yet there was something in Cirdan that hated the dishonesty and the deceptiveness of the life of an assassin and a spy. And the longer he worked and the better he became, the more he found himself hating himself and that for which he stood.
He started slipping out of his house in the middle of the night, getting past guards and his own family without detection. Impressed at his ability, and trusting to their "golden child" his family, consisting of parents, older and younger sister, uncle and aunt, and their two male children, chose not to try and keep him in the house. Cirdan would make his way to the quarters where foreigners, those not of elvish descent who wished to visit the capital city, would stay. He frequently wound up in brawls outside of some of the taverns, and would receive a very solid thrashing, as he knew nothing about how to fight without killing.
One night, a group of dwarves ganged up on him, completely wasted and determined to beat the life out of him. He was saved by a human warrior, who took him away and tended to his wounds. Cirdan found himself frequently returning to the warrior while he was in town, a large, friendly man named Aaron, and Aaron, suspecting nothing about his new friend, gladly set about teaching him the ways of a warrior. And in the honest, forward combat of a warrior, Cirdan took the first step towards his true calling.
His focus on his lesson as an assassin quickly deteriorated, while his skill as a warrior grew. His family, starting to become suspicious, eventually found out about the man meeting with their son, and set about killing him. Cirdan's little sister found him and told him about what was happening the night of the attack, and Cirdan raced away to try and save his friend. He arrived too late to protect Aaron, although the warrior had succeeded in killing a couple of the assassins who had been sent. Cirdan violently confronted his family that night, and left the next morning dead to everyone there, except for his little sister, who he would contact again after about a century. That night in his 43rd year of life would be the last he saw of his family.
Cirdan fled the woods of the Elinshire, disgusted by his former home, and wandered his way through the known lands. Allowed to be himself and himself alone, he rapidly fell into the rhythms of a monk, roaming from the Northern Badlands to the Orc Jungles. He faced many experiences over the next fifty years, and would have died several times over if not for the aid of some unexpected allies. He lost his eyesight to a pair of tiger claws wielded by a rogue barbarian, before finding a temple and monastery, where he lived and studied for seventy years, until the monks there told him that they had no more to teach him, and he would have to find his own path to continue learning.
Cirdan set out across the land once more, roaming the land, finding new allies and new enemies over the next hundred years. Now, he finds himself drawn to a small village, for unknown reasons. :)
Personality: After all his years of life combined with his training, Cirdan is a very stable soul. Not much takes him by surprise, nor can much get a rise out of him. He is used to taking abuse for his way of life, especially from other elves, but it is his only true love, and nothing will get him to abandon it.
At the same time, Cirdan is a very passionate ally. He is quick to trust, and, despite his strong independence, works very well in a team. He learned the value of having someone to watch his back many times, and tends to actively seek out companions if one does not find him. He would willingly sacrifice himself for his allies if that was the only option, but he also believes that there is always another option. Because of that attitude, and also because of his past, one of the only things that Cirdan will never forgive is betrayal for the benefit of oneself.
Additional Information: One of the tattoos on Cirdan's face is the mark of the Trial of Orc-Hood. Back when he was adventuring, before he mostly lost his sight and found the temple, Cirdan was an Orc slave. He won the Trial of Orc-Hood, and later came back. His tattoos mark him with the skill of a low level Orc Chief. Cirdan is also a member of the Road, although he does not use his connections often.