The Basics
Name: Peter Dunnage
Age: 28
Element: Fire
Classification: Blessed
Birth Kingdom: Ignis
Home Kingdom: N/A (Currently in Unda)
Appearance
Playby: Garrett Hedlund
Personality
Personality:Having never had a conventional childhood, Peter's maturity more or less was stunted as a teenager. The bulk of his male role models were soldiers some twenty to thirty years older, resulting in his being extremely crass, loud, and perverted. Manners were never stressed in his developmental years, so he has the tendency to chew with his mouth open and make fart noises for the hell of it. He loves good toilet humor and above all, likes laughing long and hard. With a life such as his has been, he's discovered that it's best to find joy in the small things.
Most of all, he finds joy in people. With most of his life spent behind metaphorical bars, Pete has yet to get over the novelty of being surrounded by bodies he does not have to kill. Human interactions are the highlight of his day, whether it be something as small as making a purchase or something as large (medium, really) as sharing a bed. His lack of experience in this area, however, had made him somewhat awkward with emotions. He masks his own so well that it's difficult for him to respond to the feelings of others. His best and only approach is to make jokes and when he fails in that, to walk away and check on the person later.
That's not to say that he spends much time with any one person. His past has made him distrustful of people who want more from him than a good story or a good lay. For this reason, he does not commit. Staying with an individual person for too long increases his paranoia exponentially, whether it be paranoia regarding their intentions or what the consequences might be if they spent too much time by his side. He also avoids staying in a place for longer than a week. He is accustomed to instability and does not expect anything else for a long time yet, if ever.
Peter's relationship with women as a gender is an extremely complicated one, though he has spent his entire life surrounded by them. As with his absentee mother and his mother substitute, Odelia, he desperately seeks their approval. Now that he is an adult, that need for approval has become a need for romantic interest. In completing a conquest, he feels as if he has accomplished a goal - a woman liked him enough to sleep with him and hopefully, he was able to satisfy her expectations of him. After that, he can walk away feeling as if he has somehow won, or gained an upper hand. If he does not satisfy, he will try and try until he succeeds or is pushed away. Pete cannot stand disappointing people. His main desire is to please, whether it be his audience or his current paramour. It causes him deep shame and fear that he will be left alone with nothing but the knowledge that he was not good enough.
Then again, Pete is alone very often. His lifestyle does not promote lasting relationships and so, when alone, he talks to himself. In the attention and approval of others, he finds company, if only for a short while. Despite his happy-go-lucky exterior, demons chase him constantly. He does not sleep often as his dreams are always haunted by what he has done and what he could have done. Just a word or a face can remind him of something horrible or turn his mind to somewhere dark. He is constantly burdened by the responsibility of what he can do and what it means for his surroundings and at any given moment, he has run through three different scenarios of how things could go wrong.
As a story teller, Peter has an extensive and active imagination. All his stories are original and he almost never tells the same ones over again, forgetting most of them within a few days. His love of fiction extends into his tendency to lie about anything for no reason at all. The bigger and more fantastic a tale is, the more amusing it is for him to spin. For example, if asked where he is from, he may tell you he was born in the heart of an Ignese volcano, or he was dropped from the sky into a cook's pot by a phoenix.
With a good portion of his life having been dedicated to fantastic and wonderful stories, he sees himself as the hero of his own tale, and a misunderstood one at that. Life is black and white for him, in a sense that he is the good guy and anyone who would oppose him or seek to use his powers for their own gain are the bad guys. When he does things that could be considered bad - stealing, cheating, etc. - he thinks of it as something a dashing rogue would do. Like a child, however, he always ends feeling guilty for his wrongdoing and attempting to rectify it in any way possible. His first instinct is not to do good, but it is his ultimate goal. His journey is one of redemption in whichever way he can find it.
Likes:
- CHILDREN - Children make up the bulk of his audience. He relates to them very well and when not pissing away money or losing at cards, he is often playing games and performing tricks with the local kids. He sees in them what he was never given the chance to be and empathizes with them greatly. If any are harmed, teased, or otherwise subjected to suffering his presence, there's hell to pay.
- FIRE - As can be expected, Pete has a certain way with fire that transcends that of other classifications. He can stare into a flame for hours, following its leaps and bounds, understanding some hidden truth that no others can see. Because his element is so ingrained into his body, Peter is no longer subject to burns or injury from heat.
- STORIES - Obviously, Pete loves stories, being a story teller and all. Just as much as telling them, he loves hearing them. In fact, that may be the only time when you find the boy quiet. He dislikes literature, finding it boring and dry - he would much rather hear the tale from the mouth of someone living.
- MAKING SMILES - Nothing pleases Peter more than making a complete stranger's day. It's easiest for him to achieve this through his performances. He absolutely loves people and making them happy. This comes from an innate fear of disappointing others, whether or not they have any expectations of him.
- WOMEN - As a boy stuck in a man's body, Pete has an insatiable lust for lady-flesh. He'll chase most anything that looks good, though he avoids brothels like the plague.
Dislikes:
- RESPONSIBILITY - Responsibilty is not fun. He dislikes the idea of people depending on him for anything other than a good time because he feels he will always disappoint. Unfortunately, he carries a great responsibility around with him always - that of his extreme power. This is his greatest burden.
- COMMITMENT - As said before, Pete is scared of commitment, be it to a place or to a person. Setting roots means there is a greater chance of his being found. His past chases him everywhere he goes while his powers endangers those around him. The more he travels and the quicker he moves, the less he can hurt people.
- BEING USED - He hates being manipulated, as he has spent most of his life being hoodwinked in one way or another.
- GUILT - No one likes feeling guilty, but Pete especially hates it. Despite all his lesser qualities, he is essentially a good person. Though he makes impulsive decisions that often hurt others, he tries to make amends as best he can by doing good where he can.
- TRUST - After the great number of deceptions he endured in his time with Ignis, he does not trust many people. Thus, his tendency to lie, sometimes convincingly, sometimes facetiously. He hides his emotions with a mask of jovial apathy.
- BOATS - He's got a lot of bad memories on those things.
Elemental Strengths
- PYROTECHNICS Fire is to Pete what stone might be to a master sculptor. To augment his story-telling, he habitually creates fire puppet shows with howling dragons, smoky maidens, and ember princes. He can also create fireworks from nothing more than his hands and his imagination.
- DESTRUCTION Much of Peter's training in his teenaged years involved death, destruction, and general mayhem. Though he is not proud of it, he can start a giant conflagration at the drop of the hat.
- SMOKE Unique to those who share his element, Pete is especially adept at manipulating smoke. While he cannot create it out of thin air, he can manipulate and amplify any and all smoke coming from a fire either of his own or someone else's creation.
- IMPERVIOUS TO FLAME - He is completely flame retardant. It is unknown just how high a temperature must be to hurt him at this point.
Elemental Weaknesses- SMALL FIRES Due to the extent of his powers, he can no longer do small things like light a candle or warm tea without setting a house ablaze or shattering a tea kettle.
- COLD WEATHER Like a lizard, cold weather makes him sluggish and tired. For this reason, he cannot visit Glacies.
- SICKNESS He is hale and hardy man, but in the event that he is ill - even of something so minor as a cold - he has to isolate himself until he is well again. His sneezes and coughs can burn down an entire neighborhood. Luckily, his gas does not expel fire.
- EARLY DEATH Though this was never told to him, scholars often hypothesized that he would die early. The Blessed of the past took decades to become what they were and slowly eased their bodies into handling the extremities of power. Peter's ascension to Blessed, however, was so quick that they believe that the stress will eventually become too much for him to take and that he will perish by thirty-five, at the latest.
Background
Family:Mother - Malia Dunnage (Fire Citizen)
Father - Unknown (Fire Something)
Siblings - None
Other - Unknown
History: Though he has a number of origin myths for himself, Peter's real birth wasn't very exciting at all. He was born to Malia, a prostitute in Searik, in a brothel known as The Laughing Lady. His father was more than likely one of Malia's customers and as such, Malia was not bothered enough to find him. Though she could have aborted Peter, she did not, as there was a special niche for her in the fetishes of men who enjoyed women heavy with child. The process of childbirth was so unpleasant, however, that she decided against having another one.
She was only sixteen at the time of Peter's birth and ill-equipped for motherhood. Luckily, The Laughing Lady was full of women who could not resist an adorable infant. For the first four or five years of his life, he was passed back and forth between the arms of whores awaiting their next john. The Madame allowed Peter to stay as he raised morale considerably and to expel him would be to incite a riot amongst her girls. Malia herself did not care too much for Peter, often only holding him and caring for him when he was good and passing him off to someone else when he was sick or needed a changing.
As soon as he was able to talk, he did so with gusto and reckless abandon. As soon as he could walk, he was running all about the neighborhood and playing with the local ruffians. He would learn dirty jokes and funny songs and bring them back to the brothel. The whores liked his little performances so much that they let him walk about the parlor and do routines for their customers while they waited. When the Madame realized the lucrative potential of this - Peter was getting tipped rather handsomely and pick-pocketing as well - she made sure that it became a full-time feature of The Laughing Lady.
It was around this time that his powers first began manifesting. Even as an infant, Peter had a habit of sneezing fire, but as a post-toddler, it seemed as if his abilities had increased ten-fold. He would make rabbits out of flame, or illustrate his jokes with sparks as he told them. It was all very small scale, but they impressed the clients thoroughly. The more aptitude he showed, the more the Madame demanded. At eight, Peter was working the same hours as the prostitutes, even longer some nights. His act had extended to full scale fire puppet shows, juggling, and minor acrobatics through rings of fire.
Peter enjoyed his work, but it was exhausting, especially for a child. He was no longer allowed to see his friends or even eat longer than fifteen minutes. He slept four hours a night, every night, and had to create a new routine every week or else be switched. His schedule took its toll on him, just as it would anyone. The final straw was when one of the bouncers beat him so severely he broke his arm for falling asleep and missing a show.
He was ten when The Laughing Lady burnt to the ground, taking all its clients and workers with it, including his mother. Peter was devastated. The only family he had ever known was lost and it was his fault. He was placed in government care. After some testing was done on him to discover how and why he was the only survivor of a fire that burnt down three buildings on the block before it was contained, his caretakers discovered much to their surprise that Peter was a pre-pubescent Fire Master. The realization that he had caused the fire in the first place made it clear that, if incensed, he was capable of great damage.
From there on, it was a psychological game. Tensions with Terra were growing and they began toying with the idea of raising a prodigal super soldier, one they could mold into a great weapon. They played with his guilt, emphasizing the need for him to learn control and to place himself in the hands of his caretakers so that he might put his amazing potential to good use. They supplemented this with frequent praise, affection, and treats. His main caretaker was a woman named Odelia with whom he grew extremely close. She became the mother he never had and with extreme patience, taught him to read and write. His fear of disappointing her outweighed everything, for it was made clear that should he fail in any way, she would leave him. Odelia never let him forget how important, special, and crucial he was to Ignis. He took these messages to heart and, considering himself a hero-in-training, committed himself to his studies, which were strenuous, but practical. In addition to his magical learning, he was encouraged to stay physically fit as well with the idea that a stronger body would provide him with more stamina for his element.
Essentially, he was an unknowing captive in a prison made to keep him happy. They gave him carefully appointed friends, toys, learning, and a mother. He was not treated as a spoiled prince, nor did they treat him as a terrifying risk to those around him. Instead, they treated him as a normal boy with tremendous potential, which kept him much more content than either of the other possibilities. They also instilled in him a sense of duty and dedication to Ignis, the country that had saved him and protected him from himself and the cruel world.
When he was sixteen, the Ignis-Terra War had been raging for three years. Having been a Grand Master for four years and in prime physical and magical condition, Peter became a member of the Ignese army, essentially secluded from the rest of the soldiers except for others of his classification. He was placed in small squadrons of three or four other Grand Masters, all of them much older - forty-five to fifty. They treated the prodigy as a nuisance, often ignoring him or teasing him. They gave Peter a number of names, including "Toy Soldier" and "Chess Piece." They were resentful of having a child in their ranks, especially considering that he had never been in war before. The idea of disappointing them horrified Peter - if he was to disappoint them, then he might disappoint Odelia as well.
Over time, however, with the increase of his skills, he began to gain their respect and even befriended some of them, entertaining them during slow moments with his puppetry. They grew a rough affection for the boy, presenting themselves as the examples of masculinity his life was so lacking. Peter looked up to many of these men and began impersonating their coarse humor and behavior. It was surprisingly easy, given that he had spent his youngest years in a brothel. They even taught him how to have his way with the local women who followed the army, though admittedly, they weren't very hard to convince.
His missions mainly revolved around causing death and destruction. Odelia and the others stressed that he should not be concerned with the lives he took. He was performing his duties as a man of Ignis. To assuage his guilt, they would ply Peter with tales of legendary war heroes. The war heroes did not lament over the deaths they caused and if Peter were to be one of them, he must not either. After so long, they ceased being real people and became faces in a crowd. Soldiers went into war with the expectation of death; it wasn't as if he was stealing anything from them. It was a harsh reality, but one he grew accustomed to.
The higher-ups thought Peter's growth would stop once he reached his Grand Master classification, but they were wrong. Shortly after his twenty-second birthday, he and his squadmates were ambushed by Terran Grand Masters and taken hostage. They were knocked unconscious and taken to be questioned, one by one. When Peter's turn came, he destroyed the entire camp, squad mates included, despite being bound. When he returned to Ignese forces, they dubbed him a Blessed and the incident of his discovery was hushed. The military released one statement: "A Blessed Has Been Found and He Fights For Ignis!"
Rumors of his power spread out from Terra and abroad. There was a new Blessed, a man ten feet tall and a hundred years old, capable of feats only dreamed of by most. Peter was cloistered away even tighter, for now he was a national treasure. Only those of high rank in the government and the military were allowed to know his true name. The media christened him "The Lord of Fire" and other such large titles. The Grand Masters he had previously fought with were told that Peter Dunnage had died along with the others in his squad. The gossip concerning their newly attained advantage was encouraged, as they knew that the stories would reach the ears of the Terrans and incite fear among their masses, creating further discord. In Ignis, the stories were told to bolster morale in the populace.
The rise in rank was discomforting to Peter. The responsibility of his power had grown exponentially and he was growing afraid of himself. Previously, killing had been easy because he had been able to separate himself from the fact that he was taking actual lives. In inadvertently murdering his squad mates, however, he shattered that illusion. Beyond that, the seclusion was becoming trying for him. They had taken away his appointed friends, who were also to believe he had died. They built a stone house for him to live in, far from anyone else, just in case an accident happened. When he became ill, they blind-folded him, dropped him in the middle of nowhere with supplies and a promise that they would check on him in a weeks. If he moved, if he went anywhere, then Odelia would find out. This was necessary for his safety and the safety of others.
Peter was now an army unto himself. One of his first mission set the tone for how he would be used by Ignis. The Terran land bridge had been held by Ignis for years and was one of their most coveted properties, as it was a strategic foothold in curtailing trade and travel in the country. Skirmishes were constantly breaking out along the borders and slowly, the Ignese were losing ground to guerilla insurgents. Then, they unleashed their Blessed. Still learning to control his massive jump in power, he managed not to just stop the soldiers he had been pitted against, but to entirely scorch the entire land bridge, completely changing the geography of the area forever. The bridge was so thoroughly destroyed that fighting over the useless patch of earth seemed pointless. Peter received a medal for this and thus began a trend. He would be dropped into a situation, destroy everything around him, and then be whisked away. Suddenly, life was beginning to feel more and more like it had when he was a child, but the military had bred into him a fierce sense of dependence and obligation, though even Odelia began changing from kind matron to a woman less concerned with affection and more concerned with strategy and secrecy. It wasn't until his last mission that he saw just how far he had been manipulated.
Terra was simply not getting the message. They were out-gunned, out-resourced, and generally out-classed. To drive home the point that Ignis would stop at nothing until they surrendered, Peter was instructed to destroy a small fishing village. He did as he was told and reduced it to nothing more than soot and rubble. While walking through the wreckage and seeing what remained of the houses and the people he had obliterated, he began to see the truth of his situation. There was a toy soldier amongst the debris and he understood for the first time why he was given that name by his old squad mates. These citizens had not been soldiers with the expectation of death at all.
He was nothing more than a toy to Ignis, something to push around on a board. Just as he had been as a child, he was being exploited, only more was at stake than a broken arm. Just as he was a living, breathing human, these people - and all the other victims - had been as well. Peter was sick with himself, sick with the war, and sick with Ignis above all. Even the thought of Odelia no longer comforted him - in fact, thinking of her stung the worst. She had been growing increasingly colder and her visits grew fewer and fewer. Pete had no proof that she had not deceived him into believing she sincerely cared for him. He was truly and wholly alone.
The epiphany left him shaken to the core. For the first time, he considered something he never had before: running away. Over the years, he had become good at acting, as he had performed for his former brothers-in-arms. He feigned illness and was, once again, left in the wild to fend for himself with the same warning that if he left, he would be found and Odelia would be extremely angry with him. What they did not know at this point was that he was willing to risk it.
Peter picked a random direction and began walking. Within a few hours, he realized he was being followed by guards that had been posted a few miles away. With the use of fireworks, he was able to distract and disorient them enough to buy him time to change directions. He chose south. He traveled at night and slept during the day, avoiding major settlements and keeping well to himself. His guards had not seen the direction he'd chosen and the Ignese had expected he'd return to Ignis, as nothing in their profile of him suggested he would go to places unknown.
When his supplies ran low, he began scavenging in abandoned villages and refugee camps. It was a pitiful living, but for the first time in all his years, he was free. That fact alone was enough to keep him motivated and reasonably happy, despite the fact that for the first time in his life, he did not know when or where his next meal would be. When it became clear that picking over what was left behind would not feed him forever, he tried a different tact: he actively interacted with the passing groups of refugees.
At this point, Ignis was still desperately trying to hide the fact that they had lost one of their greatest weapons. Though the refugees were obviously suspicious of Peter for being Ignese, he plied them with all sorts of lies as to his identity. Usually, he was a shipwrecked merchant, a victim himself of the war. Sometimes, he would add little flourishes - maybe he had a pregnant wife back home, or maybe he was the only survivor, etc. Eventually, he managed to scrape something from the refugees, especially when they saw how he brightened their children's moods. Peter would never beg for their charity, as it was clear they didn't have much to give. Instead, he would pay for what they had to spare by telling stories, distracting fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters alike with uplifting, heroic tales. His signature fire manipulation only made it that much more impressive. What Peter could not have imagined was how quickly the news would spread of what he could do - or how quickly it would reach the ears of those he did not want to hear it.
Terran officials and subsequently, the Ignese army, caught wind of an Ignese man with the ability to shape fire to his whim. They both aimed their attention south, as by now, the rumors of Peter's escape were slowly starting to leak. Pete still wandered, obliviously stopping by a mostly-abandoned fishing village and finding passage to Unda on a not-strictly-legal ship. He was ready to move on and away from the scenes of war, but the war wouldn't let him go just yet. The Terran navy tracked him down with the Ignese not far behind. The Terrans waited until he had reached open sea to attack, hoping to destroy his ship and let the ocean take care of the rest.
As they launched their first volley, fire assaulted them from behind. A full-on naval battle commenced - Ignis vs. Terra vs. Peter Dunnage. Peter's ship was destroyed, but he managed to find a lifeboat and from there, he boiled the water and threw explosions among both navies. Few survived the chaos when all was said and done and those that did could hardly be expected to notice a tiny, lone lifeboat just beyond the horizon.
But now our hero was thrust into an entirely different battle - one for survival. He had no supplies, no idea in which direction to travel, and absolutely no sense of the ocean. For three days, he bobbed along the water, drifting closer and closer south. During the daylight hours, he could scarcely move for the low temperature. At night, he was completely paralyzed. Much longer and he might have died, but happily, he was rescued.
The Undan navy discovered him nearly catatonic. Their whisperers had heard rumors of Terrans pursuing the Ignese Blessed near their waters. Unlike the Terrans, they were not trying to capture or assassinate. Unda, like Ignis before them, wanted to convince with honey rather than vinegar. They took him to the nearest islands and gave him a very tempting offer: should he side with Unda against Glacies, they would keep him safe, comfortable, and free to roam so long as he did not leave the country.
Peter was not interested in being used for war, but he did like the idea of being unharried. Further more, they had already sewn seeds of misdirection, placing the Blessed in a number of different continents and death scenarios. Presently, he is staying in Unda under the pretense of considering their proposal. He knows very well that time is running out and he is currently considering his options.
OOC
RP Sample: - Quote :
Thus far, Cillian's trek from Ventus to Valetudo had been exceptionally mundane, quiet, and solitary. In other words, his own personal paradise. Many brothers were making the exodus to Valetudo and many of them offered and/or requested to travel with him. He refused them all. It was no secret that Cillian preferred to be alone and well-known that he could take care of himself very well, just as all the brothers could. He did not understand why they insisted on traveling in groups. It was not for safety. Perhaps monetary reasons, should they stop at an inn? Again, not a concern for him, as he rather enjoyed sleeping outdoors. He also wanted to go at his own pace. Cillian did not linger or dawdle anywhere, as groups of people tended to do. He avoided cities, which always slowed him down with distractions and headaches.
Soon enough, he would be spending all his time in a city. The fact still rankled. Cillian had specifically requested to be placed on the front lines, which he felt was his forte. It was not arrogance that made Cillian believe he was an effective warrior - just cold, hard observance of himself in comparison to others. Instead, they had placed him on surveillance duty, watching the royal family. An important task, undoubtedly. Just not the task for him. Surveillance was notoriously boring. Not only boring, but uncomfortable. Being a glorified guard meant he would have to watch people in their most private moments. The secrets he knew after all his years in the brotherhood would make a spymaster faint.
Now, he was finally in Valetudo. It was not his first trip here, but every time he visited, he was stricken by the natural beauty of his surroundings. Nature was one of the few things in the world that Cillian actually liked and here it was, in all its majesty. Even crossing the small, cold sea that separated Ventus and Valetudo had been an interesting experience, though there had been inclement weather. He did not get seasick and thought it silly that other people did. All of it was different than Ventus, where he had spent most of his life. He admitted to himself that sometimes a little change could be pleasant. Sometimes.
Right now, he was walking through a field of flowers. The sun beat down red hot on the back of his head and his black robes absorbed all the heat, but Cillian did not so much as pause to consider removing an article of clothing. He would not rest until lunch, which would be small and eaten quickly. The grass whipped against his bare hands as he went, making him itch, but he ignored it. The city was close now; if he kept on the same pace, he would reach it by the next afternoon....
He halted, noticing an atypical dip in the flowers ahead. Cillian approached it slowly to find...a girl. Laying in flowers. In the middle of nowhere. How extremely odd. Even stranger, she seemed pleased to be laying on the ground. Women did not like laying on the ground - they insisted on soft beds. He knew this. She appeared to be in tip-top conditions as far as he could see - no blood, no grimace of pain. He stopped a few feet before her head.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked, voice crackling from lack of use. "Are you ill or daft?"
Alias: milksteak
Subject: Peter Dunnage 
Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:58 am
