Matthew Dural

The Hollow, Burning Tree

IC Information
Full Name:	Matthew Dural
Deed Name:	Mind on Fire
Gender:	Male
Age:	20ish
Breed:	Homid
Stream:	Gumagan
Auspice:	No Sun Shining
Varna:	Karna (Saltwalter Crocodile)
Rank:	Hatchling (1)
Height:	5'7"
Weight:	180 lbs
Hair:	Light Brown
Eyes:	Green
Nature:	Sage
Demeanor:	Explorer
OOC Information
Theme Song:	Enya - Tempus Vernum
Quote:	"The greater the shadow, the closer to the light we dance."
Status:	Past PC
Player:	Malkav

Personality[]

Dural is cheerful, and distant, and friendly, and somber. He has something of a faraway look to his eyes, even when he's paying close attention, and a quiet smile that never seems to leave his face, even when his bad leg pains him. He asks questions, gives answers, and yet always seems to be pursuing some different meaning than what is spoken. Just where the young man is going, not even he knows...

Sheet[]

Attributes:

Physical: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2

Social: Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2

Mental: Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 3

Abilities:

Talents: Athletics 2, Empathy 2, Expression 2, Primal Urge 2, Scrounging 1, Vigilance 2

Skills: Animal Ken 1, Etiquette 2, Meditation 1, Survival 1

Knowledges: Academics1, Computer 1, Enigmas 2, Investigation 2, Law 1, Linguistics 1, Medicine 1, Mnesis Emulation 2, Occult 2, Rituals 1

Advantages:

Backgrounds: Fetish 1, Mnesis 4, Resources 1, Rites 1

Rage: 2

Gnosis: 4

Willpower: 7

Renown: (Permanent/Temporary)

Glory: 0/0
Honor: 1/0
Wisdom: 2/0

Gifts: Lambent Flame, Sense Dissolver, Sense Moon, Talk

Rites:

Minor Rites: Greet the Sun, Offerings
Level 1 Rites: Dedication

Merits: Veiled to Garou (7pts)

Flaws: Bard's Tongue (1pt), Lame (3pts), Foe From the Past (3pts)

Fetish[]

Lungin (Level 1, Gnosis 5): This is a wooden pipe used for smoking tobacco, or a mixture of tobacco and pituri. A Fire-spirit must enter the pipe, although they are glad to do so if the owner of the pipe is a frequent smoker. When smoked, the pipe adds a die to dice pools for Gumagan rites. In addition, the smoker may smoke Awakened tobacco or pituri, and receive twice as much effect as usual.

Battlescars[]

Crushed Leg: During his Rite of Passage, Dural was attacked by a fomor that was most certainly not part of the intended ceremony. While able to defend himself and (with the aid of his teacher) slay the beast, the boy's leg was savaged and nearly completely destroyed in the fight, only 'saved' by his regeneration. To this day, he's forced to walk with a cane and is usually in at least some pain at all times.

Foe From the Past[]

Several of Dural's ancestors and past lives have been dogged by a particular type of fomor that he knows as the Eater Beneath. He doesn't think it's the same one each time (especially considering he and his mother killed the most recent one to show up) but they're similar enough, and recurring enough, that it worries him.

Specialties[]

Linguistics: Dural knows the native Aboriginal language of his birth-area (Pama-Nyungan) and English.
Perception: Noticing details. Dural just has an eye for little things that most people miss.

Archid Form[]

Strength (+4): 6

Dexterity (-1): 2

Stamina (+5): 7 (Includes Huge Size bonus)

Manipulation (-3): 0

Appearance: 0

Traits: Dragon Masque, Huge Size (1), Terrible Claws, Thorns

Roughly 30' of body, with another 30'-40' of tail, and about 8' tall at the shoulder. Not to mention black as nightmare and covered with barbed denticles.

Suchid Form[]

Roughly 15' long Saltwater Crocodile

Strength (+3): 5

Dexterity (-2): 1

Stamina (+3): 5

Manipulation (-4): 0

Running speed in this form is halved, and the Mokole cannot run continuously for long, but swimming speed equals the Homid form's land speed. These crocs can reach 20' in length or more. Their bite inflicts Strength + 3 damage.

Advancement[]

Advancement History

Learned Dexterity (10/20/09)
Learned Gift: Sense Wyrm (12/01/09)

Background[]

It's starting to come back to me now... back to Australia. Not the Australia they teach you about... Melbourne, Sydney, the Outback... No, the real Australia. The smoking caves. The gods who eat mountains, the flying dragons, the rivers of gold...

He was born out in the desert of South Australia, out where there are no cities. South of Birdsville, west of Innamincka, east of Oodnadatta and north of Marree. Where there is nothing to stand between the earth and the sky an the horizon embraces all of creation. But that is simply where the story begins.

My home lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky a burning wind punished our lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes.

His family wasn't one of those that violently rejected the new world, the "whitefella" and his advances. No, they simply lived out in the wilderness because they chose to. Because it was home. They even wandered in and out of towns from time to time, sometimes to trade, sometimes simply to see. To look. To learn.

The name Dural, meaning "a burning, hollow tree" in their native language, was given to the boy because of a dream his mother had the eve of his birth. She was walking in the desert, the heavens wheeling above, and she came upon a stump, withered and twisted by the punishing environment. From within it fountained a light. A blazing, pure, golden light that sang and whispered, the sky overhead turning as black as the deepest pit in the middle of a moonless night. The light spoke to her of her past, of the past of her people, and the past of Gaia. For the woman was one of the Mokole.

The blood of the Dragon Kings flowed within her child, and they remembered together.

When he was young, he was taught the ways of the desert, of the sky and the sand. Of the sun and the stars. Of life and death and Dream. He learned as the animals learned, through example, through doing, through instinct and need and barely conscious understanding.

As he grew older, he was taught the ways of man, of the cities and streets. Of money and knowledge and Fact. He learned then as Men learned, from books and speech and questions. He was given another name, to be known to the men as they were known to each other, and that name was Matthew. But he never forgot the desert. Never forgot the lights of the sky and the warmth of the ground. Never forgot who he was. Never forgot the burning, hollow tree.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

He remembers the day well, when he left the cities for the desert once more. He had completed what the city-men called Middle School, was fourteen turnings of the seasons, and his parents decided that it was time to begin the next stage of his learning. Where before he had learned by living, then by listening, now he would learn by remembering. He was taken out into the deep desert, where only the stones and sand witnessed the passage of the sun and stars, and they told him things. Told him of the old times, told him of the new times, and all the times in between. Told him of the old blood that flowed within his mother, and less strongly in his father. And within him. They gave him some of the teaching herbs, and they led him into the Sun.

It was all coming back to me. I could feel the hot sun on my back skin, and the grasses under my toes.

He walked within the Dreamtime on all fours, the heat of Sun above stirring his blood, quickening his mind. Telling him of the days before the whitefella. Of a race called Bunyip, and the time before them. Telling him... many things. When he emerged from the Dream, he and his mother left his father behind, for this was simply the first step on a long journey, one that a simple Kin, no matter how loving and skilled, was not equipped to make.

He learned many things, in that time. Learned of the Mother Earth, Waramurungundi, called Gaia by the younger skin-changers. He learned of Mother Sun, Gnowee, and Father Moon, Meeka. He learned of the Dreamtime ancestors who built this world and who became it. Learned to watch for the shapes of those long-ago Folk in the fall of rocks or the twisting of a tree's branches. Learned of the Devisor, the Designer, and the Dissolver. Learned of the War that raged even now. Learned of his place within it.

His Passage was to be a simple one. Life had other ideas. A horrific creature, spawned of nightmare and the Dissolver's torment tore its way from beneath the desert and set upon the boy and his mother. His mother could not remember such a thing, but the boy did, and it terrified him. The Eater Beneath had come to him before, he remembered. Perhaps this was Fate. Together they managed to fell the beast. But not without a price. The boy's left hindleg was crushed, and even the healing abilities given to him by Sun and Moon could not fully restore it. But that was his burden to bear, along the path that was begining to spiral out before him. He could feel the tug of the road, the heat of a day that had been hidden away during his birth urging him onwards.

He bid his parents farewell, took up his tools, both Mokole and Man, and began to walk. The journey took him far further afield than any might have guessed, but he had dreamed of this, too. He crossed seas of sand and water and grass and stone. He tracked the whitefella to his home lands, and then followed him across other seas. It has been a long, long walk, but such things are needed, sometimes. Time taken to think, to learn, to be.

And now, his feet carry him to the Caern of the Crystal Springs.

Logs[]

7/18/2009: A wandering lizard pauses to rest, and finds what he was looking for, after a fashion. Log
7/21/2009: Dural meets a couple of the locals, and digs more than a common language out of the past. Log
7/23/2009: The local lizard goes to say hello to the local bear, and the two talk a little. Log
7/24/2009: Dural decides to take a little sun while out visiting Beryl, and she gets to be one of the few to see his Archid shape. Log
8/10/2009: A certain little Child of Gaia gets a little too inquisitive for her own good. Dural teaches her why her species once feared the dark. Log
9/05/2009: While out for a walk, a kin happens across a lizard, and they talk about things past. Log
10/12/2009: A kitty finds a lizard out in the woods! Log
11/11/2009: A newly arrived garou gets more than she bargained for. Log

Thoughts on Others[]

Desmond Richter: Someone from a breed even rarer than his own. An interesting mind, too. Will have to see if that mind is rooted in the past or reaching to the future.
Galia Theophilus: Ooooh, he likes this one. Feisty.
Heather Akana: Ah, so young, so eager. She will learn. It'll be good for her.
Marina Dale: One of the wolf-kin, and delightfully friendly. Also willing to listen and think. Good to know their families still hold such people.
Rommy Akana: The local head wolf, though a decent enough sort. As grumpy as all his kind tend to be, but unprejudiced. Good.
Trudy Riddle: An interesting woman, though a bit flighty. Cats, go figure.