Malek Myrzon

[Grinning]

Name: Malek Myrzon

Appearance:

Race: Human (Mulan)
Age: 20
Height: 6’1”
Weight: Approx. 90kg
Eyes: Dark
Hair: Bald
Facial Hair Style: Stubble
Skin: Sallow, tanned
Laterality: Right-handed


Physical Description

Tall, with dark eyes and a shaven head. His features are youthful but weathered by long spans in the sun and sea wind. Numerous small scars nick the surface of his skull and face, making it clear that he is often in battle, as the wicked dagger at his belt can attest to.

He wears a breastplate of mottled blue, the surface of which is heavily scarred and reinforced by chain. A signet ring worn on his left ring-finger displays the symbol of a wave towering over a flickering flame.


Personality Profile:

General Health: Fit, healthy
Deity: Umberlee
Initial Alignment: Neutral Evil
Profession: Sailor & deck hand (former), Untaken of Umberlee (current)
Base Class & Proposed Development: Cleric, Hierophant
Habits/Hobbies: Malek spends most of his time gathering coin, gambling, and knife-fighting for sport.
Languages: Common, Thayan
Weapon of Choice: Dagger, Spear


Background: Malek was the young scion of a wealthy and powerful shipping family in the harbour metropolis of Bezantur, in Thay. That was, until pirates attacked the ship Malek and his parents were on as they were travelling in secret across the Alamber Sea to inspect a foreign holding. The pirates murdered the ship’s crew and every Myrzon aboard, save for Malek. Him, they took aboard, forcing him to work on their ship.

For years Malek toiled upon the pirate vessel, his mind dulling, the expensive education he had received receding to be replaced by the simple physical tasks in front of him. The hate he had for the pirates simmered always below the surface, not only for what they had done but for how they treated him, and his desire for revenge became greater as he grew into a body that could accommodate it. Even as many of the original pirates who had sacked his family’s ship were lost to wave, blade or spell over the years, he swore he would see the ship sunk down to the deepest depths.

Opportunity fatefully came when the ship was beset by Sahuagin raiders on the open sea. When attacks like these happened in the past, Malek had learned well to hide and let the pirates fall as they would – this time, however, he was older, stronger and more focused in his hate. He took up a blade in defence of the ship, or so was expected. In the chaos, Malek slew pirate and Sahuagin alike, killing his way to the hold and setting a blaze of the oil and alcohol reserves. The ship shook and Malek ran until there was nowhere to run, and then he fell. In those final moments, he saw the ship explode and then begin to sink, pulling everything under with it. The darkness of the sea swallowed him too.

The next Malek knew, he was hacking sea water from his lungs. He had washed up on a barren patch of sand, barely land or island, seemingly sprung up from the vast sea. There he wasted away for days, assured of his death. He had little to reflect upon – he was now roughly 16 years of age, though no one had counted. He was bony, wiry and scarred. And now, starving and dehydrated. On what Malek thought was his last day of life, when he was near delusional, a storm was born that swept him from his scrap of land. Once more the sea swallowed him and in his feeble struggles, his head came above the waves and he witnessed the bow of a ship cresting across the waves towards him. Using every ounce of strength he could muster, he fought against the waves trying to dash him upon the ship. He swallowed what felt like all the water in the ocean, vomiting and struggling, until the sea suddenly quietened. Suddenly, Malek was pulled forward as a massive wave gathered, towering and frothing, making the large ship look like a speck. The sound of crashing tore the world asunder.

Malek had survived. The wave had wrought devastation upon the ship, and left him strung across a torn sail. What followed in those days, aside from extensive repair work, was impassioned prayer and tribute to Umberlee by the Thayan crew of the vessel. They treated Malek well – giving him food, water and even a bed. They reasoned that the wave had left him upon their ship, and it was their duty to see him to safety. Malek was well used to the superstition of the sea and sailors, but he could not help but reflect as he sat in the shade one afternoon watching every crewmember from captain to deck hand throw every valuable they had into the clear blue depths. The pirate ship he had sunk had been full of bounty, but he’d never once seen the crew give tribute or prayer to the sea. As he looked down at his sun-blistered skin, he gave a quiet thanks to the Queen of the Depths, and the Queen of his revenge.

The ship arrived in Bezantur once more, and Malek sought out his estate. What he discovered came as no surprise; with the death of his parents his family had fallen. Quickly their warehouses had been picked clean, their businesses cannibalized by rivals. The home he grew up in had been boarded up, the sale still pending. Malek waited until nightfall and stole in; every child knows how to sneak in and out of their own home. Now, as a young man, he did so one final time. Coming in through his second-floor bedroom he saw that dust covered every surface of the house. He felt nothing walking through the empty hallways; this world was too far removed from what he had experienced. The boy he had been had died with his parents.

He came to his parent’s room, cracking it open and entering. The windows had been boarded up, and every piece of furniture was gone. The only thing that remained was memories, which is exactly what Malek was counting on. He walked over to a certain wall, and pressed his palm into it a certain recess. A creak echoed, then a click, and the sound of gears. The wall folded back into itself and created a doorway leading down into a staircase. Slowly, Malek descended, each step measured and wary of traps. His parents were not Red Wizards, and their non-reliance on magic had allowed them to hide such things. If they had simply used magic wards to safeguard their secrets, they would have been detected and broken through. Coming to the bottom of the stairs, Malek took a torch from the wall and struck it alight with a flint.

The room was dusty like the rest of the house, but full of furniture. Maps hung on the walls, and a large desk dominated the room filled with now-useless ledgers of business dealings and inventory. Malek searched for hours and came up with little wealth. He sat in the chair belonging to his father and surveyed the whole room, his eyes coming to rest on the table below him. There was a small drawer he realized, and upon opening it he found two objects. One was a signet ring, his family’s symbol engraved upon it: a wave towering over a flickering flame. The second was a deep blue book, bearing the unmistakable symbol of Umberlee. Malek spent some time flicking through the pages, much of it in an odd language. He then sat back and turned the signet ring over in his fingers, sliding it onto his left ring-finger and holding it up to the light. Dawn would break soon, and this place didn’t have anything for him anymore. Yet he would leave with more direction than he had come with. Tucking the blue book away, he left the room, and his home, behind.

Malek arrived at the Temple of Umberlee in Bezantur by dawn. The massive structure, carved from blue-veined green marble surveyed the sea for miles around. Malek would take refuge here for some time, becoming an Untaken of the church for no other reason than his own inkling that it might be fate. His time here was spent learning the faith, and partaking in a few rituals and outings. He would fight, and drink, and gamble, living once more the life of a sailor. Still, Malek came to feel restless, even in such a chaotic temple and city he almost resented the land beneath him. Each night in his bunk, the quiet dripping of the damp temple stone around him, he would turn over the signet ring in his fingers and feel something new growing to replace the vengeance that had driven him. Ambition. He wished to see his family name reborn, and greater. But he would need power to do it, and the blessing of the Queen of his vengeance.

Malek set out from Bezantur, west, across the sea. He would visit every port along the way, seeking a place where he might earn Umberlee’s favour and the power and means to restore his house…


Goals: Earn the favour of Umberlee and restore the once-powerful house of Myrzon.

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts: Malek believes he is guided by 'fate', and that he has no choice but to follow the path set out in front of him. Ever superstitious, he will follow the divine guidance he is given to a fault, whether that guidance is true or false.