Sybal Heim Character: Tiago

Thar be much words ahead. Ye be warned.

Name: Santiago de Campos

Nicknames: Tiago (This is what he generally goes by, and will low key object to having his full name used.)

Age: 38 (as of E5, 1897)

Physical Age: 29

Height: 5”5’

Hair: Dark brown

Eyes: Brown

Faction:  Insurgent. Tiago sees the city as something of a purgatory, and wants his old life back. He disappeared without the chance to get his life back in order, and misses a great deal of what he had before. He thinks Sybal Heim is all right for most people, but feels confined and useless here. He doesn’t want to hurt regular people, but resents and regards most of the official organization of the city as oppressive.

Occupation: Tiago likes to shirk responsibility when he can, and can’t be bothered to have a regular job, but he’s very handy, and makes braided rawhide goods to sell at the Bee Streets market. These include whips, knife covers, lassoes (riatas), harnesses, and whatever else he can think up or be challenged (or bothered to) make. He’s also a pretty good guitarist and singer, and will frequently set up on a street corner, or perform in smaller pubs. What he’s best at though, is tracking, even in his human form, and can be persuaded to put those skills to use if he feels the cause is worth it.

Sybal Form:  The Wandering Corcel

Tiago’s sybal is predominantly a blue roan criollo horse in form, but is a strong symbol of his culture, and also shares a few key personality elements with horses in general, as he does himself. His size, appearance, and abilities (including combat) are all roughly equine, but he also sports his long knife, or facón, on his head in a unicorn-like fashion. Included in his appearance is his full-on showoff regalia: an impressive array of braided rawhide, silver, and pelts that were his pride and joy in his ‘real’ life. The saddle can be removed or cut free without hurting him, but it will degrade after a few hours like anything else removed from a sybal come sunrise (it reappears the following night in its original condition). His mane is roached Criollo style, leaving the hair long only above his shoulders and on top of his head. His tail is also banged, and if hanging naturally, has a flat, cut-off look just below his hocks. Beneath the normal horse appearance, if he opens his mouth, his stallion canines are long and dog-like, but not visible when his mouth is closed. He can carry smaller objects in his mouth, but prefers to carry them on his back, or with his prehensile tail. The long 'core' of his tail is wrapped with braided rawhide, as are his 'shins'. His hooved toes are deerlike, slightly webbed when spread, and he’s a decent swimmer, but can’t see well underwater—about like an able human or horse in both regards. He can clear about 7 feet vertically in a jump, or about 15 feet of distance at a run. He doesn't mind letting a humanoid ally ride him, but they’d better be good at staying on, because he’d never baby a ‘green’ rider by going easy on them while feral. He is predominantly quite proud of how his sybal form looks, though it is also a constant reminder of what he left behind. His sybal is a primary source of frustration for him in the city.

Sybal Power: Search Beacons

Tiago was an accomplished tracker in his former life, and his sybal power reflects this. Tiago can find almost anything. When he is targeting something, it appears as if there is a spotlight shot through it vertically, like a beacon. Only he can see these ‘beacons', but if you look closely and the beacon is prominent enough, you may see a bit of the golden light reflected in his eyes. The more specific the object is, or the more familiar he is with it, the brighter and more solid the beacon. For example, asking him to find a specific object of his own making, the beacon would be clear and bright—an easy find; however, asking him to find something he’d never seen but the asker had might be a bit dimmer, but since it does exist, and the other person knows what it is, he’d still be able to find it with relative ease, but the person needs to be with him to start the beacon. Getting into theoretical objects or people becomes more vague: finding ‘the perfect scarf’ might make a dozen or more softer glows throughout the city. In cases where the object may not even exist at all, he may only get a vague ‘pull’ feeling, similar to gut instinct, and may not always be right. He can use his ability to find people, but when it involves their desires or other mutable things his ability diminished greatly. Finding where a specific person is is easy. Finding someone who wants to dance with you, or…who has certain information, per-say, would produce vague results—if any: he’s not a mind reader. The caveat to this is if someone has a well-known skill, they may show up if he’s asked to find someone with said skill—the more specific and public the knowledge, the easier it would be to find them: ‘someone who knows Karate’ would probably yield at least some usable result, though it may lead you a Karate class rather than the nearest black belt. Tiago is proud of his power, but is frustrated by the seemingly endless trivial requests it has produced as more and more people find out about it, and hates matchmaking questions.

Circumstantial Feral: While not inherently violent, a lot of Tiago’s pent up frustrations and fears vent in his sybal form, and he has (as of yet) little understanding of what will set off his unpredictable sybal—it is very easily triggered by a variety of situations he has not figured out the correlation between yet; some situations are obvious triggers, others are less so, and some things he expects to set him off, don't. Even when docile he is always somewhat antsy, and has a hard time staying in one place for long; however, when triggered into his feral state, this wanderlust increases, and his sybal will wander at a driving pace so long as it is feral and not otherwise occupied, and often displays more base, emotional behaviors. When docile, he retains his easy going nature, albeit a bit prone to being careless or impulsive, but when feral, is often reckless to his own detriment. He almost always starts the night off triggered, though he has yet to figure out why, and may go through many feral swings in a night. The more he is triggered the more likely it is to happen again, and the harder it becomes for him to snap back out of it. The Corcel in its feral state accentuates the emotion it went into the feral swing during, increasing fear or anxiety into aggression or flight, or betraying happiness and affection with unabashed bluntness. He hasn't figured out what exactly is behind these feral swings just yet, and is confused and embarrassed by their frequency. He holds no particular love for being a sybal at night, and will often refer to his sybal as something separate from himself by calling it the Corcel (which just means steed or stallion in Spanish). After a few particularly bad incidents his first year, he began to self-exile himself to the forest at night, which is generally where he can be found. He will hold off transforming as long as possible come nightfall, but reverts very quickly.

His exact triggers are documented and have reasons, however, I consider that OOC information and prefer to not divulge the root issue, although it has been discussed with the moderators.

Personality: Tiago is laid back, amiable, and quick to learn, though borders on lazy, and his displays of confidence can come off as grating, painting him as a show-off, when in reality he is desperately trying to cover a shattered self-confidence. That isn’t to say he isn’t capable of working hard and well—he generally needs to be emotionally invested in something before applying himself to it. He’s always been a drifter, and his first three years were a series of short tenancies alternated with bouts of homeless summers; he keeps very few possessions and rented a closet in the Brazo Roto pub for a while. He still calls Heiros District his home—after all, that’s where he can get yerba maté easiest—and has adopted an apparently abandoned house and fixed it up. His house is a small one in a neighborhood that could use an update, (it was new some time in the 1600's). He’s somewhat of a womanizer, and enjoys women’s company, but don’t expect him to stick around. His upbringing and family circumstances influenced him to practice better treatment of women than most from his culture, and tries to be a good partner for the short times his relationships tend to last, but has a hard time opening up about some things.

He will bluntly use period slang that some may find offensive. PLEASE do not think I hold the same views as he does…just trying to be accurate and in character for his time period. Using what we now view as derogatory was the norm back then, and he’s only been in Sybal Heim a short time—he’s not exactly been trained to be politically correct yet. A generalized slur doesn’t necessarily even mean he thinks less of someone for their race—he’s mixed himself, after all—and he’d just as soon apply them to himself. South American culture even today is a little more liberal in how they describe people, and not quite as ready to take offense ; for instance, calling someone ‘fat’ is as okay as calling them ‘brunette,’ and is even used as an affectionate nickname for a loved one, whereas in North American modern culture it is frowned upon. Of course, if your character would be offended, by all means, do so. It keeps things interesting.

History: Tiago is from the pampas plains of Uruguay, and left his ‘real’ life in 1873 at the age of 29. He participated in both the Paraguayan War and the Revolution of the Lances, and his skill as a tracker and knowledge of the pampas was greatly valued, although he found his lack of education and social standing a formidable hurdle.

Tiago is a mestizo blend of background, with ancestry of both European immigrant, native South American (Charrúa, to be specific), and even a little Asian. Not fitting into any one society, he grew up at the height of gaucho culture, traversing the pampas with as much freedom as he desired, with the new respect and glamor won from helping in wars that previous generations of gauchos had not had the benefit of.

Tiago was raised by his mother until he was old enough to ride a horse, and shortly thereafter he began accompanying other gauchos on their treks after horses and cattle with his grandfather. He learned hunting, tracking, how to cook a perfect beef ‘asado,’ and became an expert in the Gaucho’s peculiar way of dueling for honor—an evasive battle of agility where the point is to give a small cut to the other’s cheek, using the facón, without otherwise injuring them to prove prowess. But above all, he learned horses. An expert rider, he participated in the feats of bravado the Gauchos used among themselves to establish honor and caste. From the dangerous and destructive game of pato, or performing the ‘jump of death’ from a fence onto one of a herd of galloping horses, he could even land on his feet from a horse that had been snagged with bolas. He was good, and he knew it.  He didn’t need to exaggerate his feats—and he enjoyed adding to his reputation, but he wanted more.

When the wars came, he was conscripted, and though his first year in the military as a conscript was a rough one, he worked hard to prove his worth and move up as a matter of self preservation, and found he actually enjoyed working as a tracker and scout. He liked having others rely on his expertise, and he considered being indispensable important. He proved himself again and again, and added experience with the saber and black powder weapons to his arsenal, though he still preferred his facón and boleadores in practice. His main duty was tracking and scouting, though officially conscripted as a member of the cavalry.

When the war ended, he found he couldn’t just return to normal. After fighting against the invasion of his native land, then in the civil war that followed, chasing cattle and game didn’t seem as daring as it had before—the freedom somehow less expansive, and with an unfamiliar feeling of being less dogging his heels. He wandered, visiting different haciendas for work, then spending the money on drink, or adding silver to his saddle, but not feeling the happiness he’d had before. He'd passed multiple opportunities for desertion, and gotten used to having something to do with himself, and he found himself discontent, but not able to figure out why. After a confusing run in with an old friend, he spiraled further, and was unable to find work and support himself. One night, while tracking a doe, he found something he’d never seen on the pampas before: a forest. He left his pingo, his favorite horse, behind, and entered, walking until he met Theo. He was intrigued by the city at first, but as he realized he couldn’t go back, the interest soured to discontent, feeling cheated of finding his purpose in life. He feels he might have been able to put his life back together, and wanted to go out like a hero, not simply disappear with no chance of redemption. He’d thought he was discontent before, but the city has no horses, no plains, nowhere to get lost or anyplace new to be found. All the skills with horse and knife he was proud of in his past life are useless here, the prestige gone. He appealed multiple times to go back, and has finally realized that that is impossible—at least, the way things currently stand.

While he has insurgent leanings and tendencies, he is not currently involved with the insurgency. One of his close friends is an admitted insurgent to him, and he respects and trusts her, but knows little of how the organization actually operates. Everyone seems to like it here to him—which only increases his feelings of aloneness and frustration, and he readily relates to those who are also unhappy.

Fighting: Tiago is good at sparring, though his style may be frustrating to many. He keeps with his roots of gaucho-style duels, and will taunt an opponent if he lands even a small scratch—which is precisely what he’s going for. Dueling to kill was frowned upon as he was raised, proving your mettle was enough to settle things. He is good at dueling, and has openly embraced other styles of fighting in his short time here, but retains the ability to be very evasive. Quickness, agility, and creativity are his strengths, and it is difficult to land a hit. Gaucho dueling employed anything, so he’ll often resort to what other cultures would consider dishonorable—using his poncho, the surroundings, and anything else as part of the fight. He’d have no qualms about throwing dirt in someone’s face during a fight and seeing it as fair game. Along with the facón, he also regularly employs boleadoras—three stones linked together used to ensnare. Once thrown, they are very hard to evade, as their reach is about six or seven feet, but after throwing them he has to go retrieve them each time, and if he misses, they’ll often tangle on whatever they hit instead, if you manage to evade them. That being said, he has killed people before (two wars, after all) and is an accomplished soldier on top of being a duelist. He gets pretty peeved if someone tries to turn a duel into a real fight, and he'd have no qualms about laying into someone that he felt had violated what was supposed to be a fight 'for fun', and similarly takes major issue with a fight against someone he felt was at an unfair disadvantage. He is not accustomed to hand fighting, boxing and similar methods, and there are a few reasons he generally does not fare well as a brawler.

Other: The only objects he really cares about are his facón (which he always has in the back of his sash or belt), and his guitar. He keeps few other possessions, but admires work by gifted artisans and those who work with their hands. He usually sticks to his native dress, but occasionally adopts something similar from other cultures, and likes Mongolian stuff in particular. He enjoys music and dancing, but favors smaller pubs with a more rustic feel. He frequently has a set of boleadores at his belt, though they're usually tied up neatly and carried more out of habit than anything. He always carries his knife in the back of his sash unless stated otherwise. At public events he does not mind peace tying it, but if not allowed to take it, he will likely not attend.

Tiago is intelligent, but uneducated, blunt, laid back, talkative, social, cares little for formalities or authority, passionate, shrewd, mostly honest, and picks up ideas and physical skills quickly if he can get over being lazy about it. Reading and intellectual pursuits are not his strong suite, so things like mathematics may be understood on a conceptual or instinctive level, but when presented with them on paper will be completely baffling. Similarly, his lack of education may show if extremely vaulted language is used—a lot of highly educated words in a row or things that are not phrased clearly can quickly confuse him. He has severe dyslexia, which makes it very difficult for him to read and write, but good luck getting him to admit to that--he has gotten very good at deflecting or avoiding situations where either one is required, and harbors a secret fear that something is deeply wrong with him because everyone else in the city seems to be able to without problem once they arrive. He is expressive, and doesn't hide his feelings well, day or night (this also makes him a very poor gambler).

For fun:
Learning styles: Tactile, Auditory, Visual (In that order)
Meyers Briggs Type: ESFP
Color code: Yellow/Blue.

Entered SH in November 1889 (from his 1873). His birthday is in August, but he doesn't know exactly what day.

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