Parsem

Hunter Parsem Ibriss (a.k.a. Keen)

To most of the world, Parsem is known as Keen - a Hunter of Norinar, an assassin bound to the will of Holy Zeshema. Parsem is known for his sharp-edged mask.
Parsem is a standoffish young man, nervous and aggressive when outside of his homeland. He is sharp, quick of wit but also prone to conflict. He seeks glory, status, and autonomy, and sees the world as pitted against him. In many ways, Parsem is weighed down and troubled constantly by the trauma of his religion and empire, which has shaped him into a weapon of state violence. He is still coming into his own as a person, still learning to define himself on his own terms rather than under or against authority structures and figures. He still has not turned against the power structures that hurt him, but he isn't a mindless zealot either - he is starting to question some of what has happened to him, but he clings to the sense of persecution and conflict that he was raised with as well. Growth like this can be a slow process, and this is definitely one still in motion. 
Parsem is a friend of Potha Sarana, who met her on his adventures stirring dissent in Loanua.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Parsem was raised in the village of Elligel, a small agricultural village in the Susilo river valley in the general area of Polikitza. They were one of four children of a farming couple, the second youngest child. His father was a retired warrior who worked a larger plot of land than his neighbors, a scion of the local Ibriss clan who farmed maize and hay across the river valley for the city. Parsem may have been wealthier than his neighbors, but it was still a peasant life and it was never enough for his parents. By the time he was old enough to be aware of himself, his father had grown from merely bloviating to actively tyrannical, obsessed with his glory days of violence and treating his children as subordinates rather than true family. Parsem was rolled into the hierarchy, but something in him stirred to resist. He often fought his parents, and was often 'put in his place' for it. Conflict came to define his life. A travelling mystic, when Parsem was 11, helped Parsem connect this feeling to a wider sense of communal struggle against the world during a routine stop in the village. But really, it was all of society that set up that connection. Soon, Parsem was yearning to escape his parents to fight the real monsters, to finally be free of his household and his village that he so resented. He relentlessly trained for that day. 
At age 13 or 14, Parsem fled his household to join a military recruitment caravan, and was taken to the city to sign on as a recruit. He proved himself in the initiation and was able to get a little extra attention; by pure luck, a Hunter of Norinar was attending to look for recruits, and saw the material for zeal and violence in the teen (who would have been too young to really make a front line troop anyways). And so, Parsem was taken into the Hunters of Norinar. 
The next five years were hell for Parsem, who was subjected to what was basically purifying torture. He was broken down and rebuilt, not as Parsem but as Keen, weapon of the Empire. He was told that he had actually died, drowned in riverwater and resurrected as a revenant of the empire. He knew that this wasn't physically true (though he was half-drowned ritually), but he felt its emotional truth in his bones. He was assigned to Virtue (a woman by the name of Zovesna, who was a higher-ranked Hunter) as an apprentice, and sent out of the Empire to do battle with the world. Virtue was a very different person, a woman who was curious about the world and interested in exploring it as a Hunter. She worked to try and open Parsem's heart to new possibilities and to calm his hate, but she found that, as an authority figure who disciplined the boy, her influence sometimes pushed him away rather than brought him in. Their's was not a healthy relationship, but despite the institutionally normalized military abuse she was somehow a more understanding parent than his actual parents. 
Virtue, realizing that her young ward's hatred could never be broken by her own top-down efforts, eventually came up with a cunning plan: to assign Parsem as a guide and coordinator to a well-meaning foreign girl, Potha Sarana. Virtue judged Potha well, and Parsem has substantially softened in the following year. When the two visited Parsem's village and family, the two actually became friends. He is growing in a new direction now, even if he is still burdened with hatred and fear.

Alignment

Lawful Neutral/Evil

Current Location

Polikitza

Species

Dryad

Year of Birth

1999 ME 21 Years old

Pronouns

He/him

Eyes

Black, round

Hair

Yellow star-like flower in dark green vines

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale grey-brown mangrove wood, vines

Height

5'8"

Belief/Deity

Zesheko

Aligned Organization

Hunters of Norinar

Other Affiliations

• Holy Zeshema
• Zesheko