Jahanatta's application

IC information

Name: Jahanatta (I'm not certain this guy will be my "main" yet; I have two alts I've been playing equally so far, an Aquilonian conqueror named Valanz and a Stygian assassin named Karjesher.)

Age: 20

Describe yourself: Jahanatta is, to begin with, a Herald of Xotli--so, not really sane, and not exclusively human any more. But he was taken against his will and understanding, as a sacrifice, so he's not the typical brilliant-minded madman lost in power and arcane exploration. He's an unintellectual man in a world that's only explored by the world's great intellects. And--to the extent to which his motivations are even his own--he's anxious to reach some sort of understanding of what he is, whether he's truly damned for all time, and whether there could even be said to be a "him" at this point.

A brief history: As a young soldier, recruited from a small village far south of the Styx, Jahanatta distinguished himself (largely in skirmishes against bandits and pirates) perhaps better than he should have. Both he and a kinsman from the same town--a message-runner named Karjesher--found that their antecedents were too lowly, their skin too dark, for advancement as regular-army officers in a caste-preoccupied Stygia. Kharjesher was eventually taken away for some manner of special training; Jahanatta, after being mentioned in dispatches once or twice, found himself waylaid one night on furlough in Khemi and taken to a very dark room where very dark things were done to him. Now no longer himself, he finds himself at a disturbingly loose end. Xotli's demands on him largely revolve around strange rituals, and on delighting in the blood Jahanatta naturally sheds during a not-particularly-villainous mercenary career. Which leads to unpleasant questions: Does Xotli truly not care what Jahanatta does, or is the man so completely controlled that he can no longer recognize the control? When Jahanatta speaks politely to an old man or lends his sword to a noble cause, what is it about those acts that leaves the devourer of reality well-pleased?

OOC information

Name, age: Matt Mitchell, 35, from Boston but currently living in Madison, Wisconsin. My wretched typos notwithstanding, I'm a copyeditor, yer basic mild-mannered coffeehouse liberal gamer-type. I'm not especially seasoned in online RP, but I'm a tabletopper and LARPer of fairly long standing. I'm a little worried about how much time I'll realistically have to play, but I'm definitely excited to give it a whirl, and I hope I'll be reasonably fun to play with!

What class you enjoy playing: Well, I'm new-ish to AoC, but at this point this game's most exciting aspect seems to be the melee combat--hence my HoX, assassin, and conqueror. I may well ultimately gravitate toward the conqueror, who (you'll be relieved to hear) is a much less bizarre and over-the-top character than Jahanatta; I intend to keep pursuing the HoX for a while, though, at least part-time.

What do you enjoy most about RP? Hmm. Well, again, I'm pretty new to online RP, but even in my limited experience it adds a vast new dimension to a game--drama and development. I mean, it really is kind of the point of the whole endeavor, albeit on some level that we mostly neglect. In offline roleplaying, I'm often interested in exploring the religions in whatever setting I'm playing in; here I may want to just focus on in-character drama and (I hope!) in-character PvE.