Sempul'tsyal

[HorusRe/Bila'reu]

Character Name: Sempul'tsyal

Name meaning (if applicable): Wing Father.

Nickname (if applicable): NA

Family: Taronyutxukx (Hunter of the Deep)

Species: Na’vi

Clan: Txampay’awkx

Occupation: Sea Hunter and Olo'eyktan.

Age: 76

Gender: Male

Eye color: Blue (a recessive genetic trait, an aberration that rises a few times a generation within the Clan)

Hair color: Gray (used to be black)

Height: 10 foot 5 inches

Weight: 357 lb. (in Earth standard gravity) / 286 lb. (in Pandora gravity)

Physical Description:

• Though he is in his twilight years he is still well defined and muscular, the result of a life spent as a warrior and an elite Sea Hunter. He is taller than average and slightly thicker of limb, though this is more due to age as he was thin in his prime.
  
• He sports the unusual blue eyes of some of his clan, a recessive genetic mutation, but not the violet hair that is usually associated with the trait.
  
• His hair has gone gray and he keeps his head mostly shaved, except for a queue at the back that surrounds his neural queue-braid.
  
• Like other Sea Hunters he wears functional clothing, unlike other Sea Hunters (and due to his rank) he also wears light armor. Though once considered one of the elite warriors of his clan he does not wear the black colored shoulder guards of the best of the Sea Hunters. He wore these once, but when his abilities started to slip (with age) he renounced the right to claim to be one of the elite of the elite.
  
• Like a great many of his clan, that wears a web of braided cord around the base of the tail, he sports the “Txampay’awkx Weave”, though his is dyed a deep black, something only the Olo'eyktan of the clan is allowed to wear.
  
• As a sign of his rank he wears more decoration than most others of the clan, this includes his weapons and his mounts. He always carries a bone dagger across his chest, decorated with the feather of the Seven Moons Wing, a rare avian animal that migrates every seven years and is found in the territory for only a few days during this period.
  
• Sempul'tsyal bears a mosaic of small scars across his arms, chest, upper back, and thighs. These are the result of a lifelong pursuit of knife fighting, as well as several unlucky moments with the lesser (and still highly dangerous) forms of predator in the Pandoran seas. As these scars are worn by virtually all hunters and warriors of the clan, male and female alike, they are generally overlooked by his clan mates.
  

Background: Sempul'tsyal was born into a strong family of the clan, raised and groomed to be a warrior and the potential for the next clan leader (his family held the Olo'eyktan or Tsahik position several times in the last ten generations), a position he took after the elder Olo'eyktan (a highly respected female) stepped down due to old age… he became the new Olo'eyktan and she “went into the sea”. He has served the clan well for almost fifty years and he is now looking for his replacement, for it is nearing his time to “go into the sea”. He is a renowned Sea Hunter, one of the few that has managed to hunt down the gigantic sea predator, the Shadow Singer, and as a result fed the clan for nearly a season… not to mention brining the clan great respect from other sea faring clans. Even in his waning years the elder continues to lead hunts and dares the dangerous waters on a nearly daily basis.

Abilities: He was once extremely talented with the spear, able to bulls-eye a target from extreme range, and was well known for his strength and skill with a spear in melee combat. His strength has waned with his age, he no longer has the range nor the accuracy he once had, but his aim is still true and his arm is still just strong enough to be fearful.

Strengths: A consummate warrior, hunter, and leader. He is firm but fair, strong and patient, and understands the social dynamic very well. In his time as Olo'eyktan he has averted two clan conflicts and secured trade relations with a few distant clans, across the sea. It is because of his focus that ship crafting has become more common among his clan.

Weaknesses: His father was young when the Sky People were driven from their home, but his father never forgot the death and pain of that war. Sempul'tsyal continued this tradition and has made sure that the stories told to his clan bred nothing but contempt and resentment toward the Sky People. He has been singularly responsible for the murder of two Sky People that dared to cross into his territory without permission since the humans returned to his world, one killed by spear, the other was brought back to camp for a lengthy execution… tongue cut out, arms and legs skinned, and then boiled alive in oil. The remains were all pulped and spread into the sea. He continues to harbor nothing but hatred for humans, will delight in executing any that come into his territory uninvited, and will slay a Demon Walker on sight.

In addition to his hatred of sky People he is also losing much of his physical ability to his age. He is not as strong nor as fast as an adult Na'vi, and his healing is not what it once was either.

Banana? Yes.

[Jai'byrd]

Heh, fun guy! Approved!

[HorusRe/Bila'reu]

-Bonded Animals-

Ikran - T'or (translation = spear), a large male Ikran of a dark red and bright green coloration. T'or is his second Ikran, this one he bonded with when he was a venerable 60 years old, an unusual situation even within his hardened clan. He was without an Ikran for almost ten years.

Tlqsaytan - Nari'tikawng (translation = Evil Eye), an old male Tlqsaytan with a torn dorsal fin and fierce disposition.

[HorusRe/Bila'reu]

-IMAGES -

Image 1.

Image 2.

[HorusRe/Bila'reu]

May 18, 2011 1:11:15 GMT -5 HorusRe/Bila'reu said:

He has been singularly responsible for the murder of two Sky People that dared to cross into his territory without permission since the humans returned to his world, one killed by spear, the other was brought back to camp for a lengthy execution… tongue cut out, arms and legs skinned, and then boiled alive in oil. The remains were all pulped and spread into the sea.

I believe it bears mentioning that these two events are extremely rare and highly isolated experiences within the Txampay'awkx. I didn't think that further extrapolation would be required on these events, but recent events have caused me to reconsider this minimum of information. Thus here is the further story.

The first human Sempul'tsyal killed was named Addison Barry (yes, I will have a tie-in for this at some point) and was an avatar driver on her own mission. Like a few other humans that have made their way to the new home of humanity, Addison wanted nothing more than to become one of the natives. She had tried once to abscond with her avatar and go to the plains tribes, but stealing an avatar is a practical impossibility, as the human body remains with the colony. Eventually the techs just broke her connection, after trying to retake her body to no avail, and left her body out in the wilds to feed the predators. This did not dissuade the ambitious young scientist however, as she was adamantly determined to leave her own kind and become one with a "pure and pristine" species. After weeks of observation she was released from confinement, at which time she promptly stole a land vehicle and enough supplies for two weeks travel. The home of the Txampay'awkx was a long way from the colony, and she needed someplace far enough removed that her human compatriots would just leave her alone, so she needed something to move her quickly and the food for the journey. She lost the buggy after seven days, and was out of food after twelve, but on the thirteenth day she arrived into the heart of the Txampay'awkx territory. A human, armed, on foot, and calling out words in Na'vi. Sempul'tsyal discovered her on a hunting patrol into the inlands and did not hesitate to put a spear into her chest.

This happened some seven years past. The colony made a token effort to locate their wayward colonist, but there are larger concerns than a spoiled-brat scientist for a colony that continues to struggle just to survive. She was promptly forgotten and no colonist has any idea of what became of her.

The second event was a soldier/escort for a deep range avatar patrol, looking for technologies left/lost by the RDA colonists that could be salvaged for the colony. The patrol consisted of two avatar techs and the human escort. The patrol was attacked by a single thanator, the avatars killed, and the human wounded. As the avatar drivers really don't die, they just loose their synch with the body, the techs were fine. An air patrol was sent out but the soldier was never relocated... as his homing beacon was damaged in the fight with the thanator, and to get away from the nearly unstoppable beast he dashed into the bush, becoming lost in the process. Far beyond communication range the man had no way of telling the colony anything about his adventures to come. He eventually found his way into the heart of the Txampay'awkx territory, where he was found by a patrol on Ikran. Captured, the soldier was brought before Sempul'tsyal, who recognized him as a warrior of the Sky People and decided to treat him as an enemy of the people. Thus was the man tortured, slowly executed, and his remains scattered into the sea.

Note that scattering his remains into the sea is spiritually significant for a Txampay'awkx, as they perceive the sea as their mother. The sea gives them life, it provides them with food, and it sometimes punishes them. The act of sending a human "into the deep" was a small act of respect to a foe. It shoudl also be noted that Sempul'tsyal is just the kind of warrior that would not hesitate to use similar techniques on any proven enemy of the people... this includes Na'vi of a rival clan. Sempul'tsyal is a warrior that understands death, and horror, and in true adherence to the ways of the native American tribes (and other aboriginal peoples) he will not hesitate to employ executions that would evoke revulsion and terror in his foes. The difference here is that he had no desire, and indeed no reason, to leave the body out as a display to those enemies (as he would were the enemy to be a rival Na'vi clan). He is smart enough to have no desire to stir the hornets nest that he sees in the human colony. He respects the sheer destructive might of human technologies, as employed to utterly obliterate a High Tree,
thus he has no pressing desire to take a war to an enemy he has no reason to believe his clan can beat. But he will not stop himself from defending his territory against any HUMANS that dare set foot into the places claimed by his tribe.

This brutal execution happened just two years in the past. Due to the circumstances the colony has no idea of what became of the soldier escort. They assume he was killed by the same thanator that tore up the two avatar bodies, and lacking any evidence to the contrary this continues to be the assumption.

He continues to harbor nothing but hatred for humans, will delight in executing any that come into his territory uninvited, and will slay a Demon Walker on sight.

Mind that placing an avatar might not be as easy as a human, and he might hesitate to spear an avatar. The last Toruk Makto was a Demon Walker after all, and though he holds a high mistrust of those "false-people" he might not be as swift to simply execute one.

This hesitation will be discarded summarily if the avatar comes packing human weapons or wearing human clothing. That is a strong sign of the walker-in-the-dreamworld having more ties to the human world than the Na'vi world, and he will torture and execute such a being.

He suspects this will bring the very retribution he would rather avoid, but he will not risk infecting his people with the lies of the Sky People from lips that are a lie made in flesh. When/if this event comes to pass he will deal with the ramifications at that time.

final note -

Though Sempul'tsyal does not feel remorse for the death of the two humans he is also not proud of the killings. He does not condone stories retelling this events, he does not appreciate those that seek to find honor in actions that he feels were mandatory for the defense of his people. He believes that great stories are told of great actions, of heroics born of great wars, or of peaceful actions taken by great leaders to maintain the peace. Barring his past deeds to develop trade relations with clans across the sea, using his clans naval technologies and seamanship skills, he does not feel any of his past deeds qualify as being all that heroic.

Ergo, even within his own clan, the tales of these two incidents should only be spoken of in whispers and in very intimate settings. It would be the quite insulting for him to discover that any other clans were aware of these past actions, as the spread of such information (and the fact that given the impressive distances between even close clans, news hardly travels that isn't as important as all out war) is tantamount to hearsay and the product of the rumor-mill.