PATERNALISTIC , OBSESSIVE , UNPREDICTABLE  
---
DRIVEN , CURIOUS , PASSIONATE

PERSONALITY

• Brass is world-curious. He is a seeker of the far reaches of what's possible, and takes earnest joy in discovery. Though not a mage by birth, he is educated in and fascinated by the scholarship of magic, and has a fairly decent wealth of alchemical knowledge for a born non-mage.
• Brass has a genteel character that lingers from his noble upbringing, in spite of the brutal life he's led on the fringes of social order. This manifests in a sort of old-school politeness that some find charming and others find pretentious.
• Brass has a troubling combination of intense emotions and a tight lid with which to contain them. A cold, bridled cultivation in high society required a great deal of repression for someone who feels love, rage and pain as sharply as Brass. The result is a difficult-to-read adult who makes hasty, destructive decisions but has the language to make them seem rational shortly after
• Brass can have blinders on when he sets his mind to something. Instead of adjusting his ideas and actions to reality, he tends to think he can make things work the other way around. 
• Brass can be a little bit of a dad. He gives practical gifts. He's giving you detailed instructions. It's annoying but you can tell he's doing it out of love. You just gotta let him do it.
• Brass loves Stuff. Glistening treasures and rare objects are a draw to him, and he has a collector's impulse that leads him to accumulate such things for his dragon horde. He prefers quality over quantity; he'll keep things for a long time, and he'll pay lots of money to keep them nice. This includes his ship, which is still the same vessel he stole from the Ivratian Navy 15 years ago.
• Brass is gay, he loves being gay, he loves hot guys with hot bods. Though usually pretty modest for a pirate captain, he gets really bawdy when he's drunk.
• It's best not to fight Brass 1v1. He's an accomplished duelist and grappler who has a wildman's threshhold for pain. He'll take devastating hits in order to get close and land a point blank blow -- especially now that he can't be killed.

[368 words]

HISTORY

gore & violence cw

• Before he was ever called "Brass," Lord Onslow Buckler was born to the noble House of Buckler, a prominent mage family whose matriarch (his mother, Lady Olympia) sits on the Council of Magi in Faline to this day. Onslow was the third of six siblings, and was Olympia's only non-mage child. Olympia wasn't a particularly loving mother to any of her children, but she had a special disregard for Onslow. He was without magic, and he wasn't as effortless as the others -- he was difficult, moody, and had a sensitive character that she found weak and unattractive.
• In spite of his lack of innate magic, Onslow was educated in magical arts by an in-home tutor from Namarast alongside his two elder siblings, Clayton and Araminta. What he lacked in talent, he made up for in curiosity and studiousness, and he developed a wide (though purely academic) knowledge base in alchemy as well as a love for the scientific method. Although he surpassed them in hard work, he was no match for his siblings' raw power, and he watched as they used fear and social standing to live hedonistic, destructive lives, throwing their weight around with few consequences from the kingdom or the Order. 
• As his siblings took positions of power throughout the upper echelons of the Ivratian government, Onslow found himself with fewer -- though still privileged -- options for his future. With academic and athletic success on his resume, Onslow took the advice of those around him and enlisted in the Ivratian Navy to begin officer training. In this, Onslow also excelled, and by virtue of his charisma, achievements, and name, he quickly rose to become a well-respected captain in the Ivratian forces. It was here that he received the nickname "Brass," and it simply became his name to those who called him anything besides Captain Buckler (but that's a story for another time).
• To all eyes, Brass was a successful and well-situated member of Ivratian society with a bright military future. The truth, however, was more complicated. Brass was a troubled, unhappy man with tension under the surface of his skin. Though his smiles were frequent, they were rarely genuine, and though he was adept at maneuvering around a bureaucracy, he took no pleasure in it. In fact, the longer he was forced to spend in that world, the more difficult it was to keep a lid on his desire to lash out against it. Because he had always been relegated to its periphery, he could plainly see corruption, injustice, and systemic double standards everywhere he looked in the world of Ivratian society. All around him, Brass saw power -- magical and otherwise -- in the hands of people who misused and abused it without retribution. The unfairness of the world he lived in grated on him daily, especially as the hysteria surrounding mages grew to ruin the lives of wild mages on the street while leaving his rich, reprehensible Order-trained siblings unmolested. 
• Though Brass was careful to remain strategic about airing his grievances in the Naval barracks, there were other sailors who noticed his dissenting grimaces and became drawn in by his air of quiet revolt. Subordinate officer Gore Prothero, though initially unimpressed by an officer with a peerage, became very close to Brass, serving as his right hand on the schooner HMS Clinkscales. In them, he saw another story of great potential squandered by an unjust system; he used his position to elevate them, and facilitated their growth into a fiercely effective quartermaster. The two also grew close on a personal level, and developed an intense partnership built on seamless execution and mutual respect. Brass also developed an intense personal relationship with fellow officer Ephraim LeClerq, who found him to be an inspiring renegade in theory but a dangerous influence in practice.
• When Brass snapped, it came without warning for all but a few close companions, and even they were approached with a plan no earlier than 36 hours before its intended execution. He was going to abandon the Ivratian Royal Navy in the most destructive, bombastic way possible: by taking his ship with him. He would become a pirate and make it his mission to undercut the social structure he loathed, steal its money, and make his crew a sanctuary for those whose potential was untapped due to prejudice, poverty, and so on. Prothero and a small crew loyal to Brass would join him -- as for Ephraim, he declined, but his warnings and admonishments fell on the deaf ears of a man who had already made up his mind. At the break of day, in a hail of cannonfire and a clash of swords and antlers, Brass and his crew successfully pulled the Clinkscales out of the harbor and disappeared into the open sea.
• For the next decade, Captain Brass Buckler and the crew of the Clinkscales had an illustrious career as some of the most feared pirates in the Mirror Bay. He became known as the Dragon for his jolly roger, a bastardized version of the Buckler family crest on which a dragon reared up with a tilted crown, and the draconian name of his ship. They attacked merchants, traders, and military vessels from Ivras and Nymene, plundering untold riches and magical artifacts from their hulls. Prothero remained Brass's quartermaster, and their bond grew even closer both personally and professionally. 
• While this was by and large a free, happy and prosperous time for all, there were a few kinks: Brass, recognizing that his own feelings for Prothero were more than friendly, thought that they might feel the same and want to take their relationship further. Unfortunately, he was wrong, and an ill-timed kiss in his cabin was met with shock and coldness. They continued to work closely together as captain and quartermaster, but a rift had begun to form between the formerly inseparable duo. Adding to a growing sense of unease toward the end of this period was the suspicion that Brass had his own agenda aside from hunting prizes and providing for his crew. He had begun to target specific ships without regard for inconvenient courses, dangerous conditions or depleting supplies, and once they had been overtaken, he could be found pilfering them himself. Keen sailors would also notice that these ships carried more mages than non-mages -- a rare sight between the coasts of Ivras and  Nymene.
• Eventually, Brass made his intentions clear to his crew (or so they believed). He had been on the trail of a great treasure in the cold South of Ritha, a cave filled with magical objects of mythical value that would make them all rich as princes. Now, he had a course, but he knew Clinkscales couldn't make the trip alone. She would need another ship as an escort, one with more significant artillery and a frame heavy enough to break up ice floes ahead of her. Brass and Prothero interviewed several captains, but only one stood out to Brass as the obvious choice: the powerful mage captain Vidar and her ship of monsters, the Trespasser.
• Brass and Vidar worked effectively together, beginning their course to the South; over time, they became more and more taken with each other; he was swept up by her uninhibited nature, dazzled by her raw power, and affected by her demonstrative love for her wife, Alcippe (with whom Brass also established a working friendship). When she turned those attentions on him as well, he was hungry for them, and the two began a love affair with Alcippe's knowledge. As captains of two ships traveling together, the contact they made at port was as precious as it was infrequent, and in that time their relationship escalated from tentative to intensely passionate. 
• As they began to trust one another, Brass revealed only to Vidar the true intentions of his voyage: while the treasure he promised his crew was real, the true prize was for him alone. His mother's long mage bloodline had a storied artifact, one that was presumed to be the source of the family's magic; legend had it that Lady Olympia's ancestor had been exposed to this object, and was henceforth a mage down to his very essence. This, according to Brass, was his birthright, and he was convinced that the proof he had accumulated was undeniable; but the fact remained that he had no idea what the object was even meant to be. Vidar was initially unhappy with him -- he had brought her and her crew on a dangerous operation without the whole truth, and a non-mage's search for power through magic read to her as foolish, banal, and at odds with the man she had thought Brass to be. But Brass was persuasive and earnest about his intentions. He shared with her the mission statement behind his entire turn to piracy, his philosophy about power, his disgust for his siblings' abuse of it, and his sense of responsibility. She was moved, agreed to carry on, and began to offer him frank tutelage about what it means to be old and full of magic.
• At last, Clinkscales and Trespasser made it to a remote cave in the cold, craggy South of Ritha. The treasure there was not as plentiful as expected, but the value of every artifact made up the difference. While the two crews were busy loading their ships with plunder, Brass finally stepped into the cave to take his prize. To his surprise, it was no glistening jewel nor golden crown: it was a modest wooden chest, carved with runes. Between his alchemical education and his travels, Brass could make out the meaning. They were instructions, and they were clear. He opened the chest and his suspicions were confirmed -- it was empty, but it stank, and it was stained deep into the fibers with ancient blood.
  
• In another man, this would've struck enough fear to send him packing. In Brass, it only heightened his obsession, and his excitement turned to frenzy. He turned to face Vidar, who had followed him, and told her he wanted her to help him cut out his own heart. Livid and disgusted, she refused, but her refusal only made his insistence more intense. He got in her face, baring his chest to her, blind to the increasing agitation of the powerful wild mage before him. Now enraged by his provocation, Vidar finally lashed out. She pulled her knife from her belt and plunged it deep into his chest.
• Vidar had not done this to help Brass gain his magic. As she released the knife, he fell to his knees, in agony and in shock. He watched with fading vision as she left him there on the floor of the cave, and when she was gone, he bellowed for someone he trusted to help him finish the job. An unclear amount of time later, Brass awoke in his bunk on the Clinkscales, hazy in the head and oppressed by searing pain. His chest was bound in dirty bandages, and when he peeled them away, he saw a grisly wound. He placed his hand over it. There was no heartbeat. 
• Vidar had ordered her crew to set sail immediately in the wake of what she'd done, so Clinkscales had to make the voyage back from the South alone. With Brass in no condition to lead mentally, emotionally or physically, Prothero took some semblance of command, successfully bringing the crew back to the familiar waters of Mirror Bay. Harrowed by the journey and still clueless as to what had happened in that cave, Prothero's faith in Brass was irreparably damaged, and they began laying the groundwork for mutiny. However, Brass got word, and before he could retaliate, Prothero stole a rowboat in the night and abandoned ship. 
• Having lost his lover, his best friend, the trust of his crew, and a physical piece of himself, Brass's mind was at a low point -- but his newfound power was not. With his heart in the chest, he was unkillable and undying, and that made him a profoundly dangerous adversary to prizes and rivals. Channeling his rage and his immortality, he dawned a new era of brutal prosperity on Clinkscales, winning back his crew and his reputation on sheer results. Word hit the harbors and straits: the Dragon was back in full force.
• As for the chest, it remains hidden in a location known only to Brass and the single trusted member of the Clinkscales crew who was in the cave that day. 

Brass can now be found on the pirate ship Clinkscales, which sails the West coast of Ivras.

[2,049 words]

DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Costs

• Magic use reduces the caster's mobility or reflexes: Although Brass can sustain mortal injuries without dying, his body still has to heal from them as normal, resulting in some permanent damage to his musculoskeletal system. Brass also maintains the body of a 50-year-old, so any wear and tear he had before he sealed his immortality will still affect him.
• Magic has no effect except under specific circumstances: Brass's magic is completely contingent on the chest. If his heart is removed or damaged, he becomes mortal and vulnerable again, and will immediately suffer from the adverse affects of not having a literal heart. Good thing that shit is hidden as hell