Aaron Thomas [Done]

Nickname(s): 

• The 'Aar-inator' during college
• Ranger of the North, to LARP circles

Weapons:

• Composite Bow: Aaron uses a large composite bow as his main weapon. He made the weapon in the traditional mughal style with some more modern materials, including a leather wrapping that lessens the chance of water damage.
• A pair of Katar.
  
• Steel Longsword.
  
• Broadhead Arrows (24).
  
• Bodkin point Arrows (24).
  
• Skinning Knife.
  
• Gyr-Peregrine Falcon named Bloodwing.
• Falcor Defense Petra, topped off with ARMASIGHT by FLIR Zeus-Pro 640 4-32x100 (60 Hz) Thermal Imaging Weapon Sight in a Quick Detach mount. The rifle also features a SilencerCo Omega in a Quick Detach mount and a folding bipod. 

Items:

• Chainmail Coif and Shirt.
  
• Studded Leather Bracers and Greaves.
  
• Leather and Plate Tasset.
  
• Leather Boots.
  

• Large Black Quiver.
  
• Studded Leather Chestplate and Cowl, with AR-500 Level III+ Lightweight Abdominal, Side, Front and Back plate inserts.
• Leather pack containing metal mug, flint and steel, 50ft of hemp rope, trail rations and jerky (rabbit). Leather pouches for four STANAG PMAG to SVD magazines.
• Woolen Cloak with Mantle.
  
• Black Tunic.
  
• Palamino Mustang (the horse) named Argo.
• Nightforce SHV Optic in a QD Mount.
• x3 10 round magazines loaded with ELD-X 200 grain rounds. 
• x1 10 round magazines loaded with Black Talon rounds.

Canon/Original: Original

Relationship Status: Single

Family: 

• Paul Thomas (father, presumed deceased)
• Rachel Thomas (mother, presumed deceased)
  
• David Thomas (brother, presumed deceased)
  

Place of Birth: Cochin, Kerala, India

Current Location: Beaverton, Pennsylvania


Height: 5'10"

Body Type: Tall, muscled.

Eye Color: Brown

Hair Color: Black

Special Markings: He has a scar on his right shoulder from a Kalaripayattu accident that's just about healing.

Played By: Aamir Khan


Likes:

• Archery: Ever since he picked up archery in college, Aaron's been very much into it, and spent many an hour keeping his skills sharp. 
• Bow Making/Fletching: His interest in archery naturally progressed into fletching at first, and then bow making. 
• Hunting: Whether with bows or firearms, Aaron has been an avid hunter ever since he was introduced to the sport.
• Metalworking: With a lot of time on his hands to pursue his hobbies, Aaron spent time working with traditional metal forging as well as more modern metalworking methods such as with modern CNC machines.
• Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were certainly what helped kindle his other interests, and soon he branched out from the movies and ever deeper into the genres. 
• Gamer: Ever since getting into Half-Life Deathmatch through impromptu game sessions on the school computers, Aaron has been a most avid gamer. 
• Network Security/Cryptology: Aaron was always into computers, though most of his interest has been focused on cryptology and network security ever since he crashed his school's grade server whose outdated security protocols allowed him to use SQL injection to do so. 
• Fencing/Swordplay: Aaron as a young boy was a foil fencer for the Kerala state team, but during his college years picked up medieval fencing. 
• Firearms: Aaron has been into firearms for a very long time, and makes it his business to keep up with the latest the industry has to offer. 
• Animals: Aaron moved out into the country for the simple reason that it brought him closer to the wild, and enabled him to keep the animals he wanted. 

Dislikes:

• Lack of Productivity: Aaron hates not being productive. Every hour of every day must be spent in a productive manner.
• Large Social Gatherings: Aaron doesn't have the social grace to maneuver in such situations, and hence hates them with a passion. More often than not because he ends up making a fool of himself. 
• Uninformed People: Aaron has encountered a lot of people in his life who talk on subjects where they're far from authorities on, as if they were. Never has he, nor will he, have any respect for them whatsoever. 
• Bullies: As someone who's dealt with a lot of bullies in his life, Aaron has no patience or love for bullies. 
• Wastage: Whether it's material waste or the waste of someone's talents for example, Aaron doesn't tolerate it one bit. 

Strengths:

• Marksman: Through both years of hunting and time at the range, Aaron has become more than a capable marksman, though prefers rifles to any other type of firearm. This is not to say he's not capable of handling other firearms with an almost equivalent skill level. 
• Talented Archer: Aaron picked up archery in college, and further honed his skills through years of bow hunting. He's more than a capable archer who relies on more traditional styles of archery rather than the more static modern techniques. 
• Swordsman: Normally one wouldn't consider this to be a particularly useful skill, but years of fencing and Kalaripayattu followed by Medieval Fencing have enabled Aaron to turn his Longsword into a deadly weapon for dealing with the undead. 
• Kalaripayattu Practitioner: Kalaripayattu as a martial art has come in handy many a time after the apocalypse, or as Aaron puts it, after the world went to shit. Aaron's prefered style of using a Katar in both hands is useful against both the living and the dead in close quarters.
• Skilled Hunter and Survivalist: Aaron is a skilled hunter and survivalist, he's spent much time out in the wild and knows how to live off the land.

Habits: Aaron tends to talk to both Atreyu and Bloodwing as if they were capable of actual conversation, though intelligent animals such as falcons and horses are both capable of reacting to human conversation.

Flaws:

• Lack of a Filter: Aaron can be viewed as insensitive or thick skinned, as he says whatever he wants to and doesn't care what people have to say or think about him.
• Friends, Who Needs Them: Aaron has a hard time forming attachments, and while he doesn't inherently distrust people, it's hard for him to form friendships.
  
• Social Graces of a Potato: Aaron has all the social graces of a potato, and hence tends to shy away from social gatherings, preferring to keep to himself.
  
• Temper, Temper: While his pragmaticism usually wins out, Aaron's anger is something to beware, seeing as all it does is focus him on one things; killing.
  
• Rooting for the Underdog: Aaron tends to root for the underdog, and unfortunately this has led to him helping people who've had little chance at success, both before and after the end of the world.

Dreams/goals: Aaron's goal was to make a mark on the industry, and with his encryption algorithm, he did. He was living his secondary dream of being able to pursue his interests when the apocalypse hit.

Fears: Aaron has made few friends in his life, due to how difficult he finds to form attachments, though he's terrified of losing the few he has made. This extends very strongly to his two animal companions. 

Overall Personality: Aaron is a pragmatist first, and that's how he's lived his life thus far. Though he has a strong loyal streak. Unfortunately for Aaron, his social skills are lacking and he's always found it hard to make many friends. The few friends he did have usually only had good things to say about him, all except his ex of course. This could be blamed on Aaron's laser focus which has a habit of devolving into tunnel vision at times. His trouble letting people in meant that most people who knew him could hardly be called friends. To those he didn't manage to push away for whatever reason, he was extremely loyal and was known to help them push through tough times with his pragmatism and dry and sarcastic wit. 

Though the apocalypse has left him alone with Atreyu and Bloodwing, Aaron's outlook on life hasn't changed much. If anything however, he's now even more wary of letting people in, and prefers to avoid contact with other people. In his experience, those that trusted and tried to help have died anyway. Nonetheless, when being around a group has been clearly beneficial, reason wins and Aaron has done his level best to ensure he can keep the group together. Aaron also has a penchant to want to help the underdog, and this has proven to be another reason why Aaron has helped the beleaguered survivor group or surrounded survivor at times. 


History: Aaron was born in the coastal city of Cochin in the south of India to two loving parents. As a young boy, he was very much into the martial arts, and from a young age he was a Kalaripayattu practitioner. Mathematics was something he enjoyed from a young age, and it certainly helped prompt his parents who like most Malayalee parents were rather ambitious in what they saw their son doing into getting him into computers in hopes he'd join the ranks of his cousins who were mostly all engineers. 

Aaron was driven as well, and his interest led to him devouring all the material he could get his hands on as far as his interests went, though only doing the bare minimum as far as anything else was concerned. As far as academics went, his teachers were convinced he was going to go into a science and mathematics focus in his 11th and 12th and seeing as he wasn't failing couldn't quite care. Which was perfectly normal for the less than perfect Indian education system. 

(Please note, seeing as I went through 8 years of the system before switching to Cambridge's IGCSE system I'm perfectly able to make such remarks. I also have a sister who went through 10 years.) 

Aaron picked up an interest in bladed weapons, and his Kalaripayattu trainer suggested he look into the State Fencing Summer program. One summer he was just another kid there for the summer, and soon after he was a regular. Aaron took to the fast paced action of foil fencing well, and the ability to move quickly needed in Kalaripayattu that he had gotten very good at meant that he quickly drew the attention of his coach. He made the state team less than a year later. 

Fencing, academics and Kalaripayattu were it for Aaron. He didn't really have any friends at all, simply because it was impossible to be friends with someone who didn't really care for friendships in general. Aaron's brother however covered for him and made sure he was well liked enough to not be a total social pariah. However, naturally this led to some people picking on him simply because they thought rightly that he wouldn't care. However one day Aaron had enough, and he snapped, and here-in his notorious temper is discovered. 

If it wasn't for his brother getting involved and breaking up the fight that ensued, there would have been a lot more for the Principal to talk to his parents about. Fortunately or unfortunately, his grades meant that he wasn't really in a lot of trouble, especially since the student who had provoked the fight already had a record of behavioral issues. Aaron however had mandatory counselling sessions with the pastor of the Pentecostal church that was near the school.

Like many children born into Christian families, Aaron wasn't particularly religious outside of what was asked of him by his parents. This was a sort of turning point in that and Aaron got along well with the pastor, whom he viewed as a mentor. There were little to no issues afterward, save for an isolated incident where he crashed the school grade server, just to prove it was using outdated security protocols. Time went on and soon the time to pick where it was he was going to college came. Seeing as he had family in Austin, his parents sent him to the University of Texas.  

(Unless the school decides to push for legal action, such things are overlooked, and Indian schools typically do not.)

Having never had friends really without the help from his brother, Aaron didn't really find people he connected with until he got into LARPing on campus. He made more than a few friends there, though that was using the mask of the character he played, rather than himself. He kept it that way, and didn't let any of his 'friends' close. He was perfectly content with keeping it that was as well, content to pursue his other interests and his personal pet project that was the encryption algorithm he'd been working on since high school. That was until he was introduced to a fellow student who'd also showed an talent and interest in cryptology. 

She was the one person that he opened up to, the two had a slow but steady relationship. Aaron's drive to ensure this algorithm was done, and was the best he could make it, put a strain on their relationship. Aaron started spending less and less time with people socially, believing that they would still be there when he was done. Come senior year, and though Aaron was graduating with honors and had received a very lucrative licensing deal from a start-up looking expand, he had no one to share that success with. 

Aaron did what every cash rich college graduate did, he turned to his interests to console him of his lack of any true companionship. Naturally however, it wasn't entirely a success. At one point, one of his hunting partners commented that he would get him a cat because that was all the pussy he was going to get if he continued like this. Aaron took inspiration from this, but not in the way that was intended, and decided that he was going to start getting into raising animals. 

Aaron started with horses, and funded a local business that raised horses specifically for trails and hunting. Aaron took one of the young horses for himself, and being a fan of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre, he named the horse Argo after Xena's horse. Argo and Aaron had a somewhat rocky start, but over several hunting trips the two began to get along quite well. Of course, naturally a horse wasn't an animal companion that one could spend all that much time with. 

On a trip back from Abu Dhabi, Aaron met a Falconer in the business class lounge. Aaron found it very amusing that the Falcon was in the lounge, behaving very calm for a raptor that was surrounded by onlookers and strange and unfamiliar sounds. Aaron was very curious, and the two started talking on the matter. Before long, Aaron had extended an invitation to the man, and they met not long after. Several visits later and the decision was made to get a Falcon. 

The man happened to know of a very well tempered Gyr-Peregrine, and brought the bird to Aaron. Aaron and the bird actually meshed well, and through constant practise mastered the basics of Falcon and Falconer. The visits from his Falconer friend, Mahmoud, increased in number and before long bird and master had formed a close bond. Being an avid Borderlands fan, he named the Falcon after Mordecai's in the game, Bloodwing.

He'd heard about the so called rioting and looting, and chalking it up as the media's attempts to generate hysteria he went on his usual hunting trip at this time of the year. He came back to finding his home being robbed by two thugs. Aaron was confident that given he had the drop on them, all he needed was to get into a decent firing position. However, when he heard gunshots in the distance, and he got closer to see what was going on, the sight that awaited him was almost beyond the realm of his imagination. 

The sight of what looked to be living puppets, eating the still living body of one of the thugs, was beyond his comprehension. Aaron panicked, grabbed his 'bug-out' kit which included the 'real' version of his LARP kit. While it was medieval styled, it still certainly protected against several different threats, such as blades and had full torso and abdominal protection rated up to III+ as far as ballistic threats are concerned. Aaron ran with Argo and Bloodwing and didn't turn back. 

As he ran, the country continued to collapse. Aaron ran into the most bizzare group ever, as he prefered to stay away from the urban centers, one that had attempted to convert itself into a medieval community. He was welcomed with open arms, only asked that he put his rifle away and return to the ways of old. To Aaron, this didn't sound like a bad deal at all. Aaron got along with the powers in charge, and in time they grew to trust him. Aaron's duties in this kingdom were to ensure that it was protected from threats internal and external. However, like all monarchical societies, there were dissidents. Those that were a genuine threat, ceased to exist. It was a cause that he could put himself behind, and Aaron did so one hundred percent. 

It was not to last however, and the internal dissent grew to the point that Aaron began to smell the rot. In the dead of night, Aaron who'd organized many of the patrol routes of this 'kingdom', found it easy to slip away. He left and never looked back, and Aaron moved all over the country. As of recently, he ended up in a tiny town called Beaverton in Pennsylvania. He had stepped into a small gun store to top up his supplies of .300 Winchester Magnum, when he'd heard the tell tale sounds of a pair of suppressed .223 remington shots, and the sounds of silent sobbing...despite himself, Aaron decided to investigate. 


Alias: PotentiallyAPotato

Other Character(s) on TWDN: None yet. 

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