Name: BereckAge: 50 (05.03.132)
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: >:[ Mind your own business.
Role/rank: Master Healer of Fort Weyr
Origin: Benden Weyr >> Healer Hall >> Benden Weyr >> Fort Weyr
Appearance:
* 5'8", stocky with good upper body strength and a little extra fat. That's middle age for you.
* Fairly short hair, always neat at the start of the day often rumpled by the end. It is straight and a strong shade of auburn but now streaked with white at the temples.
* Light toned skin, prone to burning rather than tanning.
* Lined features, a fairly square jaw shape but softened by that bit of extra weight.
* Intense bright blue eyes.
* Dresses for practicality.
* Wears rectangular spectacles.
* Beauty spot above the righthand corner of his mouth.
* Amazing Eyebrows.
Personality:
* The classic grumpy-healer, Bereck is 100% tired and has seen too much and yet it keeps on happening. Despite the weight of turns in his craft however he retains a sparkle when it comes to innovation and progress, and if he believes he can force this tired damn world to change then he'll put his shoulder in and push until either it gives in, or his strength gives out.
* He loves to teach and when he finds a genuinely passionate student he will more or less adopt them as his own.
* Has very very high standards for himself, part of the reason he works so much and needs so much klah. He can also be a bit of a control freak and struggles to delegate.
* Loves and lives for his job. Over the last 10 turns he has adopted a biphasic sleep schedule which allows him to work with the main day shift from morning through lunchtime, sleep for three or four hours, and then get back to work when Beresk gets up - and socialise with the big beastie of course before sleeping again as dawn approaches.
* Fuelled by klah.
* Cool in a crisis, capable of ruthless practicalities.
* Hates ego, pretentiousness, and posturing.
History:
132: Born at Benden Weyr to a bluerider (S'reck) and a dragonhealer (Berinya) and like most children spent a lot of time in the creche but with no Thread in the skies both of his parents were able to spend a good deal of time with him too. He was a bookish child, and not very popular, but he wasn't a torment outcast and had a couple of good friends and a happy childhood overall. He was happiest however when following at his mother's heels learning about her craft; his father very much wanted him to become a candidate once he was old enough but was happy for him to study in the meantime, it would be a useful skill for him to have after all.
148: Bereck started Standing aged 16 to please his father but he grew frustrated with the pause in his studies, and the two of them often argued. Around this time Berinya's health started to fail, something wrong in her lungs that none of her colleagues could do anything for beyond offering her pain relief.
149: Berinya died and troubles between S'reck and Bereck came to a head soon after. Late in the turn Bereck left Benden Weyr for Healer Hall to continue his studies and refused all correspondence with his father.
152: Bereck walked the tables aged 20 - he chose to stay at the Hall to learn from the best Masters and to help with teaching apprentices. He received a firelizard egg from S'reck as congratulations and an attempt at reconciliation, which hatched into a clever little green. Bereck accepted the proverbial olive-branch warily and started writing to his father a couple of times a month, it was awkward at first but the two began to reconcile and share their grief over the loss of Berinya. Eventually S'reck started to visit too.
160: A position for a journeyman healer opened at Benden Weyr and Bereck applied for it, now far passed the age he could accidentally Impress he was happy to return home to serve his community. During this time, in a more hands on and all-round role, his interest in the brewing of medicines grew and he grew closer to his father again.
166: An incident with the wherhandler got him thinking - the green refused to allow her handler to receive medicine because the brew smelled different to how it usually did. As it happened it was a harmless substitution in the base, but it might not have been. Bereck started to write to many prominent wherhandlers and visited when time permitted to ask their whers to perform tests. As he built his body of evidence he grew more and more convinced of the potential whers have to further the craft of healing.
172: Bereck achieved his Mastery aged 40. In the same turn he acquired a wher egg, which hatched into green Beresk. Once she was old enough Bereck started to train her to use her keen sense of smell to monitor the brewing of delicate medicines, to research the differences between strains of the same herb, and so on. Some of his fellow Master Healers think he's nuts, while others see the value.
177: The plague begins. Bereck, along with every other Master, strove to find a cure but nothing could stop the progression of the illness. Some dragons recovered, others did not, and all he could do was try to make them comfortable as they fought for their lives.
181: Bereck transferred to Fort Weyr, where he took on the mantle of Weyrhealer when the previous Weyrhealer chose to leave Fort and return to Healer Hall.
Other:
Wher
Name: Beresk
Age: 10 (18.08.172)
Colour: Green
Size: 4.0ft to the shoulder
Appearance:
Personality:
* Mother bear wher, Beresk attempts to look after everyone she comes across with mixed success; not everyone wants a wher nuzzling at them and crooning throatily.
* She generally has a solid, straightforward, blunt approach to problem-solving so despite her best intentions it doesn’t always work; you can't just grab somebody by the sleeve and drag them off or half lie down on top of them so they're 'forced to rest'.
* A calm and steady sort on the whole; stress is something that happens to other people, mostly her handler apparently.
* She is very proud of her job and extremely focused when she is wearing her 'knots', a braided collar Bereck has given her to wear on duty.
* She is an independent character and although close to a group of green whers in the Weyr - her artificial pack, as is common practice - she's happy to be away from them for her working day, though she will always return to socialise and sleep.
Other:
Firelizards
Vena Cava - 'Vena'
Green firelizard
31 turns (151)
22 inches
The oldest of Bereck's firelizards, Vena is the boss of their little faire and very good at organizing her troops! She's an intelligent firelizard who excels at object recognition and is highly obedient, as one would hope given the number of turns Bereck has spent training her. She has a muscular build for a firelizard and a relatively short neck and tail.
Sinew 'Sinnie'
Blue firelizard - Vena's lineage
20 turns (163)
21 inches
A quiet observant fellow, he doesn't like getting close to humans unless he knows them very well and so he's more likely to be lurking in a corner than anything else.
Sanguine 'San'
Brown firelizard - Vena's lineage
10 turns (173)
27 inches
Solid and dependable Sanguine lives to please - particularly to please his mother and faire-leader, and his human too of course. He's a friendly fellow and will often pester nearby humans for scratches.
Tibia
Blue firelizard - Harmony x NPC bronze
0 turns (1:13:182)
25 inches
Border Collie; Intelligent, Athletic, Obedient
