Abraxas App

OOC INFORMATION

Player Name: Courtney
Are you over 18?: yes
Contact: courtings or Court#2195
Other Characters in Game: none

IC INFORMATION

Character Name: Wylan Van Eck
Canon: Grishaverse (books)
Canon Point: End of Crooked Kingdom
Age: 17
Background: Wylan Van Eck wikia

Arrival Scenario: Free Cities

Suitability:

Wylan comes from a world that isn’t too unlike the world of Abraxas, especially the free cities. He would easily feel at home in the city streets having spent the last almost year living in the darker, criminal run parts of his city. It will also help that his friends are here. They will make it easy to acclimate and can point him in the direction of people he can talk to, to use his skills.

His skills are science and math and demolitions. While he balks at the use of his devices to hurt people he’s also not above it if he’s desperate and needs money. He would also be happy to help any mercenaries or people going out to hunt monsters with weapons or bombs, or any manner of explosive device.

Curious by nature he would want to explore and learn everything he can about the world. Once he learns about the Cadens academies he would be very interested in studying science and technology.He stopped back home out of fear of people learning he can't read and internal shame about his disability, but he has grown recently to push past that and he is ready to get further into his studies. He would love to get back to his intellectual roots and maybe find ways around his learning disorder that they didn’t have in his world but could have here. He would be open to trying again to learn to read if there is someone who knows how to teach him or to help him find creative solutions around it

New Magic is also something he would take to. Using magic, in general, would be a novelty to him since he is not one of the Grisha from his world, but he already has taken Grisha inventions and improved upon them, which is essentially New Magic. Combining magic and his scientific mind for inventions would be natural. Being able to use magic himself would just push him further in academic pursuits in Cadens.

He’s also friendly and as of late becoming more confident in himself and his self-worth, he would easily make friends and alliances with people. He believes his friends are his family (since his family left something to be desired) and is extremely loyal once someone gains his trust. While he may not trust the governments of abraxas (because when has the government ever looked out for him or his friends?), he would trust the other summoned and get involved in plots to keep people safe and to help keep the peace between factions if possible.

Powers:

Wylan doesn’t possess any powers or magical abilities. However, he has genius-level knowledge of chemistry, math, and demolitions. The noted demolitions expert for his gang, he makes bombs, fireworks, and any manner of explosives that are needed. He can also develop poisons and other types of combustibles. Most notably a chemical weevil that targets sugar and burns it up, including the sugar found in blood, which has been used to kill a man. He is also a skilled problem solver, able to think through puzzles and equations quickly.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

Describe an important event in your character's life and how it impacted them.

The turning point in Wylan’s life is when his dad tried to have him killed, twice. Jan Van Eck hates his son, for no other reason than Wylan can’t read (and Jan Van Eck is an asshole). Wylan was a rich merchant’s son and was expected to inherit his father’s businesses when he came of age. There was only one issue with that. Wylan is dyslexic, but in the world this series takes place in they don’t have a name for it or a way to help those who have it learn to read. Wylan often describes letters as looking like black squiggles on a page, absolutely meaningless to him. When he was little he would hide it, asking people to read to him and memorizing what they said, where they paused, and when to turn a page. He would keep it in his head to music so he could recall it when he needed it. He was around eight when his father realized that he couldn’t read and that no amount of school or private tutors would be able to teach him. He thought his son a moron, soft-brained, and a waste of space. That’s when the abuse started, both verbal and physical. That was also when his mother died, and it was just Wylan and Jan left together. The son a disappointment and the father who hated him.

About eight years later Jan remarried, a woman who was only a few years older than Wylan and she got pregnant. Now with an heir on the way, Wylan wasn’t required. He told Wylan he was sending him away to music school, somewhere in the country where he would disappear and people would forget that he existed so that Jan could name the new child his heir. Wylan was relieved at first, getting away from his father was all he wanted, well that and his father to actually love him, maybe be proud of him, but since he knew that wasn’t going to happen being sent away was fine with him. It wasn’t until he was on the boat leaving the city did he realize what his father meant by having him disappear “until people forgot I had a son”. The two men who he thought were his chaperones meant to get him to school safely were actually hired by his father to kill him. And they almost succeed but Wylan manages to escape when they are interrupted and he jumps overboard and swims in the canal until he is safely away. That's when Wylan decides he is done with his father, he will survive on the streets if he has to, and he does have to. Even scared, and ill-suited for this life he resolves to survive.

The second time Jan Van Eck tries to kill his son, he thinks he’s on a boat he has blown up. When Kaz warns him that his son is on the boat he’s about to destroy Jan tells him what he really thinks of Wylan, “What my son cannot do is read, he cannot write. I have hired tutors from every corner of the world. I have tried specialists, tonics, beatings, and hypnotism, but he refused to be taught. I finally had to accept that Ghezen saw fit to curse me with a moron for a child. He is a disgrace to my house… He is a mistake.” then he has the ship destroyed. Unknown to him his son was standing there the whole time in disguise. Wylan had wanted to finally hear what his father really thought about him. The final nail in the coffin.

Wylan accepts that you can make the family you want, and it's why he commits himself to the Crows from there. It's opened his eyes to his life being better without his father and cutting that cord for good was good for him.

Does your character have a moral code, or other set of standards they try to live by?

Wylan was raised a rich merchant’s kid to a father who looked down on the street rats of The Barrell. He balks at the thought of hurting people, especially innocent people, even as he makes explosives, and assists the gang in all manner of underhanded schemes. He had to rethink his priorities a lot since leaving home if he wanted to survive. Jesper often refers to him as a prince who suddenly woke up in the wrong story. However, he will speak up when he thinks someone has gone too far, usually Kaz, even if that means getting threatened himself (by Kaz). He’s even reluctant to steal his own father’s money even after his father has proven to be the worst type of scum. However, he does come to accept that sometimes things need to be done in order for survival and also his father deserved everything that was coming to him and he doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt about that, not anymore.

Wylan has a gray zone morality because while he hates the idea of innocents suffering, he knows that sometimes living outside the law is the only way to survive and live authentically. As a Crow, he'll be more open to other people in Abraxas who walk that line, while trying to stay close to his compassionate self.

What quality or qualities do they admire most?

The qualities he admires most are also all the best qualities he sees in his friends, the things he tries to emulate. “The bravado he’d learned from Nina, the will he’d learned from Matthias, the focus he’d studied in Kaz, the courage he’d learned from Inej, and the wild reckless hope he’d learned from Jesper”. He also values honesty and kindness.

Wylan never really thought much of himself, and how could he, being abused by his father for years and made to feel worthless, but his six friends, his first friends, showed him that he was more than that. He was someone worth value, he was intelligent and brave, and more than passable at demo.

Wylan was raised by a manipulative and passive-aggressive merchant, and a higher social class, where rich people didn’t really care about anyone but themselves and their own class. He found the criminals he met to be more honest, noble, and loyal than them and worth more than all the merchants put together. Those are the qualities he looks for in new people he meets.

Do they have a part of themselves they dislike?

Wylan hates the fact that he can’t read. Not only is it the reason that his father hates him and gave up on him, and it's also the reason his mother was sent away and his father pretended she died. It's the reason he is chased from his house. It's the shame he carries around with him.

Even though he is starting to come around to the fact that it's okay and he isn’t worthless, he knows that knowing how to read would make things easier. He wouldn’t feel like a hindrance when out on a job and only one person can sift through documents, he wouldn’t have to rely on someone else to tell him what documents say, he wouldn’t have to worry about who he was putting his trust in and if he was going to get betrayed.

What is their sign, and why?

Wylan’s sign would be The Magician. Despite his learning disorder Wylan is highly intelligent, good at problem solving, and creative, which helps make him an expert in his preferred fields, math, science, and music. He is devoted to developing his skills in chemistry, figuring out how things mix, and improving upon things others have come up with. He is also a devoted flute player, even going so far as to use music to memorize what people have read to him so he can recall the information. If anyone is looking for an expert in demolitions or music they should look no further than Wylan.

SAMPLES

Samples:

TDM Top Level
TDM thread