Ushahin Dreamspinner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamspinning) wrote2013-01-07 02:57 pm
dreamspinning) wrote2013-01-07 02:57 pm
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Character Name; Ushahin Dreamspinner
Canon; The Sundering
Canon Point; end of canon
Age; probably pushing 1000, but appears to be in his mid-20s
House; Loki
Power; Telepathy
Personality; Ushahin is a child of two races, the son of neither. He was conceived through rape, a mortal human man assaulting an Ellyl (think Tolkien-style elven) woman. The Ellyl cast him out as an infant, entrusting him to human care, but his father’s family wasn’t very interested in keeping such an obvious sign of the crime the man had committed. They refused to even name him, and left him to basically feed off scraps. After a brutal beating by his 'fellow' villagers left him crippled, he was taken in and raised by the Were, a hunting wolf-people. Their leader, the Grey Dam, named him, raised him gently and taught him their ways and their magic. Some years after, the bitterness in his heart caused him to be called by Satoris, a fallen Shaper (read: god) known among men as the Sunderer.
In Satoris' hold and under his tutelage Ushahin the Misbegotten became Ushahin Dreamspinner, one of Satoris' chosen Three. Satoris gave Ushahin the power of walking through the dreams of Men, which complimented his natural and learned abilities. He spent centuries in Satoris' service as his Spymaster, until a prophecy predicting the god's downfall began to come true, and Ushahin was left to flee from Men, Ellyl and gods alike, carrying one of the last remnants of his Lord's power.
There are two fairly distinct and very opposite sides to Ushahin’s personality, which is mirrored in just about every aspect of his character. It is important to note that Ushahin is mad, the kind of madness that comes from having one’s skull caved in, being raised as a wolf-child, and knowing too many terrible truths. In other words, he’s insane in that way that often comes around to being a terrible sort of sanity, but sometimes just ends up being crazysauce.
At the heart of his nature, Ushahin is gentle and compassionate and loving, a devoted son to his adopted mother and a devoted caretaker of his ‘madlings’, people broken in mind or body or both, who perform most of the menial tasks necessary to maintain Satoris’ keep. Unlike the other two men Satoris has called, whose boons from the Shaper are distinctly more self-serving, Ushahin’s is offering sanctuary to the scorned and rejected. Ushahin knows each of the hundreds of madlings individually, and is loving and affectionate toward every one. From his adoptive mother, he learned the ability to communicate with animals, and considers the ravens he uses to spy on the countryside his little brothers. Unlike the others he serves with, Ushahin is still capable of childlike wonder and love. After centuries and centuries of being the Dreamspinner, Ushahin has a very subtle and nuanced understanding of the nature of things, especially the nature of the heart.
That understanding also plays into the other side of him. After being rejected by both Ellyl and Man, beaten, left for dead, and permanently crippled, Ushahin is pretty understandably bitter toward both races, although even more toward Ellyl than Men. His abilities are such that not only can he eavesdrop on the dreams of men, he can also control their dreams, and when people are awake he can cause them to hallucinate. If he is in close proximity to another person, he can sense their emotions, and if he touches them he can more or less rifle through their mind. He uses these abilities against humans with brutal precision, inflicting entire lands with nightmares or using the information he gleans from a person to manipulate them. He is as bloodthristy and brutal toward those he hates as he is compassionate and caring to those he loves. He knows how to demoralize and manipulate and even destroy people, and will do so without remorse when it suits his ends.
Ushahin’s appearance is an important part of who he is. As a child, he was beaten with rocks until a normal child would have died. Being half-Ellyl, Ushahin is very difficult to kill, and so he survived, but healed poorly. One side of his face sits lower than the other from where his skull was caved in, his cheekbone lower and the pupil of his eye permanently dilated. Both of his arms were broken and his hands were crushed. One of his hands is still mostly useless, the other is healed and healthy after some unwanted godly intervention. In contrast, the parts of Ushahin that remain whole are very beautiful--he has high cheekbones and a delicate facial structure, lovely long pale hair and a graceful body. People find looking him full in the face anywhere from disquieting to terrifying, and it’s a popular rumor that looking him in the eyes will make a man go mad. He does his best to cover his deformities, most of the time. When he faces people, he tends to keep his head down and his hair over his face and only one eye visible or turned toward a person at a time unless he's making the effort to intimidate. Often his head is turned to one side--keeping the sunken side from obvious view, and he similarly keeps his ruined hand hidden with long sleeves.
His deformities are important for two reasons. The first and simplest is that it means he is always in pain. Bright light hurts his dilated eye, his poorly healed bones ache, etc. The second is that it makes people fear and revile him for something done to him. He should be strong and beautiful, but instead he is ruined and terrifying. Perhaps perversely, both his pain and his anger are important anchors for his personality. Ushahin defines himself in many ways by his pain and rejection and bitterness and the ways in which he has embraced or moved past them, and they are his armor against a world that despises him as much for things completely out of his control as his deeds (which at this point are admittedly pretty bad). Part of the reason he serves his Lord is because of his bitterness against the hypocrisy of humans, who hold themselves up as good and just but reject and shun the weak, broken, or simply different. He embraces his appearance and his pain as part of himself, and in fact is very, very angry at Satoris when the Shaper heals one of his hands. Making Ushahin whole is a punishment to him, not a boon.
Given that he was raised by wolves, if anthropomorphic ones, Ushahin has a strong belief in the concept of ‘pack’. He cares very deeply for his own, and will lash out fiercely at what threatens them. He is also very vulnerable to real, unfeigned compassion and caring, since that isn’t at all something that generally happens to him. By the same token, he loathes pity and fear, and his abilities make it easy for him to be aware of what those around him feel.
Canon; The Sundering
Canon Point; end of canon
Age; probably pushing 1000, but appears to be in his mid-20s
House; Loki
Power; Telepathy
Personality; Ushahin is a child of two races, the son of neither. He was conceived through rape, a mortal human man assaulting an Ellyl (think Tolkien-style elven) woman. The Ellyl cast him out as an infant, entrusting him to human care, but his father’s family wasn’t very interested in keeping such an obvious sign of the crime the man had committed. They refused to even name him, and left him to basically feed off scraps. After a brutal beating by his 'fellow' villagers left him crippled, he was taken in and raised by the Were, a hunting wolf-people. Their leader, the Grey Dam, named him, raised him gently and taught him their ways and their magic. Some years after, the bitterness in his heart caused him to be called by Satoris, a fallen Shaper (read: god) known among men as the Sunderer.
In Satoris' hold and under his tutelage Ushahin the Misbegotten became Ushahin Dreamspinner, one of Satoris' chosen Three. Satoris gave Ushahin the power of walking through the dreams of Men, which complimented his natural and learned abilities. He spent centuries in Satoris' service as his Spymaster, until a prophecy predicting the god's downfall began to come true, and Ushahin was left to flee from Men, Ellyl and gods alike, carrying one of the last remnants of his Lord's power.
There are two fairly distinct and very opposite sides to Ushahin’s personality, which is mirrored in just about every aspect of his character. It is important to note that Ushahin is mad, the kind of madness that comes from having one’s skull caved in, being raised as a wolf-child, and knowing too many terrible truths. In other words, he’s insane in that way that often comes around to being a terrible sort of sanity, but sometimes just ends up being crazysauce.
At the heart of his nature, Ushahin is gentle and compassionate and loving, a devoted son to his adopted mother and a devoted caretaker of his ‘madlings’, people broken in mind or body or both, who perform most of the menial tasks necessary to maintain Satoris’ keep. Unlike the other two men Satoris has called, whose boons from the Shaper are distinctly more self-serving, Ushahin’s is offering sanctuary to the scorned and rejected. Ushahin knows each of the hundreds of madlings individually, and is loving and affectionate toward every one. From his adoptive mother, he learned the ability to communicate with animals, and considers the ravens he uses to spy on the countryside his little brothers. Unlike the others he serves with, Ushahin is still capable of childlike wonder and love. After centuries and centuries of being the Dreamspinner, Ushahin has a very subtle and nuanced understanding of the nature of things, especially the nature of the heart.
That understanding also plays into the other side of him. After being rejected by both Ellyl and Man, beaten, left for dead, and permanently crippled, Ushahin is pretty understandably bitter toward both races, although even more toward Ellyl than Men. His abilities are such that not only can he eavesdrop on the dreams of men, he can also control their dreams, and when people are awake he can cause them to hallucinate. If he is in close proximity to another person, he can sense their emotions, and if he touches them he can more or less rifle through their mind. He uses these abilities against humans with brutal precision, inflicting entire lands with nightmares or using the information he gleans from a person to manipulate them. He is as bloodthristy and brutal toward those he hates as he is compassionate and caring to those he loves. He knows how to demoralize and manipulate and even destroy people, and will do so without remorse when it suits his ends.
Ushahin’s appearance is an important part of who he is. As a child, he was beaten with rocks until a normal child would have died. Being half-Ellyl, Ushahin is very difficult to kill, and so he survived, but healed poorly. One side of his face sits lower than the other from where his skull was caved in, his cheekbone lower and the pupil of his eye permanently dilated. Both of his arms were broken and his hands were crushed. One of his hands is still mostly useless, the other is healed and healthy after some unwanted godly intervention. In contrast, the parts of Ushahin that remain whole are very beautiful--he has high cheekbones and a delicate facial structure, lovely long pale hair and a graceful body. People find looking him full in the face anywhere from disquieting to terrifying, and it’s a popular rumor that looking him in the eyes will make a man go mad. He does his best to cover his deformities, most of the time. When he faces people, he tends to keep his head down and his hair over his face and only one eye visible or turned toward a person at a time unless he's making the effort to intimidate. Often his head is turned to one side--keeping the sunken side from obvious view, and he similarly keeps his ruined hand hidden with long sleeves.
His deformities are important for two reasons. The first and simplest is that it means he is always in pain. Bright light hurts his dilated eye, his poorly healed bones ache, etc. The second is that it makes people fear and revile him for something done to him. He should be strong and beautiful, but instead he is ruined and terrifying. Perhaps perversely, both his pain and his anger are important anchors for his personality. Ushahin defines himself in many ways by his pain and rejection and bitterness and the ways in which he has embraced or moved past them, and they are his armor against a world that despises him as much for things completely out of his control as his deeds (which at this point are admittedly pretty bad). Part of the reason he serves his Lord is because of his bitterness against the hypocrisy of humans, who hold themselves up as good and just but reject and shun the weak, broken, or simply different. He embraces his appearance and his pain as part of himself, and in fact is very, very angry at Satoris when the Shaper heals one of his hands. Making Ushahin whole is a punishment to him, not a boon.
Given that he was raised by wolves, if anthropomorphic ones, Ushahin has a strong belief in the concept of ‘pack’. He cares very deeply for his own, and will lash out fiercely at what threatens them. He is also very vulnerable to real, unfeigned compassion and caring, since that isn’t at all something that generally happens to him. By the same token, he loathes pity and fear, and his abilities make it easy for him to be aware of what those around him feel.