Charlton Lawrence Almond

Name: Charlton Lawrence Almond
Alias: Charlie Ewing
Age: 22
Race: galdori
Place of Origin: Vienda

Backstory

Charlie spent most of his childhood with his sister Laureline in the care of a human nanny. Their parents, while not unkind, were too busy with their very important grown-up lives to have much time for children. In their youth, Charlie and Laur were very close. The nanny eventually gave them books to read on their own, rather than face their constant ridicule. This is when Charlie became exposed to mechanics-- steamboats, aeroships, factory machines. They were very "boyish" topics, appropriate for his age.

Charlie left for Brunnhold two years before his sister Laur. He managed to squeak by with a very low initiation exam score, just high enough to not be considered passive but low enough to be, well, pathetic. His lack of magical aptitude made him something of an object of derision among his peers, though his easy-going and likeable personality ensured he was never particularly hated. After his sister entered Brunnhold, they regained their former closeness... for about a year. After a year, however, Charlie began to drift away, not wanting to be seen associating with his "baby sister". They never did become close again as they were when they were small.

For his own part, Charlie realised that while he had absolutely no aptitude for magic or most academic pursuits, he both enjoyed and had some natural talent in engineering and the mechanical. He exhausted the Brunnhold library's books on the subject, and towards the end of his schooling began to tinker around with his own inventions (none of which were particularly successful). He did well in static magic as it could be rendered useful to his projects, but not much else. This put him in something of a unique position at school. While he was likeable enough that a good many people felt (perhaps falsely) close to him, he wasn't considered to be very important in the grand social scheme by virtue of his near-dropout status. As a result he was the perfect sounding board for all rants, gossip and sordid rumors floating around the school. The more he heard, the less he wanted to; the vile, vicious things he heard from otherwise lovely people kept him up at night. The said things about their friends, their teachers, neighbours, family-- let alone the things they said about other races...! Upon his graduation when he declared his intentions to his father about becoming a mechanic, and his father declared his intentions to cut him off from the family fortune until he came to his senses, Charlie took this as an opportunity to sever himself from galdori culture more fully. He decided to call Old Rose his home, hoping to observe other races and see if they had anything to offer his own.

Personality

Charlie is an easy-going, gregarious and silly sort of fellow. His motto in relationships, and indeed much of his life, is "refuse no one and hold on to no one". He's developed a sort of clownish personality as a defence against being ostracised by his peers in school. He can get easily swept up in his tinkering, and is hard to interrupt when he gets on a roll with it. While he is fascinated by other races, he does view them as something of a societal study (and in the case of wicks, a societal study with fancy hair). He believes that the galdori's natural superiority will better shine through if they can learn to stop undermining each other with their fanatical elitism, and hopes to find the flaws and strengths of other cultures as part of a grand scheme to strengthen his own.

Physical Description

Charlie is short, even by galdori standards, and rather slim though with wiry muscle all over his body. His hands are large and bony, but are suprisingly delicate. He has a long face that comes to something of a point at the chin. His brown hair is quite dark, very nearly black, but with something of a red cast, short in the front and getting a bit longer in the back. When he's working he pulls his hair up into a little ponytail. His eyes are a sort of intense blue. His nose is long but somewhat delicate and set above a mouth usually in a wide grin.

His taste in clothing is ecclectic and erratic. He is just as likely to be in a sort of ostentatious wick-inspired style as he is in suspenders and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and sturdy boots on his feet. He generally wears a flatcap over his somewhat unruly mop.

Inventory

Tools, various and sundry
Many, many changes of clothes
Flatcap
Books on engineering and mechanics
Inventions of all sorts-- failed, half-finished and even a few successful
Tippy (a whice)

Career

Mechanical Engineer/Amateur Inventor

Can fix nearly anything mechanical
Good with maths
Can heft heavy things surprisingly easily
Nimble fingers
Static magic

Goals

Charlie wants to become a world-class inventor to prove to his parents that he's not the screw-up they think he is. He would like to rekindle his relationship with Laur, as well, and become the best engineer in Anaxas (and beyond). He has a more vague, over-arching life goal to improve what he thinks are the flaws in galdor society that keep them from attaining true superiority. He would also like to learn the violin.