Name (and pronunciation): Fernand ‘Animae’ Cavalcanti

Age: 25

Gender: Male

Eyes: Green

Hair: Brown

Race: Human

Class: Spellsword (a half swordsman, half spellcaster. Is good at both but cannot excel in the same fashion a devout swordsman or devout spellcaster would).
Spellswords are a tiny division of spell casters from Ti’Lethan dedicated to fighting the Demon Lord by employing a series of strange techniques that are often related to warrior meets sorcerer meets inquisitor. All Spellswords have tattooed on them, the Mark of the Spellsword, as well as a special cloak, but each Spellsword can recognise a fellow Spellsword simply by sight alone.
All Spellswords work alone and work in their own style, meaning that Spellswords gain a reputation for being quite different from one another, personality wise.

Distinguishable Marks: Tattoo of a green flame on one forearm and tattoo of a green sword on the other forearm. Mark of the Spellsword.

General Appearance: Fernand has messy brown hair that has grown slightly down his neck, but not to his shoulders. His fringe covers one eye sometimes. Fernand also often grows a light shallow beard, but it never becomes too heavy or thick before he shaves. Fernand is 6 foot tall.

Weapon of choice: A rapier or magic-created flame sword when fighting minions of the Demon Lord.

Clothing: Fernand dresses in uniform typical of a traveller that doesn’t distinguish him for either swordsman or spellcaster. He wears brown pants with three black leather bands that hang off each pant leg, as well as two belts which is the standard style for many travellers. He wears a white long sleave buttonshirt and a pitch-black cloak over the top of his clothes. The cloak is often carried by Spellswords and is sometimes called an ‘eye-deflecting cloak’, meaning that the cloak is enchanted so that you are less noticeable except by people looking for you specifically. A strange enchantment, and unable to match other items that allow total invisibility, but this cloak allows Fernand to disappear into crowds easily and avoid trouble most of the time. The cloak also shines in a multi-pattern platinum glow during a full moon.

Personality: Fernand is a bit of an eccentric, but is very good at deduction and lateral thinking, which helps him just as much as his talents. Fernand is easy to charm people, but always maintains a wall between himself and his friends when it comes to personal issues and burdens. He is outgoing, but to a fault.

Biography:
Fernand Cavalcanti was born into a village on the border of the ever-growing war between humanoid-kind and the Demon Lord. His childhood was extremely traumatic; at the age of 5 his father was lynched and killed by a crowd of village people after being accused (rightly) of being a minion for the Demon Lord. During the hanging of his father, he was first anointed with holy water, which caused him blinding and inescapable pain shortly before his death, as proof of his true allegiances. At the age of 10, his widow mother and he, along with the rest of the village people who had killed his father, were forced to move to Ti’Lethan as refugees when a battalion of the Demon Lord’s men pillaged the town, which now remains as a pile of old wood and house frames in Demon Lord controlled territory.

Fernand went to work to support his mother, Heloise, in Ti’Lethan who was already a professional tailor, as a member of an acting troupe at the age of 15, entertaining soldiers and commonfolk alike while his mother, him, and the other actors of the troupe lived in a set of apartments attached to the theatre. They became his second family. His stage name was ‘Animae’ and at the age of 17 a Spellsword member of the Tower of Seers found potential talent within Fernand during a show, and he was quickly sent away to a tiny abbey (the Abbey of Evey) to learn how to become another Spellsword. He accepted the chance to learn, and lived at the small abbey outside of Ti’Lethan until he was 20.

After completing both of his tests, of magic and of weapons, he received his two tattoos and cloak, and allowed to leave the abbey as a journeyman Spellsword. He hadn’t had any contact with his former actors or mother for 3 years, and upon returning he found the theatre burn down. A woman of his old troupe, Valentine, gave her the grave news, that Heloise and all the other actors had been killed in a fire, arson committed by a radical group that disagreed with the politics of the plays being put on. It has been two years since the fire.

In his grief and anger, Fernand relied heavily on emotional support from Valentine, who was only 19 and had joined the troupe as a 14 year old the same year as Fernand. Fernand fell in love with Valentine, but soon discovered she had become a prostitute in order to survive after the death of the troupe. The war had put tremendous economic strain on the city, and she was starving. Fernand, in his rage over his mother’s death, murdered Valentine’s master in cold blood and framed him as a minion of the Demon Lord (not that anyone would cry over the death of a pimp anyway).

Valentine returned Fernand’s feelings, and they consummated their love that night. But later, while attempting to flee the city together, one of the dead master’s creditors discovered the murder and went after the two immediately. The men he sent were those same radicals Valentine recognised as being responsible for the death of Heloise and in a fit of blind rage, Fernand slayed all of the men using both of his techniques of magic and swordsmanship. He then tracked down the leader who sent them, only to discover an awful truth.

While the man and his radicals had been aligned with the pimp, they weren’t the arsonists responsible for Heloise’s death. Valentine had manipulated Fernand’s emotions in order to get free from her life of degradation and prostitution. The fire was, in fact, an accident during rehearsals one day and Heloise died helping other actors put out the flames. Fernand, shaken and heartbroken, killed both the leader of the radicals, who attempted to avenge his own men, and stunned Valentine. Unable to bring himself to kill the only woman (besides his mother) that he had loved, Fernand used fire to permanently blind Valentine and burn her skin, so that no other man would love her again. The next day, he sent a letter of his exact deeds to the Abbey of Evey, and told them he would start on his mission to hunt down minions of the Demon Lord, and to not try and capture him for prosecution. By the time other Spellswords had arrived at the crime scene to find him, Fernand had already left the city in self-exile.

5 years later, Fernand remains in self imposed exile, and he’s not sure if Spellswords are still looking for him. As an Incomplete Soul (although not to his own knowledge that he is), Fernand has always been searching for a family to call his own now that he has none whatsoever.