Highlander: the Gathering - interest check

[CAO]

Not of age reflected, I edited the original bio, so he's 816 years of age. :D Off to help the plot.

[playfullchick76]

I happen to love Highlander, the movies and the series. I would love to be a part of this, as a good immortal if theres room.

[Beguile's Mistress]

BeMi, Pumpkin: either of you planning to go Greek with your characters?

He's mixed Norse and Native American

[Shjade]

Acacius Sergiopolous
aka: Case, Casey, Chase

Origin: Mycenae, Greece ~ 1250 BC

Age: 3262

Stats: 6'1" ~ 170 lbs. ~ dirty blond hair ~ hazel-brown eyes

Appearance: In a (not real) word: librarianesque. Casey's soldiering days were a lifetime ago. Several lifetimes ago, actually. He's kept in shape, sure, but he hardly has the physique one might first picture when thinking about hoplites and their ilk. He's slimmed down somewhat over the ages, trading muscle mass for tone, weightlifting for cardio. When he goes jogging on a college track he hardly looks any different from the average student: a little older, maybe, and with far cleaner stride in his form, but not so different. A small scar above his left eye creates a dimple in the eyebrow where hair will not grow.

Watcher Report: Acacius Sergiopolous, son of Sergio Leonidopolous and Phile (family name unconfirmed). Participant in multiple wars and war-like conflicts, among these the Dorian Invasion, first Macedonian war, first Crusade (in support of Moslem interests - possible religious motivations vis a vis personal notion of enacting will of gods), second Crusade (see previous), other assorted incidents. No indication of military or political influence since May 30, 1431, at which time began to follow more withdrawn lifestyle. Has demonstrated protective tendency toward strangers on multiple occasions up to and including use of lethal force. Attitude toward the Game unconfirmed; does not appear motivated.

Last confirmed kill: Sept. 5, 1877.

Aware of Watchers: Unconfirmed.

Life summary: Acacius was not yet thirty years of age when he discovered he was not like the other shepherds of his homeland. He had been chasing down a wayward member of the herd across precarious terrain and stumbled, falling more than forty feet down a rocky slope. His older brother did not find him until that night, whereupon he discovered Acacius, his clothing covered with slashes and drying blood, entirely unharmed. Neither could explain the strange occurrence.

Nor did they have any suitable reason for the way he seemed not to age another day in the next five years. Eight years. Twelve. Fifteen. There was no reasonable cause for such events. Or, rather, there was only one, perhaps.

Finding himself elevated from a simple shepherd to what he could only interpret as a chosen of the gods, Acacius did what seemed most sensible to a young man of Mycenae in his position: he asked the temple for guidance. They were disinclined to take his assertions seriously. What reason did he have to think the gods had a special purpose for him?

Acacius proceeded to inflict upon himself a mortal wound.

The priests, initially enraged by this desecration of the temple in spilling his blood within it, transformed their anger to confusion upon the realization that the young man did not appear to be dying. He was clearly in pain, true, and he bled as any man should, even appeared crippled by the damage, and yet he showed no fear, no degradation in his condition after the initial damage was done. As they watched, over the next hour, their strange visitor eventually recovered strength enough to regain his feet and once again look to them eye to eye for guidance.

What was he meant to do? How was he to know the purpose of this power with which he had been entrusted?

To the priests the answer seemed clear: if he had been a protector of the herds, and was now capable of withstanding the wrath of bronze, he was meant to be a protector of the city itself. It took some doing on their part to have the unknown youth added to the military might of Mycenae as anything other than a plain soldier - not that they expected him to have command experience, but it seemed prudent to ensure his commanders understood their new "recruit" was different from the rest - but they got it done. So began his training with sword and spear and shield.

Acacius was nearing fifty, not that he looked it, when the great cultural shift that would later be called the Dorian Invasion began in force. Though he could not say he saw what he would describe as an invasion at the time, it is certainly true that change took place, and not in a peaceful manner. Whatever gift the gods had given him was not enough to change the tide of that time of conflict. Those aware of his gift who remained in the Mycenaen power structure, upon realizing he could not single-handedly act as their salvation, urged him to flee, that the enemy would not capture him as they did the cities of Greece in their uprising.

So he fled. What else could he do? His family had, in large part, died out years prior. His wife was wasting away of illness and would not last much longer. He had no children to take with him, little of personal importance. He left it all.

It would prove the first of many world-spanning journeys in his life.

<This section continues for several pages.>

[Beguile's Mistress]

   

Name: Karl Thornton

Age:  Unknown but believed to be older than 900 years

Bloodline:  Norse & Native American

Appearance:  His looks are those of his Native American mother and his stature that of his Norse father who was a great bear of a man.

Karl Thornton's origins are lost in the mists of time.  He grew to manhood in a village in Greenland among a people who were tall, fair skinned and blue-eyed.  Their appearance and the manes of flowing red-gold hair gave them power over him and his mother.  Their dark skin and eyes, high cheekbones and piercing gaze beneath brows and hair as dark as night set them apart even from his father who he knew was ashamed of him.  The stories told to him by his mother were of a land far off from which she had been carried when these men of the North climes came for timber to build their stockades and lodges.  She longed to return to her people but knew that she would die among strangers. 

The men of the village learned war craft as soon as they could walk.  Karl watched and learned won his first combat at the age of three besting a stocky boy a year older and inches bigger.  He didn't win all of his challenges after that but was victorious more often than not and always gave at least as good as he received.

Co-existence was not a given but once earned he was given the respect he deserved and the name of his father, Thorvald, as a reward.  His mother passed on to the gods when he was twelve but the legacy of her stories stayed with him and at her death bed he promised a blood oath to seek out her people.  All went well for Karl until the day he cast eyes upon the daughter of the chief, a buxom girl promised to another. 

His quickening came when the girl's suitor led a party to ambush Karl and beat him, leaving him for dead among the rocks on the side of mountain.  He had no idea of how long he dwelt in the land of the darkness that claimed him or how he came to be alive and unharmed when he awoke to searing pain and thunderous sounds that beat against his skull until he would want to tear his own head from his body.

   

The life of a nomad was his from that day on as with battle axe and sword he wandered the land surviving by his wits and learning all he could from whatever stray monk or priest he encountered.  He served others from time to time in payment for their knowledge and kept his promise to his mother to seek out her people.  But centuries had passed and all who knew her were dead.  There was not even a memory of her was left.

There was one story that haunted him about a totem his mother had hidden before she was taken away and one day he recognized the landmark of a rock in the shape of a fisted hand with one knuckle raised.  He followed he map she had embedded in his memory and there he found another rock with a carving of a wolf on its upraised surface.  Beneath the rock was a stone shaped like a disc with a pattern that she told him was the world and the lines drawn on it represented the unending path.  The totem had been given to her by a traveler and he wondered if that other nomad like himself was a man of infinite seeming life.

   

Karl hungered for knowledge but avoided most men except for the holy men who were his tutors and those who sought him out to challenge him to battle.  There were not many.  Perhaps half a dozen came to wrest from him what only they could take and in the end all gave up more than they could afford.  With each battle won Karl grew stronger, quicker and more intuitive and over the years grew more comfortable in his skin. 

Industry and technology found him ready to step out of his isolation and into the world where he made his fortune and continued learning until the present day.  He is the head of a global conglomerate with tentacles of power in science, electronics and government as well as a hidden financial empire that gave him wealth beyond imagining.

This is where we find him today. 

[Galactic Druid]

Looking at all your characters, Luna, it looks like you're going to have a very interesting game. I'd love to participate, if only I had a little more time and actually knew anything about highlander at all. I'm still happy to offer general evil DM advice though if you still want me to...

[1SAZ]

Name: Cian O'Catharnaigh

Aliases: Chao Zheng, Sean MacMannus, Charlie Wade, Joel O'Leery (Current)

Age: 3300~ (Born roughly 500 years before Hallstatt culture recorded history)

Appearance: Cian appears as a man roughly of the age of 30, his body lean and toned through rigorous exercise and training. His dark hair is kept short and he is never without his characteristic five o'clock shadow. His green eyes hold a certain amount of thought to them that shows his age despite his constant youth. He often dresses in tee shirts and a pair of slacks with a dark colored suit coat, though he often wears a tan duster when out and about. He also tends to wear a pair of black framed glasses as part of his disguise, the man he took his current alias from having poor vision at birth. He stands at a staggering 6'5", though it is mostly in his legs that gives him the height advantage.

Weapons of choice: Celtic Anthropomorphic Sword, Smith and Wesson MP360

History: I was "born" before history knew there were people in my little stretch of land, in the isles that would now be known as Ireland. The bronze age as it's known I believe, but after so many years, you stop caring about such trivial matters as to what you call the era of your birth. In any case, my early life was mostly that of hunting, until my foster brother decided I was getting in his way of leading the tribe. A knife to the back isn't exactly the way one wishes to end their life, especially when that knife has an edge coated in wolfsbane and repeatedly inserted to make it seem I was struck by arrows. What can I say, my brother really disliked me.

They never found my body, and I don't believe they really looked that hard. The story was I was dragged off by wolves, which isn't very far off from the truth, I'll admit. I awoke from my first death as a wolf sniffed me over, looking for an easy meal. While it would have killed me again had it been well fed and stronger, it wasn't in the form you would expect of a predator. It was hungry, and looked as though it hadn't eaten in days. I barely had memory of what had befallen me, so I assumed the animal was my pet, and so I lead it to a hunting spot I enjoyed to find us both something to eat. We lived off that spot for years, my new friend gaining it's strength and growing closer to me while I regained my memories.

After years had passed, I returned to my tribe, only to find that everything I had known had changed, and the tribe was under new leadership, but not my brother. His decedents had become the leaders of the tribe and I was long forgotten, and the ghost of the man that made all this possible had returned without any idea what had happened. In short, I was re-accepted into the tribe under my "true" name, Cian O'Catharnaigh, and dubbed a member of the warrior class.

Skip forward another... what was it... hundred years? Whatever it was, it was then that I found my mentor in what would be known as Greece, a man I knew as Perseus. He taught me about The Game and The Rules, and taught me what it meant to be an immortal. I would see friends and loved ones die long before I would ever face death, and that I would be hunted relentlessly for the rest of my existence. While the world would misinterpret Perseus' deeds, the one story that they got mostly right was his battle with Medusa. The first immortal battle I had ever seen was between my mentor and an spiteful woman that the locals called a gorgon. She was really just a bitch with a knack for sculpting the figures of her fallen lovers. At least they got the removal of the head right...

Well, that tells the story of how I learned of others like myself, but that doesn't explain how I'm still here while so many have lost their heads in my path. Now I am not saying I am the perfect swordsman or that I hunted down every immortal around. In fact, their are a few heads that are on my tally that weren't even of my claim. However, those watchers tend to just skim when they read history books. My first head was taken in China while I was under the tutelage of Lu Dongbin on how to use a blade properly. A man by the name of Zhao challenged me under my true name, and I couldn't refuse the challenge. I barely came out of the battle with my head, but Zhao was far less lucky. I took his sword out of respect for the man I didn't know, and paid for his grave marker a thousand years later once I had realized I would be around for a while.

Another notable death that is tied to my name is one I wish had never occurred. My first true love, an immortal from Russia named Natalia Romanov... We met in France during World War II while I was acting as a British agent aiding the resistance in Germany. I often think of the day we met in that dark alley under a hail of gunfire. Aimed at each other... And shouting curses at each other... Well, not all love stories begin with a candle lit dinner, do they? In any case, it was a love-hate relationship between the two of us, in that we would irritate the hell out of each other, only to find that we were growing closer because of it. I was going to propose at the end of the war, knowing bullets and bombs wouldn't keep us apart. However, an immortal Nazi by the name of Hans Rikter was the one thing I hadn't expected. He took her head to get back at me for taking out one of his battalions, and I took his in return. I spent the next ten years in a monastery, escaping the scars that the monster Rikter left without realizing it. It wasn't till an old friend came to find me that I left, only to realize that the world would never change.

I moved to America in the 50's, a move that I occasionally regret, though regret is the one constant in life, as I've learned. I served in the US military for a time during Korea and Vietnam, though it was in a support role as a medic rather than a soldier. When the nineties hit, I decided it was time to do something constructive with the money I accumulated over the course of many lifetimes, and so I found an old church that was going to be closed down in Boston, turning it into a bar. I named it Sanctuary, as it was one of the few places an immortal could come to to escape the constant challenges and have a drink without fear. What can I say, I became a softy in a couple thousand years. In any case, if you find yourself needing a place to rest before the edge of the sword draws nearer, you can have a drink on me. Just pay me back should you keep your head.

[Teo Torriatte]

Playfullchick - let me sort out how many I have first and see how I am going to start it... I might have enough already, so I don't want to promise anything right now.

RPGuy - Your evil GM advice will always be appreciated.  ;D

People who submitted characters- omg totally awesome characters, all of them! (special mention to Beguile's Mistress because Mark Dacascos is so freakin hot, but I really love all the pics from everyone, and Shjade's animated pics are just totally classy as well)

Ok... if you have been previously approved for a character, now would be a really good time to get it in, if there is anyone who hasn't. Sometime today or tomorrow morning the latest I will look back through everything and list all the characters in the OOC thread. Then some heavy plotting and I would like to start the game by Monday morning if not before, unless its just totally not ready yet.

[Galactic Druid]

Some of your players Seem brilliant, Luna, reading them All. I'm not sure I'm good enough with history to come up with half the back stories I've seen in your thread. I'll be reading over your shoulder, for certain.

[Teo Torriatte]

Elias, were you going to finish Chuulun's history? No super rush or anything, I was just wondering.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Elias said he pulled out of the game I believe.

[Teo Torriatte]

And so he did! *blushes*

I missed that little line in the excitement of everyone else's discussion and character submissions.

[Jmorty33]

Sorry guys I'm going on vacation. Character will be up in two weeks.

[TheVillain]

I was wondering how this game went, pity.

I have to admit, the main reason I didn't sign on was because the character idea I had was a 700 year old Venetian, thought it was too close to PS's Genoan. Though upon further reflection the personalities seem to of had enough differences that it still could of worked. :P

[Shjade]

Yeah, unfortunately this one never even got off the ground. Ah well.

[Etah dna Evol]

If OP or someone else is willing to pick this up and run with it, I am interested.

I would want to make a pretty old character simply called the Spartan who was killed in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE and was found by an immortal member of the Persian Immortals who became his mentor. I wouldn't play him an a super badass fyi. I'm not a power gamer. I just like the story.

If someone wants to do this, let me know and I will come up with a Character Sheet.