Post by Colton Deraine on Jan 10, 2019 20:47:30 GMT -5
Colton Deraine
"We're praying for a miracle, but for now we'll stand and fight."
 | Age 18 Gender Male Faction Haven Academy Tier Senior Face Claim Jean Kirschtein from Attack on Titan OOC Name Wolfe |
Character Traits
Date of Birth: December 20th, 7AV
Species: Human
Hometown: City of Argus
Romantic Orientation: Heterosexual
Hair Color/Style: Brown, in undercut style.
Eye Color: Brown
Aura Color: Dark Gray
Height: 180cm
Weight: 73kg
Appearance: One thing that Colt always keeps up is his appearance. His uniform is always neatly ironed and pressed, because he was taught that appearances meant a heck of a lot and showed how much effort one was willing to put in themselves. It turns out that Colt was willing to put a heck of a lot of effort into himself and showed it every day. Frequent haircuts, perfect posture, and an air of confidence that few could match are other constants when it comes to the boy.
When the school uniform comes off, Colt isn’t exactly afraid to show off the fact that he came from a comparatively wealthy family. His clothes and equipment tend to be on the fancier and nicer end of things, simply because he could afford it. Simply put, if it looks good and feels good, it has a place in Colt’s wardrobe.
Personality: They say that pride is a deadly sin, and if every person had a fatal flaw… pride would be Colton’s. Intense would be a term many would use to describe him, though whether that intensity was a positive or negative trait varied wildly depending on the person you talked to. Perfectionism is something that many people notice about Colt early on, and those that pay attention also notice that he places that burden of perfectionism upon himself as well.
An attitude that the goal was not to be ‘acceptable’ or even ‘good’, but to be exceptional was instilled in the boy from a very young age. While most trainees see their classmates as their competition and would regard placing highly relative to their peers to be an accomplishment, but Colt aims higher. He knows he is extremely far behind the point he needs to be in order to become a licensed huntsman in just about every area from semblance control to weapon skill to physical fitness and won’t be anywhere close to satisfied until that bar is cleared. He came to Haven Academy for one reason: to become a Huntsman. That is the end goal, and the one that he always keeps in mind. The starting point doesn’t matter, only the ending point.
This perfectionist bent does not, however, impede his ability to act when the situation calls for it. When Colt decides on a course of action, he follows through with it without a second thought and is able to come up with plans and stick to them far more consistently than many of his peers. He is a natural leader, but not in the happy-go-lucky inspiring way. He’s a natural leader in the sense that when shit hits the fan, Colt takes command and makes sure everyone is doing something. He might not be the nicest, and he might not be the friendliest, but he is definitely one of the bravest and most reliable in times of crisis because of the very reasons he is so abrasive in times of peace. He’s the type of guy you might not want to sit beside you at lunch but would be relieved to see come in to help a combat situation. While the plan might be perfect, any plan that gets people moving is better than no plan and anxiously waiting like sitting ducks.
Species: Human
Hometown: City of Argus
Romantic Orientation: Heterosexual
Hair Color/Style: Brown, in undercut style.
Eye Color: Brown
Aura Color: Dark Gray
Height: 180cm
Weight: 73kg
Appearance: One thing that Colt always keeps up is his appearance. His uniform is always neatly ironed and pressed, because he was taught that appearances meant a heck of a lot and showed how much effort one was willing to put in themselves. It turns out that Colt was willing to put a heck of a lot of effort into himself and showed it every day. Frequent haircuts, perfect posture, and an air of confidence that few could match are other constants when it comes to the boy.
When the school uniform comes off, Colt isn’t exactly afraid to show off the fact that he came from a comparatively wealthy family. His clothes and equipment tend to be on the fancier and nicer end of things, simply because he could afford it. Simply put, if it looks good and feels good, it has a place in Colt’s wardrobe.
Personality: They say that pride is a deadly sin, and if every person had a fatal flaw… pride would be Colton’s. Intense would be a term many would use to describe him, though whether that intensity was a positive or negative trait varied wildly depending on the person you talked to. Perfectionism is something that many people notice about Colt early on, and those that pay attention also notice that he places that burden of perfectionism upon himself as well.
An attitude that the goal was not to be ‘acceptable’ or even ‘good’, but to be exceptional was instilled in the boy from a very young age. While most trainees see their classmates as their competition and would regard placing highly relative to their peers to be an accomplishment, but Colt aims higher. He knows he is extremely far behind the point he needs to be in order to become a licensed huntsman in just about every area from semblance control to weapon skill to physical fitness and won’t be anywhere close to satisfied until that bar is cleared. He came to Haven Academy for one reason: to become a Huntsman. That is the end goal, and the one that he always keeps in mind. The starting point doesn’t matter, only the ending point.
This perfectionist bent does not, however, impede his ability to act when the situation calls for it. When Colt decides on a course of action, he follows through with it without a second thought and is able to come up with plans and stick to them far more consistently than many of his peers. He is a natural leader, but not in the happy-go-lucky inspiring way. He’s a natural leader in the sense that when shit hits the fan, Colt takes command and makes sure everyone is doing something. He might not be the nicest, and he might not be the friendliest, but he is definitely one of the bravest and most reliable in times of crisis because of the very reasons he is so abrasive in times of peace. He’s the type of guy you might not want to sit beside you at lunch but would be relieved to see come in to help a combat situation. While the plan might be perfect, any plan that gets people moving is better than no plan and anxiously waiting like sitting ducks.
Combat & Inventory
Polarity
Rank of Semblance: C
Semblance Type: Manipulator
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Polarity is a Manipulation type Semblance that allows Colton the ability to create magnetic effects in metal objects that he touches which then allows him to manipulate that metal at range.
Description of Semblance: Once Colton touches a metal object with any part of his body, it is able to be manipulated both the post that it is touched in and for one post after that. Polarity’s ability to grant magnokinesis allows the user to hurl metal at speeds that can break steel. One huge benefit to this semblance is that once the initial contact is made, the magnokinesis requires absolutely no physical movement on the part of the user and can be manipulated as far away as the length of a Olympic Short Course Swimming Pool (25-30m). This means that Colton is completely free to fight on as normal while using his semblance if he is given the initial setup time to prime it. To be clear, the manipulation type benefit that Colton gets from Polarity is Creation of Element, in this case Magnetism.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Polarity, like all manipulation type semblances, drains stamina when it is used. Since the magnetism only works on metals, it is completely useless when no metals are present and is the reason why Colt wears so much of it in combat whenever possible. If there is metal present but the temperature is increased past the Curie point for that metal, the metal loses its magnetic properties and thus cannot be manipulated by Polarity.
The semblance also has another large drawback insofar that Colton must get very close to the object he wishes to manipulate with some part of his body. Skin to object contact is not necessary for the semblance to work, but the range at which he can properly magnetize an object for his semblance to use is small enough to be considered touch. This is most commonly done with a hand but can also be done with a boot or his back if he was flung into a metal object. Both his hands and the object being manipulated have a faint gray outline around them when the semblance is being used as a visual tell.
Regret and Omen
Rank of Weapon(s): C
Description of Weapons(s): Regret is a straight sabre very similar to the Pattern 1796 Heavy Cavalry Sword with a blade measuring approximately 89cm that turns into a lever action shotgun, both of which are strong enough to break stone. The blade itself opens up to reveal the barrel and the lower half stays on as a bayonet while the upper half slides down into a compartment near the hilt of the blade that expands to form the stock of the shotgun. The guard of the blade turns into the lever of the shotgun, and the trigger opens up from the hilt. The lever action shotgun is based off of the Model 1901 Winchester. It’s called Regret because the greatest shame a man could ever have was being too paralyzed by fear to do something. It makes Colt think every time his hand is on the hilt of that blade about that fact and acknowledge the regret and shame that inaction would cause him. The greatest asset to a Huntsman is the bravery to act when others hesitate, and the blade serves as a reminder of that fact as well. The scabbard does not transform, but is built in such a way that its balance is good and it can be used as a melee weapon just the same as the sword itself.
Omen is a circular concave shield approximately 76cm in diameter that folds up neatly when not used into a vambrace that covers Colton’s left arm from wrist to upper arm on the outside. It’s called Omen because Colton often starts out a fight by tossing it forward after empowering it with his semblance. In a real fight, you’d see the shield long before you saw the boy himself. An omen of events to come.
All weapons are strong enough to punch through steel. Additionally, he has one meter long chains built into his gauntlets as well as extendable one inch blades that extend from his bracers along with a kukri knife sheathed on his left shoulder.
Non-Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Metalworking
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Having a semblance like Polarity makes it very easy for Colton to work with metal in general, and throughout his time at Sanctum he learned how to craft weapons and armor up to a certain standard that he now uses to tinker with his own equipment and to customize it well outside the norm even for Huntsman candidates. This skill justifies the creation of weapons and armor up to the rank of the ability itself, and can be used as an in character source for other character's weapon and armor upgrades provided they are metal based.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Argus Style Martial Arts
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton has trained for years with the same trainers who had taught Cressida Fox, legendary Sanctum Academy graduate and winner of the Eleventh Mistral Regional Tournament and a finalist of the Vytal Festival. This style focuses on skillful parries and savage counter attacks that get free aura chips on your opponent while tying up the enemy weapon so no retaliation strikes can be done in response. Finesse is the name of the game, and it suits the type of fighter that Colton is quite well by allowing him to take advantage of his natural skill and cover up his lack of physical strength.
Name of Combat Ability: Made of Iron (Durability)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton unlocked his aura earlier than most of his peers due to his parents hiring people with the express job of doing just that. That means that he has had more practice than most at his age with managing his aura, specifically when it comes to taking hits. This head start has allowed him thus far to be able to have the aura protecting him gain the toughness of steel, which has saved him in both in sparring sessions and actual missions more times than he could count.
His fighting style prioritizes deflections and blocks, which naturally leads him to blocking the majority of the damage going his way. He also on combat missions tends to wear his upgraded set of armor made of lightweight composite metals to not hinder his mobility or tire him out when on the move for hours at a time. The combination of his fighting style, aura strength, and enhanced armor make him the equivalent of a Huntsman in terms of mitigating the attacks that come his way through one method or another.
Name of Combat Ability: Weapon Enhancement: Dust
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton's equipment is noticeably better than the norm, due entirely at this stage to the fact that his family was able to afford top of the line materials and craftsmanship in making both Regret and Omen. All of his weapons have state of the art technology that allow dust to be activated on the cutting edge of these weapons. Flavor-wise, what this means is that each weapon that Colton carries individually carries has a dust reserve that consists of entirely gravity dust that allows the weapon to do additional damage by using the gravity dust to double tap on successful hits and really smash the heck out of one specific point in the enemy's aura or Grimm's body until the dust reserve is depleted after two posts. This is a direct imitation of the combat style employed by the late Cressida Fox, who was also known for her extensive use of Gravity dust in conjunction with her semblance.
Mechanically, Dust Empowerment is a power that can be activated on an individual weapon that lasts for two posts, including the one it was activated on and cannot be used again in the same thread without some method of getting the dust refilled. During this two post period, all attacks with the weapon do additional C rank damage over two post cycles to the target on a successful hit as a result of two hits in quick succession in the exact same place causing a strain on aura in the case of humans and a lingering effect on Grimm due to the severity of the wound. This damage is separate from and stacks with the damage that the weapon itself deals. This two post duration cannot be cancelled once activated. This does not work with the shotgun form of Regret and is absent from Colton's secondary weapons as well.
Name of Combat Ability: Defensive Fighting (Agility)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: When someone doesn't have natural strength, it is very important to not be caught in the grasp of someone or something that does. The essence of the Argus style is to evade or fully block your opponent's attacks with as little movement as possible to avoid wasting energy and leaving retaliation windows as small as possible. A combination of sword, shield, dagger, armor, and the simple act of stepping once and changing the direction of your body is oftentimes sufficient to fully block or deflect attacks away from enemies without having to resort to aura at all. Mechanically this ability works as all other agility abilities, it is just flavored to be character-specific.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Stamina
Rank of Combat Ability: D
Description of Combat Ability: Years of long runs and going the extra mile both figuratively and literally have given Colt more of a gas tank than normal when it comes to physical activity. He can run an absurd distance without slowing down, though his top speed is less than impressive.
Rank of Semblance: C
Semblance Type: Manipulator
One Sentence Summary of Semblance: Polarity is a Manipulation type Semblance that allows Colton the ability to create magnetic effects in metal objects that he touches which then allows him to manipulate that metal at range.
Description of Semblance: Once Colton touches a metal object with any part of his body, it is able to be manipulated both the post that it is touched in and for one post after that. Polarity’s ability to grant magnokinesis allows the user to hurl metal at speeds that can break steel. One huge benefit to this semblance is that once the initial contact is made, the magnokinesis requires absolutely no physical movement on the part of the user and can be manipulated as far away as the length of a Olympic Short Course Swimming Pool (25-30m). This means that Colton is completely free to fight on as normal while using his semblance if he is given the initial setup time to prime it. To be clear, the manipulation type benefit that Colton gets from Polarity is Creation of Element, in this case Magnetism.
Drawbacks of Semblance: Polarity, like all manipulation type semblances, drains stamina when it is used. Since the magnetism only works on metals, it is completely useless when no metals are present and is the reason why Colt wears so much of it in combat whenever possible. If there is metal present but the temperature is increased past the Curie point for that metal, the metal loses its magnetic properties and thus cannot be manipulated by Polarity.
The semblance also has another large drawback insofar that Colton must get very close to the object he wishes to manipulate with some part of his body. Skin to object contact is not necessary for the semblance to work, but the range at which he can properly magnetize an object for his semblance to use is small enough to be considered touch. This is most commonly done with a hand but can also be done with a boot or his back if he was flung into a metal object. Both his hands and the object being manipulated have a faint gray outline around them when the semblance is being used as a visual tell.
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Regret and Omen
Rank of Weapon(s): C
Description of Weapons(s): Regret is a straight sabre very similar to the Pattern 1796 Heavy Cavalry Sword with a blade measuring approximately 89cm that turns into a lever action shotgun, both of which are strong enough to break stone. The blade itself opens up to reveal the barrel and the lower half stays on as a bayonet while the upper half slides down into a compartment near the hilt of the blade that expands to form the stock of the shotgun. The guard of the blade turns into the lever of the shotgun, and the trigger opens up from the hilt. The lever action shotgun is based off of the Model 1901 Winchester. It’s called Regret because the greatest shame a man could ever have was being too paralyzed by fear to do something. It makes Colt think every time his hand is on the hilt of that blade about that fact and acknowledge the regret and shame that inaction would cause him. The greatest asset to a Huntsman is the bravery to act when others hesitate, and the blade serves as a reminder of that fact as well. The scabbard does not transform, but is built in such a way that its balance is good and it can be used as a melee weapon just the same as the sword itself.
Omen is a circular concave shield approximately 76cm in diameter that folds up neatly when not used into a vambrace that covers Colton’s left arm from wrist to upper arm on the outside. It’s called Omen because Colton often starts out a fight by tossing it forward after empowering it with his semblance. In a real fight, you’d see the shield long before you saw the boy himself. An omen of events to come.
All weapons are strong enough to punch through steel. Additionally, he has one meter long chains built into his gauntlets as well as extendable one inch blades that extend from his bracers along with a kukri knife sheathed on his left shoulder.
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Non-Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Metalworking
Rank of Combat Ability: E
Description of Combat Ability: Having a semblance like Polarity makes it very easy for Colton to work with metal in general, and throughout his time at Sanctum he learned how to craft weapons and armor up to a certain standard that he now uses to tinker with his own equipment and to customize it well outside the norm even for Huntsman candidates. This skill justifies the creation of weapons and armor up to the rank of the ability itself, and can be used as an in character source for other character's weapon and armor upgrades provided they are metal based.
Name of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
Rank of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
Description of Non-Combat Ability: Enter here
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Combat Abilities
Name of Combat Ability: Argus Style Martial Arts
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton has trained for years with the same trainers who had taught Cressida Fox, legendary Sanctum Academy graduate and winner of the Eleventh Mistral Regional Tournament and a finalist of the Vytal Festival. This style focuses on skillful parries and savage counter attacks that get free aura chips on your opponent while tying up the enemy weapon so no retaliation strikes can be done in response. Finesse is the name of the game, and it suits the type of fighter that Colton is quite well by allowing him to take advantage of his natural skill and cover up his lack of physical strength.
Name of Combat Ability: Made of Iron (Durability)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton unlocked his aura earlier than most of his peers due to his parents hiring people with the express job of doing just that. That means that he has had more practice than most at his age with managing his aura, specifically when it comes to taking hits. This head start has allowed him thus far to be able to have the aura protecting him gain the toughness of steel, which has saved him in both in sparring sessions and actual missions more times than he could count.
His fighting style prioritizes deflections and blocks, which naturally leads him to blocking the majority of the damage going his way. He also on combat missions tends to wear his upgraded set of armor made of lightweight composite metals to not hinder his mobility or tire him out when on the move for hours at a time. The combination of his fighting style, aura strength, and enhanced armor make him the equivalent of a Huntsman in terms of mitigating the attacks that come his way through one method or another.
Name of Combat Ability: Weapon Enhancement: Dust
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: Colton's equipment is noticeably better than the norm, due entirely at this stage to the fact that his family was able to afford top of the line materials and craftsmanship in making both Regret and Omen. All of his weapons have state of the art technology that allow dust to be activated on the cutting edge of these weapons. Flavor-wise, what this means is that each weapon that Colton carries individually carries has a dust reserve that consists of entirely gravity dust that allows the weapon to do additional damage by using the gravity dust to double tap on successful hits and really smash the heck out of one specific point in the enemy's aura or Grimm's body until the dust reserve is depleted after two posts. This is a direct imitation of the combat style employed by the late Cressida Fox, who was also known for her extensive use of Gravity dust in conjunction with her semblance.
Mechanically, Dust Empowerment is a power that can be activated on an individual weapon that lasts for two posts, including the one it was activated on and cannot be used again in the same thread without some method of getting the dust refilled. During this two post period, all attacks with the weapon do additional C rank damage over two post cycles to the target on a successful hit as a result of two hits in quick succession in the exact same place causing a strain on aura in the case of humans and a lingering effect on Grimm due to the severity of the wound. This damage is separate from and stacks with the damage that the weapon itself deals. This two post duration cannot be cancelled once activated. This does not work with the shotgun form of Regret and is absent from Colton's secondary weapons as well.
Name of Combat Ability: Defensive Fighting (Agility)
Rank of Combat Ability: C
Description of Combat Ability: When someone doesn't have natural strength, it is very important to not be caught in the grasp of someone or something that does. The essence of the Argus style is to evade or fully block your opponent's attacks with as little movement as possible to avoid wasting energy and leaving retaliation windows as small as possible. A combination of sword, shield, dagger, armor, and the simple act of stepping once and changing the direction of your body is oftentimes sufficient to fully block or deflect attacks away from enemies without having to resort to aura at all. Mechanically this ability works as all other agility abilities, it is just flavored to be character-specific.
Name of Combat Ability: Enhanced Stamina
Rank of Combat Ability: D
Description of Combat Ability: Years of long runs and going the extra mile both figuratively and literally have given Colt more of a gas tank than normal when it comes to physical activity. He can run an absurd distance without slowing down, though his top speed is less than impressive.
Biography
History
The name Deraine used to mean something. It was one of the oldest names in the former Kingdom of Mantle, one of the original families of settlers who came north to brave the frozen wasteland of Solitas. They moved north, like many did, to start a new life away from the other Kingdoms and away from the Grimm. The frozen landscape and ocean borders protected them from the troubles of other Kingdoms and the Grimm, but it wasn’t exactly easy on humans either. Creation of new technology to brave the arctic winter was necessary, and to do that Dust and Dust technology became the two leading industries of the fledgling Kingdom of Mantle very quickly. Danger spurs all kinds of human ingenuity.
The Deraine family ended up getting lucky, it turned out the parcel of land they were given at the start of that whole migration business into Solitas included an area that would become quite a profitable dust mine that quickly expanded through smart investments in large amounts of land on the cheap that paid off enough to be hugely profitable. The Deraine Dust Company quickly became a regional name and known for paying higher wages than their competitors to those who were willing to work for it. Their business model of getting in early when land was still cheap and buying it up hoping to find valuable resources underneath that land wasn’t a strategy that would work for many, but it worked for them because they were one of the first to try it due to accidentally settling on top of a dust deposit to begin with. The Deraine family had a good thing going on for a long time and were just at the edge of being accepted into Mantle’s societal elite when the Great War happened.
During the course of the war, problems compounded upon problems very quickly for the family and thus the company at large. With the military and industry of Mantle being focused on the war to the south… there was much less attention being paid to the home front. While the frozen wastes of Solitas were inhospitable to Grimm, it did not mean that huge amounts of negativity still couldn’t bring some over or that they weren’t completely unheard of in the region. Due to all the battle-ready young men and women being sent south… a few was all that was needed to wipe out many of the smaller mining cities and scare the heck out of the rest of them. What the Grimm didn’t destroy, technology malfunctions did. The capital simply didn’t have time to do routine maintenance on villages too far away to be ‘worth their time’ so those without engineers capable of handling those repairs themselves froze to death in the harsh arctic tundra.
The Deraine Dust Company didn’t have the funds to protect the land it owned, and almost all the cost in cultivating these smaller mines went into the long casualty list of the Great War. The tracts of land that the Kingdom of Mantle decided it needed, it bought back for a fraction of the worth of the land due to ‘national security’ being paramount because they would be the ones who would have to maintain the mines anyway because the Deraine Dust Company was now unable. Several members of the family were drafted into the military of Mantle and while they handled themselves with distinction… the business that they had fought so hard for so long to build up turned to ashes in their absence.
Over the course of the war, many young men and women in the family died and what was once a group and organization that was on the cusp on being part of the permanent elite of the Kingdom of Mantle was a shell of its former self by the end of the Great War. Those who were drafted into the military found that the meagre pay that they got for serving their Kingdom paled in comparison to debts and legal fees accrued while they were gone… and the only option left was to sell.
The Kingdom of Mantle bought up the remaining mines, workers, and resources that the Deraine Dust Company had… and so within the span of ten years one of the original corporations of Solitas faded into the obscurity of history. The deal that they got this time, though, was at least mostly fair and left them with enough wealth to at least attempt to make a new life for themselves. They saw the writing on the wall, though, and knew that Mantle’s shelf life as the capital of the Kingdom was fast approaching its end. All the resources including the military, the industry, and the Huntsman Academy were all in Atlas… and the Deraine family was never a bunch of egghead scientists who would thrive in such a location.
So, they moved. They moved to Argus, a port city in the Kingdom of Mistral where they could try their hand at becoming merchants once again. While they didn’t fail in becoming self-sustaining, since the end of the Great War they have come nowhere close to regaining even a fraction of their former wealth and influence. Colton was born in 8 AV, and by then what remained of the main branch of the family had mostly settled into Argus and made it their home for better or for worse. Their societal connections with the Kingdom of Mantle that would become the Kingdom of Atlas got their foot in the door economically to make smart business investments that continue to pay off into the present day. It’s not society’s elite money, but it is very much upper middle-class money and generational wealth.
Colton was the third child of the family, and the second son. This position meant that he would never attain any level of critical importance in the family business, so he was largely left alone to do as he wished. This turned out quite well, because from an early age there was only one thing that young Colton wanted to be: A Huntsman. They were basically glorified as superheroes by the public, wandering around Remnant righting wrongs and saving the day from Grimm and bandits alike so regular people like those who lived in Argus could just live their lives. They were flashy, they were cool, and more to the point it was a way that he could live his life without being surrounded by all the boring aspects of business and trade deals and contracts and all of that drudgery.
The family encouraged this, because it meant there would be no in-fighting this generation at least from the sons about wanting positions in the growing company. Colton did not value money as much as a merchant should, but that was fine because he would simply do something else that required much less funding from them. Deraine Dust Company was gone, but the Argus Shipping Company lived on. They gave the boy the best teachers available, because it suited their interests to have Colton continue to have exactly zero interest in business. It kept him out of their hair, and more importantly kept the line of succession clean and without drama or scandal. There was nothing worse for a company’s image than a bitter and public power struggle, after all.
Colton attended Sanctum Academy right there in Argus for four years, with full acceptance from the family. While they weren’t the types to exactly cheer him on in tournaments or even be present during them, they did provide the training, equipment, and dust that he needed to continue to practice and stay ahead of his peers during school breaks. Being a Huntsman worked out great, really, because it brought with it the good PR that only someone who dedicated their life to protecting mankind from Grimm could bring to the family… but if Colton was to be a Huntsman, he had to be a good one. Being known for incompetence in such a public facing position with his namesake simply wasn’t an option.
He unlocked his semblance at an early age due to all of that extra help and training and had quite a bit of a head start on many of his classmates when it came to controlling it. Small advantages in getting extra instruction, eating healthier and better, and not having to worry about anything except for school and training added up over time. Small advantages piled up over time to snowball, until a perfect storm of events occurred to give young Colton an achievement that sure as hell looked nice on paper but in reality, didn’t mean a heck of a lot due to the circumstances in which he accomplished it.
The Fourteen Annual Mistral Regional Tournament, honestly, was one with the worst field in years. It was on an odd year where none of the Big Four Huntsman Academies were recruiting, so the quality of the participants was less than it usually was. Some of the heavy hitters who had the best chance to win the damn thing even declined to attend due to it being an injury risk with no benefit to them. There was no cash prize, and usually the big reward was this little trophy and being admitted to a Big Four Academy as a star student… but with the second and most important of those two carrots being unavailable that year… it wasn’t exactly the best competition the tournament had ever seen.
Nevertheless, Colton had won it largely through luck of the draw. Turns out that the other finalist had an artificial and metal arm as his dominant one, and that was one hell of a dream matchup for someone with a semblance like young Colton’s. The other boy may have been the better fighter, but the horrific semblance matchup sealed the deal more than that gap in skill. That title and victory was marketed to hell and back by his family, and it led to the teenager being one of the few to get immediate offers from Haven Academy in the immediate aftermath of The Fall. He got his fifteen minutes of fame and his spot in one of the Big Four Academies secured, so all that was left was to keep on working to be worthy enough for the title of Huntsman. The prestige of being part of the most elite group of fighters in all of Remnant was something that the teenager desperately wanted, and he was able to do whatever it took to reach those heights himself.
Family
Father: Gavin Deraine - Alive
Mother: Adele Deraine - Alive
Siblings: Roland Deraine (Brother) – Alive, Summer Deraine (Sister) -- Alive
Extra
Colton means from the coal or from the dark town. Coal is black or brownish-black rock. Deraine has ‘rain’ as part of the name and sounds a lot like ‘The Rain’ when said out loud. Rain is usually depicted as blue, which is another color that satisfies the naming requirement.
Enormous inspiration from Pyrrha Nikos also noted and acknowledged.
The name Deraine used to mean something. It was one of the oldest names in the former Kingdom of Mantle, one of the original families of settlers who came north to brave the frozen wasteland of Solitas. They moved north, like many did, to start a new life away from the other Kingdoms and away from the Grimm. The frozen landscape and ocean borders protected them from the troubles of other Kingdoms and the Grimm, but it wasn’t exactly easy on humans either. Creation of new technology to brave the arctic winter was necessary, and to do that Dust and Dust technology became the two leading industries of the fledgling Kingdom of Mantle very quickly. Danger spurs all kinds of human ingenuity.
The Deraine family ended up getting lucky, it turned out the parcel of land they were given at the start of that whole migration business into Solitas included an area that would become quite a profitable dust mine that quickly expanded through smart investments in large amounts of land on the cheap that paid off enough to be hugely profitable. The Deraine Dust Company quickly became a regional name and known for paying higher wages than their competitors to those who were willing to work for it. Their business model of getting in early when land was still cheap and buying it up hoping to find valuable resources underneath that land wasn’t a strategy that would work for many, but it worked for them because they were one of the first to try it due to accidentally settling on top of a dust deposit to begin with. The Deraine family had a good thing going on for a long time and were just at the edge of being accepted into Mantle’s societal elite when the Great War happened.
During the course of the war, problems compounded upon problems very quickly for the family and thus the company at large. With the military and industry of Mantle being focused on the war to the south… there was much less attention being paid to the home front. While the frozen wastes of Solitas were inhospitable to Grimm, it did not mean that huge amounts of negativity still couldn’t bring some over or that they weren’t completely unheard of in the region. Due to all the battle-ready young men and women being sent south… a few was all that was needed to wipe out many of the smaller mining cities and scare the heck out of the rest of them. What the Grimm didn’t destroy, technology malfunctions did. The capital simply didn’t have time to do routine maintenance on villages too far away to be ‘worth their time’ so those without engineers capable of handling those repairs themselves froze to death in the harsh arctic tundra.
The Deraine Dust Company didn’t have the funds to protect the land it owned, and almost all the cost in cultivating these smaller mines went into the long casualty list of the Great War. The tracts of land that the Kingdom of Mantle decided it needed, it bought back for a fraction of the worth of the land due to ‘national security’ being paramount because they would be the ones who would have to maintain the mines anyway because the Deraine Dust Company was now unable. Several members of the family were drafted into the military of Mantle and while they handled themselves with distinction… the business that they had fought so hard for so long to build up turned to ashes in their absence.
Over the course of the war, many young men and women in the family died and what was once a group and organization that was on the cusp on being part of the permanent elite of the Kingdom of Mantle was a shell of its former self by the end of the Great War. Those who were drafted into the military found that the meagre pay that they got for serving their Kingdom paled in comparison to debts and legal fees accrued while they were gone… and the only option left was to sell.
The Kingdom of Mantle bought up the remaining mines, workers, and resources that the Deraine Dust Company had… and so within the span of ten years one of the original corporations of Solitas faded into the obscurity of history. The deal that they got this time, though, was at least mostly fair and left them with enough wealth to at least attempt to make a new life for themselves. They saw the writing on the wall, though, and knew that Mantle’s shelf life as the capital of the Kingdom was fast approaching its end. All the resources including the military, the industry, and the Huntsman Academy were all in Atlas… and the Deraine family was never a bunch of egghead scientists who would thrive in such a location.
So, they moved. They moved to Argus, a port city in the Kingdom of Mistral where they could try their hand at becoming merchants once again. While they didn’t fail in becoming self-sustaining, since the end of the Great War they have come nowhere close to regaining even a fraction of their former wealth and influence. Colton was born in 8 AV, and by then what remained of the main branch of the family had mostly settled into Argus and made it their home for better or for worse. Their societal connections with the Kingdom of Mantle that would become the Kingdom of Atlas got their foot in the door economically to make smart business investments that continue to pay off into the present day. It’s not society’s elite money, but it is very much upper middle-class money and generational wealth.
Colton was the third child of the family, and the second son. This position meant that he would never attain any level of critical importance in the family business, so he was largely left alone to do as he wished. This turned out quite well, because from an early age there was only one thing that young Colton wanted to be: A Huntsman. They were basically glorified as superheroes by the public, wandering around Remnant righting wrongs and saving the day from Grimm and bandits alike so regular people like those who lived in Argus could just live their lives. They were flashy, they were cool, and more to the point it was a way that he could live his life without being surrounded by all the boring aspects of business and trade deals and contracts and all of that drudgery.
The family encouraged this, because it meant there would be no in-fighting this generation at least from the sons about wanting positions in the growing company. Colton did not value money as much as a merchant should, but that was fine because he would simply do something else that required much less funding from them. Deraine Dust Company was gone, but the Argus Shipping Company lived on. They gave the boy the best teachers available, because it suited their interests to have Colton continue to have exactly zero interest in business. It kept him out of their hair, and more importantly kept the line of succession clean and without drama or scandal. There was nothing worse for a company’s image than a bitter and public power struggle, after all.
Colton attended Sanctum Academy right there in Argus for four years, with full acceptance from the family. While they weren’t the types to exactly cheer him on in tournaments or even be present during them, they did provide the training, equipment, and dust that he needed to continue to practice and stay ahead of his peers during school breaks. Being a Huntsman worked out great, really, because it brought with it the good PR that only someone who dedicated their life to protecting mankind from Grimm could bring to the family… but if Colton was to be a Huntsman, he had to be a good one. Being known for incompetence in such a public facing position with his namesake simply wasn’t an option.
He unlocked his semblance at an early age due to all of that extra help and training and had quite a bit of a head start on many of his classmates when it came to controlling it. Small advantages in getting extra instruction, eating healthier and better, and not having to worry about anything except for school and training added up over time. Small advantages piled up over time to snowball, until a perfect storm of events occurred to give young Colton an achievement that sure as hell looked nice on paper but in reality, didn’t mean a heck of a lot due to the circumstances in which he accomplished it.
The Fourteen Annual Mistral Regional Tournament, honestly, was one with the worst field in years. It was on an odd year where none of the Big Four Huntsman Academies were recruiting, so the quality of the participants was less than it usually was. Some of the heavy hitters who had the best chance to win the damn thing even declined to attend due to it being an injury risk with no benefit to them. There was no cash prize, and usually the big reward was this little trophy and being admitted to a Big Four Academy as a star student… but with the second and most important of those two carrots being unavailable that year… it wasn’t exactly the best competition the tournament had ever seen.
Nevertheless, Colton had won it largely through luck of the draw. Turns out that the other finalist had an artificial and metal arm as his dominant one, and that was one hell of a dream matchup for someone with a semblance like young Colton’s. The other boy may have been the better fighter, but the horrific semblance matchup sealed the deal more than that gap in skill. That title and victory was marketed to hell and back by his family, and it led to the teenager being one of the few to get immediate offers from Haven Academy in the immediate aftermath of The Fall. He got his fifteen minutes of fame and his spot in one of the Big Four Academies secured, so all that was left was to keep on working to be worthy enough for the title of Huntsman. The prestige of being part of the most elite group of fighters in all of Remnant was something that the teenager desperately wanted, and he was able to do whatever it took to reach those heights himself.
Family
Father: Gavin Deraine - Alive
Mother: Adele Deraine - Alive
Siblings: Roland Deraine (Brother) – Alive, Summer Deraine (Sister) -- Alive
Extra
Colton means from the coal or from the dark town. Coal is black or brownish-black rock. Deraine has ‘rain’ as part of the name and sounds a lot like ‘The Rain’ when said out loud. Rain is usually depicted as blue, which is another color that satisfies the naming requirement.
Enormous inspiration from Pyrrha Nikos also noted and acknowledged.
