Shepherd Paul Nightingale

Started by Scout, September 19, 2018, 07:54:05 AM

Scout

September 19, 2018, 07:54:05 AM Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 10:46:45 AM by Scout

Name: Paul Nightingale
Age:  27
Gender:  Male

Occupation:  Shepherd
Secondary:  Backup medic (not fully qualified)

Appearance:  Paul has curly brown hair and warm, green eyes. He is tall and lanky, and despite being well into his twenties, something about his demeanor gives him the awkward air of a teenager who's just beginning to feel comfortable in his own skin. He doesn't take pride in his looks but makes an effort to be at least presentable: his clothes are worn and patched, indicating that he comes from a humble background, but they are always clean and tidy.
PlayBy Name:Ben Whishaw
Equipment:  Paul travels light; clothes, toothbrush, a journal, the bare essentials. His most valuable possession is his Bible, dog-eared and bursting with bookmarks.

Initial Personality:  Shepherd Paul Nightingale is a man on a mission, and that mission is to bring God's love to the forlorn outcasts of the verse. Being young and inexperienced, he lacks that tranquil wisdom you often find in older men of the cloth, but his calm and soft-spoken demeanor suggests he's on the right track. Paul can be a little awkward around new people, but he quickly reveals himself to be friendly and warm, with a sense of humor that can be surprisingly snappy. He gives off the impression of not being quite prepared for how exciting things can get in the black.
Underlying Personality:  Because of his sheltered upbringing and mellow nature, it's easy to mistake Paul for more naive than he actually is. In truth he is well aware that not everybody in the verse operates in good faith like he does, but he tries to believe the best of people and refrain from passing judgment. He carries a lot of guilt with him over how things turned out with his brother, and is trying to make amends for it by being as helpful as possible to his fellow man. Sometimes he worries he's not good enough, that he might not deserve to carry the mantle of a shepherd after all. Paul is genuinely compassionate, but has trouble coping with the darkness that lurks in the hearts of all people, including his own.

Known History:  Paul was born on February 25th, 2492, in Rooster's Crossing, Three Hills. He's the son of Begbie Colt and Rose Nightingale; the latter passed away in 2508. He has a twin brother called John.

Him and his brother were taken in by the local order of shepherds after their mother passed away. Paul went on to join them and has spent most of his adult life in the monastery, so there aren't many records about what he's been up to.

John Nightingale, on the other hand, has a criminal record: he is wanted by the Alliance for robbing an allied cargo vessel carrying supplies to a budding settlement in the rim. He's also been implicated in illegal scavenging and smuggling activity. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Other History:  Paul and his twin brother were born and raised in a small settlement called Rooster's Crossing on Three Hills. Although technically Paul was the little brother, being born minutes after John, he always felt like the more mature and level-headed of the two. Their father was a spacer who got engaged to their mother and then promptly disappeared before the children were born, leaving her to raise two sons on her own. It wasn't easy, but Rose Nightingale was supported by the rest of the community, including the small order of shepherds living in a nearby monastery, an order that had lived in the Crossing for decades and helped build the community.

Unification War hit Rooster's Crossing hard. Not because of bombs – the town saw no battle – but because of the scarcity of resources coming in. Medicine was especially hard to come by, with a lot of it going to the Independent fronts. When the boys were sixteen years old, their mother succumbed to tuberculosis after a long period of steady decline in her health. After her death, the local order of shepherds took the boys under their wing. Paul soon found solace in their teachings and grow to love their new home within the monastery walls; for John, however, it was the beginning of a downward spiral. He couldn't adjust to the pious rules of the order, and viewed Paul's acceptance of them as a betrayal. When the Unification War ended, Paul stayed in the monastery to become a shepherd himself, while John left to seek his destiny elsewhere.

The already tense relationship between the brothers declined further over the following years. John was away a lot, making his living in the black, but he visited their home town regularly to drop off supplies. Eventually Paul started to have suspicions that the goods may not have been acquired entirely legally. To ease his mind, he tried to put the community's well-being first, telling himself that life for the people of Rooster's Crossing would be so much harder without the extra resources delivered by John, and that you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. On top of that, he knew John was a difficult person to deal with and hated being told what to do.

It wasn't until John's disappearance that Paul realized it had been a mistake to turn a blind eye his shady activities. After a particularly sour encounter between the twins, John took off as usual, but missed his next planetside visit. And the next. And the next. First Paul grew worried, then he started to blame himself – could he have guided his brother to a better path if he hadn't let himself become so estranged from him?

Paul couldn't stay put after that. He decided to become a wandering shepherd and travel from planet to planet, spreading the words that helped him get through a tough time in his life. He's also hoping to find out what happened to his brother, but it's going to take all his faith and a whole lot of luck – it's a big verse, after all.

Skills:  • Good listener, good at comforting and giving absolution
• Knowledge of the scriptures as followed by his order
• The patience of a saint
• Beautiful singing voice
• First aid skills, basic treatment of the most common injuries and ailments on the rim; looking after his mother made him realize the importance of knowing how to take care of the sick
• Can cook an edible and dare I say tasty meal with meager rations, and generally enjoys domestic chores
Weaknesses:  • Is a pacifist; does not know how to shoot a gun or use his fists, and isn't interested in learning
• Knows nothing about ships other than that the engine keeps them flying somehow and that the pilot has an awful lot of buttons and switches to keep track of
• Bad with technology; the shepherds at the monastery led a very old-fashioned life
• Has spent his entire life on one planet and is not used to the life of a space cowboy
• While he's not completely naive per se, he has a habit of ignoring red flags and bad gut feelings in order to give people the benefit of the doubt


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