Octavian Englle

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## Personality

An odd fellow that stakes his claim on being hard to read, Octavian is the type of man to take everything seriously--but not too seriously. Despite his always-respectful mannerisms toward others, general good behavior where it counts, and a jovial demeanor about him, he’s something of a charlatan and enjoys getting a rise out of others, so long as it doesn’t make him vulnerable. He’s a compulsive liar by definition, but he rarely actually lies about anything that matters--teasing incorrect unimportant details in retellings or throwing out obviously inaccurate facts about himself, or simply heavily exaggerating a statement for humor--but it makes it particularly easy to doubt anything he says, truthful or otherwise, which may or may not be his intention.

He doesn’t especially like being close with people, but he does enjoy being around them; fairly quiet unless he’s throwing in a quip, he’s more of an observer and values the importance of reading a room and keeping in line with it, even if he won’t necessarily change himself for one. He considers his own serious input to be valuable when he knows a subject, and he makes it a point to be as learned on as many things as he can, in turn often deciding himself to be more valuable than not. If there is any consciousness worth maintaining itself beyond death, he wants it to be his.

Octavian is a man very assured in his sense of self, leading him to be of strong composure and with an easy time brushing things off (and making him easy to talk to), but also with a very defined insight into his own views on the world. On one hand, he uses these to justify his interpretation of his faith--the idea that all men are sinful, and it is in recognizing those sins and their effects on others that one finds a purity of the self--and on the other, he uses these as devices to encourage (or refute) others with hard reasoning, especially those on the younger spectrum, who he always wants to ensure know their own potential--or their place.

He wouldn’t view himself as a mentor, though; if anything, he sees himself as a collection of tools working toward a goal, and sees the same of other people. This causes him to be somewhat indifferent in the face of the troubles of others, despite his learned empathy, from the idea that others have simply failed to properly utilize their own tools; but it tends to come back to bite him when faced with his own shortcomings. He doesn’t take well to feeling threatened in his ideals, and he’s easily challenged; and due to both the gravity and the lack thereof that he regularly places in things around him, he has a habit of going to radical extents to prove his point.

## Biography

Born to a bank teller and his wife in the mountains of Javerfer, Ordene, Octavian grew up tugging at the skirt hems of his stay-at-home mother, asking questions about the world, about people, why things worked the way they did, and the correct and proper way to respond to them. His father imbued in him the value of education, and a close following to the New Horizon, but he took his own interpretation of the close relation between those two things, of which he would carry with him through his youth: intelligence led to purity--and he wanted to figure out why.

He spent his boyhood making a nuisance of himself, tailing after upperclassman to adapt their ways and find out what they were learning, studying to become overly-well-spoken for his age in lieu of making emotional connections with his peers, and being excessively cordial with adults and those above him, which tended to mark him as an odd kid who was, in turn, ostracized; but didn’t pay it any mind.

Once out of school, he became a lumberer--there was something that clicked with him about hard labor, about learning tangibly how the world functioned by using oneself as a tool within it, and about the connections he could make with people through that work. Something resonated with him about being perceived as a good, honest worker; was perception equal to purity? But for what more he wanted to learn, Javerfer wasn’t enough, and at 21, he left for Barrenaulde without a word to anyone. He was raised to seek knowledge; his father would understand.

Enrolling in university to study business (chasing ins for future contacts) and theology (his primary interest), he took an apprenticeship in carpentry to help fund the effort, which ended up being his biggest asset as the years passed; working with clients and meeting more people, he began taking on and learning more kinds of work--welding, masonry, shipbuilding--in the effort to make himself the most useful person that anyone in his widening circle knew. Sure, he tended to use and put down others to continue to promote this effort, and his own pursuit of self-benefit didn’t leave him any genuine interest in other people outside of learning to empathize for the sake of good relations, but he was beginning to form his own idea of what purity of the self meant, in choosing to recognize the immorality of his actions.

And then the pneumonia hit, just as he turned 47; it started as a respiratory infection spurned from bronchiolitis, thanks to the fumes from a new chemical he was using on a job, and before he knew it, he’d been in the hospital for over a month. Left with strength sapped as he began to feel his age for the first time, and with weeks of time to self-reflect in the face of death, Octavian trembled for the assurance that his self was pure enough by his own definition for his consciousness to persist as an angel.

When he finally fully recovered, he dropped everything and sought out to become a Fisher, enlisting the help of an old connection to guide him to what he’d have to know. He needed to find out what resided in the Memory Sea, what the memories others left behind entailed, and how closely they resembled his own. He was pure, and he would prove it.

## Trivia

* Was once close childhood friends with Lucius, but hadn’t seen him in almost 20 years prior to becoming a Fisher. Their relationship now is fairly strained resulting from their time apart, and the reasons for it.
* Despite his excessive efforts in his youth, he’s never particularly excelled at anything, nor has anything clicked with him as a passion. He accepts his role as a jack-of-all-trades and has picked up enough new things to remain unafraid of more, and to be realistically patient with himself in learning them. He’s been very laid-back about approaching learning to be a Fisher, especially with the timesink of its pre-education.
* His prior respiratory issues have left him with low (but recovering) stamina and a diminished sense of taste (“Yes, I’m fine, just withering away.”), and he’s had poor vision his entire life (“Stared at the sun too much as a child!”), but otherwise he’s in perfect health with no reliance on medication. Despite this, he prefers the narrative that he has issues with his hearing, so he can have an excuse to tune people out.
* While he isn’t lazy, since pushing 50 he’s come around to the idea of work smarter, not harder. He just needs a bit of an extra push to get into the meat of things.
* Carries a pouch filled exclusively with bundles of tea leaves; he enjoys collecting any varieties he comes across, and holds to the idea that there’s never a bad time for hot tea, especially when enjoyed with others. However, he steeps for far longer than one would normally in order to make up for his taste, which makes his brews fairly unpalatable. If he ever settles down later in life, he’d like to try growing tea.
* He also loves a game of chess; he isn’t particularly good at it, but he has a great poker face. His strategy, as a result, is to try and psych out his opponent enough to have them make a mistake he can capitalize on, because he has no mind for any actually offensive tactics. He’s happy to teach the nearest agreeable (enough) person how to play, provided they (hopefully) don’t see through his tactics (too) quickly.
* Though he has a better part of his face hidden by his glasses and often a coat collar, he’s very expressive, particularly with his brows. He’s rarely seen without glasses, but even then, he’s practically always squinting, making his eyes still difficult to see.