Appearance

Physical Description

Cronk is very tall due to his incredibly long legs, making his torso look short in comparison. He posesses a lean body with a slender silohuette.

Body Features

Since he's a relatively new model, Cronk has sleek metal plating which contours around his wooden musculature. Wood fibres control his finer flexible movements, but hardy oil-filled hydraulic systems power his robust legs.

Facial Features

Cronk o' Dar's face is a unique design of his own, which he adopted with the help of Forge-Face before leaving Two Fang for the last time. These modifications were made to his face and body over the course of many years, and most other warforged have undergone similar changes as well, for their own reasons.

Identifying Characteristics

Cronk o' dar can be identified by his long blue silken ponytail which sits on the top of his head. It's always in peak condition because he takes good care of it by brushing and dyeing it frequently.
His eye-line is fairly recognisable as well, because of its particular shape.

Physical quirks

Upon close inspection, the plating on his hands and arms are bent and chipped at unusual angles due to constant nervous fidgeting. His overall look is quite different from the typical warforged build because he's undergone many aesthetic changes through surface mods.

Apparel & Accessories

His typical outfit is sparse on clothing because any unecessary bulk gets in the way and weighs him down. It mostly consists of leather straps that hold up his skirt, the garter for his pistol's holster, his pauldrons, and the sling which stores his greatsword and other larger guns. Additional outfits may also include slim dresses or a dark suit and tie.

Specialized Equipment

He is capable of injesting food and drinks for the purpose of converting into usable oil, via the pressure cooker in his chest. This feature was implemented as a way for scouts to be able to sustain themselves on limited resources far away from their home bases. A wide field of vision allows him to see much more than the average person, which makes him a good scout. Additionally, implemented within his vision is a simple HUD which shows him the true distance of objects.

Mentality

Education

Has recieved no formal education.

Employment

Has been enslaved in a warforged army, and was then sold to a merchant lord in Ushad to be used for bullying dissedents, assassinating non-ally tribes, population control, reinforce important trade routes (caravan protection), keeping the city clear of beasts, scouting for danger, and generally to exert control over the surrounding desert people.

Accomplishments & Achievements

He's been the quartermaster of the Valenthe for several weeks, and has maintained the position through his hard work. Additionally, he has also successfully taught Eric how to read and do math, and Occam how to read and interpret poetry.

Failures & Embarrassments

He feels like he's failed Dart because he didnt do anything to prevent his corruption, despite being friends. He feels embarrassed about the fact that he took quite a long time to fully understand his situation in Ushad compared to other warforged, and wishes that he could have been more perceptive-- or even willing to acknowledge what they had been doing all those years.

Mental Trauma

Cronk feels an immense amount of guilt regarding his actions, and grieves over all of that needless slaughter he's participated in. He spends many lonely hours of the night moping over it, and doesn't know how he could possibly begin to truly make amends with that. Sometimes he feels like he's being "haunted" by it, even after all he's tried to do to bury it behind him. To cope, he blames the conditioning, and blames his upbringing. Deep down, he knows that isn't exactly true but isn't willing to admit that he is possibly at fault for not stepping up.

 
Cronk's experience as a lost soul floating through the afterlife was especially traumatic because his greatest fear boils down to loneliness. during that entire time, he was alone and had no recourse. Even though he is alive now, remnants of his broken state of mind are still lingering in his head, making his daily life difficult to navigate with everything he'd known feeling so strange now.

Intellectual Characteristics

Cronk does not have a notably high or low intellect. he can appear to be quite knowledgable at times, but that is mostly the result of being able to speed-read non-fiction. He is very uninformed on anything that isn't related to battle, guns, mechanics, or music.

Morality & Philosophy

Cronk's morality is very muddled, and he seems to decide on what is appropriate to do in each morally challenging dilemma on a case-by-case basis. He does not follow any codes, and just goes with his gut feeling. However, he will still prohibit himself from hurting certain people even if he absolutely had to.

A core philosophy of his is that everyone is capable of making their own decisions in life.

person.sexuality

Cronk is GAY. A need to be loved and allowed to express his own love for another are the things which he yearns for the most, and a healthy sexual experience is just one of many kinds of physical manifestations of that to him. He lacks a natural sexual drive but instead feels a desire to participate in sexual activity for the sake of understanding and exploring things while catering to and having fun with prospective partners. He's very monogamous and can be easily wooed by classic romantic gestures.

He feels a sort of repression of his own sexuality and romantic desires, not because of his unwillingness to accept being homosexual, but because his sentimental wants are rarely ever considered by others, including people he's had history with in the past.
 
He has had a limited and rather unfulfilling sexual and romantic history.

person.gender_identity

Identifies as male and presents fairly androgynously, sometimes leaning more masculine or feminine at times. This is something Cronk is entirely accepting of, but regularly is treated weirdly for it. In regards to his relationship to gender, he has been able to feel kinship and solidarity with specifically transmasc individuals like Buck and Hutch through shared experiences.

Taboos

No matter how minor the action may be, if he feels like he's being devalued, degraded, or disrespected, he will take it personally and be offended. He's actually quite sensitive, but will blow up at you first before showing that he's been hurt. Cronk really also does not like it when anyone refers to him as The Dead End Trigger. Despite this, sometimes he still regrettably uses the title when it's convenient to do so. Cronk is very anti-racist because of the way he's been treated as a warforged. He understands that there are nuances to the topic due to the turbulent nature of the world, but takes extra offense when its a slight against warforged or fellow mechanical individuals.

Known Languages

Common and scout shorthand

Personality

Motivation

Cronk o' Dar is motivated by his need to prove that he does not need to be used as a mindless killing machine or a statement piece to have any sort of value in the eyes of others. He wants to pursue his long term goals in a way that prioritizes his own wants and needs-- which often involves the wants and needs of others who he cares deeply about.
His regret over his actions as a slave soldier under orders pushes him to want to somehow give back to communities that may need help, but this comes into conflict with his personal needs as well which prevents him from acting out solely in good faith and charity.

Quotes & Catchphrases

Being The Dead End Trigger, he has been known to say things such as "You've met your Dead End...", but it seems like he says it out of habit more than anything else at this point.

Savvies & Ineptitudes

As a warforged, he has all hours of the day available to him. this leads to a nearly neverending chase for a cure for boredom, which means that he has been able to pick up some skills over the years. Cronk is able to read and write in common, as well as scout shorthand and hand signals. Since he's a casual music enjoyer as well, he is decently procifient in piano and can really "bust it down" on the dancefloor, being extra acrobatic. Being a fighter all his life, Cronk is very savvy with firearms and general dex-based combat.
When it comes to ineptitudes of his, he is physically not strong at all. Cronk is very bad with children as well, because he's never been one before and doesn't quite get them. This inability to take care of adolescents and small children became especially apparent when he took care of Mist for a few years. Religion and the arcane are things that are also well beyond his understanding.

Likes & Dislikes

Cronk is very fascinated by any creature or humanoids who might be fluffy or soft and squishy, and takes great interest in creatures such as Cat. He has recently installed taste sensors, which has allowed him to explore the world of fine dining. This has lead to the discovery that Cronk prefers dark chocolates, coffee, and biscotti snacks because of their bitter and rich flavours. He deeply despises the colour orange because of what he associates it with, and will avoid it when he can. He HATES bugs and is extremely scared of them because of a few instances of bugs crawling between his plating that he has never emotionally recovered from. If he saw an orange bug he would probably explode.

Virtues & Personality perks

Cronk is a fairly pleasant individual to converse with if the situation is not already heated. He will earnestly try to make connections when he wants to, and does deeply care about personal relationships. His need to distance himself from the cold, unfeeling stereotype that's attributed to warforged and his newfound freedom makes him really think about the importance of leaning into one's own passions uninhibited. Consequently, doing things for love rather than principle is something that he really believes in.

Vices & Personality flaws

Even with all his hobbies and skills in mind, he still doesn't always manage to stave off boredom for long enough. This makes him irritable and rude to others a lot of the time. This makes him a hotheaded person who is willing to escalate situations if they dont go the way he wants them to.

Holding accountability

Cronk does try to be honest to close friends but he will lie or omit information to avoid confrontation. He's also not very honest with himself either so anything he says could be questioned, sometimes making him very hypocritical.
This dishonesty manifests itself through his inability to comprehend and make sense of the situation he was "born" into. On one hand, if Cronk chooses to take full accountabilty, he will be admitting to being a major contributor to the mass slaughter of a lot of innocent people-- proving that he has been of the monstrous sort this whole time. On the other hand, if he places the blame on the others who simply told him to carry out these orders, that would mean that he's invalidating his own sense of agency and humanity, reducing himself, albeit only his past self as not fully sentient or capable of making his own decisions. What causes him to seem so dishonest is how both of these statements are equally true to him, but are inherently contradictory.

Bad habits, self harming behaviour

His frequent picking of his arm plating does get quite bad sometimes, as it will go from a subconcious self-soothing behaviour to something done excessively because it makes him feel like garbage.

Uncharacteristic of a typical warforged, smoking is one of his more obscure vices. The effects of nicotine don't do anything for him but the way the smoke makes his internals feel terrible and give him a backwards sense of comfort/discomfort that he resorts to when in complete desperation. Two Fang Gutter Snakes frequently would smoke for aesthetic reasons, so this learned behaviour is deeply ingrained in him. Typically not done in the presence of friends or people he respects, so most characters (excluding Mist ) haven't been aware of this habit until recently. The cigarette hand roll tin that he uses has sentimental value because it was given to him by Dart after he had quit smoking. After being resurrected from his 514 long years in purgatory, Cronk has gone back to smoking regularly because the action itself is so loaded that it grounds him in reality and provides some kind of reassurance.

Diagnostic overview, CPTSD

Cronk's long and violent past has cumulated into a seemingly insurmountable barrier between his current place in the world and where/who he would much rather be. The constant percieved reinforcement of his feelings of inadequacy and guilt makes him feel like he does not belong with any group of people, no matter how badly he needs the connections. With every relationship he has there is always an underlying sense that he either is unfit to be with the other person, even with those he is most close with, like Mist. This aligns with a depersonalized sense of identity because his perception of himself and where he should be are both severely misaligned and constantly at odds with each other.

 
Dissociation, on the other HAND, is present when he experiences his hand tremors. His hand tremors are a physical manifestation of his mental conflict, because its also accompanied by a rush of thoughts, and an onslaught of anxiety. Oftentimes there will be something that Cronk sees or experiences in campaign that will make him think something along the lines of "oh no, this is just like (...)" which is an example of this kind of "flashback". instances of this happening can range from being simple misses, or prolonged bouts of guilt-fueled depression.

 
 
Death as a concept has not been something Cronk has allowed himself to grapple with in the past. This apathy towards death in general and his own final future death, whenever that might be, AND combined with his negative self-image ultimately leads to suicidal ideation driven by these things adding up. in recent times, his view on this has changed slightly because of his newfound fear of dying. But, the thoughts of a deserved, early death by whatever means still linger in his head because that doesn't go away so easily.

 
This fear of dying links back to a reluctance to face judgement. When getting his cards read by ondroc, he was only able to really listen to the negatives of the judgement card. This is caused by the toxic guilt that plagues him. With no proper support system in place for warforged in his kind of situation, he's been trying to reconcile these feelings on his own for the most part. This is ineffective in actually addressing the root of the issue which is part of why he struggles with a depersonalized self.

 
The jumpiness at danger, boredom, irritability, and addictive self-destructive behaviour are all things that align with symptoms of CPTSD that can be easily identified by anyone who knows him.

Personality Quirks

When he speaks, he uses his body language to supplement his speech. It might be hard for someone who's not very perceptive to understand his feelings when observing him in emotional states, because of his lack of an expressive face. During combat when highly distressed, he will have trouble keeping his arms steady enough to hold a gun one-handed. Similarly, if he is left with nothing to do and is in any amount of stress, he will pick at and scrape the grooves in his forearms with his hands as a way of idly "cleaning" for a form of self-comfort.

Hygiene

Cronk keeps himself very clean out of habit. He believes that neat surroundings and a well-maintenanced body lends well to efficiency in everyday life. He spends a lot of his free time cleaning himself and his weaponry to ensure everything is in tip-top shape. When he allows himself to slip into disrepair, its a visible indication that he is very sad.

Social

Birthplace

A major dwarven forge

Current Residence

A rented condominium in Assandria

Contacts & Relations

Cronk o' Dar is a former Gutter Snake, and has since renounced the family he'd found in them. He considers Oskar, Tarvenius Belhor Jr, Tess Terrenarrow, Gladia Fowler, Eric, Leonard, Mist , and Occam to be his friends.

• Deep down, he is only now starting to realise that he's quite fond of Leonard-- enough to confront and slightly antagonize Nulara for also being interested. He enjoys his company and friendship because of the mutual respect he feels between them, finding comfort in how they can converse as equals. Still unsure of what exactly to do with how he feels, Cronk still opts for simply getting to know him and trying to spend time together. after his time in jail, he's had quite a bit of time to mull over his true feelings. the time away has only intensified his heartache, and leaves him in conflict because he believes that Leonard doesn't truly know how bad of a person he is. secretly, he hopes that Leonard's efforts to free them from jail is proof of a deeper mutual connection. After being briefly reunited with him, he feels weird about him still, and can't bear to have much of a conversation with him.

• Tarvenius Belhor Jr has been a reliable friend to Cronk as they've grown to know each other over time, and he feels like Tarvent's emotional vulnerability is something that Cronk can appreciate how they can confide in each other.

• Oskar is incredibly helpful to Cronk and they bond over being two of the only gun nuts around. Oskar provides cronk with guns to testout at no cost, and they are very amicable towards each other as they both enthuse over these things whith much excitement.

• Eric has been Cronk's friend ever since he surrendered on the top deck of the boat after being fished out of the water. Forgiving him for threatening belisarius's life, Cronk spent a lot of time teaching Eric how to read and do mathematics. Cronk finds a lot of satisfaction from being able to come up to Eric to speak about important matters because of how knowledgable he's already become by now.

• Cronk has helped out Tess Terrenarrow on multiple occasions thinks of her like a young adult who desperately needs help. He feels quite bad for her but does enjoy playing cards with her and only wishes for the best outcome for Tess Terrenarrow.

• Mist was once sort of his foster child for a couple years while they were living in the Assyrian capitol. He doesn't really see it this way and definitely would not consider himself a father but he kinda knows that Mist thinks of him that way. He cares about her, but since she's grown up more he's not been treating her the same as he used to. Not like he was a great father figure in the first place. However, he will still competitively try to dismantle locks faster than she can pick them.

• Gladia Fowler has always been a strange person to Cronk, but they bond over girly stuff. He does her hair and makeup sometimes, and they gossip on occasion. Gladia Fowler trusts him a lot, and has given him all of her savings so he can manage it instead.

• He would also include Caul as his enemy. He may be dead, but with how people have reported literal hauntings of him, Cronk has not been able to let go of his hatred for him and what he believes he represents. Caul continuing to be a part of Cronk's life reminds him of a part of himself he would rather not be forced to confront.

• While he would not refer to Jimmy as his enemy at all, they have disliked each other in the past. however, now that Jimmy has been released from the brig and has been making an effort to change for the better, Cronk has begun to feed proud of him for being able to take that step.

• Dart is Cronk's ex-best friend, and he idolizes who Dart used to be back when they were closer. He still admires the image of him in the distant past that he remembers, still missing what they once had. He wants to be mad at him for losing sight of his dream but feels he can't tear away his biases from who Dart is now. Unable to completely let go of these emotions, Cronk ran away. It was only through Dart's collaboration with The Gutter Snakes that he began to realize how the gang had been corrupting himself and Dart's values. Dart's lies and disingenuousness was something he couldn't forgive him for. Cronk's first love has since been shattered by that revelation and he knows that whatever could have been is lost now.

Honorary & Occupational Titles

He has his own self-appointed title o' Dar, but is also infamously known as The Dead End Trigger by people in certain circles and those unfortunate enough to know the name through more deadly means.

Wealth & Financial state

Pretty comfortable financially, for an adventurer. Gladia entrusts him with all of her money because he advised that she let him keep all of it (except for some pocket change for emergencies). He uses most of this money for providing for the crew, and getting himself nice things sometimes.

Religious Views

For all of his life he has had a rudimentary understanding of belief systems as a whole, but after being put through purgatory, which felt like torture to him, Cronk has found a desperate interest in finding his faith for closure in the afterlife. Most do not consider that warforged are capable of being in an afterlife, but with the extraplanar existence of Caul, and his own firsthand experience, Cronk knows death may not be the end, which is terrifying.

Social Aptitude

Cronk is fairly sociable, and has no problem talking to people in typical situations. Because he is comfortable talking to most people he will also do things such as lie or intimidate. When a situation starts getting out of control he is likely to threaten violence or spit insults. Cronk might seem like a level-headed and grounded individual when he's in a fine mood, but internally he is very insecure. To hide this weakness, when he feels hurt he will come off as more angry than saddened. If he begins to think about what he's done and regrets his actions he will genuinely try to apologize (typically a few days or less afterwards). Additionally, he gets chatty when he's bored.

Mannerisms

His hands and body are used a lot while he speaks. His actions are not super exaggerated though, so only people who are extra perceptive or have known him for a while would understand his true emotions.

Hobbies & Pets

Cronk has a pet cat named Cat who he loves very much. He likes to talk to Cat whenever no one else is in the room, and tends to get carried away and have full one-sided conversations with him.

During the jailtime he and the others had endured, he spiralled a little bit and became close friends with a fat brown rat named Rat.

His hobbies include reading, dancing, engaging with music, cleaning and organizing. He's dabbled in many activities throughout his life because of how much free time he has.

Speech

Cronk's voice is medium-to-low and has a very nice and smooth tone. He speaks with lots of expression, and is capable of laughing and crying. Occasionally, when he screams in fear (for example, when sighting a bug), he might let out a high pitched beep WITH the scream. Similarly, when he is genuinely happy, he might also beep instead of a giggle or similar sound. His accent is hard to place, and isn't easily identified. When he gets very angry, he tends to revert to using Two Fang slang, even referencing being "The Dead End Trigger" despite his current distaste for the name.