Marek Aduaine's page

Marek is dark-skinned with short curtly black hair. He isn't big or bulky, but he is handy and dextrous, quite quick on his feet as well. His eyes are a strange dark-green, close to the colour of jade. While speaking about his trade and free time, his eyes light up and twinkle, as happens most of the time when he's excited. Often he wears plain brown and white clothes with some patches covered in sawdust.

All his life, Marek has worked with timber, a logger at first, a carpenter second and a woodworker third. Born to a Varisian mother travelling the world and a Mwangi Expanse diplomat. With dark skin and short curly black hair, he most resembles his father, though he resembles his mother in her curiosity and penchant or wish to travel. Mainly because of her stories from long ago, the flame of wanderlust was sparked. It is a shame therefore that Marek's mother settled down in Sandpoint as he was born, else he would have seen more from the world. It's a wish Marek has not yet been able to fulfill as he was either too young to struck out on his own or there wasn't a group he particularly wanted to travel with.

As his teen years passed he got more impassioned by his work and the urge to see the world faded with the years. He worked closely as his time as an apprentice logger with the teams of the Scarnetti family, but as he grew up and learned the trade of selecting trees for logging, he saw patterns in the woods and in the timber from the trees. It was sometimes as if the trees and animals in the forest spoke to him, whispered the right trees for the right job, but also sometimes his purpose. It was these 'whispers' that led him to a copse of gnarly grown trees where he found a small encampment and supplies. When checking the tent and smoldering campfire, a voice called out: ”Looking for something?” It was Shalelu, the elven ranger, who approached him, holding two rabbits caught in snares she had set in one hand, a spear in the other.

Marek quickly apologized for his intrusion, explaining that he was with the loggers of Sandpoint to search for suitable trees and came upon her encampment. Shalelu listened to the young boy rattling on and on in his apology and could only smirk and smile. She offered to not be mad at him unless he came by 2 days a week to get tutelage. ”Someone spending so much time in the woods, you'll need to know how to read tracks, find your way north. You will learn that from me.”
Not only did Shalelu teach Marek how to find tracks, she also taught him archery and a thing or two about making bows and whittling arrows. As he carved the wood into arrows, he started to see the patterns in the wood again, thus starting his fascination with multiple ways of woodworking.

To the chagrin of the Scarnetti family, Marek sought out an apprenticeship with one of the master carpenters of the Valdemar family, Wilhelm Valdemar, a cousin to the leading family. Wilhelm was quite hesitant to take on an apprentice who had served the Scarnettis, but Marek's gift and talent for seeing what the materials could become fascinated him. Wilhelm taught Marek the basic principles of carpentry, after seeing that he quickly grasped those skills, he also taught him the more artistic side of woodworking, making sculptures. ”It's something to cool down at the end of the day, to focus your mind on nothing else than to create something beautiful.”
Marek laboured with Wilhelm from his seventeenth birthday to around 3 months into his 23rd year of age. It's at this time that events were set in motion that refuels Marek's desire to explore, to see the world. The whispers in the wood driving him to leave, patterns and whispers of a far-off land and an unclaimed old and ancient tree. Though a simple carpenter and woodworker by trade, he would set out into the world if given the chance, he'll learn and make himself useful.

Marek is dreaming about seeing the world, just like in the stories his mother used to tell him, but he is also driven to find the ancient tree that is spoken of. (Later in life)This tree spoken of is related to Marek's later ability to bind with places kami haven't claimed yet. I reckon kami live closer to Tian Xia than in Sandpoint. During his travels, he would like to obtain blueprints or instruction to create multiple things related to woodworking, crossbows, ballistas and siege engines, water wheels etc. As a later goal, which Marek doesn't have yet, he'll want to create a masterpiece of a weapon or construction that will be talked about in years to come. Either a famed longbow or spear or an ingenious piece of engineering that bears his name.

Marek is amiable enough to not make enemies where he goes, however he tries to make friends wherever he goes. This does make for some awkward moments as he doesn't pick up on hostilities or pranks that are played on him. He always assumes people he meets are good-natured.
This naivety also pertains to being oblivious when someone flirts with him or in other ways shows romantic interests.

Marek will take up the Create Magic Arms and Armour Feat to craft magical bows and arrows and also later Spears and other wooden weapons.