Kelancey the Green, Erpheronian, White Nehtorian/Dalorin

[Kelancey the Green]

Caein Kelancey, a.k.a. Kelancey the Green

Birth Place: Nyermersys, Province of Nermeran

Birth Date: 1633 a.S. (Age: 34 years)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Eyes:  Xazure Blue

Hair:  Cinnabrown

Height:  1 ped, 9 palmspans

Weight:  2 pygge

Tribe: Erpheronian

Occupation: Healer

Title: White Nehtorian/Dalorin

Overview:
  Kelancey the Green, once a Dalorin assigned to the army in Nyermersys, now wanders from one town to the next in search of people to help, companionship, and even an occasional adventure to dive into.  A dour man at first appearance, he is soothing to those he heals, and a devoted friend to those he trusts.

Physical Appearance:
  Caein appears the same as most men his age, but his face gives away some boyish naïveté, a lingering innocence that refuses to come to terms with the man he is.  His lower eyelids are purpuric, slightly sunken, showing age and chronic sleep deprivation.  Yet, he is wide-eyed as if he is soaking in through his eyes all that he sees, afraid to blink and miss some mote of vital importance.

  He stands a good height, and when standing tall he literally stands out in a crowd.  However, he often slouches, reducing his presence and blending him in among those around him, a remnant of growing up in his father’s shadow.  He is terrible at concealing his emotions, broadcasting his joy with a beaming grin or his grief with downcast eyes and furrowed brow. 

  He still has some of his handsomeness from young adulthood: soft, sad, emotive eyes, high cheekbones, and a well-squared jaw make for a strong, stern appearance complemented with sensitivity and compassion.  At the same time, he tends to neglect his personal grooming, letting his beard stubble grow out for too long a stretch.

  His long, deft fingers have the calluses of a writer, but closer observation shows that he also has toughened his palms from bearing others’ burdens.  In sum, he tends to deemphasize what attractive features he has with disregard for what would otherwise be a stately, dignified appearance.

Clothes:
  Caein typically prefers to travel in a brown leather hooded greatcoat for several reasons.  Not only are long coats good in almost every type of weather, they are permissible attire in almost every echelon of society.  Neither elegant nor slovenly, they are adequate attire for every occasion.  They shield books, travel equipment, rucksacks and so on from the elements, as well as from prying eyes.  Most importantly, greatcoats are useful for long treks as handy standbys for sleeping blankets, pillows, tarps, makeshift tents, and other fashions of creature comforts while on the road.

  His white Dalorin gown displays pride, confidence, poise, and erudition, reshaping the man inside this single article of clothing.  As a lion's majesty is announced by his mane, so is Caein’s clarity of focus emblazoned on his capacious coat.  A sash around the waist serves to gather his gown to his body when performing dental or surgical procedures.[¹]  Pearlescent buttons on the front gleam brightly, juxtaposed against the stark Cyhalloian snow of the cloth folds.  About his neck he carries his amulets, one of hollowed out lymmonwood, the other of cloudy white clear quartz, symbols of his protection and sterility, fastened by a copper chain, which he can tuck into a pocket inside his coat, just next to his left breast.  Many pockets sewn outside and inside the coat are useful for small examination and surgical tools, snifters for medicinal liquors, philters and unguent vials, specimen jars, and so on.  Beneath his coat, he wears a wool kilt dyed in the argyle of his Erpheronian tribe.  His family brooch, a lion en guarde encircled in laurel leaves, attaches his coin purse to his leather belt. Wool socks and leather sandals complete his formal attire.

  It is myth and folly that a Dalorin’s white robes are never stained, never tarnished.  As is the case with one's mind, a Dalorin’s robes shall carry on them some hint, some remembrance of past blemishes, despite any scouring or cleansing they may undergo.  Some stains do not come out, if only perceptible to the bearer him or herself. 

Personality:
  Caein is tense at first meeting, guarding his tongue lest his careless mind let slip idiocies he’ll later regret.  He is slow to warm up to people, but always polite and acquiescing in the process.  He isolates himself socially primarily to prevent himself from hurting others with thoughtless words or an accidental unkind gesture.  His humor can be coarse if not scandalous at times.  His speaking voice is soft, baritone, and mellifluous, but his laugh always seems just a little too loud for any room he’s in.  Trying to rein these in, he comes across as inhibited and withdrawn.  Added to this, he may make boyish gestures or self-effacing comments when nervous or unsettled, compounding his tension in social engagements.  Once he does warm up to someone, he is very genuine, candid, loyal, and humorous; that said, he prefers to have only a few close friends.

  He scans people’s faces, bodies, clothing, accoutrement, stance and posture with meticulous attention to detail as if to absorb their persona into his memory.  Unfortunately, his memory for personal details is not very good, and he often has to ask someone their name four or five times before cementing it in his memory.   When talking with someone on serious matters, his gaze is unblinking, fixing the speaker squarely in the eyes.  He studies the rise and fall of tones in their voice, the momentary facial twitches which punctuate their sentences, their posture, hand gestures, and the musicality of their words.  In part, he learns about people’s characters this way; to an equal extent, he is learning how to interact with each new acquaintance.

  He is genuinely concerned with the welfare of other people, in part because of obligation he feels to helping others, and partly because of his upbringing.  He was taught from a young age to recognize what other people are feeling and what they desire.  He is not astute at detecting what someone else wants, and so he often offers much more than what they wish, at times even more than he can realistically give.

  If he were to enter combat, he would likely take a defensive stance, standing in front of those less defended than himself but not surging into the fray.  He would view it as a better use of his skills to heal his comrades rather than join the combat.  Only if his opponent posed a significant direct and unavoidable threat to himself or wounded compatriots would he resort to fighting, and then he would aim to disarm or incapacitate his opponents, not kill them.

Background:
Father: Korolos Kelancey, Erpheronian
Mother: Siobhan Lorraine, Stratanian of Bardavos
Brother: Vaeleron Kelancey, younger brother

Education:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, temple
•   16 to 25 years, acolyte
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman
•   30 years to present, master

Employment:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, monastery pupil
•   16 to 25 years, apprentice healer
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman healer, Santhran's army
•   30 years to present, Dalorin, Nyermersys

  Caein is the firstborn son of Korolos Kelancey, an esteemed healer conversant in the art of medicinal and alchemical cures.  Korolos is particularly celebrated for his treatment of the bilious and choleric ailments of humans. 

  Siobhan Lorraine, a Bardavan teacher of languages, including the language of Shendar, loves to travel as much as she loves meeting and connecting with new people.  More than a wandering spirit, she has a fiery heart, which led her to venture to the Nybelmaran continent for four years in her young adulthood.  While there, she lived with the Santerran people, learning their customs, educating them about sanitation, childbearing, and the Santharian language, and enjoying living abroad.

  After this time, she travelled to Nermeran to teach linguistics at the college in Voldar.  There, she met the man who would capture her heart and raise a family, Korolos Kelancey.  She enjoyed his unbridled optimism when confronted with hardship, and found companionship in his compassionate heart.  They later moved to Nyermersys, married at the temple of temple of Jeyriall, Goddess of Harvest and Reproduction, and purchased land to build their home, where they would start a family and live out the rest of their days.

  Korolos served for two years in the service of His Majesty Santhran Tiandor, as a healer on the front of Nermeran, where sporadic skirmishes with the Gob-Oc orcs underneath the Tandala Highlands confronted him with the atrocities men are capable of committing.  During his service in the armed forces, and for many years after in his long and renowned career in the hospital of Seyella in Nyermersys, Korolos sought to engender an attitude of peace and tolerance among his fellow men.  His teaching found purchase in the minds of his two children, Caein and Vaeleron.

  At a young age, Caein showed fervent interest in the healing arts, studying his father's texts on the bodily humours.  He brought injured lizards, snakes and birds into their home, nursing them for days, trying to nurture them to health.  Untrained and youthful as he was, these animals would inevitably perish from their wounds or dehydration, which would send Caein on another hunt for some other wounded animal to care for.

  Korolos noted his son's interest in tending to wounded animals.  After watching his young boy proffer a lettuce leaf to his latest catch, a mako, which, being an insectivore, could not be bothered to dine on trivial fluff it viewed as bedding and groundcover, Korolos delighted to see the sparkle in Caein’s eyes as he fathered this small creature.  He resolved to train Caein not only in the healing arts, but also in the worldview which would mould the peacekeeper he would become.

  Caein was taken into the monastery at Voldar at 6 years of age, there to become entranced by a world of flowing prose, astonishing numerology, spectacular cosmology, and other wonders of the natural world.  He trained from a young age at language, and eventually learned to read some Tharanian codices on the White Order’s ways.  He grew to love writing, and was inspired by fanciful stories of child princes on faraway planets and other incredible tales.  This fact aside, he remained devoted to his studies of living animals and plants, and would sneak books from the monastery library back to his cell at the end of each day.  He would marvel at the diversity of the natural world, dreaming of what made such a teeming abundance of life in Santharia.  He pored over atlases of human anatomy, not yet learning much but adding fuel to a fire that was ever growing in him.

  As he grew older, learning his rituals and applying his efforts to the chores of monastery routine, one White Monk, Ovate Medoc, took note of Caein's particular predilection toward the natural and life arts.  Though his busy schedule at the affiliated hospital demanded most of his time, every now and again he would demonstrate a new skill, teach him some new method to ascertain the nature of a disease, or quiz him on human maladies.

  Ovate Medoc took the boy aside one afternoon as they met in the vestibule of the monks’ cells.  “Caein, do you recognize this berry?”

  In truth, he didn’t recognize it at first glance.  He plucked the berry between his fingers and took a small bite from it without thinking.  Warm, sweet, something like currant and clove…

  “Is it a hearthberry?” Caein replied.

  “That’s good.  Now, how did you know that wasn’t deadly nightshade?”[²]

  Caein wracked his brain to come up with a quick answer.  “It was sweet!”

  “Well, you had to taste it to know that, and if that had been deadly nightshade, you’d already be gasping your last breaths.  And, that’s incorrect, nightshade is sweet, too.”

  Oh, better if I ship off to the Shoals tomorrow and spare myself any more humiliation, he thought.  “This one’s red.”

  “And?”  The ovate was never satisfied with incompleteness.

  “Nightshade is black…?”

  “Good!  Some other differences you’ll notice are the striking variations of color in the hearthberry, red, orange, then yellow.  See the coarse surface of this berry?  By comparison, the nightshade berry is shiny and smooth.  Nightshade is also much smaller than the hearthberry, surrounded by a persistent calyx, which looks like a star. Those berries are filled with an inky juice and several seeds. All parts of the nightshade plant are poisonous, but especially the seeds and roots…”

  And so went many brain-tingling sessions learning from Friar Medoc.  Years later, in his time spent on the wards as a practicing Dalorin, Caein would remember those sessions longingly, musing to himself that he never thanked Friar Medoc for giving him the assurance he needed to become an excellent healer.

  Caein graduated from his tutelage at the monastery with high marks and higher hopes for the future.  He entered his apprenticeship at the sanitarium for the blind and deaf in Voldar, working under the supervision of a small group of White Nehtorians.  Learning became more precious, and more arduous at the same time.  Answers were not handed to him, they were offered as reward after diligent study.  His tutors, though still thoughtful and perceptive in noticing Caein’s achievements, demanded insight and reasoned arguments supporting his philosophical theories.  History and government studies were no longer memorization of timelines, but rather were discussions of principles and educated debates.  At the end of each day, he would feel the burning ache from taxing his mental muscle as he collapsed, exhausted, into his bed.

  Caein was slow to realize that his colleagues were taking an interest in girls, while he lingered in the hospital or found some other preoccupation.  He had every desire to meet young women, but he’d grown socially awkward in his childhood.  His attempts to talk to women were woefully polite, kind, without connection.  Though emotionally fragile, he yearned for closeness even more.

  Around this time, Caein and his brother Vaeleron joined efforts to contribute to the improvement of the town in which they had grown up.  These two lent their arms and backs to public works including cleaning and restoring a run-down section of housing for the poor along Mudroad.  In the Rising Sun of 1650 a.S., when the Teiphra River loosed a surge which flooded the meat markets, contaminating a good portion of the Harbor District with animal remains, they volunteered to clean the streets and empty ruined stock from butchers’ markets.  For months they spurred each other on, pushing each other to perform better and contribute more of themselves.  They grew closer as brothers and best friends, bolstering one another, forging a permanent bond over time.  As an aftereffect, within two or three years the scrawny, brainy kid had developed into a fit and vigorous young man.

  Because of the price he paid for his education, he grew even fonder of medicine as a way of life. The sacrifice of life outside of college, the discipline demanded by his instructors, and the knowledge and skill demanded by the people he cared for steeled his commitment to healing as his life’s ambition.  He could tolerate living without many things, because this satisfaction of serving others had captured his heart and soul.

  Then one day, a dream came down from the gods and blessed him with her smile.  Sigridis was another healer in training at the same sanitarium where Caein trained.  Making her way from the abbey where she studied to the hospital, she would talk with him, poke fun at his stubble or his slouching, ambling walk, or just laugh at his poor attempts at humor.  She was a bundle of joy, and a beautiful angel in womanly form.  Her peals of laughter were raindrops of gold resonating in his mind.  Her rapturous smile was a wonder to behold.  Her youthful candor and boundless enthusiasm had him baring his heart for her to claim or devastate at her whim.

  Sigridis initiated the contact, offering to tutor him in the cadaver dissection lab.  Her knowledge of anatomy astonished Caein; on occasion, she would even upstage some of the younger journeyman lecturers in the anatomy lessons.  His asset, however, was his ability to grasp concepts of the effects of the humours on various bodily functions, such as suffering of the spleen from bilious infirmity.  He also had a talent for explaining difficult concepts, which aided Sigridis in her oral exams.  After 6 months of studying together in lecture halls, they began going on late afternoon talks on the outskirts of the city.

  “Sigridis, for what reason did you decide to become a healer?” Caein asked on one of these walks.

  “All healers want to do is care for ailing adults,” Sigridis replied.  “Could it be that none of these people have the presence of mind to see that the children are the ones who are most worth saving?  Old people have already lived their lives, and have accumulated the sum of their vices in their afflictions.  Children are innocent, and need to be protected and looked after.”

  “But Nehtor doesn’t devalue someone’s life because they have sinned.  We all sin, Sigridis.  No one living in Caelereth lives without sin, it is inherent in our perspective on life.  No one who has reached adulthood is innocent, because we all commit crimes, whether of commission or omission.”

  “I know you’re right, but I don’t have to like it!”  She beamed another grin, which he could do nothing to resist.  As was always the case, she won the argument with her disarming wit and her winning smile.

  He was hopelessly smitten, and for a time his studies came second to his devotion to her.  He would wander the city streets till late—an ill-advised move, on reflection—musing about the inspiration of his newfound pride and joy.  He wrote her love notes with “illuminations” sketched in the margins—no more than simple, boyish doodling draped about the page.  As childish as his notes were, she welcomed them and reciprocated by preparing for him what soon became his favorite food: Whole Taenish broiled in a spicy, tangy, sour sauce of lymmon, ground Khmeen seed, and shaved cinnabark, which is allowed to marinate for an entire day.  Within four weeks they had already committed to marry by the year’s end.

  Their wedding ceremony took place in a small mountainside temple half a year later, 6 months before he was commissioned to join the medical corps for Santhran Tiandor’s army.  On that day, family and friends traveled from far and wide to help them celebrate their joyful union.  Caein was beaming with glee wearing his father’s knit woolen tunic and formal dress sash patterned with the family’s argyle and his wool kilt.  Sigridis looked absolutely resplendent in her Eyelian flowing white gown, with exquisite gold earrings, a gold necklace with a flashing pink fyrite pendant, and gold bracelets on each wrist that gracefully complemented her naked elken brown arms and neck.  It was a time of celebration and of uncertainty, anticipating the four-year divide that loomed near.

  In the month of Rising Sun of that same year, Caein and his graduating colleagues chose titles for one another, as was customary on finishing one’s apprenticeship.  Sigridis was christened Sigridis the Resolute, both for her devotedness to children under her care and for her unswerving determination, her unbreakable will.  To Caein, the title Kelancey the Green was bestowed, on several accounts.  First, Caein had fallen in love with Sigridis in spring of the preceding year, a romantic story that was well known among their generation of acolytes.  As well, Caein demonstrated adept skill in treating some of the withering diseases attributed to phlegmatic illness.  He had a young spirit, which in Vardýnn at that time was associated with nature and herbal life.  In spite of these reasons, the more likely explanation for his title was that Caein, no matter how experienced, or confident, or respected he may be in any social gathering, always seemed to be the newcomer, the ingénue who stumbled over his words and betrayed his good reputation.

  Farewells were uttered, and resolutions to maintain contact were exchanged among friends and colleagues.  Caein and Sigridis held each other tenderly and longingly that night, talking softly of dreams they had lived together and those yet to come.  They reminisced about hardships they’d overcome together.  They collaborated on their vision of building a family together, here in Voldar.  The following morning at sunrise, Caein kissed Sigridis goodbye, both of them drenched with one another’s tears, and he boarded the caravan bound for the camps in Nyermersys.

  Life with the army was a refreshing change from the Dalorin-congested hallways of the sanitarium.  The autonomy of not having some stuffy white coat always watching over his shoulder, and doing all the work he could because the work never ended, transformed his love of medicine into an addiction.  Here, at the Nermeran army camp, tending to men and women who urgently needed healing taxed his energy and his mental reserve in ways that he’d been zealously hoping for.  He was needed, not in some distant, long-term manner, but immediately, here and now.  He distributed alik’ran root with guidance in its usage for cramps and pains, applied miyu paste to laborers’ aching joints and backs, extracted rotten molars and sore wisdom teeth, and stitched wounds both natural and man-made.  No longer a mere attendant assisting the chief surgeons, he changed the same surgical bandages he had placed the day before, checking his own work to ensure its quality.  The emotional drain took its toll, not having time to put an arm around the shoulders of any of the people he watched over.

  In these sick tents, he developed an avid interest in treating sanguineous and phlegmatic ailments.  Bad backs and headaches, with the infrequent head blow or crushed limb from a combat training accident, among many other infirmities caught his attention and forced him to keep asking questions.  Many of the illnesses he saw didn’t have known remedies, and so was left to explore treatments on his own, inventing cures and brewing potions from scratch, often with less-than-optimal resources with which to do it.  Over a 4-year span working with wounded veterans, he composed a brief manuscript on how to evaluate injuries of the spine, arms, and legs, with particular reference to the sanguineous ailments afflicting each, which he continues to add to through the present day.

  The detachment Kelancey was stationed with conducted infrequent raids into the Tandala Highlands, either on scavenging expeditions to bring back what scant precious metals remained, or occasional reconnaissance treks to scout the few ogres and trolls inhabiting the mountains north and east of the city.  They saw little combat, but the daily routine of combat and weapon proficiency training were the preoccupation of most of the camp’s inhabitants from daybreak to daywane.  Kelancey was advised to learn some proficiency with a weapon, even if he was resigned to the healers’ tent.  Should a marauding band of greedy ogres come their way, it was reasoned, every able-bodied man and woman would be called on to aid in the defense of the camp.  Having a strong aversion to violence, he chose a laborer’s tool, the sledgehammer, as his weapon to become acquainted with.  Thrice weekly he trained with a troop of infantry regulars hefting mallets, learning basic familiarity with thrusts to an opponent’s gut, strikes directed at an enemy’s sword hand, sweeps to strip away the enemy’s shield, and wide arcs to knock the defender’s feet out from under him.

  Quite unexpectedly, that suppositious day arrived in Kelancey’s fourth year in the army.  A scavenging expedition stumbled onto a mine adit which had been heavily overgrown and presumably forgotten.  They presumed wrongly, as they soon found they’d opened a road into a sizeable encampment of Gob-Ocs who were surveying the same tunnels.  The small band of humans was slaughtered, triggering an anticipatory first-strike by the outraged goblins.  The yellow-eyed, cunning creatures awaited the deep of night to ambush the unsuspecting Nermeran soldiers.  Though not terribly accurate or powerful, a volley of arrows from the goblin light bows silenced the sentries on watch.  If it hadn’t been for the alarm of the angered horses corralled near the sentry towers, the entire camp might have been massacred as they slept.

  “To arms, to arms!” a squire yelled, resounding throughout the vale.  “The walls have been breached!”

  Kelancey awoke startled and wide-eyed, bolting from his bed to get dressed.  Panic clenched his throat tightly and refused to release him.  His innards churned; he felt on the verge of vomiting.  Death looked very different when he was in charge of the situation, ready to snatch another man’s life out of Death’s putrescent maw.  Now, that sense of command and authority had been wrested from him by odious green orcs flooding the camp in waves.  He lost his sight for a couple of dread-filled moments, then everything came into very clear and precise focus.

  Rage, bloody and murderous, fumed up in his veins, corrupting his heart, poisoning his lungs, embittering his mind.  He was drawn up and consumed by red, furious lust to discharge catastrophe and ruin onto the invading swine.  Palming his sledge with one hand, grabbing a lantern with the other, he cursed and gnashed his teeth as he approached the nameless tide of green warriors.  The lantern he soon forgot and carelessly dropped.   Gripping his hammer fiercely, he was startled to realize it felt good in his hands.  The smooth wooden handle glided easily in his hands as he swung a crushing haymaker up into the first goblin he reached.  A shallow gash opened in his arm as this goblin lunged before the hammer cracked his skull and ended his life.  Contacting that hammer against the enemy’s head eliminated all thoughts of, “This creature has a name, and a home, and perhaps a wife waiting for him.”  Every enemy head looked the same on the field, the intoxicating rush of Armeros’ breath on his neck blurring the distinctions between one goblin and the next.

  Later, when life returned to a more normal pace and he could reflect on what he’d done, he agonized because he had cheapened Life, robbed Nehtor of the lives of creatures he hadn’t known for more than a fraction of a second.  He squelched the breath of life of living beings not entirely unlike himself, beings who also had ambitions and dreams.  He betrayed his training, his calling in life.

  After 4 years like this, he returned to his home embittered, distant, and disgusted with himself.  He couldn’t describe to his loving wife what he’d done. He grew apart from her, isolating himself and becoming increasingly selfish—not only toward her, but also to anyone he worked with.  He demanded more of the nurses and students who worked with him.  He worked longer hours, which then led to finding diversions away from home.  Finally, his marriage with Sigridis eroded, and they agreed to dissolve their union.

  It comforted him that what was an addiction less than a year before had morphed into a form of atonement now.  He had a lifelong debt to repay to Nehtor, whom he’d rebelled against for four years.  If he could not sustain a marriage with the woman he loved, then he would be married to work and commiseration from that day forward.  It is better, he reasoned, to share others’ misery than not to feel at all.  As the teachings say, “Nehtor is very much the Lone God.”

Strengths:
§   Excellent (Mastery) skill in medicine and healing
§   Brew Potion, very good
§   Good with his hammer (equal to an average soldier), with emphasis on disarming, knocking down, and incapacitating opponents
§   Unshakable concentration, can bind wounds and do minor surgeries on the field of combat[¹]

Weaknesses:
§   Selfish in his schedule, values his time above that of others
§   Gauche, often makes social gaffs and doesn’t realize what he’s said or done
§   Naïve, socially inappropriately gestures or remarks in high-pressure social situations
§   Sleeping sickness, may fall asleep during extremes of emotion
§   Nearsighted, literally—can see very acutely to 6 peds, blurry up to 12 peds, vague detail out to 15 peds, and no detail short of a large tree or an ogre past that
§   Nearsighted, figuratively—lives for the present, poor at planning long-term (i.e. investments, reputation)

Weapons:
§   Sledgehammer—3 fores shaft, blue iron head
§   Woodcutting axe—really a tool, not a weapon

Belongings:
§   2 hollow amulets:  One carved from lymmonwood, finely polished; the other, a hollowed cloudy white clear quartz.  Both are symbols of his protection and sterility in healing arts.
§   Field surgeon’s kit—leather kit containing bistouries, suture needles and Yuatu’way suture thread, trephine, retractors, lancets, tourniquets, small glass vials containing Miyu beans, Totit oil, False Dreaming elixir, and Por’mon (ice plant salve).[¹]
§   Alchemical kit, stored in wooden latched box, with mortar and pestle, glass bottles, essential ingredients for potions and unguents, dried Alik’ran root, Arv seeds, Jeshanna ointment, Odea moss powder.
§   Journal and writing quill, charcoal stick for making ink.

Familiars:
None (at present).

FOOTNOTES:
[¹] I will limit the procedures with which Caein is proficient to only what’s mentioned throughout the website. There are references in the medicinal herb compendium to stitching wounds and dental extractions, in the description of uses of the Miyu bean.  The description of Totit oil is that it's used for wound sterilization.

[²] Though there is no mention of belladonna nor deadly nightshade in the compendium, there ought to be one!  Really, it has so many medicinal uses: Unstable heart, phlegmatic afflictions, and the more common aesthetic usage—for brightening women’s eyes.  The cosmetic use of belladonna was known in medieval times (in our Earth, that is), and was commonly given to noblewomen seeking to elevate their social status, at least temporarily, with big, shiny eyes (from its cycloplegic and prooptotic effects, though they didn’t use exactly those terms in medieval times).  Apparently, heart problems are recognized in Santharia, as mentioned in the reference on Arv seeds.  I’d seriously like to ask permission for this one plant to be added to the compendium, because it can be a great addition to any herbalist’s elixir cabinet.

[Leida Kereborn]

Quick question -  How did a Stratanian end up in Nyermersys?  It's probably irrelevant, but I was just curious.   

[Kelancey the Green]

Um, in truth I didn't really think about that yet.  I just thought it'd be fun if his mother was Stratanian.  Not too much logic or reasoning went into that point!
I can change it for the sake of appropriateness, if need be.

[Kalína Dalá'isyrás]

Having your parents territories being so far apart shouldn't be a problem, just give a brief paragraph or so explaining how they met.  This will give a bit more realism for your History's sake. ^.~

[Kain Cristar]

Okay, I think I'm ready.  Please be gentle? 

Gentleness is a sign of weakness. Either way, my comments in blue


Seamus Clancy

Birth Place: Nyermersys, Province of Nermeran

Birth Date: 1643 a.S. (Age: 34 years)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Eyes:  Grayish Blue There is acually a whole santharian color pallet, look it up for cool color referances.

Hair:  Light Chestnut

Height:  1 ped, 9 palmspans

Weight:  2 pygge

Tribe: Erpheronian

Occupation: Healer

Title: White Nehtorian/Dalorin

Physical Appearance:
  Seamus appears the same as his chronological age, but his face gives away some boyish naïveté, a lingering innocence that refuses to come to terms with the man he is.  His lower eyelids are purpuric, slightly sunken, showing age and chronic sleep deprivation.  Yet, he is wide-eyed as if he is soaking in through his eyes all that he sees, afraid to blink and thus miss some mote of vital importance.
  He stands a good height, and when standing tall he literally stands out in a crowd.  However, he often slouches, reducing his presence and blending him in among those around him.  He is terrible at concealing his emotions, broadcasting his joy with a beaming grin or his grief with downcast eyes and arced eyebrows. 
  He still has some of his handsomeness from young adulthood: Soft, sad, emotive eyes, high cheekbones, and a well-squared jaw making for a strong, stern appearance complemented with sensitivity and compassion.  At the same time, he tends to neglect his personal grooming, letting his beard stubble grow out or going without the services of another barber for too long a stretch.
  His long, deft fingers have the calluses of a writer, but closer observation shows that he also has toughened his palms from bearing others’ burdens.  In sum, he tends to deemphasize what attractive features he has with disregard for what would otherwise be a stately, dignified appearance.

Clothes:
  Seamus typically prefers to travel in a brown leather hooded greatcoat for several reasons.  Not only are long coats good in almost every type of weather, they are permissible attire in almost every echelon of society.  Neither elegant nor slovenly, they are the imperfect dress for every occasion.  They shield books, travel equipment, rucksacks and so on from the elements, as well as from prying eyes.  Most importantly, greatcoats are useful for long treks as handy standbys for sleeping blankets, pillows, tarps, makeshift tents, and other fashions of creature comforts while on the road.
  His white Dalorin gown displays pride, confidence, poise, and erudition, reshaping the man inside this single article of clothing.  As a lion's majesty is announced by his mane, so is Seamus’ clarity of focus emblazoned on his capacious coat.  A sash around the waist serves to gather his gown to his body when performing dental or surgical procedures. I am unsure as to how far surgical knowlege has come in Santharia, but would assume it is rarely helpful. Herbal remedies would be as far as I think most healers could help their patients. Think, mideval  Pearlescent buttons on the front gleam brightly, juxtaposed against the stark Cyhalloian snow of the cloth folds.  About his neck he carries his monaural stethoscope I wouldn't think that these exist., fastened by a copper chain, which he can tuck into a pocket inside his coat, just next to his left breast.  Many pockets sewn outside and inside the coat are useful for small examination and surgical tools, snifters for medicinal liquors, philters and unguent vials, specimen jars, and so on.  Beneath his coat, he wears a wool kilt dyed in the argyle of his Erpheronian tribe.  His family brooch, a lion en guarde encircled in laurel leaves, attaches his coin purse to his leather belt. Wool socks and leather sandals complete his formal attire. Envisioning this character brings up an interesting picture. A man in a duster and a kilt with long wool socks and leather sandles. Creative and adventurous, I like it.
  It is myth and folly that a Dalorin’s white robes are never stained, never tarnished.  As is the case with one's mind, a Dalorin’s robes shall carry on them some hint, some remembrance of past blemishes, despite any scouring or cleansing they may undergo.  Some stains do not come out, if only perceptible to the bearer him or herself. 

Personality:
  Seamus is tense at first meeting, guarding his tongue lest his careless mind let slip idiocies he’ll later regret.  He is slow to warm up to people, but always polite and acquiescing until he warms to them.  He isolates himself socially primarily to prevent himself from hurting others with thoughtless words or an accidental unkind gesture.  Once he does warm up to someone, he is very genuine, candid, loyal, and humorous; that said, he doesn’t warm up to many people, preferring to have only a few close friends.
  He scans people’s faces, bodies, clothing, accoutrement, stance and posture with meticulous attention to detail as if to absorb their persona into his memory.  Unfortunately, his memory for personal details is not very good, and he often has to ask someone their name four or five times before cementing it in his memory.
  He is genuinely concerned with the welfare of other people, in part because of obligation he feels to helping others, and partly because of his upbringing.  He was taught from a young age to recognize what other people are feeling and what they desire.  He is not exceptional at detecting what someone else wants, and so he often offers much more than what they wish, at times even more than he can realistically give.
  If he were to enter combat, he would likely take a defensive stance, standing in front of those less defended than himself but not surging into the fray.  He would opt to wrestle human-sized opponents to the ground, disarm, and pin them.  Only if his opponent posed a significant direct and unavoidable threat to himself or his compatriots would he resort to using his hammer, and even at that he would view it as a better use of his skills to heal his comrades rather than join the combat.  His goal in combat is to disarm or incapacitate his opponents, never to kill them.

Background:
Father: Carolus Clancy, Erpheronian
Mother: Siobhan Lorraine, Stratanian of Bardavos
Brother: Eamon Clancy, younger brother

Education:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, temple
•   16 to 25 years, acolyte
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman
•   30 years to present, master

Employment:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, monastery pupil
•   16 to 25 years, apprentice healer
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman healer, Queen's militia
•   30 years to present, Dalorin, Nyermersys

  Seamus is the firstborn son of Carolus Clancy, an esteemed healer conversant in the art of medicinal and alchemical cures.  Carolus is particularly celebrated for his treatment of the bilious and choleric ailments of humans. 
  Siobhan Lorraine, a Bardavan teacher of languages, including the language of Shendar, loves to travel as much as she loves meeting and connecting with new people.  More than a wandering spirit, she has a fiery heart, which led her to venture to the Nyelbemaran continent for four years in her young adulthood.  While there, she lived with the Santerran people, learning their customs, educating them about sanitation, childbearing, and the Santharian language, and enjoying living abroad.
  After this time, she travelled to Nermeran to teach linguistics at the college in Voldor.  There, she met the man who would capture her heart and raise a family with, no need for the comma. Carolus Clancy.  She enjoyed his unbridled optimism when confronted with hardship, and found companionship in his compassionate heart.  They later moved to Nyermersys, married at the temple of temple of Jeyriall, Goddess of Harvest and Reproduction, and purchased land to build their home, where they would start a family and live out the rest of their days.
  Carolus served for two years in the service of Her Majesty, as a healer on the front of Nermeran, where police actions I notice that you use allot of modern terms not really fitting Santharia. Police actions is more the 1960's and less mideval genocide. with the neighboring Losh-Oc orcs confronted him with the atrocities men are capable of committing.  During his service in the armed forces, and for many years after in his long and renown career in the private hospitals I am unsure if there are such things of Nermeran, Carolus sought to engender an attitude of peace and tolerance among his fellow men.  His teaching found purchase in the minds of his two children, Seamus and Eamon.

  At a young age, Seamus showed fervent interest in the healing arts, studying his father's manuscripts on human anatomy I am unsure as to how much Santharians understand about human anatomy.  He brought wounded lizards, snakes and birds into their home, nursing them for days, trying to nurture them to health.  Untrained and youthful as he was, these animals would inevitably perish from their wounds or dehydration, which would send Seamus on another hunt for some other wounded animal to care for.
  Carolus noted his son's interest in tending to wounded animals.  After watching his young boy proffer a lettuce leaf to his latest catch, a horned lizard I am unsure if such a creature exists in Santharia. Perhaps instead have it be a mako., which, being an insectivore, could not be bothered to dine on trivial fluff it viewed as bedding and groundcover, Carolus delighted to see the sparkle in Seamus’ eyes as he fathered this small creature.  He resolved to train Seamus not only in the healing arts, but also in the worldview which would mould the peacekeeper he would become.

  Seamus was taken into the monastery at Voldor at 6 years of age, there to become entranced by a world of flowing prose, astonishing numerology, spectacular cosmology, and other wonders of the natural world.  He trained from a young age at language, and eventually learned to read some Tharian codices on the White Order’s ways.  He grew to love writing, and was inspired by fanciful stories of child princes on faraway planets and other incredible tales.  This fact aside, he remained devoted to his studies of living animals and plants, and would sneak books from the monastery library back to his cell at the end of each day.  He would marvel at the diversity of the natural world, dreaming of what made such a teeming abundance of life in Santharia.  He pored over atlases of human anatomy, not yet learning much but adding fuel to a fire that was ever growing in him.
  As he grew older, learning his rituals and applying his efforts to the chores of monastery routine, one White Monk, Friar John, took note of Seamus' particular bent toward the natural and life arts.  Though his busy schedule at the affiliated hospital demanded most of his time, every now and again he would demonstrate a new skill, teach him some new method to ascertain the nature of a disease, or quiz him on human maladies.
  “Seamus, do you recognize this berry?”
  In truth, he didn’t recognize it at first glance.  He took the berry between his fingers and took a small bite from it without thinking before he did.  Warm, sweet, something like currant and clove…
  “Is it a hearthberry?”
  “That’s good.  Now, how did you know that wasn’t deadly nightshade I don't think there is such a plant in santharia. We do have our own santharian flowers that are penty poisonous.?”
  Seamus wracked his brain to come up with a quick answer.  “It was sweet!”
  “Well, you had to taste it to know that, and if that had been deadly nightshade, you’d already be gasping your last breaths.  And, that’s incorrect, nightshade is sweet, too.”
  Oh, Lorkuloth get behind me!  I might as well give up and spare myself any more humiliation, he thought.  “This one’s red.”
  “And?”
  “Nightshade is black…?”
  “Good!  Some other differences you’ll notice are the striking variations of color in the hearthberry, red, orange, then yellow.  See the coarse surface of this berry?  By comparison, the nightshade berry is shiny and smooth.  Nightshade is also much smaller than the hearthberry, surrounded by a persistent calyx, which looks like a star. Those berries are filled with an inky juice and several seeds. All parts of the nightshade plant are poisonous, but especially the seeds and roots…”
  And so went many brain-tingling sessions learning from Friar John.  Years later, in his time spent on the wards as a practicing Dalorin, Seamus would remember those sessions longingly, musing to himself that he never thanked Friar John for giving him the assurance he needed to become an excellent healer.

  Seamus graduated from his tutelage at the monastery with high marks and higher hopes for the future.  He entered his apprenticeship at the sanitarium for the blind and deaf in Voldor, working under the supervision of a small group of White Nehtorians.  Learning became more precious, and more arduous at the same time.  Answers were not handed to him, they were offered as reward after diligent study.  His tutors, though still thoughtful and perceptive in noticing Seamus’ achievements, demanded insight and reasoned arguments supporting his philosophical theories.  History and government studies were no longer memorization of timelines, but rather were discussions of principles and educated debates.  At the end of each day, he would feel the burning ache from taxing his mental muscle as he collapsed, exhausted, into his bed.
    Seamus was slow to realize that his colleagues were taking an interest in girls, while he lingered in the hospital or found some other preoccupation to pursue.  He had every desire to meet young women, but he’d grown socially awkward in his childhood.  He really hadn’t developed any social graces the way his worldly friends had.  His attempts to talk to women were woefully polite, kind, without connection.  Though emotionally fragile, he yearned for closeness even more.
  By this time, he thought he might fare better by joining his brother Eamon in trying out for sports competitions.  They both earned spots on the school wrestling team, and for months they spurred each other on, pushing each other to better performance and greater physical prowess.  They grew closer as brothers and best friends, bolstering one another, forging a permanent bond over time.  Eamon had tremendous success in his matches, winning time and again against competitors of all sizes.  Seamus did not do as well.  Although he didn’t win any glances from fair maidens for his efforts, nor did he win many competitions, he did gain self-respect for his perseverance.  Within two or three years, the scrawny, brainy kid had developed into a fit, vigorous young man. I am uneasy about the term "School wrestling team" It is too modern for such ancient times.
  Because of the price he paid for his education, he grew even fonder of medicine as a way of life. The sacrifice of life outside of college, the discipline demanded by his instructors, and the knowledge and skill demanded by the people he cared for steeled his commitment to healing as his life’s ambition.  He could tolerate living without many things, because this satisfaction from serving others had captured his heart and soul.

  Then one day, a dream came down from the gods and blessed him with her smile.  Sigridis was another healer in training at the same sanitarium where Seamus trained.  Making her way from the abbey where she studied to the hospital, she would talk with him, poke fun at his stubble or his slouching, ambling walk, or just laugh at his poor attempts at humor.  She was a bundle of joy, and a beautiful angel in womanly form.  Her peals of laughter were raindrops of gold resonating in his mind.  Her rapturous smile was a wonder to behold.  Her youthful candor and boundless enthusiasm had him baring his heart for her to claim or devastate at her whim.  He was hopelessly smitten, and within four weeks they had already committed to marry by the year’s end.  They were married in a small mountainside chapel half a year later, 6 months before he was commissioned to join the medical corps for Her Majesty’s Royal Militia.

  Life with the militia was a refreshing change from the Dalorin-congested hallways of the sanitarium.  The autonomy of not having some stuffy white coat always watching over his shoulder, and doing all the work he could because the work never ended, transformed his love of medicine into an addiction.  Here, at the medical camps of the Nermeran army, seeing 30 or 40 wounded soldiers a day taxed his energy and his mental reserve in ways that he’d been zealously hoping for.  He was needed, not in some distant, long-term manner, but immediately, here and now.  The only bandages he changed were surgical bandages he was checking on, freshly placed in a battle or a foiled raid earlier that same day.  Here he saw more pathology, more real visceral need for a healer than any place he’d studied before.  While the emotional drain took its toll, not having time to put an arm around the shoulders of any of the men he attended, his active learning and recall were put to task for 14 or 16 hours every day.
  In these sick tents, he developed an avid interest in treating head and nerve damage.  Bad backs and headaches, as well as fresh nerve crush injuries and head blows, all caught his attention and forced him to keep asking questions. I am thinking that the santharians know little to nothing when it comes to the brain and nervous system. So many of the injuries he saw didn’t have known remedies, and so he cataloged all the different injuries he saw and how the men recovered from each.  Where his schooling had no answers, he was left to explore treatments on his own, inventing cures and brewing potions from scratch, often with less-than-optimal resources with which to do it.  Over a 4-year course working with wounded veterans, learning with them and following each man’s improvement or decline, he wrote a brief manuscript on how to evaluate nerve injuries in the spine, arms, and legs, which he continues to add to through the present day.
  He did not expect to find satisfaction in joining the troops on the battlefield, not like he did.  He hefted a sledgehammer passed on from some other soldier; he was startled to realize it felt good in his hands.  Contacting that hammer against the enemy’s head eliminated all thoughts of, “This man has a name, and a home, and perhaps a wife waiting for him at home.”  Every enemy head looked the same on the field, the intoxicating rush of Armeros’ breath on his neck blurring the distinctions between one man and the next.  Later, when his life returned to a more normal pace and he could reflect on what he’d lived through and what he’d done, he agonized because he had cheapened Life, robbed Nehtor of the lives of some men he hadn’t known for more than a fraction of a second.  He squelched the breath of life of men like himself, men who also had ambitions and dreams.  He betrayed what he was trained for, what he was meant to do.

  After 4 years like this, he returned to his home embittered, distant, and disgusted with himself.  He couldn’t describe to his loving wife what he’d done, what he’d been through, what he’d thrilled to see.  He grew apart from her, isolating himself and becoming increasingly selfish—not only toward her, but also to anyone he worked with.  He demanded more of the nurses and students who worked with him.  He worked longer hours at work, which then led to finding diversions away from home.  Finally, his marriage with Sigridis eroded, and they agreed to dissolve their union.
  It comforted him that what was an addiction less than a year before had morphed into an atonement now.  He had a lifelong debt to repay to Nehtor, whom he’d rebelled against for four years.  If he could not sustain a marriage with the woman he loved, then he would be married to work and commiseration from that day forward.  It is better, he reasoned, to share others’ misery than not to feel at all.  As the teachings say, “Nehtor is very much the Lone God.“

Strengths:
§   Excellent (Mastery) skill in medicine and healing, with emphasis on traumatic head and nerve injuries (well, excellent for the standards of his time)
§   Brew Potion, very good, and good proficiency at making potions with substitute ingredients
§   Wrestling—can disarm opponents or knock them down and pin them
§   Good (equal to an average soldier) with his hammer
§   Unshakable concentration, can bind wounds and do minor surgeries on the field of combat Like I said, I am unsure how far surgury has gotten in Santharia

Weaknesses:
§   Selfish in his schedule, values his time above that of others
§   Gauche, often makes social gaffs and doesn’t realize what he’s said or done
§   Naïve, socially inappropriately gestures or remarks in high-pressure social situations
§   Sleeping sickness, may fall asleep during extremes of emotion
§   Nearsighted, literally—can see very acutely to 20 feet, blurry up to 40 feet, vague detail out to 50 feet, try using peds, which basically meters nothing short of a large tree or an ogre past that
§   Nearsighted, figuratively—lives for the present, poor at planning long-term (i.e. investments, saving for a rainy day)

This character carries a touch of unbalance. Being able to grapple and wield a warhammer with proficiency, as well as being an excellent healer with a brilliant mind, as well as good looks and vast knowlege are powerful strengths. If you cut out the grappleing than I would find him more balanced.

Weapons:
§   Sledgehammer—3 fores shaft, blue iron head
§   Woodcutting axe—really a tool, not a weapon

Belongings:
§   Monaural stethoscope, a tapered cylindrical tube carved from lemonwood, finely polished and adorned with ivory bands along the stem, through which he listens to people’s insides. 
§   Field surgeon’s kit—leather kit containing bistouries, retractors, lancets, tourniquets, small glass vial of False Dreaming elixir with cork stopper, trepanine, et al. Once again, you are going to need to go over this with an admin
§   Alchemical kit, stored in wooden latched box, with mortar and pestle, glass bottles, and some essential ingredients for 5 potions and unguents.
§   Journal and writing quill, charcoal stick for making ink

Familiars:
None (at present).

I think you need to have a discussion with a knowledgeable admin as to the extent of medical sciences in Santharia. Aside from that and a slight unbalance of strengths and weakness, there is little I find wrong with this character. I think he needs to have a reason to be adventuring, unless you plan to keep him in the city rps.

[Kelancey the Green]

Um, hi again!  Could I ask for a re-read of my CD?  Someone, please?

[Kain Cristar]

Hmm. Nice footnotes and improvements. To the letter and without complaint while keeping to the story and adding even more depth to the characters. Good show.

As for going over it again, it looks as if you have adressed all of my issues.

As for the night shade, you seem to know alot about it, how 'bout writting an entry yourself. Herbal entries are fairly easy and I'm sure you could get one approved double time.

[Kelancey the Green]

Thanks again to you, Kain!  I much appreciated your editorial comments.

On the topic of nightshade, I did just that--submitted a proposed herbarium entry on it less than an hour ago.

[Kain Cristar]

Well, I wouldn't be TOO worried about the surgury thing. I am sure that santharia is farther off than Europe. The church was against the study of bodies, whereas that is mostly possible here. One can assume that Seamus has dissected bodies and is closer the the 1500-1600 in knowlege, where people started pushing the bounderies.

[Kelancey the Green]

Thanks for providing me with this clue into the "zeitgeist" of Santharia.  I think I'll incorporate that into my CD, with your permission, of course.

[Kelancey the Green]

Sorry for the mix-up.  I understand Seamus Clancy is a little too Terran and little too un-Santhrian.  As I haven't yet figured out how to do this name-change thing, please bear with me in the process!

[Kelancey the Green]

Nudge...back to the first page!

[Leida Kereborn]

I will definitely do a full read-through of this--just a skim through and I can already see how in-depth you've gone!  Footnotes and everything!     It'll take some time, but I should have it done by tomorrow for you.

- Leida

Oh, and I take checks and money orders, you know, for the publicity fee.

[Leida Kereborn]

Comments in ever lovely teal.


Clancy the Green

Birth Place: Nyermersys, Province of Nermeran

Birth Date: 1633 a.S. (Age: 34 years) Wow, specifc!

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Eyes:  Xazure Blue

Hair:  Cinnabrown

Height:  1 ped, 9 palmspans

Weight:  2 pygge

Tribe: Erpheronian

Occupation: Healer

Title: White Nehtorian/Dalorin

Physical Appearance:
  Seamus appears the same as his chronological age Can you appear 34?  Perhaps, he appears as most men his age?, but his face gives away some boyish naïveté, a lingering innocence that refuses to come to terms with the man he is.  His lower eyelids are purpuric I don't think I've ever heard of undereye bags called that!  , slightly sunken, showing age and chronic sleep deprivation.  Yet, he is wide-eyed as if he is soaking in through his eyes all that he sees, afraid to blink and thus miss some mote of vital importance.
  He is of a good height, and when standing tall he literally stands out in a crowd.  However, he often slouches, reducing his presence and blending him in among those around him Any particular reason he slouches?  Usually, if it's mentioned like this, it has some importance.  Perhaps he doesn't like standing out?.  He is terrible at concealing his emotions, broadcasting his joy with a beaming grin or his grief with downcast eyes and furrowed brow. (usually eyebrows only arch in shock or suspicion. ).
  He still has some of his handsomeness from young adulthood: soft, sad, emotive eyes, high cheekbones, and a well-squared jaw make for a strong, stern appearance complemented with sensitivity and compassion.  At the same time, he tends to neglect his personal grooming, letting his beard stubble grow out or going without the services of another barber It's redundant to use the barber quipfor too long a stretch.
  His long, deft fingers have the callouses of a writer, but closer observation shows that he also has toughened his palms from bearing others’ burdens.  In sum, he tends to deemphasize what attractive features he has with disregard for what would otherwise be a stately, dignified appearance.

Clothes:
  Seamus typically prefers to travel in a brown leather hooded greatcoat for several reasons.  Not only are long coats good in almost every type of weather, they are permissible attire in almost every echelon of society.  Neither elegant nor slovenly, they are the imperfect Imerfect?  Really? dress for every occasion.  They shield books, travel equipment, rucksacks and so on from the elements, as well as from prying eyes.  Most importantly, greatcoats are useful for long treks as handy standbys for sleeping blankets, pillows, tarps, makeshift tents, and other fashions of creature comforts while on the road. Well thought-out!
  His white Dalorin gown displays pride, confidence, poise, and erudition, reshaping the man inside this single article of clothing.  As a lion's majesty is announced by his mane, so is Seamus’ clarity of focus emblazoned on his capacious coat.  A sash around the waist serves to gather his gown to his body when performing dental or surgical procedures.[1]  Pearlescent buttons on the front gleam brightly, juxtaposed against the stark Cyhalloian snow of the cloth folds.  About his neck he carries his amulets, one of hollowed out lymmonwood, the other of cloudy white clear quartz, symbols of his protection and sterility, fastened by a copper chain, which he can tuck into a pocket inside his coat, just next to his left breast.  Many pockets sewn outside and inside the coat are useful for small examination and surgical tools, snifters for medicinal liquors, philters and unguent vials, specimen jars, and so on.  Beneath his coat, he wears a wool kilt dyed in the argyle of his Erpheronian tribe.  His family brooch, a lion en guarde encircled in laurel leaves, attaches his coin purse to his leather belt. Wool socks and leather sandals complete his formal attire.
  It is myth and folly that a Dalorin’s white robes are never stained, never tarnished.  As is the case with one's mind, a Dalorin’s robes shall carry on them some hint, some remembrance of past blemishes, despite any scouring or cleansing they may undergo.  Some stains do not come out, if only perceptible to the bearer him or herself. Haha...I don't know why, but this paragraph made me laugh immensely.

Personality:
  Seamus is tense at first meeting, guarding his tongue lest his careless mind let slip idiocies he’ll later regret.  He is slow to warm up to people, but always polite and acquiescing in the process.  He isolates himself socially Funny, I didn't take him to be the hermit-esque type.  Maybe mention something about this earlier, if possible. primarily to prevent himself from hurting others with thoughtless words or an accidental unkind gesture.  Once he does warm up to someone, he is very genuine, candid, loyal, and humorous; that said, he prefers to have only a few close friends.
  He scans people’s faces, bodies, clothing, accoutrement, stance and posture with meticulous attention to detail as if to absorb their persona into his memory.  Unfortunately, his memory for personal details is not very good, and he often has to ask someone their name four or five times before cementing it in his memory.  These are great personality traits, but where's the why?  Why does he scan people so meticulously?  Has he always done it, or did he learn it while training to become a Dalorin, maybe?  Also, I love that he can't remember names, but maybe it could be that he only forgets names?    It's kind of like this teacher I have, who can remember what people were wearing a week before, down to their shoes, but has to write all our names down any number of times, every class period.   He seems like a light-hearted sort of guy, and with all the serious assassins and I've-got-a-big-bad-past characters coming in, someone with a little humor would be nice.
  He is genuinely concerned with the welfare of other people, in part because of obligation he feels to helping others, and partly because of his upbringing.  He was taught from a young age to recognize what other people are feeling and what they desire.  He is not astute at detecting what someone else wants, and so he often offers much more than what they wish, at times even more than he can realistically give.
  If he were to enter combat, he would likely take a defensive stance, standing in front of those less defended than himself but not surging into the fray.  He would view it as a better use of his skills to heal his comrades rather than join the combat.  Only if his opponent posed a significant direct and unavoidable threat to himself or wounded compatriots would he resort to fighting, and then he would aim to disarm or incapacitate his opponents, not kill them.

Background:
Father: Carolus Clancy, Erpheronian
Mother: Siobhan Lorraine, Stratanian of Bardavos
Brother: Eamon Clancy, younger brother

Education:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, temple
•   16 to 25 years, acolyte
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman
•   30 years to present, master

Employment:
•   Birth to 5 years, home
•   6 to 15 years, monastery pupil
•   16 to 25 years, apprentice healer
•   26 to 29 years, journeyman healer, Queen's militia
•   30 years to present, Dalorin, Nyermersys

Wow....you're thorough. 

  Seamus is the firstborn son of Carolus Clancy, an esteemed healer conversant in the art of medicinal and alchemical cures.  Carolus is particularly celebrated for his treatment of the bilious and choleric ailments of humans.
  Siobhan Lorraine, a Bardavan teacher of languages, including the language of the Shendar, loves to travel as much as she loves meeting and connecting with new people.  More than a wandering spirit, she has a fiery heart, which led her to venture to the Nybelmaran continent for four years in her young adulthood.  While there, she lived with the Santerran people, learning their customs, educating them about sanitation, childbearing, and the Santharian language, and enjoying living abroad.
  After this time, she travelled to Nermeran to teach linguistics at the college in Voldar.  There, she met the man who would capture her heart and raise a family, with Carolus Clancy.  She enjoyed his unbridled optimism when confronted with hardship, and found companionship in his compassionate heart.  They later moved to Nyermersys, married at the temple of temple of Jeyriall, Goddess of Harvest and Reproduction, and purchased land to build their home, where they would start a family and live out the rest of their days.
  Carolus served for two years in the service of Her Majesty the name too, just for clarity's sake, as a healer on the front of Nermeran, where frequent skirmishes with the neighboring Losh-Oc orcs confronted him with the atrocities men are capable of committing.  During his service in the armed forces, and for many years after in his long and renowned career in the hospital of Seyella in Nyermersys, Carolus sought to engender an attitude of peace and tolerance among his fellow men.  His teaching found purchase in the minds of his two children, Seamus and Eamon.

  At a young age, Seamus showed fervent interest in the healing arts, studying his father's texts on the bodily humours.  He brought injured lizards, snakes and birds into their home, nursing them for days, trying to nurture them to health.  Untrained and youthful as he was, these animals would inevitably perish from their wounds or dehydration, which would send Seamus on another hunt for some other wounded animal to care for.
  Carolus noted his son's interest in tending to wounded animals.  After watching his young boy proffer a lettuce leaf to his latest catch, a mako--which, being an insectivore, could not be bothered to dine on trivial fluff it viewed as bedding and groundcover--Carolus delighted to see the sparkle in Seamus’ eyes as he fathered this small creature.  He resolved to train Seamus not only in the healing arts, but also in the worldview which would mould the peacekeeper the boywould become.

  Seamus was taken into the monastery at Voldar at 6 years of age, there to become entranced by a world of flowing prose, astonishing numerology, spectacular cosmology, and other wonders of the natural world.  He trained from a young age at language, and eventually learned to read some Tharanian codices on the White Order’s ways.  He grew to love writing, and was inspired by fanciful stories of child princes on faraway planets and other incredible tales.  This fact aside, he remained devoted to his studies of living animals and plants, and would sneak books from the monastery library back to his cell at the end of each day.  He would marvel at the diversity of the natural world, dreaming of what made such a teeming abundance of life in Santharia.  He pored over atlases of human anatomy, not yet learning much but adding fuel to a fire that was ever growing in him.
  As he grew older, learning his rituals and applying his efforts to the chores of monastery routine, one White Monk, Friar John, Again, I can't say why, but this name made me giggle.  I think it reminds me of Friar Tuck.  But I digress. took note of Seamus' particular predilection toward the natural and life arts.  Though his busy schedule at the affiliated hospital demanded most of his time, every now and again he would demonstrate a new skill, teach him some new method to ascertain the nature of a disease, or quiz him on human maladies.
  “Seamus, do you recognize this berry?” the friar asked one afternoon, as he and Seamus strolled the paths of the temple (or something).
  In truth, he didn’t recognize it at first glance.  He plucked the berry between his fingers and took a small bite from it without thinking before he did.  Warm, sweet, something like currant and clove…
  “Is it a hearthberry?”
  “That’s good.  Now, how did you know that wasn’t deadly nightshade?”[2]
  Seamus wracked his brain to come up with a quick answer.  “It was sweet!”
  “Well, you had to taste it to know that, and if that had been deadly nightshade, you’d already be gasping your last breaths.  And, that’s incorrect.  Nightshade is sweet, too.”
  Oh, Lorkuloth get behind me!  I might as well give up and spare myself any more humiliation, he thought.  “This one’s red.”
  “And?” Try having some tags after Friar John speaks, even if it's just "John said."
  “Nightshade is black…?”
  “Good!  Some other differences you’ll notice are the striking variations of color in the hearthberry, red, orange, then yellow.  See the coarse surface of this berry?  By comparison, the nightshade berry is shiny and smooth.  Nightshade is also much smaller than the hearthberry, surrounded by a persistent calyx, which looks like a star. Those berries are filled with an inky juice and several seeds. All parts of the nightshade plant are poisonous, but especially the seeds and roots…”
  And so went many brain-tingling sessions learning from Friar John.  Years later, in his time spent on the wards as a practicing Dalorin, Seamus would remember those sessions longingly, musing to himself that he never thanked Friar John for giving him the assurance he needed to become an excellent healer.

  Seamus graduated from his tutelage at the monastery with high marks and higher hopes for the future.  He entered his apprenticeship at the sanitarium for the blind and deaf in Voldar, working under the supervision of a small group of White Nehtorians.  Learning became more precious, and more arduous at the same time.  Answers were not handed to him, they were offered as reward after diligent study.  His tutors, though still thoughtful and perceptive in noticing Seamus’ achievements, demanded insight and reasoned arguments supporting his philosophical theories.  History and government studies were no longer memorization of timelines, but rather were discussions of principles and educated debates.  At the end of each day, he would feel the burning ache from taxing his mental muscle as he collapsed, exhausted, into his bed.
    Seamus was slow to realize that his colleagues were taking an interest in girls, Aw, cute while he lingered in the hospital or found some other preoccupation to pursue.  He had every desire to meet young women, but he’d grown socially awkward in his childhood.  He really hadn’t developed any social graces the way his worldly friends had. His attempts to talk to women were woefully polite, kind, without connection.  Though emotionally fragile, he yearned for closeness even more.
  Ava’s will spurred him to charitable works of manual labor.  Toiling alongside his brother Eamon Did Eamon join the Dalorin too?, these two lent their arms and backs to public works including cleaning and restoring a run-down section of housing for the poor along Mudroad.  In the monsoon of Rising Sun, 1650 a.S., when the meat markets flooded, contaminating a good portion of the Harbor District with animal remains, they volunteered to clean the streets and empty ruined stock from butchers’ markets.  For months they spurred each other on, pushing each other to perform better and contribute more of themselves.  They grew closer as brothers and best friends, bolstering one another, forging a permanent bond over time. Aw!
  Eamon, being more inclined to competitive sports, entered both of them in carnival tournaments of boxing and wrestling.  Eamon had tremendous success in his matches, winning time and again against competitors of all sizes.  Seamus did not do as well.  Although he didn’t win any glances from fair maidens for his efforts, nor did he win many competitions, he did gain self-respect for his perseverance.  Within two or three years, the scrawny, brainy kid had developed into a fit, vigorous young man.
  Because of the price he paid for his education, he grew even fonder of medicine as a way of life. The sacrifice of life outside of college, the discipline demanded by his instructors, and the knowledge and skill demanded by the people he cared for steeled his commitment to healing as his life’s ambition.  He could tolerate living without many things, because this satisfaction of serving others had captured his heart and soul.

  Then one day, a dream came down from the gods and blessed him with her smile.  Sigridis was another healer in training at the same sanitarium where Seamus trained.  Making her way from the abbey where she studied to the hospital, she would talk with him, poke fun at his stubble or his slouching, ambling walk, or just laugh at his poor attempts at humor.  She was a bundle of joy, and a beautiful angel in womanly form.  Her peals of laughter were raindrops of gold resonating in his mind.  Her rapturous smile was a wonder to behold.  Her youthful candor and boundless enthusiasm had him baring his heart for her to claim or devastate at her whim.
  Sigridis initiated the contact, offering to tutor him in the cadaver dissection lab.  Her knowledge of anatomy astonished Seamus; on occasion, she would even upstage some of the younger journeyman lecturers in the anatomy lessons.  His asset, however, was his ability to grasp concepts of the effects of the humours on various bodily functions, such as suffering of the spleen from bilious infirmity.  He also had a talent for explaining difficult concepts, which aided Sigridis in her oral exams.  After 6 months of studying together in lecture halls, they would have late afternoon talks on the outskirts of the city.
  “Sigridis, for what reason did you decide to become a healer?” Seamus asked on one of these walks.
  “All healers want to do is care for ailing adults.  Could it be that none of these people have the presence of mind to see that the children are the ones who are most worth saving?  Old people have already lived their lives, and have accumulated the sum of their vices in their afflictions.  Children are innocent, and need to be protected and looked after.”
  “But Nehtor doesn’t devalue someone’s life because they have sinned.  We all sin, Sigridis.  No one living in Caelereth lives without sin, it is inherent in our perspective on life.  No one who has reached adulthood is innocent, because we all commit crimes, whether of commission or omission.” Not necessary, but you may want to break up chunk of dialogue like that with a little "Sigridis said" or some kind of action.  Makes reading easier.
  “I know you’re right, but I don’t have to like it!”  She beamed another grin, which he could do nothing to resist.  As was always the case, she won the argument with her disarming wit and her winning smile.
  He was hopelessly smitten, and for a time his studies came second to his devotion to her.  He would wander the city streets till late—an ill-advised move, on reflection—musing about the inspiration of his newfound pride and joy.  He wrote her love notes with “illuminations” sketched in the margins—no more than simple, boyish doodlings draped about the page.  As childish as his notes were, she welcomed them and reciprocated by preparing for him what soon became his favorite food: Whole Taenish broiled in a spicy, tangy, sour sauce of lymmon, ground Khmeen seed, and shaved cinnabark, which is allowed to marinate for an entire day.  Within four weeks they had already committed to marry by the year’s end.
  Their wedding ceremony took place in a small mountainside chapel half a year later, 6 months before he was commissioned to join the medical corps for Her Majesty’s Royal Militia.  On that day, family and friends traveled from far and wide to help them celebrate their joyful union.  Seamus was beaming with glee, because this was his time to wear his father’s knit woolen tunic patterned with the family’s argyle, matched with his wool kilt of the same pattern, finished with the formal dress sash his father wore when he married Siobhan.  Sigridis looked absolutely resplendent in the traditional Eyelian wedding dress.  A strapless sheer white silk gown clung to her chest and waist, accentuating her womanly figure, and yet was loose and flowing about her hips and legs.  She wore an exquisite set of gold earrings, a gold necklace with a flashing pink fyrite pendant, and gold bracelets on each wrist, which gracefully complemented her naked elken brown arms and neck.  Deer hide sandals with golden bangles, which shimmered and reflected sunbeams as she walked, finished her bridal regalia.  That's a whole heck of a lot of detail.  I like that you have a perfect visual, but I think for this, just a general idea would be good.  Seamus wearing his kilt and father's sash, Sigridis looking ethereal and beautiful in white and gold, etc.  It's less imortant what they wore than what happened.  It was a time of celebration and of uncertainty, anticipating the four-year divide which loomed near.
  In the month of Rising Sun of that same year, Seamus and his graduating colleagues chose titles for one another, as was customary on finishing one’s apprenticeship.  The acolyte who received the highest praise of his finishing generation was dubbed Antonin the White for his well-earned reputation of purity of conscience, never taking advantage of his patients or their family members in return for his services.  Another apprentice who had studied with Sigridis during house visits, Kelwen, was designated Kelwen the Watchful for her long overnight vigils spent praying and holding hands with people who were awaiting Queprur. Interesting, but unnecessary if these characters don't come into play.  For her part, Sigridis was christened Sigridis the Resolute, both for her devotedness to children under her care and for her unswerving determination, her unbreakable will.  To Seamus, the title Clancy the Green was bestowed, on several accounts.  First, Seamus had fallen in love with Sigridis early in their career, during the spring of the preceding year, a romantic story which was well known among their generation of acolytes.  As well, Seamus, son of Carolus Clancy, demonstrated adept skill in treating some of the withering diseases attributed to ills of the bile.  He had a young spirit, which in Vardýnn at that time was associated with nature and herbal life.  In spite of these reasons, the more likely explanation for his title was that Seamus, no matter how experienced, or confident, or respected he may be in any social gathering, always seemed to be the newcomer, the ingénue who stumbled over his words and betrayed his good reputation.
  Farewells were uttered, and resolutions to maintain contact were exchanged among friends and colleagues.  Seamus and Sigridis held each other tenderly and longingly that night, talking softly of dreams they had lived together and those yet to come.  They reminisced about hardships they’d overcome together.  They collaborated on their vision of building a family together, there in Voldar.  The following morning at sunrise, Seamus kissed Sigridis goodbye, both of them drenched with one another’s tears, and he boarded the caravan bound for the camps in Nyermersys.

  Life with the militia was a refreshing change from the Dalorin-congested hallways of the sanitarium.  The autonomy of not having some stuffy white coat always watching over his shoulder, and doing all the work he could because the work never ended, transformed his love of medicine into an addiction.  Here, at the medical camps of the Erpheronian army, seeing 30 or 40 wounded soldiers a day taxed his energy and his mental reserve in ways that he’d been zealously hoping for.  He was needed, not in some distant, long-term manner, but immediately, here and now.  The only bandages he changed were surgical bandages he was checking on, freshly placed in a battle or a foiled raid earlier that same day.  Here he saw more pathology, more real visceral need for a healer than any place he’d studied before.  While the emotional drain took its toll, not having time to put an arm around the shoulders of any of the men he attended, his active learning and recall were put to task for 14 or 16 hours every day.
  In these sick tents, he developed an avid interest in treating sanguinous and phlegmatic ailments.  Bad backs and headaches, head blows, crushed limbs, and many other infirmities caught his attention and forced him to keep asking questions.  So many of the injuries he saw didn’t have known remedies, and so he cataloged all the different injuries he saw and how the men recovered from each.  Where his schooling had no answers, he was left to explore treatments on his own, inventing cures and brewing potions from scratch, often with less-than-optimal resources with which to do it.  Over a 4-year course working with wounded veterans, learning with them and following each man’s improvement or decline, he wrote a brief manuscript on how to evaluate injuries of the spine, arms, and legs, with particular reference to the sanguinous ailments afflicting each, which he continues to add to through the present day.
  He did not expect to find satisfaction in joining the troops on the battlefield, not like he did.  He hefted a sledgehammer passed on from some other soldier; he was startled to realize it felt good in his hands.  Contacting that hammer against the enemy’s head eliminated all thoughts of, “This man has a name, and a home, and perhaps a wife waiting for him at home.”  Every enemy head looked the same on the field, the intoxicating rush of Armeros’ breath on his neck blurring the distinctions between one man and the next.  Later, when his life returned to a more normal pace and he could reflect on what he’d lived through and what he’d done, he agonized because he had cheapened Life, robbed Nehtor of the lives of some men he hadn’t known for more than a fraction of a second.  He squelched the breath of life of men like himself, men who also had ambitions and dreams.  He betrayed his training, his calling in life.

  After 4 years like this, he returned to his home embittered, distant, and disgusted with himself.  He couldn’t describe to his loving wife what he’d done, what he’d been through, what he’d thrilled to see.  He grew apart from her, isolating himself and becoming increasingly selfish—not only towards her, but also to anyone he worked with.  He demanded more fromthe nurses and students who worked with him.  He worked longer hours at work redundant, which then led to finding diversions away from home.  Finally, his marriage with Sigridis eroded, and they agreed to dissolve their union.
  It comforted him that what was an addiction less than a year before had morphed into an atonement now.  He had a lifelong debt to repay to Nehtor, whom he’d rebelled against for four years.  If he could not sustain a marriage with the woman he loved, then he would be married to work and commiseration from that day forward.  It is better, he reasoned, to share others’ misery than not to feel at all.  As the teachings say, “Nehtor is very much the Lone God.“

Oh, sad!  My only qualm with your history, oddly enough, is that it seems almost too detailed.  There are some paragraphs in his youth were you detail things that never come up again, like all the things he did with Eamon.  These can be summarized.  The details you have are absolutely amazing, but sometimes it tends to drag.  Read through it again on your own and see if you can't pare it down a little.

Strengths:
§   Excellent (Mastery) skill in medicine and healing
§   Brew Potion, very good
§   Good with his hammer (equal to an average soldier), with emphasis on disarming, knocking down, and incapacitating opponents
§   Unshakable concentration, can bind wounds and do minor surgeries on the field of combat[1]

Weaknesses:
§   Selfish in his schedule, values his time above that of others
§   Gauche, often makes social gaffs and doesn’t realize what he’s said or done
§   Naïve, socially inappropriately gestures or remarks in high-pressure social situations
§   Sleeping sickness, may fall asleep during extremes of emotion
§   Nearsighted, literally—can see very acutely to 6 peds, blurry up to 12 peds, vague detail out to 15 peds, and no detail short of a large tree or an ogre past that
§   Nearsighted, figuratively—lives for the present, poor at planning long-term (i.e. investments, reputation)

Weapons:
§   Sledgehammer—3 fores shaft, blue iron head
§   Woodcutting axe—really a tool, not a weapon

Belongings:
§   2 hollow amulets:  One carved from lymmonwood, finely polished; the other, a hollowed cloudy white clear quartz.  Both are symbols of his protection and sterility in healing arts.
§   Field surgeon’s kit—leather kit containing bistouries, suture needles and Yuatu’way suture thread, trephine, retractors, lancets, tourniquets, small glass vials containing Miyu beans, Totit oil, False Dreaming elixir, and Por’mon (ice plant salve).[1]
§   Alchemical kit, stored in wooden latched box, with mortar and pestle, glass bottles, essential ingredients for potions and unguents, dried Alik’ran root, Arv seeds, Jeshanna ointment, Odea moss powder.
§   Journal and writing quill, charcoal stick for making ink.

Familiars:
None (at present).

FOOTNOTES:
[1] I will limit the procedures with which Seamus is proficient to only what’s mentioned throughout the website. There are references in the medicinal herb compendium to stitching wounds and dental extractions, in the description of uses of the Miyu bean.  The description of Totit oil is that it's used for wound sterilization.

[2] Though there is no mention of belladonna nor deadly nightshade in the compendium, there ought to be one!  Really, it has so many medicinal uses: Unstable heart, phlegmatic afflictions, and the more common aesthetic usage—for brightening women’s eyes.  The cosmetic use of belladonna was known in medieval times (in our Earth, that is), and was commonly given to noblewomen seeking to elevate their social status, at least temporarily, with big, shiny eyes (from its cycloplegic and prooptotic effects, though they didn’t use exactly those terms in medieval times).  Apparently, heart problems are recognized in Santharia, as mentioned in the reference on Arv seeds.  I’d seriously like to ask permission for this one plant to be added to the compendium, because it can be a great addition to any herbalist’s elixir cabinet.

Clancy, this is coming along beautifully!  I have very very few comments, other than the shortening one in the history.  Your character is balanced, real, detailed, and more importantly, believable.  You've done an amazing amount of research and, well, I don't know what else to say.  I'd approve you if I could. 

As for the nightshade, I know you're on the dev forum, so throw that one out to the guys working on the herbarium.  I'm sure they'll be happy to accomodate you. 

Good luck (though I doubt you need it!)!

[Leida Kereborn]

Clancy, I am so sorry, I didn't even realize I'd messed up the color code thing!  Kain pointed it out, though, so it's all fixed.  So so sorry!

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