Fären is a Rogue Half-Elf and player character in The Fantasial Freeze campaign.
| Relatives | Ellowyn (mother/elf/deceased)
Ünalan Rregus Aldara (father) Lycidas Kāné Aldara (brother) |
|---|---|
| Languages | common |
| Affiliations | The Grimm (previous) |
| Aliases | Kōté to his brother, only his brother. |
| Species | half-elf |
| Gender | male |
| Height | 5'8" |
| Eye Color | brown/black |
Full Name: Fären Kōté Aldara ( /fɑːr/-ən/ /koʊ-/teɪ/ /ældɑː/ra/ )
Physical Appearance
Fären inherited his mildly pointy ears, androgynous features and golden-blond hair from his elven mother, but not much else. His skin is rather pale. He has a faint beauty mark underneath the right of his narrow brown-black eyes, which are often described as ‘empty’ or ‘dead’ by those who have encountered him. He has two expressions: nonplussed and smiling. This creepy little smile of his never reaches his eyes, making it rather unsettling to witness. The more danger he’s in, the wider he smiles. In his youth his hair was long, reaching down to his lower back. After the death of his brother, it was cut short, but it has since grown into a shaggy mid-length that he occasionally ties back into a short ponytail with a black ribbon.
His body is covered in many scars of various types; burns, cuts, stab wounds, and so on. The bones of his middle and ring finger on his left hand have been reconstructed and reinforced with metal after they were splintered apart in an unfortunate incident. Two long scars scale up those fingers as a result of the surgery. He covers his arms and hands in bandages, as well as his torso, to hide the worst of these marks.
His height is unimposing at five feet and eight inches. He is thin and nimble on his feet, quick enough to dodge a punch and strong enough to reciprocate. He prefers to wear comfortable, dark-colored garb that is easy to move around in. Since the beginning of The Fantasial Freeze, he now wears a thick black cloak with a high collar that covers the lower half of his face. He also wears a black mask to hide his visage when he doesn’t want to be recognized. He keeps many small pouches attached to his clothes with straps of various materials. Most of these are used to carry his extensive supply of drugs and interesting-looking paraphernalia. One of them contains the blade that killed his brother, which he refuses to use or touch.
Personality
Fären might be a little bit insane, or maybe he’s just a free spirit. It all comes down to perspective, after all. He has what people might refer to as a ‘hostile attitude problem’ when it comes to strangers, especially human men. He’s a bit less abrasive, but equally as erratic when he isn’t sober, which is quite common. When under the influence, whether it be drugs or alcohol (whatever he can get his hands on), he loses a sense of personal space and starts striking up conversations with anyone he feels inclined to bother. Unfortunately, Fären hasn’t had many friendships in his lifetime and lacks proper social skills. He’s a bit of an instigator, sometimes unintentionally, and often finds himself in trouble because of it.
He isn’t bad at heart, merely unpracticed at the art of playing nice. In the world he comes from, sincerity and empathy for others are dangerous habits to have. He’s the type to act depending on his whims, rather than thinking ahead, but he’ll always stand up to thugs or anyone exploiting their power.
When he does happen to make a friend, he’ll lay down his life for them without hesitation. Since he’s a raging adrenaline junkie (and a regular junkie at that), it can be hard to determine if he's risking his safety out of heroism or simply for the thrill. He enjoys any illicit substance but has a strong bias towards Kraken Blood. He will do just about anything to get his hands on more. He rarely sleeps and prefers to spend his nights watching the moon.
History
Early Life:
In the year 444 PR, Fären and his twin brother, Lycidas were born on the cold stone floor of a dungeon deep underground in the city of Ahol. Their mother died soon after they were born and the two boys were left in the care of their father, a criminal named Ünalan. Disinterested in parenthood and always looking for money, Ünalan sold the boys to a horrid gang of criminals in the city, known as The Grimm. The two boys grew up carrying out the dirty work of these criminals, treated like filth on the shoes of their masters’ feet.
Life Pre-Incident:
Fären and Lycidas were kept in a dungeon below the main hideout of The Grimm. They were separated by iron bars but found comfort whispering through them to one another during sleepless nights (every night). As they grew older, they invented secret ways to communicate; code words and tapping against the bars in a certain order to understand each other even when others were nearby. The brothers’ middle names, Kōté and Kāné, came from this secret language as nicknames for each other.
During the day they were put to work. All of it was terrible, grueling, and bloody. They were taught to fight, steal and kill. Fären, always the rebellious type, resisted the orders he was given, no matter how much misfortune or suffering it brought his way, while his brother fell in line and slowly gained respect amongst their superiors. They often would argue over this, Lycidas imploring Fären to stop making things so hard on himself, to grit his teeth and push down his pride until they grew old enough to earn their freedom. Fären would argue back that he would rather be beaten bloody than bow his head like cattle. Shortly after the brothers turned thirteen years old, Lycidas no longer returned to the cell where the two boys slept side by side every night. He had earned a place above, and Fären remained beneath.
Lycidas would still visit Fären from time to time; stitching up his wounds, bringing him food, or talking to him whenever he thought no one was looking, but the bond they once had was gone. A bitterness had settled between them and this gap widened each year.
At sixteen, Lycidas was already helping the men in charge to plot against the other criminal groups of the city, seeking bloodshed, riches and power. Fären continued his resistance and continued being treated by the rest as a stray dog they kept around just to kick, rather than anything potentially useful to the gang. He would be forced to fight new recruits of the gang as an initiation for them. Despite resisting doing what he was told, any chance he had to fight one of them, he would take, desperate for an outlet from years of repressed rage.
Soon before he and Lycidas would turn eighteen, they were put in front of each other, given daggers and told to fight to the death. This was Lycidas’ true initiation. They wouldn’t trust him to truly be one of them if he still had pity for his brother. They promised Fären that if he were to kill his brother, they would set him free. Lycidas dropped his dagger, and Fären lunged for the throat. Despite his best efforts Lycidas could not become one of them, and Fären had lost himself to the violence. This realization stopped Fären in his tracks a split second before he drew blood, and then he too dropped his knife. Incensed, one of the gang leaders, a man named Thorne, picked up the knife and slit Lycidas’ throat in front of Fären’s eyes. It was at this moment that the last bit of self-control in Fären snapped.
The Incident:
Fären seized the knife from the man named Thorne and went haywire, attacking anyone he set his eyes on and aiming only to kill. He fought his way out into the streets and escaped from both The Grimm and the city of Ahol. In the process, he shattered the bones in two of his fingers, cut off his hair to escape the grip of one of his captors, suffered countless wounds to his flesh, and received severe damage to a large percentage of his bones and vital organs.
Life Post-Incident:
Fären, horribly injured and reeling from The Incident, ran south, but didn’t make it very far before his body gave up on him. He was discovered bleeding out on the ground by a mysterious masked doctor by the name of Faust, who brought his lifeless body to a lonely tower hidden in the forest and pieced him back together. This was quite painful, only made bearable by many odd medicines supplied to him by this strange individual. Fären received a large amount of Kraken Blood from Faust, as well as a plethora of drugs invented by the doctor himself, as he healed from his injuries.
While Fären recovered, the remaining members of The Grimm put out a bounty on the half-elf who had slaughtered a vast number of their brothers. With his face and name plastered across the streets of Ahol, Fären decided it was best to stay out of sight and donned a black mask, only moving about at night.
After being discharged, Fären would often return to Faust’s tower to obtain more drugs. In exchange, he would allow the doctor to use him as a guinea pig to test any new drugs and medicine he had concocted at the time. These clinical trials were rather intense, but Fären was quite accustomed to pain at this point. Since this pain came with a reward, he viewed it as quite the upgrade from his previous life and even began to enjoy the trials in a disturbing, pavlovian sort of way.
Fären was determined to find and kill his father (out of spite), and then to take down the rest of his tormentors. He didn’t know his father’s face, however, merely his name, and tracking him down turned out to be fruitless in the end. Cutting his losses, he returned to Ahol and managed to kill the last remaining members of The Grimm, but this short winning streak of his was quickly brought to a halt. During a ‘celebratory’ bender in a town somewhere to the south of Ahol, he found himself in a rather heated argument with a group of travelling dwarves. This encounter quickly escalated into a very raucous brawl. Fären, being quite literally in the middle of this spectacle, was recognized and quickly captured by a group of mercenaries. Although The Grimm itself was no more, the more powerful allies of the gang were still seeking Fären. He was taken back to Ahol, where he was promptly thrown into prison.
Life in Prison:
Fären, nineteen years old at the time, found himself once again chained to a dungeon floor deep underneath Ahol. This hole was less lonesome than the last. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Prisoners were packed together in the damp, clammy darkness of the underground. Fären would often get into fights with the other prisoners due to his general personality, made worse by severe withdrawals from the substances he no longer had access to. With plenty of time to sit and reflect on his life, Fären, ever the evasive type, decided to shove down the angst within and plan his escape instead. The plan itself was and will remain unknown, due to the fact that Fären has changed his story every time that he has told it.
Life after Prison:
In the year 466 PR, Fären eventually set his plan (whatever it was) into motion and managed to escape both the dungeon and Ahol once more, stealing back the items that were taken from him in the process. He first returned to Faust’s tower, only to discover that the doctor had vanished, but hadn’t taken his experiments or ingredients with him. Fären took the entire stash of Kraken Blood, as well as some drugs designed by the doctor himself and their recipes (it would be a shame to let such wonderful inventions be forgotten, never to be experienced again). He then ran far away; somewhere where nobody knew his face, he could hope.
Shortly after, The Fantasial Freeze began. Fären decided that with the land in chaos, he might as well enjoy his newfound freedom and have a little fun. He still carried the knife that killed his brother with him, just in case he did ever find his father, and refused to use it against anyone else. But until then there were certainly plenty of other thugs in the world worth stabbing (with a different knife) a couple times for good measure.
Powers and Abilities
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Attacks and Weapons
Fären enjoys collecting knives, specifically stiletto blades, but any sharp object will do the trick.
