Despite my Word program being yet at a stalemate and preventing me from digging my talons into any real writing, I have been plotting and planning and sitting there wondering which of the several ideas will puncture me and take me flying. I have an inkling. And that inkling may become the first book in a series that will likely have three books. This scares me, saying this, because I am not a series-er. But the desire to tackle a bigger project with deeper themes has been growing on me, and to celebrate (and to understand what the heck these people are like) I am doing a Beautiful People on one of the MSC (Main side characters) of
Gleamdring. I give you:
Pericles Vanauken
Who is your character as described in one sentence?
The vitriolic Pericles is a young noble of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and the next-in-line leader of the proud, brooding, and tragic Vanauken family.
Who is you character as described in a few words?
Passionate. Watchful. Self-pitying.
Who is your character as described by one paragraph?
Pericles Vanauken is the future leader of the Vanauken family, alongside his sister, Riona. The Vanaukens once ruled all of Gloamingswood, their lands stretching out from the edges of Gleamdring Pool on the West to the coastal lands in the East. Over the years, the great family of Keeptryst pushed them father and farther back till the Vanaukens cling only to the most Western bit of Gloamingswood. For this, Pericles hates the Keeptrysts, and pities himself and his family. This is a thing that will never leave him; it is written in blood on his heart.
Who is your character as described by several key phrases?
The Hunter. "
Do not mistake my silence for surrender." There will be a reckoning.
Who is your character as described by several paragraphs?
Pericles is a promising young man who has let fortune eat all happiness away. His days are filled with brooding self-pity. As the future leader of the Vanaukens, Pericles has a deep and passionate tie to his clan. The idea that Gloamingswood entire is his "right" and that the Keeptrysts sit upon the land, feasting in its fatness is a thistle under his skin. Justice will be done, the score will be reckoned.
But for all this, Pericles can be kind--even gentle--in the moments his pity is turned from himself to his sister, Riona. He is a man with a love for wandering, hunting, and stroking the wildlands. He spends much time alone in the hills above the Gleamdring Pool with his white wolf, Mairkinsmoor.
What is your character's introversion/extroversion preference?
Pericles is by nature an introvert. Deep currents of passion and thought roil in his chest, fed by his sense of injury and misuse. At moments, however--in the Feast Days, perhaps--Pericles will sometimes throw off his gloom and become charming. He spends much time in thought and inner dialog, and thus is an excellent swordsman with words when he so chooses. Harrison Keeptryst has often borne the brunt of this sudden talent.
What is your character's sensing or intuitive preference?
Pericles runs on both. His is a sensitive, tender nature, but his chosen occupation as a hunter and wanderer has marked him as a man with whom intuition is a predominate characteristic.\
What are the weaknesses and strengths of your character?
While a dark, brooding fellow, Pericles can be kind and is very intuitive as to other people's feelings of a matter. This almost feminine characteristic has caused him grief in the past, and can sometimes mar his perfect summing-up of a social situation and how he acts therein. In the woods, however, Pericles is a cool, calm, and decisive person, and is determined to give his life to winning back to lost Vanauken lands. He is manly and courageous despite the sensivity of his nature. A man in tune with the heartbeat of his lands and people. He is comely in appearance, and well-built. His greatest weakness is Pity. Pity for his family and for himself, which has given him a name as a harsh, cruel man in many cases. This is the crux of the issue, for Pericles' sensitive nature makes him feel deeply injuries done to himself and his family, but his propensity to hold grudges age upon age without forgiveness bars the pity from becoming mercy and thus being turned on the lathe into a virtue. This is the thing that clouds his vision far oftener than is wise for a leader of a fading family
What is your character's love language?
Touch and words. Pericles is a bit of a loner, and doesn't allow anyone to touch him. Though many realize he is prone to offense by speech, few but Riona realize the impact a handshake or a touch on the shoulder has on Pericles the Hunter.
What is the story of the changes of your character's personality?
Pericles has the potential to be a wise, charming leader. He is smart, powerful, and careful. But early memories of the days before the Keeptryst family drove the Vanaukens back to the Westernmost edges of Gloamingswood eat at his heart.
The customs of Gloamingswood, however, do not allow the Vanaukens to brood in their corners. The Feast Days are still held as is tradition at the Keeptryst stronghold of Winnsbrock, and Keeptryst dignitaries mingle freely with the Vanaukens on most social occasions. But tensions are rising. Some alliances have been made--treaties signed--among the lesser clans of Gloamingswood that Pericles senses are leading up to the total exile of the Vanaukens into the West.
Naturally, this does not sit well with this future head of the Vanauken cause, and Pericles begins to reach far and deep for allies of his own...even to race of the Netherfolk.
What axioms and definitions influence your character's decisions?
"Unguarded strength is double-weakness." If there is anything about Pericles' leadership style is that he is careful.
So careful. This can cause him to be a brilliant strategist or to sometimes be labeled with a white feather.
What does your character believe about origins?
Pericles believes that we all come from the Before. He is reluctant to name what the Before is, for it is only the Keeptryst folk who dally in Religion.
What does your character believe about the afterlife?
If there is a Before, there must be an After. This is a subject Pericles is not much concerned with. His self-pity has given him the gift of small-sight. He sees only what is before him and acts only after watching and waiting. He does not often beggar the question of "What will happen when I die" for Pericles ironically believes himself called to avenge his clan and gain back their land, and since they are by all appearances so far from his goal, he simply cannot die.
What does your character believe about law?
Law is what binds land and families together in peace. It was a breach of unspoken law that lost the Vanauken heritage. It is a reparation of that law that will restore his clan to power.
How does your character's family life influence his decisions?
His family, in short, adores him. Their acquiescence to his every strategy has spoilt him, perhaps, but gives him an edge in leadership, for they place full confidence in his powers of mind and body. Growing up, Pericles was teased and kicked into a brawny, tawny manhood that has served him well in these current years.
When a person first meets your character, what does he know about him?
Here is a man deep as the murmurings of the Gleamdring under Winter's ice. They might also notice the scar above his left eyebrow, won in his first encounter with the wolf-pup, Mairkinsmoor.
When someone is an enemy of your character, how does he see him?
There is a certain devil-is-too-ill-bred-for-me air about Pericles, oozing from his infected pride that ticks off every Keeptryst (especially Harrison) that encounters Pericles. He acts as a damper on social occasions, and every enemy of the Vanauken family knows him to be a dangerous fellow albeit a quiet one. No one thoroughly
understands Pericles, so even his kinsmen view him with one eyebrow cocked.
When someone has been a friend of your character for a long time, what does he know about him? Riona and Mairkinsmoor are his only acknowledged friends, and of him, they know little. They guess many things, but they
know little. That Pericles has deeper ambitions than winning back Vanauken land is clear. What those ambitions might be, does even Pericles himself know? Darron Ap-Brainard is the other closest thing Pericles has to a friend besides his sister and The White Wolf. Theirs is a flint-and-steel relationship...Darron's pride is so full as to make him unable (and unwilling) to accept no for an answer when it comes to being a "Friend" of Pericles.
What is something else about your character which no one else knows, which no one will ever know?
Well that would be telling now, wouldn't it? Spilling his secrets to all the world? I shan't. I shan't at all.
Low hung the moon over the Western hills, and the faint copper light it threw over the fell-land below but dimly lit the crests of the hollows. Enough light to show a man the way, enough darkness to shelter him from the eyes that sought his shape among the wind-coaxed beeches. The young man crouching in the tangle of briars--hood pulled around his face--watched and waited. A black stream burbled near his feet and emptied into the Gleamdring Pool where that low, copper-hung moon quivered in reflection. Pericles the Hunter.
Gleamdring
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