synodiporia application

[morrioghain]

P L A Y E R;
NAME: Candace
AGE: 23
PLAYER JOURNAL: knightess
TIMEZONE: GMT
CONTACT: moonsilver or PM
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A

C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Shay Patrick Cormac
CANON: Assassin's Creed Rogue
POINT IN CANON: 1760, after Achilles is spared in the Arctic and Shay is charged with finding the Precursor box.
AGE: 29
APPEARANCE: Full body render. An Irish-American in his late twenties, around 6'0", with a scar over one eye and usually seen with a five o'clock shadow. He dresses in black and red, with clothing embellished by Celtic knots and Celtic-stylised Templar crosses. Notably, he wears a medallion depicting Yggdrasil on his belt (seen here).
CANON HISTORY: "All those souls lost... One more hardly matters."
CANON PERSONALITY: Shay had the potential, but he was never ideal Assassin material. Easy-going, undisciplined, with a rough background that instilled in him contempt for any kind of authority figures, Shay was interested in only a few things: getting into scraps, using his position as an Assassin and the opportunities to travel the world to bed various women, and having a good time with his childhood friend, Liam O'Brien. He joined the Assassins because of Liam, and had no real motive to fight for their cause besides having nothing better to do with his life. He had no qualms in questioning the Creed where the other Assassins were unswervingly loyal to it, and to his mentors, he could range from casually flirtatious to outright insolent, much to their frustration. Despite his flippant attitude to the Creed, however, he craved attention and recognition above anything, even seeming to express resentment that he wasn't favoured by Achilles, and that he was looked down upon as nothing more than a tool to be used.

As it turns out, he was used as a tool, and a disposable one at that. This becomes evident when, on the orders of Achilles, he disturbed a Precursor Temple in Portugal, triggering the catastrophic Lisbon earthquake of 1755. He barely escapes the city with his own life, and is left devastated by the scale of destruction he caused. With the Assassins' refusal to listen to what he'd done and witnessed, he was forced to steal the Voynich Manuscript and flee. He attempted to take his own life by throwing himself from a cliff, and the Manuscript with him, to prevent the Assassins using it to access other Precursor sites.

But Shay survived, and was reborn a Templar.

The trauma and guilt since then has driven him to set things to rights in the only way he knows how: purging the world of the Assassins, before they can continue to meddle in destructive ancient artifacts. He becomes a traitor who hunts down those he called friends and allies, something that he struggles with immensely, but carries out nonetheless, seeing no alternative when the Brotherhood refused to listen to the truth. In destroying the Assassins, Shay believes he's doing what he feels is necessary for the greater good, fighting to protect the artifacts serving as the very foundations of the world, lest another catastrophe on Lisbon's scale should happen. If that makes him a monster, so be it.

Although his methods are ruthless, Shay is still in many ways pure at heart, striving to work for the good of the world at large. Although his lower class background means he still has something of a chip on his shoulder when it comes to authority, the powerful, and the wealthy, he comes to respect the Templars and their methods of striving for peace through order. In particular, he's drawn to the Templars because of Colonel Monro, a man he comes to deeply respect as a gentle, noble and selfless man of the people. He follows Monro's example and gives charitably to the citizens of New York and around the British colonial outposts, helping to improve their quality of life, he fights to overthrow Assassin-influenced gangs terrorising the people of various towns and settlements, he rescues an Oneida village from the French, and he has a distaste for slavery. Unlike many Templars, he's less interested in seizing power for its own sake, instead using his position to champion the underdog. Similarly, he hates to prey on those he sees as weak or helpless, and if the circumstances permit it, he's willing to advocate mercy.

Shay's oft-repeated motto is, "I make my own luck." He doesn't believe in leaving things to chance or to others, instead asserting a faith in his own abilities to see a job through. This isn't all boastful overconfidence, either. The Templar Grand Master, Haytham, asserts the belief that Shay could become the best amongst their Order, and in some ways this holds true: not only does he single-handedly wipe out the Assassins, he also becomes the last surviving Templar of the American Rite after Haytham and his followers are wiped out, in turn, by Connor, and he also succeeds in his goal of reclaiming the Precursor box in his assassination of Charles Dorian, a feat that would take him sixteen years of tireless searching. Though remembered as a traitor by the Assassins, Shay is a determined, steadfast and loyal follower of causes he believes in, and to those he pledges his loyalty to, he is willing to see those beliefs through to the end.

POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/A
ABILITIES: (Note: If any of these abilities need to be nerfed for the purposes of a Jaunt, let me know and I can adjust accordingly.) Like all those possessing First Civilisation ancestry, Shay has a special ability, Eagle Vision, that allows him to intuitively distinguish friend from foe in a crowd. In Abstergo's simulation this is represented by a colour-coded system: red for enemies and aggressive wild animals, blue for allies, white for hiding places, and gold for targets. If he looks at someone for long enough, the Eagle Vision can linger for a few minutes after its activation, allowing him to see the coloured aura of the person through walls and underground, meaning Shay can pursue targets or track wild animals even outside his line of sight. In one specific instance, he also uses his Eagle Vision's "X-ray" capabilities to locate an object on the second floor of a building.

Shay's sixth sense also extends to others attempting to hunt him; if he's close to someone lying in wait to ambush and kill him, he can hear whispering that grows louder the closer he is to danger, and the corners of his vision grow hazy. This gives him enough warning to locate and prevent would-be assassination attempts.

Like all Assassins, Shay is versed in parkour, or freerunning, enabling him to climb and scale obstacles with ease to get around. He is a skilled fighter, specialising in his distinctive fighting style that uses both a sword and knife. He's also versed in fistfighting, using flintlock pistols, using an air rifle (which fires darts and grenades at long range), rope darts, hidden blades, and puckle guns. He's also versed in hunting and skinning animals on land, and harpooning various kinds of whales and sharks at sea.

Finally, Shay is a seasoned seafarer, and captains his own sloop-of-war, the Morrigan, which he's skilled enough to navigate through the River Valleys, as well as such harsh conditions as the far reaches of the North Atlantic ocean.

INVENTORY; His weapons: a sword and knife, hidden blades, air rifle, and two flintlock pistols; ammunition; smoke bombs; a small amount of money in British pounds sterling; the Voynich manuscript.
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Nope!

S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE: Some actionspam from another game! (Apologies for the broken icons.)
PROSE SAMPLE: It was on Shay's return from the Arctic, searching for any leads he might find on the Precursor box, that he took the Morrigan for a stopoff at Albany. He'd left Haytham behind in Boston, and the Grand Master had said he was happy to leave the rest of the hunt for the box in Shay's capable hands. How long it would be before they crossed paths again face-to-face, he didn't know. He was sure of only one thing: that his search for the artifact would send him across the globe, away from the colonies, and it might be a pursuit that could take the rest of his life.

For that reason, he had a visit to make. He went to the graveyard of St. Peter's; there he found a nondescript gravestone, with no markers, no significance or honours placed upon it. Few knew it, for it was kept a secret, but Colonel George Monro had been laid beneath the earth here three years ago. The man had died blaming himself for the surrender and ensuing massacre at Fort William Henry, and had wanted to be laid to rest with nothing to glorify him, such was his guilt.

Shay could relate to the feeling all too well. He looked at the grave for a moment, and finally gathered the words, and the courage, for what he wished to say.

“Colonel,” Shay said softly, “I know you wanted to be forgotten. But I was never your subordinate, nor any good at following orders.” He kneeled, to get a better look at the unremarkable gravestone, shunted into an unremarkable corner of the churchyard. A small, defiant smile tugged at his lips, as if it were the old days again. “I'm going away awhile. I never had a chance to say this properly before, so...” He laid a single red aster on the grave. A small gesture for a man who would have preferred no gesture at all. He might even have laughed at the ironic Frenchness of it. But the meaning behind it, such as it was, felt appropriate.

“Goodbye, Colonel. You were a good man. A noble man. Better than I'll ever be.”

Shay moved to stand again. Then, with a heavy heart, he turned from the grave, and toward the future.

“May the Father of Understanding watch over you.”