Thane Krios (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spacecancer) wrote2020-01-06 05:10 am
spacecancer) wrote2020-01-06 05:10 am
ooc: abax application
player information.
name: Nu
are you over 18?: ugh yes
personal dw: n/a
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: the scaleless (AIM), scythed (plurk), erashure (at) gmail.com
characters in abax: nope
in character information.
series: Mass Effect
name: Thane Krios
age: 39
sex: M
race: Drell
weight: fuck i have no idea. weighty.
height: 6' 0" (headcanon)
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: n/a
canon point: After the end of Mass Effect 2
previous cr: n/a
history:
Here's a summary of everything in the second game.
Here is some history on his species.
And here is Thane's specific background!
Also, he'll be coming in from a playthrough with a male Commander Shepard who's made all paragon decisions.
personality:
Thane was toted around as ‘The Assassin’ for good reason. He’s introduced as a member of a mysterious new race with a gritty voice, clad in entirely black leather, hopping around, taking names and shooting mercs. In Thane’s words: if killing is an art, he is a master.
But that’s about where we can drop the trope. Thane is far from a sociopath, and he has the hanars’ (more on the hanar in his background links) impeccably civil approach to others, regardless of who he’s speaking to or how they treat him. He’s well aware that assassins don’t have the greatest reputations, and takes it in stride. In fact, he rarely rises to insults, never uses profanity, and hardly ever works to use words for their venom. It’s a jarring contrast to the mercenaries in the rest of the galaxy, who tend to be right in your face and extremely rough around the edges; Thane is distant, rarely showing powerful emotions or letting them influence him, but pleasant and professional. It's actually kind of astounding how calm Thane is unless you really get to know him/really piss him off.
The next oddity that tends to surprise people is his intense spirituality. Deeply religious, Thane prays before and after nearly ever mission, spending much of his personal time in meditation. Shepard’s conversations with Thane are rife with mentions of the soul, morality, and philosophy. While it seems odd for an assassin, it may be more apt to say that drell philosophies can be a little odd, period.
In this way, Thane's personality is invariably linked to his race and culture. For one, the drell have eidetic memory; they remember every detail of their life with perfect clarity and all sensory input at the time, which is a blessing for obvious reasons. It is also a huge influence on Thane’s success as an assassin, as he relives every hit and every mistake several times over. However, it can be difficult to control, and makes negative emotions practically impossible to relinquish; Thane can be both a little too introspective and broody when he’s upset.
Secondly, most drell are much more literal in the concept of a spirit—to Thane, the body and the soul are two separate entities attempting to work in harmony. In this, he feels no guilt over his contracts, because he views his body as a weapon. The person at fault is his employer, much like blaming a shooter instead of his gun. While Thane is nice enough outside of his job, this lack of remorse is a reminder that he can still be a stone-cold killer when the situation calls for it. However, there's an interesting dichotomy between this and his eidetic memory, as being unable to forget everyone he's ever killed slowly grows to be a heavier burden that his soul-body isolation can't totally solve.
Finally, there’s the drell-specific Kepral’s Syndrome. Thane’s mental current state is in large part due to his disability; he adopted a fatalistic view on his body’s lifespan, but tries to do ‘good’ things before he dies. He’s (usually) very accepting and eerily calm about his own death, to the point that he had taken on a suicide mission before Shepard came along (in which he then agreed to another one...). While the thought of death does eat away at him at some level, he hates that it still gets under his skin, and tends to downplay it when speaking to others.
In terms of actual interpersonal skills, there’s the aforementioned politeness, which makes him easy to talk to. However, within Shepard’s crew Thane is one of the absolute worst at actually getting out and socializing (which is impressive). This is partly because if he isn’t praying, he’s meditating. And if he’s not meditating, he’s exercising. Or reading. Or some other very solitary activity. The man rarely gives anyone the opportunity to get past that initial phase of cool civility. For example, Shepard is the first friend he’s made in a decade, and even then Thane still finds it difficult to ask for his help. Thus, while he certainly doesn’t hate the people on the Normandy, Thane is largely a product of his upbringing: he doesn’t even eat with the crew because having his back exposed around that many people makes him uncomfortable. While he’s slowly beginning to accept having others to fight with, the transition from being a lone wolf to a team player is strange (but not unpleasant) to him. Once he's actually friends with someone, Thane does lighten up/is pretty friendly.
So what’s most tragic about Thane might be that for someone who is so bad at connecting to others or knowing what to do besides kill people, he’s a warm, generous individual at heart. He’s a romantic, intellectual, and philosopher who does what he does is in hopes of leaving the world a better place. Due to his reserved personality, it’s easiest to see his more sensitive side with a female Shepard romancing him. He finally opens up to her, showing that he does feel a great deal of emotion and some degree of distaste towards himself—he just never shows it off. Furthermore, if you break up with him for Kaidan, another primary love interest, when they’re both in the hospital (classy I know) he’ll promise to look after the other man while he's recovering. Rejecting him period will lead to respectful understanding and similar kindness. For Thane, loving someone means making sure they’re safe and happy... even if it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s with him. He used the same logic with his son, where he would rather have Kolyat hate him than be around and be a terrible role model. A classy guy, but he’s pretty horrible at putting his happiness first sometimes; it’s always taking care of others, the mission, whatever.
That being said, Thane’s love for Irikah was overshadowed by his job, and he was a pretty awful father. Why? Well, partly because he's a workaholic, and also because while Thane is level-headed and cool 95% of the time, his anger is that much more terrifying. Unsurprisingly, the game doesn’t actually show him losing his temper (though he punches a table in self-disgust once if you get him to open up to you!), but his wife’s death sent him over the edge. He hunted down and murdered all of Irikah’s killers, making sure they suffered, before he basically went into hyper-recluse mode for a decade. He had basically given up on life, and his soul shut down while his body went on assassin autopilot. He retreats back to this if you fail his loyalty mission, in which we see an exceptionally bitter man, focused only on the mission at hand. Furthermore, he knows little about life besides his job, so even though he truly did love his family he was just. Not around. It wasn’t a lifestyle they supported, but it was also the only one he really knew how to live. One of his greatest character flaws is his inability to stop being solitary, and occasionally he'll abandon people because of it. His illness, sadly, does improve this a little, but he's got a whiles to go.
Also I have made this way too broody, so on a lighter note Thane does have a sense of humor. It's not to the level of spouting out one-liners forever, but however subtle and dry, it's there! He's also been encouraged by Shepard to interact with others more, and recognizes that he tends to isolate himself by accident, so he should be capable of forming meaningful connections with people if he wants to.
abilities/powers:
”The way he moved... one was dead before they even knew he was there. He snapped another's neck, then shot a third, all in the space of a few heartbeats. It was incredible. He moved like a dancer, grace and power in constant motion.”
Having been trained since he was a child, Thane is an expert even among other drell assassins and has all the tools of a great infiltrator (finding security gaps, physical weak spots, strong underground connections, etc). Strength-wise, he’s comparable to a larger, human soldier (drell muscles are denser, hence why he’s tougher and heavier than he looks), but in the end he's all about finesse. He moves in silence, and is economical in his actions, knowing from experience exactly how to get in, snap necks, and get out. As a sidenote, apparently Thane is really dramatic (‘aesthetic perfection,’ as the game puts it) to watch in action and you get a weird e-mail about how inspiring he is from a salarian fanboy idk.
While he prefers short-range weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, he’s also a sniper and proficient at biotics: the use of mass effect fields to manipulate matter. What mass effect fields really are is left a little vague, but the jist of it is that they increase/decrease mass content of space-time. While not as ridiculous as some other races, he can use these powers to take down barrier defenses and get in on a target, move objects/people, form small barriers, etc.
All this being said, Thane is no longer in his prime due to having the alien equivalent to cystic fibrosis. While he presently functions without much issue, any injury/sickness can rapidly deteriorate his condition. As months go on in the story, Kepral’s Syndrome basically confines Thane to a hospital for daily medical treatment; within a year he still has all his technique, but his body just can’t keep up with it anymore.
Other random tidbits include being able to see ultraviolet light (at the cost of differentiating dark colors) and photographic memory.
Also, if you lick a drell it acts as a hallucinogenic. The more you know!
first person sample:
A d_m sample
Entry from another game
third person sample:
When he moves, it's in shadow and silence.
So making his way up loosely guarded inclines and air-conditioning ducts is preferable in Nassana's tower; Thane took on a suicidal mission because he was tired, not because he was stupid. It's always been about moving fast, staying out of sight. The hanar trained their assassins to have elegance in brutal, brutal efficiency, and that's how they stayed alive. Kill, but be subtle, because drawing attention to yourself is the best way to an early death-- only an amateur would lose themselves in the moment and linger longer than they had to. And yet this time, he finds himself treading off the path of safe experience because the mercs were unforgivably violent, killing Nassana's employees to sate her paranoia.
And while being the source of such paranoia was flattering, the deaths it caused wouldn't rest easy on his conscience. He steps over a dead asari commando and two equally dead grunts, towards a salarian custodian, who was currently crumpled on the ground in mortified silence. He stares. Thane stares back at him, and pauses. He had to move, to hurry along, but--
"Are you all right?"
The salarian manages a nod.
"Good. Now move-- and may Arashu guide your steps to safety."
Just as he finishes, there's the click of a thermal clip. Another merc. 20 paces away. Thane's mind and body move as one: in a moment, he's at the gunman's back, forcing a hand into his shoulderblade. His leg flares out, collapsing the man from the back of his knees as Thane's other hand grips his chin.
Snap.
And he's gone.
case no: rng me c:
name: Nu
are you over 18?: ugh yes
personal dw: n/a
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: the scaleless (AIM), scythed (plurk), erashure (at) gmail.com
characters in abax: nope
in character information.
series: Mass Effect
name: Thane Krios
age: 39
sex: M
race: Drell
weight: fuck i have no idea. weighty.
height: 6' 0" (headcanon)
[OPTIONAL] cause of death: n/a
canon point: After the end of Mass Effect 2
previous cr: n/a
history:
Here's a summary of everything in the second game.
Here is some history on his species.
And here is Thane's specific background!
Also, he'll be coming in from a playthrough with a male Commander Shepard who's made all paragon decisions.
personality:
Thane was toted around as ‘The Assassin’ for good reason. He’s introduced as a member of a mysterious new race with a gritty voice, clad in entirely black leather, hopping around, taking names and shooting mercs. In Thane’s words: if killing is an art, he is a master.
But that’s about where we can drop the trope. Thane is far from a sociopath, and he has the hanars’ (more on the hanar in his background links) impeccably civil approach to others, regardless of who he’s speaking to or how they treat him. He’s well aware that assassins don’t have the greatest reputations, and takes it in stride. In fact, he rarely rises to insults, never uses profanity, and hardly ever works to use words for their venom. It’s a jarring contrast to the mercenaries in the rest of the galaxy, who tend to be right in your face and extremely rough around the edges; Thane is distant, rarely showing powerful emotions or letting them influence him, but pleasant and professional. It's actually kind of astounding how calm Thane is unless you really get to know him/really piss him off.
The next oddity that tends to surprise people is his intense spirituality. Deeply religious, Thane prays before and after nearly ever mission, spending much of his personal time in meditation. Shepard’s conversations with Thane are rife with mentions of the soul, morality, and philosophy. While it seems odd for an assassin, it may be more apt to say that drell philosophies can be a little odd, period.
In this way, Thane's personality is invariably linked to his race and culture. For one, the drell have eidetic memory; they remember every detail of their life with perfect clarity and all sensory input at the time, which is a blessing for obvious reasons. It is also a huge influence on Thane’s success as an assassin, as he relives every hit and every mistake several times over. However, it can be difficult to control, and makes negative emotions practically impossible to relinquish; Thane can be both a little too introspective and broody when he’s upset.
Secondly, most drell are much more literal in the concept of a spirit—to Thane, the body and the soul are two separate entities attempting to work in harmony. In this, he feels no guilt over his contracts, because he views his body as a weapon. The person at fault is his employer, much like blaming a shooter instead of his gun. While Thane is nice enough outside of his job, this lack of remorse is a reminder that he can still be a stone-cold killer when the situation calls for it. However, there's an interesting dichotomy between this and his eidetic memory, as being unable to forget everyone he's ever killed slowly grows to be a heavier burden that his soul-body isolation can't totally solve.
Finally, there’s the drell-specific Kepral’s Syndrome. Thane’s mental current state is in large part due to his disability; he adopted a fatalistic view on his body’s lifespan, but tries to do ‘good’ things before he dies. He’s (usually) very accepting and eerily calm about his own death, to the point that he had taken on a suicide mission before Shepard came along (in which he then agreed to another one...). While the thought of death does eat away at him at some level, he hates that it still gets under his skin, and tends to downplay it when speaking to others.
In terms of actual interpersonal skills, there’s the aforementioned politeness, which makes him easy to talk to. However, within Shepard’s crew Thane is one of the absolute worst at actually getting out and socializing (which is impressive). This is partly because if he isn’t praying, he’s meditating. And if he’s not meditating, he’s exercising. Or reading. Or some other very solitary activity. The man rarely gives anyone the opportunity to get past that initial phase of cool civility. For example, Shepard is the first friend he’s made in a decade, and even then Thane still finds it difficult to ask for his help. Thus, while he certainly doesn’t hate the people on the Normandy, Thane is largely a product of his upbringing: he doesn’t even eat with the crew because having his back exposed around that many people makes him uncomfortable. While he’s slowly beginning to accept having others to fight with, the transition from being a lone wolf to a team player is strange (but not unpleasant) to him. Once he's actually friends with someone, Thane does lighten up/is pretty friendly.
So what’s most tragic about Thane might be that for someone who is so bad at connecting to others or knowing what to do besides kill people, he’s a warm, generous individual at heart. He’s a romantic, intellectual, and philosopher who does what he does is in hopes of leaving the world a better place. Due to his reserved personality, it’s easiest to see his more sensitive side with a female Shepard romancing him. He finally opens up to her, showing that he does feel a great deal of emotion and some degree of distaste towards himself—he just never shows it off. Furthermore, if you break up with him for Kaidan, another primary love interest, when they’re both in the hospital (classy I know) he’ll promise to look after the other man while he's recovering. Rejecting him period will lead to respectful understanding and similar kindness. For Thane, loving someone means making sure they’re safe and happy... even if it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s with him. He used the same logic with his son, where he would rather have Kolyat hate him than be around and be a terrible role model. A classy guy, but he’s pretty horrible at putting his happiness first sometimes; it’s always taking care of others, the mission, whatever.
That being said, Thane’s love for Irikah was overshadowed by his job, and he was a pretty awful father. Why? Well, partly because he's a workaholic, and also because while Thane is level-headed and cool 95% of the time, his anger is that much more terrifying. Unsurprisingly, the game doesn’t actually show him losing his temper (though he punches a table in self-disgust once if you get him to open up to you!), but his wife’s death sent him over the edge. He hunted down and murdered all of Irikah’s killers, making sure they suffered, before he basically went into hyper-recluse mode for a decade. He had basically given up on life, and his soul shut down while his body went on assassin autopilot. He retreats back to this if you fail his loyalty mission, in which we see an exceptionally bitter man, focused only on the mission at hand. Furthermore, he knows little about life besides his job, so even though he truly did love his family he was just. Not around. It wasn’t a lifestyle they supported, but it was also the only one he really knew how to live. One of his greatest character flaws is his inability to stop being solitary, and occasionally he'll abandon people because of it. His illness, sadly, does improve this a little, but he's got a whiles to go.
Also I have made this way too broody, so on a lighter note Thane does have a sense of humor. It's not to the level of spouting out one-liners forever, but however subtle and dry, it's there! He's also been encouraged by Shepard to interact with others more, and recognizes that he tends to isolate himself by accident, so he should be capable of forming meaningful connections with people if he wants to.
abilities/powers:
”The way he moved... one was dead before they even knew he was there. He snapped another's neck, then shot a third, all in the space of a few heartbeats. It was incredible. He moved like a dancer, grace and power in constant motion.”
Having been trained since he was a child, Thane is an expert even among other drell assassins and has all the tools of a great infiltrator (finding security gaps, physical weak spots, strong underground connections, etc). Strength-wise, he’s comparable to a larger, human soldier (drell muscles are denser, hence why he’s tougher and heavier than he looks), but in the end he's all about finesse. He moves in silence, and is economical in his actions, knowing from experience exactly how to get in, snap necks, and get out. As a sidenote, apparently Thane is really dramatic (‘aesthetic perfection,’ as the game puts it) to watch in action and you get a weird e-mail about how inspiring he is from a salarian fanboy idk.
While he prefers short-range weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, he’s also a sniper and proficient at biotics: the use of mass effect fields to manipulate matter. What mass effect fields really are is left a little vague, but the jist of it is that they increase/decrease mass content of space-time. While not as ridiculous as some other races, he can use these powers to take down barrier defenses and get in on a target, move objects/people, form small barriers, etc.
All this being said, Thane is no longer in his prime due to having the alien equivalent to cystic fibrosis. While he presently functions without much issue, any injury/sickness can rapidly deteriorate his condition. As months go on in the story, Kepral’s Syndrome basically confines Thane to a hospital for daily medical treatment; within a year he still has all his technique, but his body just can’t keep up with it anymore.
Other random tidbits include being able to see ultraviolet light (at the cost of differentiating dark colors) and photographic memory.
Also, if you lick a drell it acts as a hallucinogenic. The more you know!
first person sample:
A d_m sample
Entry from another game
third person sample:
When he moves, it's in shadow and silence.
So making his way up loosely guarded inclines and air-conditioning ducts is preferable in Nassana's tower; Thane took on a suicidal mission because he was tired, not because he was stupid. It's always been about moving fast, staying out of sight. The hanar trained their assassins to have elegance in brutal, brutal efficiency, and that's how they stayed alive. Kill, but be subtle, because drawing attention to yourself is the best way to an early death-- only an amateur would lose themselves in the moment and linger longer than they had to. And yet this time, he finds himself treading off the path of safe experience because the mercs were unforgivably violent, killing Nassana's employees to sate her paranoia.
And while being the source of such paranoia was flattering, the deaths it caused wouldn't rest easy on his conscience. He steps over a dead asari commando and two equally dead grunts, towards a salarian custodian, who was currently crumpled on the ground in mortified silence. He stares. Thane stares back at him, and pauses. He had to move, to hurry along, but--
"Are you all right?"
The salarian manages a nod.
"Good. Now move-- and may Arashu guide your steps to safety."
Just as he finishes, there's the click of a thermal clip. Another merc. 20 paces away. Thane's mind and body move as one: in a moment, he's at the gunman's back, forcing a hand into his shoulderblade. His leg flares out, collapsing the man from the back of his knees as Thane's other hand grips his chin.
Snap.
And he's gone.
case no: rng me c: