Ishmael

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Ishmael is the god of plants, healing, and peace. He is one of the calmer deities, and dislikes conflict, whether it be between mortals or the deities themselves.. He was formerly a mortal soldier and achieved divinity through an Ambrosia Flower when he was near death. Ishmael also has the moniker of Salad Warrior, courtesy of Leo.

## Appearance:

Ishmael usually stays in his “mortal” form. He stands about 5’5 with a strong but slim build. He looks to be in his late teens/early twenties and has short, light brown hair styled in a quiff with a round face and rosy cheeks. His eyes are a bright, yellow-green color. Ishmael bears a large scar on his chest and back, right where his heart would be, almost as if he has been impaled. He wears a tan wool poncho with darker brown patterns on the shoulders with a dark brown undershirt and black pants. He’s usually barefoot.

## Personality:

Ishmael is a kindhearted individual who puts the needs of others before his own. He cares about those around him, especially his inner circle. He works hard to help others, often to the point where he forgets to help himself. He’s a peacemaker (surprise surprise) and doesn’t like conflict. Ishmael will make every effort to diffuse a situation peacefully, and if it does turn to violence he tends to take a backseat and count it as a personal failure because he wasn’t able to resolve it. Emotionally, Ishmael is quick to put out a positive front, even when he doesn’t feel that positive himself, especially when he’s around people who care about him. This often leads to him bottling up his negative emotions and never releasing them. Because of this, it’s difficult for him to fully open up to others partly because he doesn’t want them to worry about him, and partly because it’s painful for him to dredge up old memories.

## Powers/Weapons:

Ishmael has power over plants, meaning he can grow and control them at will. He usually uses them as a form of entanglement for his enemies since he tries not to cause bodily harm unless he has to. When treating non-life threatening wounds of mortals, Ishmael will often wander away to “find” herbs that he grew himself five seconds ago instead of using his healing power. He can heal most wounds short of death without the aid of herbs or other medicinal supplements, but this tends to take a lot out of him as he’s transferring his energy into the victim. He avoids using this skill on mortals because it can give them side affects. With children, however, he’ll use whatever means he has at his disposal to save them. Ishmael’s most powerful ability is his peace circle. It remains active at all times. As one can deduct from the name, it’s an area around Ishmael about five feet in diameter that has calming effects over all who enter its plane. Even though it’s always active, it doesn’t have much potency when used passively. Ishmael can control the radius and intensity of his peace circle, and it’s possible for him to pacify armies because of this. If pressed, the peace circle has potential to put its targets to sleep, or at least make them drowsy. He cannot move the peace circle, which means he’s always standing in the center of it.

## Other:

Creator of the Bushbeast species and has an assistant by the name of Shiloh

### Backstory:

Ishmael grew up in the shadow of his father, a successful war general. While he displayed very un-militaristic qualities, his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become just as powerful as he had been. So, he shipped Little Ish off to boot camp, which spat him out about six years later. His father had died in that time period and Ishmael inherited his estate. Almost immediately after he graduated military school, the country was dragged into war. He was drafted in, and because of his previous training, was given a decent rank. He soon climbed the chain of command but repeatedly refused anything higher than Staff Sergeant. Even with this title, he unofficially promoted another soldier in his place and instead became a warrior-medic, treating any and every soldier on the battlefield. He quickly gained a reputation in both armies as a neutral party and became a sort of diplomat between the two, negotiating prisoner exchanges and working tirelessly for some semblance of peace. He was just about to reach a breakthrough when the opposing army’s general died suddenly, and a much more bloodthirsty one took his place. The negotiations fell apart and the opposing army prepared a bayonet charge. Ishmael was mortally wounded and left for dead next to a suspicious flower. He tried to eat it because he thought it looked poisonous and would kill him faster than bleeding out in the forest floor. It turned out to be an Ambrosia Flower, and he was resurrected. He used his newfound powers to incapacitate the army, and went on his merry way after torturing the enemy general for a week.

### Domain:

The aggressively overgrown estate that he inherited from his father. A giant tree now grows in the manor, making it a literal tree house. The forest itself will defend the domain if someone were to attack it.

### Other Fluff:

He is the inventor of the Food Tower™️.

Because of his experiences in wartime, he has PTSD that can be triggered by combat situations or from high stress. He manages it pretty well with his peace circle that calms him down when he starts going downhill, but he can’t heal himself from it. It will flare up from time to time and will cause him to isolate himself for hours or weeks on end.