Ghasar Soriyan (v.2.0)

Race: Human
Class: Bard/Binder Warlock (Star Pact)
Role: Arcane Leader

Alignment: True Neutral
Deity: Milil, Corellon
Background: Occupation - Entertainer

Current Sheet

Snapshot: Long but limited life experience, moody, sometimes gruff and taciturn, former people person now more withdrawn, smooth fast-talker, charming, experienced entertainer, musician, storyteller, talks lots but shares little, private,skeptic, has perspective, looks at the bigger picture, avoids petty disputes, intense thirst for adventure, wants to make up for lost time, somewhat reckless, lonely, blase attitude towards death, knows a bit about a lot of different things, internally conflicted about recent choices.


Appearance:
Older than the usual adventurer, Ghasar is 64 years young, and his appearance reflects the fact. He is of average height for a human, standing at 5'7, and has stocky, athletic build, albeit with a bit pudge around his waist. The man's skin is deeply tanned, though without his face tending to crags rather than wrinkles, though on the whole in this aspect he does generally appear less than his true age. In contrast, his hair is almost completely white, with a few bits of darker grey still mixed in. It is about four or five inches long and straight - in general, Ghasar allows it to fall messily around his head. He has short sideburns, and often as not a layer of unshaved stubble. The man's eyes are a bright blue.

In general, Ghasar wears ordinary clothing, with some bit of bright color or bold pattern to liven things up a bit - a bright kerchief, or a patch on his shirt very different then the rest, or an interesting hat. His hands have a roughened feel to them, the result of years spent working as a builder, and he has a few scars here and there on his body, though not anything of particular note.

Personality:
Ghasar has been described throughout his life as moody, a tendency that has only increased with age. At times he can be taciturn and gruff - other times, when he tries, he can be exceedingly friendly and charming. In general, Ghasar has always been drawn to people: he likes watching them, listening to them, entertaining and amusing them. He has little tolerance for what he considers to be foolishness, and little respect for those he considers to be unnecessarily arrogant. In his youth the man was quite a prankster, choosing such people especially as the target of his jokes; these days, he can't be bothered with such things anymore, though he will laugh and live vicariously through the exploits of others, should he come across them.

Though he can be quite the smooth talker and entertainer, it is rare for Ghasar to share much personal information with others. His true past, motivations, and feelings on issues of consequence are often a mystery for those around him. Though a skeptic for whom distrust comes easily, he is skilled at keeping a lid on such feelings and acting civil when there is a reason to, when there is something at stake. These days, Ghasar tries to look at the big picture. He tends to have more patience than he once did too, preferring to let someone dig themselves into a hole rather than arguing with them pointlessly.

He doesn't have any particular ideals or goals. He wants to see some of the world and do some adventuring in it, but not for a purpose: adventure for its own sake. At heart, for all that he can draw strangers to him, Ghasar is lonely. All the people he has loved are dead, and he does not wish to spend the end of his days doing nothing but waiting for the same, so adventuring it is. For this reason, the prospect of being killed is not really bothersome - he has lived out most of his life already, after all. In a way, in fact, he shies away from truly connecting with others because he feels it is too late for him, for such things. Better to just get on with the adventure. The same motivated him to make the pact that he did, to increase his powers - he had so little to lose, so why not take what he can, be better at what he is doing while there is still time to do it?

His passion in life has always been music. He can play at least three instruments well, and has a talent for composing jingles, tunes, songs to march to. He likes the attention that performing in front of others brings. He is also good at remembering and retelling interesting tales, whether based on true events, or myths and stories. Having lived as long as he has, he does know quite a bit of random information about various topics.

Background:
Ghasar grew up in one of the slummier districts of a large city, getting into the usual sort of trouble young boys in cities tend to get up to. When he was older, he began to work as a builder to earn his keep, though his passion was always for music. He used much of his pay on instruments and books of music rather than on more practical things, and began to perform on street corners, in the market, in various taverns. He enjoyed this, though it never earned him enough to stop working as a builder altogether. It did take him to various parts of the city however, where he met many people and developed the kind of people skills that few manage. By the time he left it, there was very little about the city he didn't know. It was the same familiarity that kept him there for so much of his life, in fact - why leave a place that is so comfortably yours?

In his younger days, Ghasar was quite the lady's man, and somewhat less than a perfect gentleman in his dealings with the women in his life. Eventually, however, he settled down with a woman named Mara, and fathered a son, Xavier. Ghasar was especially fond of his boy, teaching him everything he could about their world, the city. The two grew even closer after Mara died, when the boy was ten years old. At twenty, much to Ghasar's dismay, Xavier decided to join the army. He wanted to see the world beyond the city, to have some adventures; he didn't want to spend his life doing just the same old thing, he'd said.

Three years later he was dead, and Ghasar was left feeling lost, adrift. Several more years passed. He continued playing tunes and telling stories in taverns, as the years added up, and he returned to his little house alone every night at the end of it all. What was the point to carrying on? The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him that his boy, so much younger than him, had seen and done so much more in his short life than Ghasar ever had. And so, eventually, the idea came to him: why not make up for lost time? He had nothing to lose, after all. And so Ghasar decided, just before his sixtieth birthday, to go off traveling and fighting where the fates would carry him. His tunes, of course, were never far away.

His first serious adventure took place in a small town called Halwar - low on money, he took a break from adventuring to do some ordinary work, performing and keeping his ears open for better opportunities. It was in this way that he heard of the situation with the missing militiamen and the dwarf, and convinced the town's mayor to let him join the search party, in spite of his advanced age. Ghasar fought many kobolds in the days that followed and even, eventually, a young dragon. He felt more alive than he had in a long time, and at the end of it all, he had more gold in his pouch than he'd ever had before in his life. After that, he was more certain than ever that he had made the right decision.

Half a year or so later, however, things were not looking so good for him. This time, the adventuring party Ghasar had joined was smaller, and less adept at working together. His own strength, too, failed him at a critical moment, and the old man was cut down. Only the desperate, belated fumbling of the group's cleric saved him from death, and it was a close thing too. Ghasar spent weeks recovering, his body unable to knit itself together quickly, the way his younger companions could. Again, the man was filled with bitter frustration - that he would only ever see so little, that now that he'd discovered what he should have done decades ago, he would get nowhere because he simply didn't have the strength anymore to take on the things one found in the darkest dungeons and caves of the world. It was thinking these thoughts one night, humming to himself and staring up at the stars, as he was often drawn to do, that the man became aware of a strange, foreign presence around him, reaching out to him. The creature offered him access to a different kind of power - power that would let him fulfill his desires to see the world, to fight dangerous creatures and to spend his final years in a rush of adventure. For that, he would give his loyalty to the creature, whose nature he didn't even understand, would do certain things in service to it, his new master.

In his younger days, Ghasar would have never even considered saying yes, far too proud to put himself in a such a position. Now, again thinking only that he had nothing to lose, he agreed. Staring into the stars he reached out beyond them, and told the thing he would later learn had reached out to him from the Far Realm that yes, indeed, he would do as it asked. The deal was sealed, and several years passed, during which Ghasar learned to use his new abilities. He continued to seek out adventures, not being very picky about what he signed up for. He still played his music, and he still told his stories - but something had changed within him, from that moment, irreversibly.