Mateus Brylamain
Mateus Brylamain (a.k.a. "The Unhallowed Son")
Meet Mateus Amadeus Brylamain, the only child of the head of the Brylamain lumber company, and more infamously, the boy responsible for the downfall of his hometown Maven Peak.
Mateus never knew a life of normalcy. Mateus was close with his eccentric mother, but was often neglected by his father, and ridiculed by the people of his town for his awkward behavior and weak physical strength, Mateus couldn't help but feel completely and utterly alone in the world.
It wasn't until Mateus met Severin Brom that he knew a life full of joy and hope. However, after a series of deceit, manipulation, and lies, Mateus lost the one true relationship he held dear.
He had let out a deep, dark power planted inside of him many years ago. A power far stronger than what was expected. And unfortunately, the town of Maven Peak suffered the wrath of Mateus Brylamain.
He had been vanquished by a hero, and was wrote off in history as a villain. He grew bitter and angry towards the world that ostracized him, and the gods that looked away during his time of need.
Mateus is a person who is hard to get close to. He's quick to anger and violence and keeps everyone at a distance. But if you get close enough, you will be able to see him for who he truly is: a lost soul, hurt from betrayal and being forgotten. A man who desperately wants to feel the warmth and love that was denied to him so many years ago, but is too frightened to let anyone close.
Perhaps it would be easier for the world to keep thinking you're the villain. Maybe it'd be easier to just give up and disappear from the world.
Or maybe, just maybe, there is a small part of you that wants to push to do good in the world, whether they recognize it or not.
Pushing to finally redeem yourself and be free of the demons that haunt you to this day.
Maybe the tale of Mateus Brylamain does not have to end just yet.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Mateus is of average height with a lean build, weathered by the effects of dark magic and necromancy. As he continues to adventure across the Redd Isles, he has gained more muscle mass than he previously had back in Maven Peak.
Body Features
Mateus' body is riddled with scars, some old, some new. Additionally, the veins across his hands and arms have transformed into an ominous purple.
Facial Features
Mateus has a slightly hooked, beak-like nose that he inherited from his father. Mateus also shares his father's downturned, tired eyes.
What Mateus inherited from his mother was her pointed ears, thick eyebrows and eyelashes, as well as her dislike for smiling.
Identifying Characteristics
Mateus has a large scar across the bridge of his nose, a snow-white loc of hair that falls over a good chunk of his face, and a striking purple eye peering through his mordant mane.
Physical quirks
Mateus' skin, once a magnificent olive color, has started to fade and turn a light-grayish hue due to the effect his magic has on his body. Similarly, his left eye has transformed from a muted grey into a vibrant violet hue.
Special abilities
While he is a bit of a novice at physical combat, Mateus has an extraordinary ability to infiltrate the minds of his enemies. Mateus often takes advantage of his victim's fears, insecurities, and doubts in order to get his way.
Apparel & Accessories
With his adventuring gear, Mateus prefers darker, muted colors. He is most commonly seen sporting a black short-sleeve turtleneck shirt, baggy black pants, and (you guessed it) black boots.
Upon his right shoulder rests a large, spiky pauldron branded with a large purple glass eye. The eye is unusual in the fact that many crew members of the Leviathan claim that it follows them wherever they walk.
On Mateus' left hand is a spiked metal gauntlet, with which he usually handles his sword. On his right hand is a lightweight, fingerless black leather glove tightened to his wrist with what seems to be a friendship bracelet. With his right fingers exposed, Mateus finds it easier to play instruments, cast spells, and touch the minds of his victims.
Specialized Equipment
Mateus has a large scar stretching from the bottom of his abdomen, all the way across his stomach. This scar was given to him by Severin Brom during their fight for control of Maven Peak. This scar is special due to the fact that when Mateus commands the Arms of Hadar, the skin of his wound comes undone and release dark, fleshy tendrils that attack his target.
Mental characteristics
Gender Identity
Mateus is a transgender man, having transitioned from female to male sometime during his adolescence.
Education
All his life, Mateus was homeschooled, never stepping foot in the public schoolhouse of Maven Peak. He was taught by the best tutors his father could afford on the core subjects. Between his sessions with his tutor, Mateus often spent his time in his father's extensive library.
Employment
As of right now, Mateus is currently employed as a member of the leviathan, specializing in interrogation and espionage.
Morality & Philosophy
Mateus has a very "the ends justify the means" attitude.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Mateus has a longtime romantic relationship with the human Severin Brom, having known him even before he was presented himself as a man. With him, Mateus had truly felt some semblance of peace. Severin has faced the world with Mateus, helping him accept his identity and realize his own self-worth. It is worth nothing, however, that the two haven't formally spoken since the Maven Peak incident.
As for friends, Mateus has few due to his rather antisocial nature. The closest person Mateus would consider a "best friend" is his older half-brother, Gerath. Gerath and Mateus became close growing up under their strict, controlling parents. It was a symbiotic relationship, where each brother acted as a supportive figure and anchor when needed. When Gerath died, Mateus lost all of that.
There was also his former suitor, Reginald Boslif. Reginald was the rather well-off heir to a massive mining company, and was arranged to marry Mateus by his parents due to his wealth and power. Mateus wrote to Reginald often during their "relationship," but it's worth noting that this was out of obedience towards his parents and not towards Reginald.
Family Ties
Mateus' mother, Lucia, was like a ghost that wandered the hallways of their massive home. As a child, the woman was a mystery to Mateus. They rarely spoke to each other, excluding times where she scolded or lectured him to act more "like our lord commands." As he grew older, he avoided her the best he could, put off by the way she would absent-mindedly float through the house, muttering quietly to herself.
Where Mateus felt like he spoke to little to his mother, he felt like he spoke too much to his father. The man was a constant presence over Mateus' shoulder, dictating his every move, his every decision, his every thought.
Religious Views
Mateus was raised to worship a rather obscure god from Tera's pantheon
Wealth & Financial state
Mateus comes from a very well-off family, with the Brylamains having owned a successful lumber company for generations. Unfortunately, after the incident, none of that wealth went to him. Being employed by Kestis as a crew member of the Leviathan, Mateus now lives modestly, a far cry from the life he was used to.
Once the heir to a massive fortune, years of manipulation and cultish intervention led to his corruption. Now, with his mind split and his soul fractured, he travels this world, chained and vindictive.
View Character Profile
Alignment
Chaotic Neutral
Honorary & Occupational Titles
The few who have seen, survived, and remember the events of the Maven Peak incident often have a lot to say about Mateus Brylamain. On a few accounts, through whispers and hushed tales, he has been referred to as:
"The Unhallowed Son, wicked Herald of the unknowable, master of minds, the calamity of Maven Peak."
Age
22 years old
Birthplace
Maven Peak, southern coast of the Solveisian Duchy
Children
Current Residence
The Leviathan
Gender
Male
Eyes
Purple (R) Grey (L)
Hair
Black
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Olive
Height
5 feet 7 Inches
Weight
132 pounds
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[ i refuse to forget ]
As an employee of the leviathan, I am in the business of acting first and asking questions later. I receive a job, and I do it. If I need to steal, I steal. If I need to kill, I’ll kill. If I need to bleed, I’ll bleed. At first, I thought it to be simple, completely black and white. I found some comfort in that, after spending so long living in shades of gray, an ephemeral zone between the pillars of morality in which I drifted aimlessly. I joined the leviathan in order to forget the life I had left behind, the lives I had taken, and the lives I had forever destroyed. For a while, it was an escape, and I enjoyed it. But the gods aren’t in the business of mercy. They never have been.
At first, the whispers of the past were subtle.
If you lived the life I had, you’d learn to be more perceptive than most. You’d learn that one fatal utterance from your mouth can set your father into a fit of rage, and the slightest furrow of his eyebrow would indicate whether or not you’d have to run and hide. You’d learn to memorize the slight tics and spasms your mother would exhibit when she was starting to have another one of her episodes, so you’d be prepared to call her helper. Even now, years after you think you’ve left that part of your life behind you, you still notice how people squirm.
I noticed that merchant woman, sitting across from me at that table in the bar, staring at me with a quiet disturbance, as if she could see the souls of those I have taken breathing down my neck. I noticed the slightest twitch in Nyx’s finger, slowly creeping upon the hilt of their sword whenever I raised my voice. I noticed the trepidation in my party member’s eyes, people I understood to be my friends, as I held that book in my hands after they began to learn what I did, after glimpses of my former self started to slip through more often than I’d hoped. Alton, a man I learned to be the son of nobles, consumed by darkness and was ultimately executed for it. The similarities were not lost on me.
When I ran, it was instinctual. I was angry, how could they believe me to be a danger? But could I blame them? No. I myself feared that I would one day repeat the same mistakes, a catastrophic haze of purple mist and tentacles, destroying everything around me and forever changing the course of history. At least then, I would have the foresight to off myself before it could happen again, or at least, run far enough away so I can’t hurt anyone when it happens.
As the world started to become more chaotic and complicated, the past became louder, and unbearably so.
When I sensed that Rowan was in danger, Rowan, who always somehow saw through my facade, I jumped in to try and help, only to be met face to face with the past once again. I saw him, Severin, my love from a past life staring me right in the eye, his father’s sickle in hand, a beastly glare in his eye, exactly how I remember him the last time we’d met. His cold blade plunged into my stomach. That bestial gaze fading away as I went limp. His trembling lips flooded with endless apologies, his tears pouring onto my skin like rainfall as I looked up at him. In that moment, as I was dying, I somehow felt at peace. In the icy cold vacuum of life after death, I wouldn’t have to comprehend the ramifications of what I actually did. The buildings I’ve destroyed, the homes I’ve burned, the twisting mass of entangled limbs that surrounded us, screaming and crying in a fit of insanity. With what I thought would be my final breath, I whispered to him, a whisper almost completely drowned out by the surrounding noise, that I loved him. Sometimes, I wish it stayed that way. Severin living as a hero and knowing that I loved him, and me, dead and forever ignorant.
I don't know why I act the way I do around him right now. I don’t know why I’m so cold towards him when he tries to speak to me, or why his endless apologies fill me with a deep, misplaced rage. I want to go back to the way things were, but I simply don’t think that is possible for us at this point. I am angry. Not only because he did what he had to do, but because of the fact that what could have been a simple life was ripped away from us. Even if we did reconcile, what would happen then? He would slowly wither away with age while I, by myself, still remain here? It is unfair. Why does it have to be so unfair?
No matter how hard I try to avoid it, trouble always manages to find me, and no matter how far I go, I can never seem to outrun the echoes of the past, echoes that fall upon deaf ears, all but my own. I did not understand how it was so hard for me to forgive myself and forget something that most people were unaware of even happening. I have lost all agency in my life. The ability to reconcile with the people I have affected, the people of my home town, has been stripped from my hands, taken away by the watchers. Taken away by the gods. I was given a second chance, but for what?
The logging town off the coast of Solveis, population 3,536 mortal lives, forever affected by a calamity in which I found myself at the epicenter. Me, alone.
I have spent my whole life repenting for my sins, my thoughts, my soul, my entire existence, and now I am done apologizing. I had spent a lifetime of pain and suffering only to be kicked down and forgotten. Am I not a victim? Those who remember or those who remain still hold the same ignorance towards my history and pain. I am looked at with disdain and mortification for what took place in Maven Peak that day, even if it was out of my own hands. My body and my mind were taken from me by my father, yet he is the one who lives in ignorance? It wasn’t only my town that was forgotten, but me, as I was casted out and tossed aside for something I was too young and naive to understand. Was Maven Peak not important enough? Am I not important enough? Why am I still here? Is this my punishment? Is this how I repent?
I was a child, groomed
and beaten
and defiled
invaded
and killed.
Amadeus was the one that MURDERED.
And RUINED.
And MAIMED.
And SPILLED.
AND STILL,
I AM FORCED TO REMEMBER,
WHILE THE REST OF THIS WORLD
FORGETS.
To be forgotten is a cruel fate. It is the universe’s way of telling you that you do not matter. That you are not important. That all of the pain you endured amounts to nothing. At least, that is how I felt whenever I remember that the mere utterance of my town is either met with a blank stare or a drawn sword. I am cursed to remember, a puppet stuck between a paradox of eternal scrutiny or invisibility.
Now, we found him. The shipment manager, mutilated and writhing upon a table, eyes dry of tears and without a mouth to scream. His appearance, as unfortunate and grisly as it was, was not as disturbing to me as what I found in his mind. Inside, I sensed only excruciating pain. Anguish. Torture. It felt familiar. Familiar to one of those souls I left atop Maven Peak. Although no words appeared in my mind, I could feel a deep sense of pleading. Pleading for the pain to stop. It has to stop. I want it to stop. He was suffering. I wanted to help him in the only way I learned could help hopeless cases. I could erase him, wipe him clean off his earth to end his suffering. But what would happen then? Would we just mourn him for a couple of hours before moving on to the next quest? Would his pain and suffering mean nothing to us at all? Will he just become a nameless faceless victim to a tragedy in a scheme he could not even begin to comprehend? NO. I cannot stomach the thought. We cannot just forget. I refuse to forget. I cannot forget any longer.
I am Mateus Brylamain. A revenant of a past the universe is actively trying to erase. I am the risen of Maven Peak. The prophesied unhallowed son. A nomad between life and death. A servant to my repentance. A pirate of the goddamn leviathan.
If I can’t forget these facts, then I can make sure that nobody else ever will.
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