Rip_Van_Winkle

I’m just someone who likes to RP occasionally, not too often though.
Below is my “pet” character.

tl;dr: kid is trained for war during wartime, comes back to find his destroyed home, finds the ones responsible for it, kills his dad in the process, is victim of an elaborate plan done by the war officials, and is called Rip Van Winkle due to some resemblance with the Rip Van Winkle from the story and he travels the world looking for such officials.
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The tale of this Rip Van Winkle is one of suffering and pain.

At the frozen, barren wastelands, somewhere in Scandinavia, at a time not now remembered by the men of the present, a war was held. The war, unknown to be civil or revolutionary, was obscure, not much of it was ever recorded and even the veterans, now elders, who participated remain in complete silence, refusing to disclose the slightest portion of information regarding the mysterious war; it is unknown if these people are being spied or simply because out of sheer loyalty these soldiers are unwilling to cooperate with the local historians. For some reason, news of war never made it to the media. Any tourist or foreigner who saw the remnants of one of the battlefields would quickly pass off the strange, broken landscape as merely strifles of hundreds of years before, unsuspecting how recent the damage to the land actually is.

It is during this time of war were a young boy’s closest male relatives are sent to draft in order to assisst the war. The young boy, named Caleb, is now left alone with his older teenage sister and his mother. Some two or so years into the war, more and more families receive dreadful letters confirming the deaths of their relatives, sickness and the harsh conditions of the glacial lands take more lives than what the actual war takes. Soon, like rivers flooding by rain, weeping and lamentation flood Caleb’s village. The boy, maybe now into his eighth year of life, is able to understand the horrour of death, and understands why his mother and sister cry, becoming a victim of war, fatherless, Caleb decides that he will save Scandinavia and protect his home someday. Caleb soon turns into the perfect son, maturing at a rather surprising age, he does almost all the hard labour needed at house, he hunts, he cuts wood, he makes fires, he does anything requiring the strength of a man just to help his weeping mother in order to help soothe her pain in some way.

Someone soon spots the boy, surprised at his strength and resolve, he takes in the boy to train him. Caleb agrees to go only if someone will be left behind to take care of his mother and sister. Caleb’s trainer, a shady, mature man in silken orange garments around his late forties, of rough complexions, bald and heavy build agrees to Caleb’s request and makes sure someone is left to take care of Caleb’s family.

For 8 long years Caleb is away, and the mysterious war continues on for at least 1 more year after that. Caleb’s trainer was actually a sort of Xiaolin monk who was able to control his body’s inner energy, Chi. The monk saw in Caleb that he had an amazing power within him, the reason a ten year old could work like an adult was because Caleb had this Chi power within him, something that only comes once or twice per generation.

The monk taught him one final thing, imbuing one’s own Chi into objects to control or move them at will. Much like Telekinesis, Caleb soon got the gist of it, and could move objects at will over short distances. However, Caleb found that he could use his Chi in another way, instead of imbuing his energy into an object to move it with the mind, he could somehow shape his Chi into a string to fling smaller or lighter objects as much as he wanted without needing to strain his mind so much. Caleb soon learnt that if he wanted to be useful in war, he needed to implement this new ability somehow into something for warfare. Caleb then realised he could use puppets and give them weapons so they could act as soldiers at his complete will, he then began crafting more and more puppets, and within a short amount of time, he had made enough to be a useful asset in war for whichever side his father was in.

He abandons the monk and returns home, only to find destruction and death laying around a blackened wasteland. The soil was replaced by ashes, the houses were now piles of crumbled rock, and people were stockpiles of skeleton and bones scattered about. Devastated, he sought revenge, and at the distance, he spots a delicate, beautiful, yet miserable being, a woman of exceeding beauty meandering around the light snow and fog.

The woman then approaches Caleb, recognising it’s her lovely little brother, she tells a crying Caleb the story of the village. The man the monk had left behind was evil and raped herself and their mother. However, it did not stop there, the man brought along a group of bandits who pillaged the village and raped all the women. These bastardly creatures of evil were cowardly men who did not wish to die in war, grouped together and traveled from village to village doing as they pleased, defiling all the women, killing all the children, burning the houses and eating all of the little amount of food left.

Driven by vengeance and lust for blood, Caleb sought to find the group of cowardly bandits, setting aside his wish to end the war. It did not take him long before he found a village in flames, in which the bandits were currently at. Caleb confronted them, and the bandits fell before the vast arsenal of weapons Caleb’s puppets had in store, none of them were a match for him.

In the midst of the snow and ashes, a half-dead bandit remains alive, grasping its last breaths of life left in him with desperation, trying to survive. Caleb approaches him, and removes the bandit’s mask only to find out that that criminal, that scorn of society, is none other than his own father. Caleb’s father also recognises him, and is only slightly moved. Caleb trembles and tears start to form at the corner of his eyes, he then asks why. Caleb’s father then tells him it was part of his faction’s plan to leave a group of mercenaries behind to pillage the enemy faction’s villages as a backup plan to take victory if they lost the war, a plan that would ensure victory by striking the weakened enemy soldiers returning home by launching a surprise attack. However, he was the only man from his village which had joined that specific faction, but his faction was the one which he believed had the right goal for the war, which is still unknown to Caleb and the men of the present.

Caleb’s father apologises for not being able to protect his daughter and his own wife, and that the man that was with the monk who was left behind to take care of his family was actually a general for his faction, and the monk was his faction’s special ops trainer. Caleb was going to be used as the brawn of the special ops.

Caleb’s father then tells him the general is away from Scandinavia, that he wouldn’t find the general. He then tells Caleb the story of Rip Van Winkle, as he never told Caleb a story when he was a child. He then dies, at his son’s hand.

Caleb now assumes the name of Rip Van Winkle for himself for leaving before the war, being absent during it, and returning to a changed world, a world that changed without him knowing exactly what had happened in it. Not knowing for sure if revenge from whoever was responsible for the war was the right thing to do, Rip Van Winkle set out to the world looking for this man who destroyed his village.
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