Biography - Marco Aparthis (PG13)

[marquisillusion]

First Name: Marco
Last Name: Aparthis

Appearance: Typically cloaked, though he doesn't usually wear a hood unless he wishes to hide his features for a specific reason.
Race: Human (Athkatla)
Age: 21
Height: 5'10''
Weight: 165
Eyes: Green
Hair: Ear-length black hair
Facial Hair Style: Well kept beard.

Personality Profile: Marco is a duality of his upbringing. He is calm, mild mannered, and charming. When provoked, or while in a mindset of a killer, in an instant he can become as cold and unforgiving as winter. He kills without remorse, because ultimately to him, the only life that has any real meaning is his own.
General Health: Fit, young, and hopefully not -10.
Deity: Mask
Initial Alignment: NE
Profession: None.
Base Class & Proposed Development: Rogue. Most likely something like 15 rogue / 15 assassin or 10 rogue / 20 assassin. Or 10 assassin / 20 rogue. I mainly build around the RP, rather than RP around the build.
Habits/Hobbies: No habits, other than manners.
Languages: Common, Cant, Elven
Weapon of Choice: Daggers, Rapiers, Short Swords, Darts, Poisons, whatever gets the job done.

Background: See below under plot hooks.

Goals: Marco's goals typically coincide with whatever it is that he wants at any given moment. If gold is his objective, the ends typically justify the means. If he's hired to do something, his only goal is to do it.

MY goals for the character are fairly similar in nature. I made him a character with wide-open possibilities. I feel that it's better to have options, and let the roleplay go where it's going to go.

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts:

The streets of Athkatla are no place for a boy. Especially one so pampered, so articulate, so...soft. Unfortunately for Marco Aparthis, and so many others, life does not always bring us down a brightly lit path.

Marco Aparthis, the son of a wealthy businessman and an affluent heiress, grew up in the city of Athkatla. In his early years, he learned the value of the political mind, the quickness of wit and slyness of character that his father had made his fortune on. From his mother, he learned courtly charm and grace, as well as most of his book learning. By the age of 12, he could read, write, do complicated arithmetic and geometry, and he had his finger on the pulse of the politics of his city. He showed such promise. Who knows where he could have ended up? A councilman, or his own governorship. A lawyer, or banker certainly. A businessman the likes of which even his father couldn't hope to be.

Unfortunately, life does not always bring us down a brightly lit path.

At the age of 13, Marco discovered something that all young boys discover for themselves sooner or later. Marco discovered that his mother and father were human, and made human mistakes. He discovered that besides what he knew of them, their sternness and compassion and grace and intellect, they could also be petty and stupid and arrogant and yes, even unfaithful.

To this day, Marco remembers the crash of furniture, the screams of his father directed at his mother. Somewhere deep within himself, Marco understood what was happening. But another part, a much larger part of him, didn't want to understand. Didn't want to see. But he saw everything. Through the little crack in the door, Marco saw his father, taken by a rage he had never seen in all his years, grab the cheese knife from the cutting board atop the wine bar in their evening room. He saw as his father did the unthinkable. There was no adequate response to the things Marco had witnessed. No amount of intelligence, no depth of fortitude, no level of patience could have prepared a young boy of 13 to see his father murder his mother. He ran.

For the next 9 years, Marco's one and only goal was survival. Athkatla, as many know, is not a nice place when the sun goes down. To a boy of 13, surviving might as well have meant throwing a rock and hitting the moon. But somehow, through many trials and tribulations, Marco did survive. And he learned. He learned what his mother and father could not teach him. He did more than gain knowledge. He gained wisdom.

So it was growing up, surviving on crumbs. Begging what he could, stealing what he had to. At the age of 18, everything changed. Growing up on the streets, you don't make many friends. If you're careful, you make few enemies. Few, as it turns out, is more than none.

One day, Marco was hungrier than he had been in a long time. Autumn had fallen by then, and the streets grew colder. Food grew scarcer. This was a dangerous, desperate time for street urchins. Marco had few options, when an opportunity presented itself. His mother's words rang in his ears, "Marco, opportunity knocks but once. Miss it, and it will be gone forever." A food cart had overturned in the market. The problem with the market, though, was that there were no small amount of guards, and guards had a special dislike for street urchins such as himself.

Food was scarce. Marco slipped into the market among a group of travelers, appearing for all the world like a small pair of gangly legs amidst their long, flowing cloaks. Even they did not notice him at first. At the earliest opportunity, Marco ducked behind a barrel, and then crawled on hands and knees underneath a low-leaning workbench. An apple the size of his fist lay only a few feet away. A feast, to his eyes. Marco inched forward, careful to pay attention to the patrols in the market. He did not come here often, and with good reason. A few inches more. He stopped when he heard the tromp of boots to his left. The guard passed, his metal heels clinking against the cold cobblestones. A few more inches. The coveted treasure was almost within his grasp when, suddenly, a pain shot up his leg. Wrenching his ankle in an odd direction, a guard pulled him like a rag doll from under the bench.

"What we got here? A thief, by the looks of it! Constable would be more'n happy to lock you away for stealing, urchin!" The Constable's jail was a place where beggars went to die. Not thinking clearly, Marco grasped for the nearest thing to hand. A pair of pliers on the workbench he had used a moment before as a hiding place. Without realizing what he was doing, Marco plunged the pliers into the neck of the guard, who by his expression, was taken off guard. Marco dropped to the floor in a heap before finding his wits about him. He grabbed for the apple, and ran off into the alleyways and sewers he knew as home. He was gone before the guards could so much as turn the corner.

Three months later, Marco decided to leave. He had, by this time, gotten back on his feet. After that day, Marco learned a terrible truth about himself. Killing was in his blood. He lied, cheated, stole, and killed his way out of poverty, and when he soon began to realize that the breadcrumbs he was leaving behind would eventually lead the wolves to his door, he left.

A boy ran out into the streets of Athkatla. It spat back out a remorseless killer.

[Mezzanine]

This is a great bio and introduction! Take a look at the bio guidelines for a few more prompts that will help the DMs and player as get a better feel for your character and overall plot/goals. If you find a DM in game, you can politely ask them to review this and probably get a nice leg up on your XP for the trouble...