Name: Matthias Crane
Alias: -
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Familia: Thoth
Bio: Matthias is a man of humble beginnings. The son of a baker, he learned how to bake bread from a young age. He was also the son of a seamstress, but he didn't learn how to sew. It's not sexist--they tried. They tried really hard. But he was just really bad with his hands. His younger brother Christopher was amazing though. Have you seen one of his dresses? Of course you have, everybody's wearing them. Even the boys! You'd think a hodunk town like this wouldn't be fashionable, but Christopher's just got it going on. I mean, Matthias' bread is pretty good, but you compare it to Christopher's fashionable hats? Not even close.
There was a lot of tension in the household because of this. This tension went unfelt by everyone but Matthias. His sisters, Laura, Elizabeth, and Kina were all quite talented in their own right, and Christopher was as humble as one could reasonable be while still remaining sincere. Matthias wasn't necessarily bitter about the whole thing, but he was definitely very confused. For you see, Matthias knew a lot of things about making pretty dresses. He knew a lot of things about baking bread. He knew a lot of things about math and astronomy and herding cattle and baseball (despite the fact that seemingly no one else had even heard of baseball). He knew a lot of things about a lot of things, but this didn't seem to make him any better at actually doing any of those things.
He began to wonder what the point of it all was. Yes, he could think to himself that he was really quite intelligent and that one day people would respect his intelligence, but would they really if he had nothing to show for that intelligence? What was the point of knowing more about the science of baking bread than his brother if Christopher's ladieswear was still so much more fashionable than what Matthias could produce? It seemed an impractical skill, knowing things.
Some men, however, made a living out of knowing things. On a trip to Oraria with his father to peddle bread and pretty hats, Matthias met such a man. It had been a long day of travel, and an ever longer day of watching his brother's pretty hats sell faster than his own (Matthias did not produce any pretty hats, but the knowledge that his would have sold less quickly--if at all--still stung), and so when he went to the bar that evening, he was in a mood. A foul mood, that is, if you didn't catch my intention with that previous statement. He sat alone at a table, trying to be solemn but only succeeding at being sour-faced. The table next to his had two men having a conversation about all sorts of things, like the mathematical position of the sun and the stars, or the ongoing battle of the forces of good and evil and who deserved to win this time, or baseball. It was a very impractical conversation, and it was basically the conversation Matthias least wanted to hear--and he had once heard his parents wonder aloud why he was so much worse at needlepoint than Elizabeth. He cried for three hours that night. Not to mention they were about a six on the volume scale. Not quite turning it up to eleven, but enough that our disgruntled hero just couldn't take the sort of conversation they were having after enough liquor.
"What's the point of it all?" he asked them. "What's the good in knowing where the sun is mathematically, or about the cosmic balance of good and evil, or whether or not A-Rod had sex with that girl? What goods it do to know something if you can't do anything with that? If I know better how to talk about making pretty hats than my brother, what good's that do me? Not a bit of good it does, not a bit. He'll still be making prettier hats, you know? Not a bit of good it does..."
The two men were confused. Who was this strange, drunken man? Why was he eavesdropping? Did no one teach him manners? Were they too busy teaching him how to make pretty hats? Why was his own hat not pretty? Certainly, it wasn't ugly, but it was too plain to be called pretty. Did he make that hat? Did he actually know very little about pretty hats? These sorts of questions plagued the men. Tentatively, one tried to respond, "Not a bit of good, eh? Well, I like knowing things like how to make pretty hats. 's nothing wrong with that, is there?"
What ensued was a long conversation about knowledge for knowledge's sake. It was perhaps impractical, but overall innocuous and a good bit of fun. There was also a bit about musical theater--more specifically, about how they didn't even like the music in RENT and didn't get the point--but it was mostly about the whole knowledge thing. Much liquor was consumed. The next morning, Matthias woke up with a pounding headache and a new tattoo. He wasn't in the inn his father was staying at, and the two men he met the previous night were asleep on a nearby couch. Stumbling to his feet, he was soon introduced to a man named Thoth for the second time.
Status
Level: 1
Power: 30
Endurance: 30
Agility: 50
Dexterity: 40
Magic: 150
<<Magic>>
Gravity: Crushes enemies under tons of apples.
Servant: Creates a corporeal force of magical energy to carry supplies. It looks like a kitty. Its name is Eleanor.
Invisibility: It makes things invisible.
<<Skills>>
Yeast on the Rise: When attacked by a strong opponent, Matthias' baking skills increase threefold. Unfortunately for him, he is rarely attacked while baking, so it is largely worthless.
Inventory
Items: The Book of Thoth: A magazine Thoth gave Matthias. It's about something called golf.
Gear: Generic sword. Generic armor.
Valis: 1501