About

TITLE: The Deathless Man, The Jackal

HALO: Ash and Smoke

In a single word: Tired. Casran Samaar is exhausted. But he won’t let himself rest because every time some big calamity happens, he always feels the need to step up. Partially because he doesn’t really trust other people to handle it themselves. He doesn’t want friends, he hates being in the spotlight, and has little regard for personal safety. Once he starts something, he’ll always see it through to the bitter end. He doesn’t think of himself as a victim or a tragic hero. Over the years, he’s become slow to anger. Being alive for that long tends to affect the way someone sees the pettier issues of the day to day. Impeccable memory. He’s graduated far beyond giving a damn what people think of him. He used to be a hopeless romantic. He isn’t anymore. He’s almost dangerously arrogant, and legitimately (correctly) believes that nothing can keep him down. He knows he basically has the strength of a god but chooses not to let it consume him. The man has the resilience of a brick wall and tends to adapt well to rapidly changing situations. Rolling with the punches has kept him alive. Mostly, at least. He’d rather die on the sword than show emotions around other people. Vulnerability gets you killed. He hates sleeping; he tends to have horrible nightmares that end in him screaming himself awake, so he tries to stay awake for as long as he can, often pulling all-nighters just to avoid resting. He has died of exhaustion more than a few times. Despite everything he’s been through, or perhaps because of it, he quietly mourns the loss of his naivety. He doesn’t particularly like the jaded persona he’s taken on, but doesn’t really know how to stop it.

BIO

Casran is a man who walks a path of death and tragedy. He was born in Sheodoth, in a town that no longer exists. His home life was turbulent; as the youngest of four, he was constantly having to compete with his older siblings for everything. Nobody ever paid any attention to him, so he acted out and did things to make them. This… brought about punishment and hostility more often than not, but it was what he wanted, in a way. As a young adult, Casran tried to join the smallish Sheodothi military but was swiftly discharged on the grounds of incompetence. He ended up falling in with a group of bandits after leaving home, gaining a reputation for being utterly ruthless and brutally manipulative. Taking up the nickname of Jackal, he quickly rose through the ranks, eventually taking over when the old leader died. He made sure people knew his name when he carved into their lives. Or at least, the Jackal’s name. He was careful to keep his own identity hidden, even from his fellow reavers. No one in or outside the crew has ever seen the Jackal’s face. He kept it hidden under a helm that bore the motif of the animal. Things went well, for a while.

That is, until his crew was butchered. The long arm of the law eventually caught up to the group. During a night raid of the bandit encampment, most of the Jackal’s folks were either killed or arrested. Very few, including the Jackal himself, escaped with their lives. During the raid, Casran put his helm on one of his fallen brethren before fleeing the scene. It is assumed that the Jackal perished in the raid, buying him time to put as much distance between him and everything else as possible. He didn’t know if he was being pursued or not, but that didn’t matter.

Unbeknownst to him, his sister Arvalia was working her way up the ranks of a necromancy cult at the same time he was rolling with the reavers. In order to break through to the next level, she sold the souls of everyone in her immediate family to her superior to secure a higher position, telling them exactly where and how to find each of her siblings. He was tracked down, kidnapped, and killed as part of a ritual intended to fuel a single lich’s phylactery with the souls of a few hundred or so people. A few days later, Casran crawled out of the crater the ritual left behind, skin cracked and burning and flaking like the ashes that surrounded him. He was the only one to survive. Soulless, but alive. After that fateful day, he lost the ability to permanently die. He’ll stay down for a few hours before waking up, completely healed. It’s weird. He doesn’t like it. So, he chocked it up to Weird Cult Shit and kept running, unaware of the fact that his sister was the one that sealed his fate in this way.

While on the run, Casran stumbled into an unfamiliar town, broken and bloody and on the verge of death. To his utter shock, some of the townsfolk pulled him off the street and took him in without question. He was put up in the home of a small family by the community, where he stayed until his wounds had healed. Something about that changed him. It had been many years since he was shown that sort of kindness without the expectation of recompense. And something about that softened his bitter exterior. He remained in town after healing, feeling obligated to provide some form of protection to the people who nursed him back to health. A few weeks after Casran makes a recovery, the town was attacked by a reaver group that includes some of his old crewmates, including one that wears his old helm. This, understandably, set him off.

Casran is, without a doubt, an incredibly dangerous individual. But he is only one person. Despite his prowess, he can’t hold them off on his own, and innocent people die because of his shortcomings. He feels as though he personally killed the folks who took him in, and vows to never let that happen again. Over time, he methodically hunts down and kills the rest of his old crew, eventually reclaiming the Jackal helm. This is a hollow victory. He will never forgive himself. He becomes a sort of vigilante to repent for his failure, vowing never to let another person die on his watch again. He takes up an oath of his own design, and becomes the first, only, and last paladin of ash and fire. His fire is of upheaval and vengeance, a swirling wave of heat and destruction that burns even the strongest of men. His oath has warped and changed with time, mellowing into something less inclined towards vengeance and more towards putting down threats preemptively.

He’s gotten this reputation as a vibe check in elven form over the past few millennia. He’d seek out (or be sought out by) entities and events that would most definitely rock the world in the worst possible way and put an end to it.

But even the hottest fires dwindle over time.