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[twocomplex]

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Ash
Contact: nipponpon
Other Characters: n/a

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Oren Nocta
Age: 26
World Information: Important World Info & God & Demon Info!
Character Information:

The Holy family has five members, including Oren. There's his mother, Binali, who's wanted nothing to do with him from birth. Next is his father, Damascus, who has a much stronger relationship with Oren thanks to him spending more time with him. After that, Oren has two younger sisters. Ahl is two years younger than him, and Ensa is four years younger than him. Their childhood was actually a pretty happy one, all things considered. Oren and Ahl got along, for the most part, and even if he and Ensa never really spoke or connected, it wasn't as if they hated each other or were aware enough to realize anything off about it.

It was only as they grew older that tensions began to grow. At age 9, Oren went on his first caravan under his father's supervision. This helped strengthen their bond and continued for the next two years until Ahl was invited along. When their father began to give her more attention, Oren began to see her more as a rival, as she was tearing away his one source of parental attention. On the other side of things, with his mother, no efforts made a difference. She oversaw his education, but it was mostly to keep an eye on him, and she never gave any emotional responses one way or the other. By the age of 10, Oren was learning proper etiquette, being prepared for marriage, learning history-- all that was required of a Prince, and though he worked hard and excelled, she gave him no praise for it.

In his early teens, he started to become more rebellious. Outright disobeying his mother's words and the rules, he'd stay up late, leave the castle, visit poor sections of the city and bring vagabonds onto the palace grounds. As the years passed into his late teens, he even began to sleep around with men and women alike. The sleeping around in particular burned a lot of bridges with plenty of merchant families, but still his mother didn't react. She remained at the same distance. During these teenage years, though, Ahl became too busy with priestess duties to spend much time with caravans, so Oren got more father-son bonding time! This is the most important relationship at this point, since even his bond with his sisters was struggling as he saw them as competition for his mother's attention.

At age 16, he was allowed to lead his own caravans under his father's supervision, and did so excellently. At 18, his father was lost during a nomadic raid on one of the caravans led by Ahl. He took them on by himself, telling the rest of the caravan to flee. They do so, but even when it's clear that their father is fighting a losing battle (or at least seems to be), Ahl doesn't have them turn back. Oren views this as weakness, thinking that she can't go back to save someone she loves. It's at this point that he views her as unforgivable; it's the last straw after years of jealousy and no attempts to reach for him. Their father's body isn't found.

Over the next four years, not only did his reputation as a playboy increase, but he began to really grow in the eyes of the people as a merchant and as a very diplomatic person, thanks to his caravan work. Whenever he wasn't acting as a caravan leader, he was in the library, reading what he could, and this aided his reputation. Even with all of his success and fame, and even with a particularly difficult deal he scores with a previously hostile Nomadic tribe, his mother shows no interest. She seems to view his successes as things he's expected to do from the start, not anything that should be rewarded, and his acting out is completely ignored. He finally gives up on gaining her attention.

At age 21, he really becomes desperate enough to cling to the idea that his father is still alive. He starts leading Long March caravans, which are different from the merchant caravans he excelled at. These are much longer, further trips that require a solid team, but he doesn't recognize his own inability to lead these as well. A year later, his caravan is hit by a sandstorm. The only one left, he has to deal with the harsh conditions for two years (though if asked he won't know exactly how long).

After two lonely years in the desert, he's finally rescued by a Nomadic tribe-- and his father! Damascus had apparently been "rescued" by a group of Nomadic tribes, and was trying to join them together under his own guidance. Uniting under religion was what the Nomadics and Damascus needed, they decided, and upon hunting down and finding a weaker demon/"god" (Enkythos the trickster god of envy), they decided he would be their god. They just needed to find someone for him to feed on for strength, and that someone turned out to be Oren. Taking advantage of Oren's love and his desperation, his father convinces him to become the Host. Oren has to drink Enkythos from a goblet, and without any training for it, the Joining is completely painful. His limbs shift, his skin bubbles, his bones break and rejoin repeatedly, etc. His body is completely twisted during this process, until finally, he makes it. Largely in part to the way he connects with what Enkythos rules over, Oren survives the Joining and is now host to him.

The Nomadics that have joined under Damascus have a plan to siege Renacht, and Oren becomes a key part to it. Their idea is to send him back and have him smuggle the Nomadics in slowly over time, providing information from the inside until they're ready to strike. Oren is sent back to the city and goes along with this. After that, he receives a message from his father in warning of Nocta and the Messiah, and instructs Oren to lead him back to the settlement so they can release Nocta and feed her to Enkythos, strengthening him. Oren can only listen, aiming to become something of worth in his father's eyes.

Sure enough, Mattias arrives, and Oren is present as he proves himself to Binali. He stays silent in the back, not speaking to him, but he does lag behind him afterwards to follow him to the library. There, he's able to quickly gain Mattias' admiration through his own intelligence and charm. He dedicates his time palling it up with Mattias and throwing in some light flirting, all to keep him strung along so that he'll be able to complete his father's plans.

During his time in the city, Mattias is paraded around a lot. He's basically showcased to the people of Renacht. At one of these events, Mattias becomes overwhelmed by attention and expectations and jumps off the palanquin and runs into the crowd. He runs away, basically, and Oren is the one to find him. Rather than taking him back to the palace or to his guards, Oren takes him to the upper levels of the city to show him a "taste of the real Renacht." He shows him to the areas where the recent plague once covered, and how this part of the city is neglected. Buildings are in states of disrepair, and most appalling to Mattias is that the people who had received demonic treatment were left alone and unchecked. As a result, many are in severe conditions due to the demon’s overconsumption. Mattias immediately sets to work on fixing this, and though Oren is stunned by this part of his reaction, he goes along with it, following the orders that Mattias throws at him easily.

After losing Mattias, word finally gets back to the palace that he has essentially opened a makeshift clinic in the upper levels. It makes them extremely easy to find, and Ahl is sent to retrieve them. In the small amount of alone time they have before the court session they were brought back to, Mattias assumes that Binali might let them off easy because he's the Messiah and Oren is the Prince, while Oren is left to scoff and correct him in bitter ways about his mom. She's not easy on anyone, he says.

This is shown pretty immediately in court. Binali is an impressive presence, and she jumps right into saying that Oren will be punished for "abducting the Messiah." She isn't able to finish as to what the punishment will be, as Mattias interrupts her. This whole court session is basically Mattias standing up against Binali and stunning everyone, not just Oren, by how he displays his granted power. Oren's only "punishment" ends up being the one Mattias suggests, which is to accompany him and guide him through the city, as he clearly seems well informed. Afterwards, Oren and Mattias have a little talk about mothers, getting a taste of each other's views. Mattias doesn't seem to understand how Binali, as a mother, could be like that, while Oren doesn't seem to understand where Mattias' confusion comes from, as this is the only type of parenting he knows.

Oren follows his punishment by accompanying Mattias throughout the city, helping him heal when he comes across issues and showing him some of his favorite spots. While Oren and Mattias do separate, they're rarely seen apart. They bond a lot, through this, but even Ahl begins to notice that they seem to be in pain around one another. (Oren occasionally gripping Mattias' arm tighter, small winces, Mattias growing paler, etc.) Eventually, Nocta has enough and begins to torture Mattias. As he collapses and screams and deals with all of the fun effects of Nocta's torture, Oren is forced to slip away from his own pain. His face begins to morph, and he has to cover it as he leaves the room. Only Ahl notices, but she's too busy to give chase. Mattias is then confined to his room and looked at to try and deal with this issue, but with Oren visiting as often as he did, it became clear that he was the source of this. The Messiah secretly works on his potion while Oren continues to visit and slip out whenever his own body begins to shift in noticeable ways.

As the story continues, Oren is mostly on the side. He continues increasing his relationship with Mattias, spending time with him, but he also is seen speaking with the Nomadics a lot. There's a rumor going around that the increase in Nomadics in the city are thanks to Oren inviting them in order to improve Nalani/Nomadic relations. Ahl is the one who keeps her eye on him the most, spotting him speaking in heated ways to a couple of Nomadic chieftains and keeping up her suspicion. At the Carver's Festival (the one where Mattias is meant to reveal Nocta and the siege on Renacht is scheduled to happen), the two of them spend time with Mattias together and he gets a real peek at how tense their relationship really is. It's also where Oren really ups his ante and dances with Mattias, as well as gives him his first kiss, purposefully trying to make Ahl more angry alongside continuing with his plans (as well as his own fun). For the most part after that, Mattias sticks close to the palace and Oren sticks close to Mattias.

It's when Mattias is about to unveil Nocta that the attack begins. Smoke begins to rise from the city below, and alarms sound throughout the city. Nomadics from inside the city have begun attacking, and others are pouring in through secret entrances and lesser known paths that Oren had told them of. The entire city is under siege. Oren immediately heads for Mattias and begins to lead him out of the city through one of the paths he hadn't passed out information on. On the way there, though, the sleep potion Mattias had used on Nocta to keep her asleep wears off and he collapses once more. Oren panics for a bit before deciding that instead of waiting until he's at the settlement with his father, he'll have Enkythos eat Nocta now. He stabs Mattias and releases her.

Nothing goes according to plan. Enkythos is eaten by Nocta easily, and both Oren and Mattias are left shocked by it. It's only when Mattias realizes that he's bleeding out and begins trying to rejoin with Nocta (and therefore heal him) that Oren snaps out of his shock. Anger and panic and tension combine, and he decides that killing Mattias is the closest thing along his father's plans, and he tries to slit his throat. Ahl intercepts him and they fight until Oren falls to his death.

Personality:

Oren is someone who does not know his place in the world. He has an idea of what he wants and he strives for it without holding back, but his grasp on which path to take to get there is shaky at best. This is shown throughout the course of his life in the actions he takes and the decisions he makes. From the way his vying for attention shifts targets, bouncing between his mother and father depending on the situation, it can be seen that he looks to others for his place in the world. This is contradicted by the selfish ways he moves forward in situations, and it's that contradiction (as well as the shifting ways of his decisions at all) that helps to show how unstable he is. Oren has plenty of wants and needs, but he's essentially stumbling in the dark, hopping only between his own selfish, stubborn methods to get what he wants and falling short every time.

This can be hard to see from how put together he seems to everyone who knows him. This is because he makes every decision with such confidence that it's near-impossible to see any hesitation and doubt. When his father is missing and his mother continues to scorn him to the point that he's given up on her, he turns his eyes to the desert. While everyone else has given up hope on his father being alive, Oren is stubbornly determined to find him. This isn't that he's naive or stupidly hopeful, but that he places himself in his own sort of denial when faced with trials he doesn't know how to deal with. He does feel in this particular part that his father is out there somewhere, but at the same time he has doubts about what finding him will accomplish. He recognizes that their closeness is something he's exaggerated in his thoughts, but he ignores that recognition in favor of moving forward. He needs to be doing something that's constantly driving him forward so he can feel productive, or else he's left alone to deal with the feeling of being lost. He doesn't know where to even begin on finding other options, and so he doesn't give himself the chance. Even when he sides with his father after finding him in the desert again, there's a hidden understanding of how he's being used. Again, he shoves this aside and buries it, further digging himself into this lost hole where he's found himself.

While he may be lost in direction, Oren does know what he's doing. To the people, he's well-liked. Where his parents never gave him the attention he wanted, the people of Renacht are able to give him plenty, and none of it is enough. He's a charming guy with a contagious air about him. He can lighten the mood of a serious situation, staying calm on the surface when others need it. It's not just that he's the Prince of Renacht, but his personality and actions that come off so admirable to the people. He's very diplomatic in everything he does. Whether it's speaking to someone on the street or dealing with cases in court, he shows an expert handling of situations and talking to people in general. This shows very well in his relations with the Nomadic tribes. He's very open to new ideas and a great listener, and that's what really opened the door to him establishing a trading system between Renacht and the Nomadics. What also adds to this is how well-read and intelligent he really is. All of that time spent in the library from his youth (and through his life) really helps him understand people, what makes them tick, social cues, etc, as well as marketing secrets, business tricks, so on and so on. He basically has taught himself to move forward in every field he's tried, and being a merchant is one of his largest skills. Any of the Nomadics (or any merchants in the city) would recognize Oren as someone they could speak to, and as a whole they really genuinely liked him as a person. He really can be an all around friendly guy who's nice to talk to and work with.

This is where his mess of contradictions begins to really shine. He is charming, and he uses it to his advantage. Through his graciousness and agreeable nature, he's able to befriend anyone he wants, from merchants to partners. He's friendly, seems to be concerned with the well-being of the people as a whole, and spends a lot of time in the higher areas (like where the plague was an issue). He befriends people regardless of how well off they may be and makes a lot of the lower class citizens of Renacht feel a lot more welcome in the city. It's easy to see all of these as selfless, caring acts deep down, but what it really comes down to is that Oren is hedonistic. He does what gets him the most joy, whether that's charming the Messiah into a false sense of security to grasp at some hopeless semblance of parental attention or lifting the spirits of the people so he can easily have fun. His bringing Mattias up to the higher city to witness the effects of the plague wasn't an act of kindness towards those people, but a reaction of his own anger at Mattias viewing the city as flawless. He spends so much time with Mattias firstly for the plan, but also from the enjoyment of being with him (he really comes to enjoy his company and even admire parts about him), finding fun in showing him different parts of the city and messing around with him, but never once considering Mattias' thoughts on the matter-- unless to use them for his own benefit. Literally everything he does is from some selfish angle, and that's because of his view on the world.

He sees the world in a very realistic and logical light. Logical decisions are what have moved him forward this whole time, even if they're backed by deep emotions and feelings on certain matters. He may feel personally angry or upset about something, but his moves are always thought out ahead of time and calculated precisely. At the same time, Oren is certainly emotional, even if he refuses to admit it. While he does a very good job of staying calm and collected on the surface, he is very firm in what opinions he does have and can have a lot of feelings about things. Using the plague scene in example again, we see his hatred for the city here. He hates Renacht and what it stands for. He enjoys the people, genuinely getting along with them and becoming friends, but nothing feels right in it to him (a lot of this is because he's reminded of his family; his mother in particular). It feels like something he wants to just get away from, not like home, and so seeing someone like Mattias speak so highly of it irritates him on a very personal level.

A large part of this has to do with the issues he holds with his family. There are deep-rooted troubles with each of his family members that branch from not receiving the attention he needed or wanted as a child. With his mother, it's incredibly obvious. She scares him and enrages him at the same time. She's everything he'd wanted to impress for so many years of his life, and to have that hope so utterly crushed and turned away is something that's left a deep rage in him that can't be fixed with words. Through his childhood, he tried various ways of attracting her attention. First, obeying her every word, studying hard, working hard, learning everything that he could to impress her. None of it worked, and so in his teenage years (starting from the early ones and working all the way to the late ones) he became rebellious. He would go against her word at every change, going into the higher levels of the city, speaking with and befriending merchants, and as he grew old enough, sleeping around. Still, this doesn't work, and his feelings of neglect continue to grow. It's so far that he even kills her, under order, but by his own method. He doesn't use poison like instructed-- he slits her throat, desiring the more physical feeling of her slipping away even if he doesn't enjoy violence. In a way, this act was like crushing a fear for him.

His relationship with each of his sisters is very complex, as well, stemming from the issues of his neglect from his parents. Most importantly is his relationship with Ahl, the middle child, and the one closest to his age. Only two years younger than Oren, they grew up together and got along through childhood. There was the usual bickering and sibling behavior, of course, but they were comrades for the most part. This only started to fray when they grew older and it became more apparent that their mother gave all of her attention to Ahl (and later Ensa, as well) and none of it to Oren. It's not just the attention that upsets him, though, but Ahl's refusal to stand up against any of it. She fears Binali (as most do) and because of that doesn't go against any of her wishes through their childhood. Oren views this as a betrayal to him. He views her as weak, unable to stand up for anything, and thinks that she must not value him enough. Still, he continues to wait for her to prove him wrong while she stays sort of frozen in place and not able to act on anything. This sort of tense relationship continues from his early teens to the mission where their father is taken by the Nomadics. Though he was there and heard his father give her instructions to lead forward, when they heard things going south behind them and she refused to turn back, Oren felt it was another sign of her weakness. It was essentially the last straw in his eyes. He could no longer hold on believing that she would become a strong enough person to go after what she wanted, or someone who valued relationships enough to do something about it. She was weak in his eyes, and it was a continued betrayal. No attempts by Ahl after that could stop him from seeing her in this light.

Similarly, he couldn't stop his views on the youngest sister, Ensa, either. They were very distant from one another, with her being four years younger than Oren, as he was out in the desert for the majority of the time as she grew up under Binali's care and guidance. Because of this, there isn't much of a relationship at all. In its place is a strained lack of a relationship that's very obvious any time they're in the same room. In all honesty, he did desire to become closer with her, but there's such clear signs of Binali in her nature that he holds himself back, left avoiding her and moving on, instead. Ensa never approaches him, either, as he was never a large presence in her life.

His father is another story entirely. He was missing for a lot of Oren's youth, but when he does step back into the picture, Oren sees him as a figure that's able to provide him much-needed attention. It's not the love and care of a usual parent, but it's something, and that's more than Binali would ever give him. He clings to this, switching his gaze from Binali to Damascus once he's finally given up hope on ever becoming something in his mother's eyes. Basically, Oren has always wanted people to need him. He needs love, care, attention, praise, and etc. to feel worth anything, and when he doesn't feel worth anything, he doesn't know how to handle it. This is also why he has such a large reputation in the city as a playboy. Attention is attention, and even if it's never enough, he still craves it and searches it out. He has no idea how to fix this problem of his, and so he's left floundering emotionally with his family issues. As far as his friends go, he's happy to have shallow relationships. He does crave deeper ones, even if he doesn't realize this himself-- if anyone were to attempt to get closer to him on that level, he begins to grow uncomfortable as this is unfamiliar territory. He's much more comfortable with having shallow friendships as he feels more in control of the situation, kind of like they're his toys. His most desperate act of attention seeking is what ultimately causes his downfall, as he ignores the knowledge that his father is using him and does what he asks no matter the cost.

As seen from his family relationships (especially with his sisters), Oren is a jealous person. Even before taking on the "trickster god of envy", Oren has trouble looking at anyone's lives without feeling jealousy. It's not just jealousy that one has to worry about with this, either, but the bitter anger that follows. In his sisters, he sees the way they received constant attention from their mother despite his own hard efforts and hates them for it. He may not hate them entirely as people, Ensa being a good example here (he actually does want to get to know her), but he hates that they can receive attention so easily while he's left abandoned. He wants that life, and so he gets angry, he gets bitter, he gets far less forgiving-- as seen with Ahl when she reaches a point by losing their father that's just downright unforgivable to him. Family isn't where this jealousy stops. When Mattias comes to the city, he also receives attention from Binali. As the Messiah, he's what she'd been wanting all along, and she grants him attention and festivals and power, and Oren hates that he can get this so easily. His anger about this as well as other parts of Mattias that deeply irritate him (his jumps in emotions, his idealism in general, and his selfish views) in anyone come together to make him rather cruel and hurtful towards him in very subtle ways. He and Mattias spend a lot of time together, since Oren has to in order to come through with his plans, but he does end up genuinely liking him. There are parts that he admires just as much as there are parts that he despises, and it comes together in a toxic way. While he's friendly towards Mattias on the surface and quick to show him things to help, offer him advice or have fun with him, he's also quick to insult him in subtle, digging ways.

These snipes are actually his main form of unleashing bites of that pent up rage, and it's their subtlety that causes him not to lose reputation from it. He can insult someone to their face in the guise of kind words, and only the one he's speaking to will feel hurt. That sort of thing is awfully common, and he's relentless with Mattias, showing off just how jealous he really is. He can express his feelings fairly easily, with his calm nature, but fragile emotions like these are harder for him to admit or get out, so they come out in these subtle ways instead. Going back to the main point of his jealousy, though, it doesn't even end just at acquaintances or friends. It's not unusual for Oren to assume things about other people's lives. Whether he's just met someone who said something about their family and he snap judges them to be better off or he simply sees them walking together on a street and grows angry about it, Oren is really negative about things like this. He's always been this way, even if his time hosting Enkythos certainly didn't help.

One thing that did largely impact him, though, was his time spent lost in the desert. Completely isolated for two years, Oren was left to survive when his mother stopped all rescue efforts after only two months. He dealt with more sandstorms, fought off creatures, had to struggle to get his food, etc. This didn't exactly change the way he thinks about things, but it certainly did change how he reacts to things. Ever since he was saved from the sandstorm, and the following trauma that was absorbing Enkythos, Oren is a lot less stable. His composure that he's so well known for can crack now, and he actually can have emotional outbreaks due to all he's dealt with. These can happen at any point in time, whether he gets worked up emotionally over an issue, he has a bad nightmare, or it just comes out of nowhere-- it's an issue he recognizes and is constantly working to hide from the public. His most common method of dealing with this is just avoidance. He'll drink, sleep around, change the subject, or just leave; any way that separates himself from the cause is a temporary fix and one he jumps to take. It's not something he knows how to deal with properly.

If Oren were able to admit these negative feelings or express them in healthier ways, he may have been better off at making decisions. Unfortunately, he closes it up and lets it snake out in these biting ways, deepening the feelings without really realizing it. Emotions are seen as weak to him, thanks to his upbringing, and he wants more than anything to be like his mother. He does well in one sense, remaining calm and composed even under great amounts of pressure, but his emotions do slip through, and that's where he breaks. He just can't be as indifferent and uncaring as she is, no matter how hard he tries. He's heavy in denial about having these emotions, even when they're one of the largest reasons for all of his bad decisions. (Again, siding with his father in the end is the biggest example of this.) Oren tries to be a hardass, but he has feelings. He feels neglected, he feels unloved, he feels his talents are ignored, and these are just some of the things eating at him from the inside.

All of these different issues and views on life are what make him so uncertain in how to move forward. He wants strong relationships but he doesn't know how to start them. He wants to break free from his family but he continues to be caught in denial, hoping that his father may love him, or at the very least find him useful. He's desperate and lonely, all while strong and confident. He can handle himself in any verbal showdown with expert composure, and he can make just about anyone smile through jokes or light comments of the situation. He can be friendly, but he doesn't know how to look away from himself to focus his care. He's so caught up on how little attention he's received that it's all he can see now, and it leads him astray in every aspect of his life. There's no time to grow out of it, either, and so he steps into a scenario urged on him that ultimately leads to his death.

5-10 Key Character Traits:

♟ Uncertain (in how to move forward)
♟ Confident
♟ Charismatic
♟ Diplomatic
♟ Perceptive
♟ Manipulative
♟ Hedonistic
♟ Logical
♟ Bitter
♟ Jealous

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, or EITHER? Fits!
Opt-Outs: vampire, goblin, naga, arachne, gargoyle

Roleplay Sample: 4th Wall TDM