Athelstane Mason

[Athelstane Mason]

The Details

~Full Name: Athelstane Mason
~Nickname/Alias: 'Doc', close friends call him Mason
~Gender: Male
~Age: mid-late twenties (he isn't sure)
~Sexuality: Hetero
~Affiliation: Settler
~Occupation: Medic/ Vet/Dog Breeder-Trainer

At First Glance

~Appearance: Overwhelming solidness. If a man could be a wall, it'd be Mason. Though he is not much more than average in height for a man, around five foot eleven, his axe handle broad shoulders, thick arms and almost disproportionate hands give the impression that he is much bigger at first glance. Skin that would be tanned even with out the constant outdoor life he leads shows a deep brown, and his jet black hair is trimmed very short, the scalp showing through the sides, a scant inch longer on top, just long enough to show a hint of curl. the only facial hair he has in the seemingly perpetual five o'clock shadow he has, despite him just having shaved. Both his beard and his hair show more than a few hints of grey come too early. His block like frame is complimented by his block like features, including a square, almost lantern, jaw, and heavy set brows. His oft broken nose, well defined cheekbones and his generous lips give notice of his other than Anglo heritage. The only thing that could be said to be beautiful at all about his appearance are his eyes. Lurking under thick set, often glowering brows, are two eyes, both a deep brown, almost black, with flecks of hazel, or if the light catches them right, almost a gold.

Were he to take off his shirt, which he won't, on his very heavily built and muscled frame, a plethora of scars, most very neatly stitched and well healed, save the ones on his back. Stripes and strips of scar tissue cover and criss cross his back, the backs of his legs and ribs, some individual and even, some in long parallel groups and jagged.

He has several tattoos. An American flag and the Union Jack, crossed, with a caduceus overlaying the flagpoles on his upper right arm, a paw print tattoo on his left arm, and a date and some writing, that he is very careful to keep covered.

Under The Skin

~Likes: At least five.

• Jesus
  
• Dogs.
  
• Most every animal
  
• Children
  
• The elderly
  
• Helping the sick
  
• Quiet time alone.
  
• Doing what he thinks is right.
  
• Reading
  
• Being useful/helpful
  
• Sharing
  
• eating enormous amounts
  

~Dislikes: At least five.

• Cats.
  
• Bullies
  
• Hot, dry weather
  
• Hot, moist weather
  
• just doesn't like the heat
  
• Fighting
  
• Cruelty to animals (even cats)
  
• Cowards
  
• Mooches
  
• Liars
  
• prideful people
  

~Strengths: At least five.

• Being handy.
  
• His astonishing physical strength.
  
• His moral certitude.
  
• His caring heart
  
• His empathy
  
• His depth.
  
• His intensely stoic nature, both in a physical and in a philosophical sense
  
• His eerie uncanny knack with animals, both healing and training.
  
• His nigh miraculous medical skills. In the PAW he is likely the closest thing to a trauma doctor you are gonna find.
  

~Flaws: At least five.

• His hesitance to do harm has almost gotten him killed on more than one occasion, his reluctance use his strength capriciously or with malice has had him lose fights to men whom he should have been able to easily beat. Perversely fueled by his desire to cut loose and hurt people, he doesn't trust himself to use it save for:
  
• His implacable, almost old testament drive for justice. Though rare, if he feels you have violated certain tenets of behavior, he may take steps to see that you don't again.
  
• His capacity for cruelty
  
• His temper
  
• His one track mind.
  
• His stubbornness
  
• Gluttony
  
  

~Fears: At least two.

• Being chained.... being tied or restrained drives him into a mindless panic.
  
• Failing to save someone from death or injury through lack of skill, technique or time... most people have nightmares about death, Mason has nightmares about letting you die.
  
• Cats. One hates what one fears, and Mason fears cats... it isn't rational but even the smallest cats make him very uneasy
  

Personality:
Mason is one giant bundle of contradictions. There is a terrible inner conflict that drives Mason—namely, a commitment to holiness that develops because of his inclination to be cruel. Mason is defined by the clash between his good self and bad self leading to his slightly stilted, almost goody goody behavior. Mason has some horrible personality traits, including cruelty and a love of violence, but he is committed to his desire to be honorable. Thus, he transforms his hidden insecurities and guilt into an outward drive to commit good deeds and save people. Mason became a healer not despite his cruelty but because of it. Whereas a some people have no problem ending a life, Mason sees that as giving into his darker desires. Mason’s deep self-hatred causes him to act gently and nobly whenever he can, since he wants to deprive himself of the pleasure that cruelty gives him. If Mason did not want so badly to be cruel, he would not act so mercifully. This paradoxical arrangement is the crux of all his actions, and even his slowness to act in non critical cases. He is humble, because he is proud. He is making sure he is doing something because it is right, not trusting his innate sense of right and wrong, because he feels, that coming from him, it is inherently tainted, but trying to think out the moral reasons why he should or should not do something. It is more apparent in novel situations, the desire to be sure causing him to seem slow witted, when he has a deep intelligence.

The Past

~Family Members: His adoptive father, Called Iggy by his close friend, but known to him only as Pop
~History: Mason was found by Pop as a child. Well more liked rescued. Pop was old even then, and was wandering around settler communities, as a traveling vet/doctor. His encyclopedic knowledge was backed by decades of experience both in peace and in war time. Pop had been a soldier, a medic, with another country, America, who had been here when things went bad. Seeing as how he was stuck, and how people here needed help, he didna stay in the cities as they walled up but went out and started helping whom he could where he could. He took his soldier-dogs with him, dogs that had been with him for the past few years in farwaway places and in far away battles. Years passed, and pop did the same thing, wandered around with his dogs, helping out, in exchange for food supplies and a place to stay if the patients could afford to spare it, for free if the couldn't. The clothes changed, the people changed, the dogs changed, but he stayed the same. One day, he was wandering and he came to the edge of a clearing with Raiders in it. There was a small boy chained to a cage, being whipped mercilessly. Inside the cage was some sort of large feline, pacing back and forth, the raiders passing a bottle and taking the piss about how when they were done with beating him for stealing, they were gonna feed him to it.

Pop paused, quietly whistled up his dogs, Morty and Cenny.... and several minutes later walked into the clearing, stepping carefully between those dead and those busy dying, one still pawing at the earth furiously, collected the exhausted, abused, and beaten little boy, and left.

Mason grew up with him, following in his footsteps, learning his medical trade and the caring and training of animals. But time catches up with all men. In between wanderings, they lived in a small cottage outside an apple orchard, where they raised some chickens and some crops, and trained or rehabilitated animals. Pop died two years back now, and left Mason, and was buried under an old oak, next to the dogs whom had guarded them over their lives, attended by his adopted son, a few of the locals who he nursed through an illness who were near by. Mason had taken up where Pop left off, going on walkabout, making the same stops... but without pop, it seemed pointless....so perhaps, he thinks, it is time to wander farther afield? He had been looking for a new dog...

Miscellaneous

~Inventory:
Inventory:

Blanket, Tinderbox & Flint, Water Bottle, Map & Compass, Rope, # Air Rifle & Pellets x10 (Ranged Weapon) # Farm Tool (a Brush Hook)

~Anything else? Just a man looking for a dog.