AA: Taulm Dui'sun

Sorry that his app image is not shaded for now! I'll try to update it with the shaded version soon, but for now I just want to get it in



<sub>Name: Taulm Dui’sun
Pronunciation: Taulm rhymes with calm; Dui is pronounced ‘dway’ and sun is pronounced like ‘swehn.’ (OOCly, it aligns with the Chinese pronunciations. His ["Icelandic"] ancestors would have pronounced it more like ‘du-ay’ and ‘suun’ though.)
Age: 54
Birthday: 23rd Thawing (March 23rd), 8240
Sex: male
Height: 5’11” (180 cm)
Race: human
Class: Sniper
Occupation: retired, but still helping out with things like re-construction around Song-Lu when he can ᕙ(`▽´)ᕗ | previously a Senior Peacekeeper 
City: Song-Lu
Allegiance: Koben Empire

Personality:

Most of the time, Taulm maintains a steady composure that is quite difficult to shake. Analytical and observant, he makes good use of his mind and his decades of experience to predict others’ behavior so that he is less likely to be caught off guard. He’s significantly mellowed out from when he was younger, but on the rare occasions his temper is roused, it can be quite unexpectedly and unreasonably violent, even toward those he loves. He’s always been ashamed of his anger, as a man of strong moral principles.

While he normally gives off quite a serious impression, Taulm retains childlike wonder and excitement when it comes to certain topics that interest him, like science and technology. His enthusiasm can be quite contagious as he will open up and chatter with those around him. He likes to share his knowledge, not just in that spontaneous way but also through more structured teaching methods, which is why he has had multiple apprentices throughout his career. Sometimes he can be tactless about what is appropriate to for certain people to learn, like answering kids more honestly than one might advise about topics other adults would prefer to shelter them from.

Taulm tends to err on the side of better safe than sorry when it comes to other people, even if it risks squandering their potential. For example, with apprentices, Taulm will always keep them on for at least four years no matter how ready they might show themselves to be for independence sooner. He let Kiv’s magic talent, inherited from his parents, go to waste, fearing he might turn out like either of them.

He can be quite materialistically possessive, not in the sense of greediness, but in the sense of what’s his is his, and you’d better not touch it without his permission unless you are extremely close to him.

History:

Taulm’s mother, Vaka, was a Peacekeeper, and his father, Buri, was a merchant moonlighting as an information broker she relied on for many cases; their relationship grew from businesslike to trusting to romantic over the years they worked together. Their only child was Taulm.

Buri often brought home technological and alchemical goods that he traded in for his job, and these fascinated Taulm from an early age. In school, Taulm excelled at the related math/science-type classes, even joining the Songluan branch of STEAMPunks (youth division of the Wissen Fellowship; STEAM = science, tech, engineering, alchemy, math) for an extracurricular activity, but did not put much effort into the subjects that didn’t interest him as much. Unfortunately, Vaka wasn’t home much due to her job to keep him in line about this, and Buri was more of a spoiling than strict parent. Rather than try to make his son work hard at the humanities too, Buri just fed Taulm’s passion for all things STEAM. Out of all the wares his father showed him, Taulm became especially fascinated by the guns, although incendiary materials were a close second. It wasn’t surprising when he asked for lessons on how to use and make them, and Buri obligingly found an appropriate mentor for his son: one of the smiths he got his goods from.

Until he was seventeen years old, Taulm’s goal was to join the Wissen Fellowship as an innovative expert on guns. That year, though, Taulm accompanied his father on a business trip down to Linhythe where Buri was to trade guns, a couple of which had even been smithed by his son. This wasn’t the first time they’d done something like this, but this time, a group of thugs tried to attack both the Dui’suns and the parties they were trading with to steal all their goods. During the battle, Taulm witnessed one of the guns he’d made with his very own hands indiscriminately shoot down innocent lives in the hands of a criminal. This turned his world upside-down, to see what he loved used in such a terrible way. Before then, he’d been rather sheltered in regards to guns; naturally, he knew they were capable of killing people, but he had only ever used them or seen them used on inanimate targets or game animals. It was one thing to be aware somewhere in the back of his mind and another entirely to experience it. Fortunately, he, his father, and most of their fellow traders remained alive at the end of the chaos; the thieves’ goal had been to rob and get away, not to stay and slaughter, after all.

One of the wealthier (and angrier) merchants, at Buri’s recommendation, hired Vaka to track down their goods and bring the crooks to justice. This made Taulm view the Peacekeeper career in a fresh new light, although it took him a while to think thoroughly about it all. Months after Vaka’s success in outing the black market smuggling ring that had been pulling the strings, Taulm finally decided that rather than focus on making better guns, it was more important to keep guns and similarly dangerous objects out of the wrong hands; he would prioritize stopping crime over advancing technology. Giving up his Wissen Fellowship dream, Taulm joined the Peacekeeper guild instead.

Four years later, Taulm became a full-fledged Peacekeeper, and five years after that, he found a baby abandoned close to Song-Lu. After some hard detective work, he found the boy’s name was Kivec, and his deceased mother’s maiden name was Vesphir. By this point, he had invested too much time and effort not to be attached and so adopted him. For the first eight (well, seven and a half) years, Taulm had to leave Kivec with Vaka and Buri a lot, busy with his job as Vaka had been during his own childhood. However, after that, Taulm took the kid properly under his wing and tried to be the best parent he knew how to be, though that was far more mentor-like than fatherly; given that he was raising other apprentices at the same time throughout Kivec's childhood, Taulm couldn't help grooming Kivec with the goal of making him a Peacekeeper too.

The path was rougher than expected, perhaps, but eight years after that, Taulm finally took sixteen-year-old Kivec as his apprentice, too. Four years later, Kivec was promoted to a full-fledged Peacekeeper while Taulm was promoted to Senior Peacekeeper at the age of 45. Since then, Taulm has continued to prove himself worthy of his position through diligent work even after the war broke out. During Arrival and Seeds of 8291, Taulm was one of the Peacekeepers mobilized to out the saboteurs, though he was assigned to Koben unlike Kivec who went to Bratkowice. In Harvest 8291, he helped defend Song-Lu successfully from the mutiny of the corsairs and the Kingdom’s attack. During the Reign of Fools festivities, he went down to Estraude with Orlan, Kivec, and other Peacekeepers to arrest the then Consul. He again journeyed to Estraude with Kivec and others to attend the Emerald Masquerade held by the current Consul, returning home to Song-Lu afterward.

Updates: 
He journeyed to Ostzepter with Kiv and a group of others, helping to bring the tower back on the air. It was no surprise that he and Kiv went to the Magic and Machinery Fair in Koben again as they do every year, enthusing over new technology and such with like-minded fellows. He faced the Midsummer crisis in Song-Lu with his expected grim determination, working with other Peacekeepers and Imperial Guards alike in order to try and bring those responsible to justice. Like Kiv, he was unhappy about the leaked information regarding the former Consul's crimes but he thought it was at least good that the Empire got some closure about it after losing their beloved prince.

When the gemstone hail came to the land, he and Kiv gathered up these precious potential alchemical supplies for using and experimenting with. He was rattled by the attack of Adabrene causing so much suffering throughout the city, though he was certainly relieved to find out that Kiv wasn't part dark elf, as they had never known much about his father's identity. After doing his best to defend during the onslaught itself, he also committed himself to rebuilding from the damage. While he was wary of the alliance with East Miras, he viewed it more optimistically than his son and was hoping to build bridges in his own way. However, he became concerned about losing his edge in his Peacekeeper job due to age. While his last few cases have still been successfully solved, there were a whole lot more close calls than he felt comfortable with, especially considering other people's lives being potentially on the line. He decided to retire rather than put anybody else at further risk, but he is still of course determined to contribute to his community in what ways he can. Although he thrived in the fast action and thought required in his detective duty, he is also finding peace (ha) in giving back to the city in a slow and steady way. 

Family:
Main OC: Kivec Vesphir || adoptive son || Ascetic || 26 || Taulm cares for Kivec as if he was his very own flesh and blood. While he is very proud of how far Kivec has come, he still cannot entirely dispel the lingering fear deep down that Kivec is more like his biological father than desirable. Taulm pretty much always calls Kivec by his full first name and not "Kiv" as most others do. Some that know generally about the circumstances under which Taulm took Kivec think that he's Taulm's bastard son, those circumstances being that Taulm got Kivec seemingly out of the blue with no prior expressed desire to get a kid and took him on even though he didn't have time to be a proper parent as shown by how he left Kivec with his own parents half the time for the first several years. The vast majority of people believe the truth, though, that Kivec is his adoptive son, no blood relation at all, that he found abandoned as a baby. Almost nobody knows the whole story, though; Taulm has been extremely careful to keep everything he found out about Kivec's birth parents under wraps because he did not want Kivec growing up in an atmosphere generated by people around him knowing that his father was a murderer and his mother was insane. There is only a very small handful of people that he trusts completely that he's told, like his own parents.

NPCs:
Buri Dui'sun || father || Rogue ||
Vaka Dui'sun || mother || Sage ||

Additional Info:
‘Taulm the Calm’ is something many of his friends throughout his life have teasingly called him. He despairs at their lack of originality.
Jinli Cang and Ying Cang were both apprenticed to Taulm before Kiv was and Cui Cang after Kiv. (Taulm also thinks it’s about time for Kiv to get his own apprentice already, but his son doesn’t seem to have a strong desire for one at the moment-- not that Kiv would be against it if a suitable one was found, but he doesn't actively want one.)
He’s a peripheral Fighter, though it pretty much overlaps with his Scout base, having been taught by Seung Lan’hae a mostly defensive style with the end goal of taking one’s distance from the opponent, since he needs range to be useful as a Sniper. It focuses on dodging and blocking and places heavy emphasis on getting out of holds and grapples in ways that don't require one to be physically stronger than the opponent. If forced into offense, the ideal is based on striking fast at painful spots to buy time to get out of short range, which is a pretty way of saying try all the cheap shots and dirty moves you can if you're in a sticky situation.
Although he’s given up on his Wissen Fellowship dream, Taulm is definitely still making innovative guns when he’s got the time. One of the main guns Taulm uses that he made himself is the Katame: :thumb557854059: (Thanks again, 4nimeCub3, for designing this for me! ) He also created a gun disguised as a cane when he turned 50 and takes advantage of his advancing age as an excuse to carry it around sometimes without arousing suspicion even though he can walk just fine without it. In some places, canes are fashionable enough that he doesn't even need his age as an excuse, so he doesn't need to fake weak legs or anything. It is, of course, less powerful than a normal gun as a trade-off for its unconventional structure.
He has a soft spot for babies even though he tends to be awkward about showing it. He'll be the one standing back looking like he wants to have a turn at holding the baby but won't say a word because he's embarrassed.
His favorite food is dim sum from the Breath of Fire Tavern.

RP Preference: (Totally lit RPer here! Sorry, not really into script...) I prefer to RP over Google Docs while OOC chatting/planning/headcanoning in Skype. I am open to past headcanons as long as they make sense for both of our characters, but please note that I headcanon for the purpose of providing background for an RP; headcanoning is certainly fun, but I will be expecting to get into an RP eventually ; u ; As for other RP methods, I am also okay with forums and notes to a lesser extent.

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