Manus

[Notionsson]

Manus

Introduction

"This won't end well for you."

Basics

Name: Manus


Age: Approximately 100


Race: Cursed Human/Crystalline Skeleton


Gender: Male


Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual/Uninterested


Occupation: Wanderer

• Appearance
• Personality
• History
• Magic/Spells
• Equipment
• Skills
• Weaknesses

• Appearance
  
  Height: 6'4''
  
  
  Weight: 72 Lbs
  
  
  Hair: N/A
  
  
  Eyes: Glowing Blue
  
  
  Body: Skeletal, Crystalline
  
  
  Attire: A great, thick cloak worn on the outside, concealing almost everything. A tightly wrapped headscarf about his head emblazoned with a skeletal fist at the end. A pair of ragged sack-cloth pants, tied to his pelvis by sturdy rope. wooden gauntlets, carved and bound by leather, on his skeletal arms and hands.
  
  
  Manus appears, at first, to be a tall, amorphously built figure given his massive travelling cloak. The only hint to his true identity are his glowing ethereal eyes and a narrow strip of the crystalline, skeletal skull that they're set in. His voice, rough and bass and issuing straight from some point near his neck, is unmistakably male.
  
  
  With the cloak removed, his body is revealed for what it is: a fully articulated human skeleton, made of glittering blue crystal instead of white bone. No skin, no muscle, no tendons, for the bones are seemingly bound together and moved by invisible magic and force of will.
  
  
  Those capable of seeing magical or chi auras detect a veritable maelstrom of energy winding its way through his form.
  
  
  
• Personality
  
  Manus is calm, humble and eerily driven. He never stays in one place for long (and it's rare to find a place that will have him), and declines to make any real friends on the way to... whatever he's after.
  
  
  Manus doesn't hesitate to intervene when some great injustice or evil is laid before him: assaults, thefts, slave operations, all have been foiled by solid punches and unflinching resolve. He asks no reward, and expects none, either.
  
  
  Manus has a dry, seldom-used sense of humor, that is usually broken out when in the company of a stoneworker. Manus finds the very profession of masonry to be laughably overblown.
  
  
  
• History
  
  Manus was once a simple woodworker, living honestly when he could and stealing when he couldn't. One day, during a famine, he had the grave misfortune of robbing from some old antiquarian, palming a large, gleaming blue crystal from a smashed display case.
  
  
  Later that night, observing the crystal, his glee turned to horror as the thing suddenly shattered, pierced him, and began the excruciatingly painful process of turning him into what he is now: a crystalline, skeletal figure, a victim of the little-known Jekaza Curse, so named from the doomed country that the crystals hail from.
  
  
  Awakening to the screams of his fiance, and finding himself a sensory-deprived crystalline horror, he left, wandering the world for decades on end, seeking atonement, enlightenment, and a cure.
  
  
  He has found atonement with multiple gods, and enlightenment after a decade spent on a mountain-top. Now, it is a cure that he seeks, and though no cure is supposed to exist, he will find a way if it takes him a millenium and a half.
  
  
  
• Magic/Spells
  
  Manus wields no 'magic', per se, but he is intrinsically magical. An aura of arcane energy suffuses his very being, clinging stubbornly to his crystalline bones in spite of even the worst magic-defusing attacks. His lack of squishy meat bits and his sensory deadening also give him a natural knack for channeling natural energy, chi, and he does so when pressed to display truly extraordinary feats of speed and strength.
  
  
  
• Equipment
  
  Manus' clothes, a small set of woodworking tools, and his wooden gauntlets (often replaced) are his only equipment. Only magical or adamantine weapons can last long in his hands, and he does not bother to go out of his way to obtain them when his fists and feet work much better.
  
  
  Without the need to eat or sleep, he carries no bedroll, blankets or rations. He can normally climb or jump most obstacles, and trees can be hewn with his bare hands.
  
  
  
• Skills
  
  Manus is a terrifying hand-to-hand combatant. Despite his lack of muscle, he is preternaturally strong and superhumanly fast due to intensive training and his iron will. While simple threats are handled by just throwing his weight around, he can, and will, settle into a decades-practiced martial arts stance when the need arises.
  
  
  Manus' curse gives him the appearance of something that seems terribly brittle, but this is not the case, as many have found out firsthand. His 'bones' are many times stronger than even the strongest of steel, and can take truly obscene amounts of punishment. Thus, Manus can level a watchtower or walk through a storm of crossbow bolts without a scratch. He uses this almost unholy resilience to great effect whenever he can.
  
  
  Manus also possesses an artisan's level of woodcutting and woodworking, and has built more than his fair share of wood huts and repaired dozens of carts in his many travels. Wood is something he admires and appreciates, and he's been known to spend hours simply staring at a tree he thinks is particularly beautiful.
  
  
  
• Weaknesses
  
  The Jekaza Curse is a curse for a reason. Manus' senses are all incredibly dulled: he has poor hearing, poor eyesight (colorblind and blurry), cannot smell or taste, and his sense of touch is pretty much limited to 'yes or no.' Thus, he often fails to pick up on little things and has to actively strain to sense them.
  
  
  Manus has incredible resilience, yes, but his skirmishes with past victims of the Curse have taught him not to rely upon it. Damage done to his bones is completely irreversible and completely invisible until one of them shatters into dust, inflicting the curse-bearer with overwhelming pain. He has no way of telling how close to failure his bones are, and the destruction of even a tooth can be debilitating.
  
  
  Manus also has no easy way of fighting beyond close range. Normal ranged weaponry shatters in his hands, and he cannot project the great energy he channels: the curse energy saturating him simply won't allow it. While ranged attackers would be hard pressed to actually harm him, clever foes can keep him at bay without too much worry.