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Post by Macbeth mac Findlaech on May 30, 2013 1:15:06 GMT -5
..:: Player Information ::..
Player Name: Maskerader
Age: 23
Other Characters Played: Jane Porter, Facilier, Goliath, Angela
How You Found Us: I've always been here.
..:: Character Information ::..
Character Name: Macbeth mac Findlaech, though he goes by his alias Lennox Macduff a lot
Gender: Male
Type of Creature: Human (albeit immortal)
Rank: Neutral
Movie/TV Series: Gargoyles
Home Island: Isle of the Statue
Personality: In his youth, Macbeth was an extremely selfless person, putting the needs of the kingdom above his own. He was willing to give up his own chance at happiness because it would be better (ultimately, so he thought) for the woman he loved to marry the man the King had chosen for her. They could have run away together, but that would have meant shame upon his love and her family, as well as a life of running from the crown. It was not the easy way, but it was the right thing to do. He had no idea that the reason he wasn't allowed to marry Gruoch was because his cousin Duncan believed that Macbeth wanted the throne. Macbeth would have been happy to marry Gruoch and live out his days without any aspirations to greatness.
Macbeth has continually put the people of Scotland before himself, even at the price of his own happiness. He was willing to give up his youth so that Demona and her Gargoyles would be able to help defeat Duncan and his men, giving Scotland a chance for a good king. And a good King he was. He named Demona as his primary advisor, knowing that it was what was the best for his people, despite some protestations at the time.
In general, Macbeth is a fairly reasonable man. He had to be, in order to be a good King. He can hear both sides of an argument and decide which he agrees with when presented with evidence. However, having lived for centuries, when he sets his mind to something, he will become almost completely unreasonable. He was betrayed numerous times by those he trusted, and he will consider his own opinion before that of others. After all, he still has to take care of himself.
He can be quite stubborn, especially when he thinks he's in the right. However, if someone can manage to show him the error of his ways, he will admit when he has made a mistake. Usually.
Through the many long years of his life, Macbeth has become something of a cynic. He's no longer fighting Demona to stop her; he's fighting her so that he can die, at long last. If he thinks about it too much, though, he probably won't REALLY want to die, but he does want peace. At the same time, he is still rather susceptible to the idea that he could possibly find happiness again; a sort of peace that could happen without killing Demona.
He has been desperately lonely for centuries, and on some level, he yearns to love again, to trust again. He had to leave his family when the country thought him dead, though it ultimately didn't change the outcome of the battle, because of Demona's betrayal. He's been betrayed so often that he finds it quite hard to trust anyone, even when his instincts say that he probably should.
Right now and for as long as he can remember, the only person he can really trust to be in his life for as long as he is....is Demona.
Macbeth is certainly still human, but he's become rather numb to human emotions and feelings. Or at least he had before he fell in love with Dominique Destine. When he found out that she was actually Demona, he felt the sting of her betrayal all the more, because this time, it was so personal. But he knows that he is still capable of love, which has given him some hope.
As a scholar, explorer, and archaeologist, Macbeth is fascinated by and extremely interested in acquiring more knowledge. He's had centuries to fill, after all, and he keeps himself busy with learning new things, whether they're languages, subjects, or trades.
If this man makes a promise, he considers himself honor-bound to keep it, even, occasionally, in extreme circumstances. One exception to this, however, occurred when Demona tricked him into marrying her. Instead of keeping the promise "till death do we part," he had the marriage annulled. He wasn't completely aware of the whole situation, after all.
Powers, Skills, and/or Any Other Abilities:
Very strong, even for a human: He works very hard to stay in shape and in his peak physical condition. With an opponent like Demona, he has to be as strong as possible, or he would have absolutely no chance at defeating her. In his youth, he was a king, a king who had to fight for his throne. In that time period in Scotland, it would never do to have a weak king. He's kept himself in shape ever since.
Quite intelligent: Macbeth has always been quite intelligent, ever since he was born. As he was being raised, he asked questions that his tutors couldn't answer, and tried to figure out the answers on his own. He has always been interested in knowledge, and he's quite the scholar and academic, as well as simply having a high IQ.
Versed in many different types of weaponry, including hand-to-hand combat: Over the years, Macbeth has learned how to use all sorts of weapons. He of course knows how to use a sword and is an excellent swordsman, a fair archer, and more recently, he has become acquainted with many different types of modern weaponry. He fought in both World War I and World War II, and he learned how to use many different weapons in both wars. He's also a fairly capable pilot, though he prefers to have someone else do his piloting for him. Macbeth has studied a few different types of hand-to-hand combat: he can disarm an opponent quickly and efficiently if the opponent is near him, or he can simply knock them unconscious, if in the right position.
Is a fierce warrior: As mentioned earlier, Macbeth had to fight to win his throne. Demona would not have made a pact with just any soldier; Macbeth had to be willing to fight to the death for his people for her to even consider allying herself with him, despite what the Weird Sisters had to say. When he's engaged in a battle, he will not give up easily at all, unless it is in the best interest of Scotland or the greater good.
Good strategist: It was partly this that made him seek out Demona; he knew he wouldn't be able to defeat Duncan's forces on his own, and he knew that he would need to use cunning and planning in order to do so. Even after gaining Demona's allegiance, Macbeth planned the best times to have the Gargoyles swoop in and attack, as well as the best places to attack.
Is able to use his wisdom for good (before he became bitter): He once told his son that "a wise king considers all the options before making a decision." Macbeth would try to look at a situation from every angle before he made a plan of action. Now, though, there are times he rushes into
Very honorable: For example, when he offered to take care of Xanatos' "pest problem," he could have simply gone to Castle Wyvern during the day and smashed the Gargoyles. Instead, he chose to wait until they awoke from their stone sleep so that they could have a chance to defend themselves.
Fluent in many languages (he's had a loooong time to practice, after all): Macbeth is fluent in both spoken and written Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Welsh, Romanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, among several others. He has travelled to all of these places at one time or another, and instead of finding an interpreter or someone who could help him, he decided to dive right in and learn the languages.
Immortal: Through the pact that Macbeth and Demona made with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth is permanently stuck at the age at which he made the pact. He gave up his youth to restore Demona's, and the two are eternally linked. In order for Macbeth to die permanently, only Demona can kill him.
Flaws/Weaknesses:
Stubborn: Macbeth tends to stick to a decision that he has made, sometimes regardless of the consequences. He decided to attack Goliath's clan, thinking that Demona would come to their rescue, before he knew about them. They tried to explain, but he initially didn't listen, choosing to stick to his plan, whatever the cost.
Sometimes too honorable: He began to suspect that Duncan thought Macbeth might want the throne, but he gave Duncan the benefit of the doubt that the King would not harm his family. He was very, very wrong. Duncan had already had Macbeth's father killed and would not hesitate to kill Macbeth or have him killed, as Macbeth later discovered.
Whenever Demona is close by, they share each other's pain: Basically, close proximity with Demona forces the two of them to feel whatever intense sensation is occurring at that time. It's not just pain, it's pleasure, too, but most of the time they end up fighting whenever they're together, which means it's mostly each other's pain that they feel.
Though he's immortal, he is still human and can be injured as such: He can still be hurt (or even killed) temporarily. A normal cut or scrape will heal normally, but the more extreme injures or "death" will activate the healing factor and accelerate the process by which the injuries heal.
May seem to "overreact" to betrayal: First, Duncan betrayed him by having his father killed and by marrying off the woman he loved to someone else. Macbeth, of course, didn't find this out until much later, but it was still a HUGE betrayal, especially considering the fact that they're related and that Duncan also tried to have Macbeth himself killed. When Demona betrayed him, it was a huge, huge blow. Her betrayal cost him his crown, his son, his wife, and Scotland. At this point, if he gets to the point where he begins to trust someone and then he perceives that they have betrayed him, he will probably kill the person.
Canon History: In 1005, a healthy baby boy was born to Findlaech, High Steward of Moray and his wife Doada, who was herself a daughter of Maol Chalvim II of Scotland. Findlaech and his wife named the child Macbeth. Through his mother, the baby Macbeth was of royal birth, the connection to the throne close enough to cause his cousin, Prince Duncan, alarm. The Prince assumed that, once he had grown up a bit (raised as a proper Scottish boy should be), Macbeth would be a threat to his throne.
When Macbeth was fifteen years old, Prince Duncan made the decision to send The Hunter, a man whose name was Gillecomgain, to kill both Findlaech and Macbeth, hoping that by eliminating them, there would no longer be a threat to his crown. What he didn't realize, however, was that by sending someone to kill Macbeth's father, he would eventually cause his own demise at Macbeth's hand.
Gillecomgain would have succeeded in killing both the young Macbeth and his father, had the gargoyle Demona not intervened. The Weird Sisters had informed Demona of the Hunter's whereabouts, and she instantly went off to find him, to take her revenge. During the fight with the Hunter, Macbeth and Gruoch (the woman Macbeth would eventually marry) almost fell off the wall of the castle. Demona made a split-second decision to save the teenagers rather than to take her revenge. She saved Macbeth's life, though Gillecomgain had carried out part of his assignment: Findlaech, High Steward of Moray, was dead.
The Prince gave the title that should have gone to Macbeth to his would-be assassin, Gillecomgain, figuring that Macbeth was no longer a threat to him. His father had been the popular man, but without Findlaech's support, Macbeth wouldn't amount to much, Duncan thought.
The years passed, and Gruoch and Macbeth fell in love. Duncan officially became the crown Prince and father of the newest heir to the throne, Prince Canmore. Macbeth approached Gruoch's father, Bohde, to ask for her hand in marriage. When he discovered that Bohde had promised Gruoch to Gillecomgain, Macbeth was furious, vowing that he and Gruoch would run away together.
Bohde pleaded with Macbeth, telling him to look at the situation from a father's point of view: the Prince had ordered him to marry Gruoch to Gillecomgain, and if she and Macbeth ran away together, it would bode ill for all involved.
As much as he wanted to follow his heart, Macbeth knew that Bohde was right. He did what he believed was best for the kingdom: Macbeth insisted to Gruoch that he didn't love her so that she would go along with the marriage to Gillecomgain.
Duncan saw that, without Gruoch, Macbeth was growing restless, wanting to be able to do things for the kingdom, since he could not marry the woman he loved. He ordered Gillecomgain to kill Macbeth, but the Hunter refused, on the grounds that people would start to wonder about Macbeth's father's mysterious death, and then Macbeth's mysterious death. The two of them would probably be deemed to be connected, and people might end up blaming the Hunter.
The Prince has wanted to keep himself out of any sort of implication for his cousin's death, but as his first plan (to have the Hunter kill Macbeth) had failed, he went right to Macbeth and told him exactly who had killed his father, hoping that his cousin's wrath would spur him to attack the Hunter and be killed instead.
However, the Weird Sisters arranged for Demona and Macbeth to fight Gillecomgain together, which resulted in Macbeth killing the Hinter and saving Demona's life.
Now that Gilcomgain, the original Hunter, was dead, Duncan reluctantly awarded Stewardship of Moray to Macbeth, who was also free to marry Gruoch.
They had a son, whom they named Luach, and Duncan continued to be threatened by Macbeth's existence. Even after Macbeth saved him from falling to his death when the two of them were out walking with their sons. On their walk, the two of them came across the sleeping forms of several Gargoyles. Duncan wanted to destroy them, but Macbeth stopped him, remembering how Demona had once saved his life.
And then, they encountered the three Weird Sisters, and the women delivered a prophecy much like the one delivered in Shakespeare's Scottish Play. The Weird Sisters greeted Duncan as the King of Scotland and father of the King thereafter, but they greeted Macbeth the same way. Macbeth protested, telling the Weird Sisters respectfully that they were but half right, that Duncan was the king, and he was merely the King's cousin.
The Weird Sisters insisted that Macbeth would eventually be the High King of Scotland, though Macbeth continued to protest. He attempted to reassure Duncan that he had no desire to take the throne, but Duncan was not convinced.
The prophecy convinced Duncan that Macbeth had been plotting to take the throne and was still plotting against him, hoping to have the aid of the Gargoyles. Instead of waiting for Macbeth to move against him, Duncan chose to act first. He destroyed all but four of the Gargoyles that he and Macbeth had found on their outing during the night.
Macbeth met Demona near a bog, grieving for the loss of her clan. He begged his old ally for help, but she was just that: old. She was unable to give him the help he sought. Until the three Weird Sisters reappeared. To Demona, they appeared as three Gargoyles. To Macbeth, the traditional human witches.
They convinced Macbeth and Demona that the only way for them to survive and perhaps even beat Duncan was to enter into a pact: Macbeth would give his youth to make Demona younger, and she would help him. The side-effect of that pact was the fact that the two of them were now linked for life; for one of them to die, it had to be at the other's hand ("neither can live while the other survives" anyone?). They would also feel each other's pain.
Before they sent the two of them off to do battle, the Weird Sisters told Macbeth who had ordered the Hunter to kill Macbeth's father. And it was none other than Duncan. One of the Sisters gave Macbeth a glowing orb, which he accepted, even as the Weird Sister told him it would be useful against his cousin.
Macbeth and Duncan built up their forces, fighting for the crown, in Duncan's case, but Macbeth simply wanted to be able to live in peace, which he would not be allowed to do, if Duncan had his way. The two of them eventually met in single combat. Demona ensured that it would remain single combat by carrying off any of Duncan's men who attempted to interfere, to make it a less than fair fight. Macbeth killed his cousin in battle, using the weapon that the Weird Sister had given him, thereby becoming the High King of Scotland. He didn't really consider Duncan's son Canmore to be a threat, so instead of killing him, he banished him to England.
For all of the assistance that Demona had given him, Macbeth named her his chief advisor and vowed that the Gargoyles would be protected for as long as he remained the King.
The next seventeen years passed peacefully under Macbeth's rule; he was a wise king, and he protected the Gargoyles, as he had promised Demona he would.
But, Canmore returned, with reinforcements from England, to claim what he saw as his throne. Macbeth's forces held him off for a while, but eventually, the English troops that were helping him proved to be almost too much.
Bodhe told Macbeth that his theory was that the English didn't care who ruled Scotland, as long as the Gargoyles were destroyed. He urged his son-in-law to betray Demona, giving the Gargoyles to the English. Macbeth's son Luach was outraged at the very idea of betraying the Gargoyles; they had helped Macbeth keep the peace for seventeen years. It would be a poor display of gratitude to act as Bohde wished. Macbeth told his son that a wise king must consider all options before deciding on a course of action.
Demona overheard just enough to believe that Macbeth was going to betray her and her clan and allied herself with Canmore, thus betraying Macbeth.
Once again, Macbeth met his opponent in single combat, however; it was Canmore with whom he fought, instead of Duncan. The young son of the late Duncan apparently killed Macbeth, a fact that betrayed the King's link to Demona when she fell as though mortally wounded at the same time as the King. Canmore crowed about how he had killed Macbeth despite the older man's sorcery and chose to head back to the rest of his troops. Before he rejoined his men, he boasted to Gruoch that he had had the rest of Demona's clan destroyed, quite pleased that he was responsible for the extinction of Gargoyles in Scotland.
Macbeth's wife and son thought both Demona and the King to be dead. Even as his mother mourned, Luach took up the crown and his father's cause, charging back into battle to fight Canmore and the English.
It was a tremendous surprise when Macbeth and Demona both awakened from (seemingly) the dead. Gruoch, of course, was ecstatic that her beloved husband was not dead, but the excitement faded when they realized that, in order for Macbeth's troops to have any sort of chance of winning the battle, he would have to stay "dead." He was already suspected of practicing sorcery, with the whole growing old before his time thing, while the Gargoyle Demona stayed young; to return from the dead would strike fear into even the most devout, bravest of his warriors.
This was not what Macbeth wanted to hear from his beloved Gruoch; he wanted to be able to live out the rest of her days with his beloved, but such was not to be. And so, he departed, leaving his wife and son to a fate that only God could know.
He left his family, and headed out of his beloved Scotland, to France, where they did not know him. Macbeth spent enough time in Paris to learn fluent French. But, eventually, even the French will start to question things. Yes, all right, five years without visibly aging wasn't really a big deal, but twenty? When the man in question already appeared to be old enough to potentially be a grandfather?
Macbeth knew that he would have to move on. And move on he did. He pursued Demona, at first for revenge because of her betryal, but over the years, the reason for his pursuit changed from revenge to almost a suicide mission. He'd lived for far longer than he should have, and he wanted peace. The only way to achieve such peace was to kill Demona.
The two of them ran into each other quite a few times over the centuries, but as of yet, they have still not managed to end their feud. And so, Demona and Macbeth are still at odds, fighting and fighting each other, with no end in sight.
Around 1314, after more than three hundred years of wandering, learning new languages, and occasionally encountering Demona, Macbeth made his way back to his beloved Scotland. At the Battle of Bannockburn, he fought alongside Robert the Bruce, helping to reclaim Scotland for the Scots.
Many years later, in the time of the great playwright, William Shakespeare, Macbeth found himself in England. He became friends with the famously infamous Shakespeare, though he didn't tell the Bard of his true identity. One of Shakespeare's greatest plays was based on Macbeth's life, though Shakespeare rather distorted events. Rather than being offended by the portrayal, Macbeth was quite amused by the play.
When he had decided he had had enough of travelling through Europe, Macbeth chose to get on a boat and head for the New World, before it was even called America.
There, during World Wars I and II, he fought on the side of the Allies, helping to defeat the Axis powers and the Nazis in his own small way.
Over the years, he has amassed quite a bit of wealth, and he has several houses: one in New York and one in France, at the least.
By the 1990s, around the time that Xanatos had Castle Wyvern moved piece by piece from Scotland, Macbeth had taken on the alias of Lennox Macduff. He took on the guise of a medieval scholar, sometimes even teaching about his own life.
At the point Xanatos was thinking that the Gargoyles were more trouble than they were worth, Macbeth showed up, offering to take care of the billionaire's pest problem. Macbeth hoped that Demona would attempt to come to the rescue of the clan so that they could finally end things. Such was not to be, however, as Goliath told Macbeth that Demona considered the Manhattan clan to be her enemies. In the ensuing battle, Macbeth's mansion burned, though he himself escaped.
When Demona placed a curse upon the whole of New York City, rendering all who watched her broadcast "stone by night," Macbeth was able to fight her, at long last. The Weird Sisters and Goliath, however, convinced the two of them not to kill each other.
Macbeth does not remember being under the control of the Weird Sisters. After they intervened to keep Demona and Macbeth from killing each other, the Weird Sisters whisked the two old them off to Avalon, where they forced them to fight on behalf of the Archmage against Goliath and the Avalon clan.
Upon awakening, Macbeth found himself in Paris, where he was courted by a young woman called Dominique Destine. It wasn't long before he fell in love, not realizing that she as Demona in her human form.
Not long after they had met, Dominique and Macbeth were married. On the evening of their wedding, Dominique revealed herself to be Demona. She and Thailog were working together to, hopefully, gain Macbeth's wealth for themselves, though Thailog wanted them to kill each other so that he could have all of their assets.
Goliath, Angela, Elisa, and Bronx helped to thwart Thailog's plan, helping Macbeth. Goliath urged Macbeth to love again, since he now knew it was at least possible. Shortly after the deceitful marriage, Macbeth had it annulled.
When King Arthur arrived in New York, looking for Excalibur, Macbeth, too, was hunting for the legendary sword. He had, after all, been High King of Scotland for quite a few years, and he believed that he could be king once more, with Excalibur at his side.
Arthur was the one to recover his own sword, and he and Macbeth parted on good terms. Though the legendary Arthur had offered to take Macbeth into his service, Macbeth chose to become his ally instead, having been a king too long to serve under one, even a king so famous as Arthur.
Macbeth became an advocate for the Gargoyles, upon their revelation to the world at large, insisting that humans and Gargoyles could live together in peace. He even appeared, under his alias of Lennox Macduff, on the show Nightwatch where he debated quite fiercely for the Gargoyles against Margot Yale.
At this point in his life, Macbeth is arguing for the rights of the Gargoyles, though he still tends to stay out of their skirmishes as much as he can. If he feels, however, that he is honor-bound to help one side or the other, he will take up either his sword or his more modern weapons where he sees fit.
Game Information: Macbeth has been trying to stay neutral, for the most part, but in the end, he will side with whomever he thinks is in the right. He is a very honorable man, and will do what he thinks best, especially where Scotland is concerned. Macbeth adores his homeland and will do almost anything to ensure that his people (for he still considers them as such) have the best of everything possible.
Anything Else: At this point in his life, Macbeth knows Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Welsh, Romanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, among several others. Seems like a lot, but what do you expect after 1,000 years?
..:: Sample Post ::..
When the many different realms had been joined with Rohandor, Macbeth had known that there would be a way for him to visit Scotland, a Scotland that was still wild, still free. And still Scottish. One of the things that had saddened him over the years was the way that the English had conquered his people, forcing Scotland to become part of the British Empire. It was why he had leapt so quickly to fight alongside Robert the Bruce, though he himself had no chance of becoming King again. He wanted what was best for his people, regardless of how it had affected him, at that point.
And that was one reason he was headed to visit this place called DunBroch, to call on the Royal family. He had been High King of Scotland, which meant that he would be above even these Royals. But if they were taking care of the kingdom, he wouldn't interfere. He would offer his free and full support. If, however, they were not the best thing for the Scots, Macbeth would have to take action.
He'd heard stories of this Fergus of DunBroch, called the Bear King. The stories all said that he was a brave warrior who fought bears like they were nothing more than other men. But the stories he had heard had not said whether or not he was good to the people. Macbeth was going to meet with this Bear King, to find out what he was like. A King could be a brave warrior and yet, not a good King. It took far more than bravery in battle to lead a kingdom, especially a kingdom such as Scotland.
Scotland was a land that needed to be governed, but it also needed a King to know when to allow the land and its inhabitants to be free to be wild. A King of Scotland had to know the land and his people almost better than he knew himself.
Macbeth had chosen, today, to don the outfit he had had made as an exact replica of what he had worn on his coronation day as High King of Scotland. He wore a crown on top of his head, reclaimed from some long-forgotten tomb after the English had taken over. All in all, the man on the horse cut quite a striking figure as he rode from the docks, up to the Castle of DunBroch.
He rode into the stables and dismounted, standing tall and proud, a king once more in all but name.
"I am here to see your King," he announced, his voice fitting his stature: proud and full and leaving no room to argue.
