[RPG • 100] Greenstone, 1633 | Rollentopic - Rollentopics

Tamanend looks pretty typical for his age and the area, but that makes him look quite strange in a town occupied by many European settlers. His skin is a natural golden brown, no sun required and his hair is straight and jet black. Though he has let it grow out instead of keeping with the traditional Lenape hairstyles. He has brown eyes, often filled with a sense of wonder as he walks through life. His height is nothing to speak of, not long, not short, just average. He does wear clothes, though they are very different from the European wardrobe that was brought to Greenstone by ships, prefering to stick to his natural and traditional garb. In the warm months he often chooses to not wear shirts, keeping with his tribe's way of dressing, though he has adopted the use of trousers or shorts all year round. His skin shows many light scars from old scrapes and small hunting accidents and some bigger ones where it looks like someone ripped up pieces of his skin. Tama wears a traditional wampum necklace

Tama's life started out as normal in late spring. The sun was high in the sky and temperatures were starting to feel like summer when Tama was born. His baby cries quickly changed into smiles, always loving the company of people and interacting with anyone who came to see him. Though this was not surprising since he was born under the Elk totem. His friendly nature inspired the name Tamanend which turned out to be very fitting. As a kid Tama played around a lot with the others from Tùkwsit-clan he was born into. The curiosity he has now started early. With his mother being one of the healers, plants were always around him and it sparked some sort of fascination. The respect each part was given and the care that was used when preparing them or when helping others has always stayed with Tamanend. The young boy started bringing home little bits of all kind of different plants and asking what they were used for before pretending to prepare them and use them to treat problems. His fascination with the medicinal world did not go unnoticed, whilst everyone in his tribe knew basic medicine it was strange for a boy to know to be this interested as it was generally the job of women.

The first major event happend when Tama was nine. At the coast near his village, strange canoes started to come on land, weird light skinned people coming out of them. Together with many of the neighboring villages and tribes his father and his uncle protected their land, sharing only a small bit of land with the light-skins. Whilst the light-skins were supposed to be left alone, Tamanend couldn't keep his curiosity from piquing, immediately interested in the new people that were not yet his friends. He started to visit the new Dutch settlements in secret, first keeping his distance and just observing before daring to get closer. Eventually some of the Dutch started to notice him and began interacting with the young boy. They were amazed with how quickly Tama picked up their language, after picking up bits and pieces in their first few interactions some of them started to teach him in earnest. Pointing at all kinds of things and exchanging names from Munsi and Dutch before moving on to short sentences. Over the course of the winter Tama had many visits with the friendly Dutch people, learning enough Dutch to get basic concepts across and express important desires. Though his time with the Dutch stopped when some of their less friendly companions decided Tamanend would be a great bargaining chip and capturing him.

Luckily, Tama escaped before turning ten, returning to his tribe after a month of captivity. From that point on he was forbidden to go anywhere near the settlers. Not that he had much time for playing around anymore. His warrior and builder training started in earnest as his uncle and to a lesser extend his father were teaching him new things almost every day. Learning hunting, fighting, farming, fishing, building and a lot about different ceremonies and stories, Tama had enough to keep his mind and his body busy and away from the Dutch. He also kept up with the extra lessons his mother gave him on medicine and eventually becoming a valued and skilled member of the tribe. Though before he could become a proper adult, Tamanend needed to undergo his spiritual journey. After the innitial ceremony Tama traveled alone to a large rock in a clearing in the forest, chosen for him by the village elders. Four days and four nights he fasted, entering a meditative state praying and calling for visions to come to him. Tama barely remembers any details from this journey, but the elders explained his visions, saying he was going to be a bridge between people, helping all whilst the wolf-spirit would give him the courage to do so and protect him from danger he would face in order to connect to those he loves.

At the age of seventeen it was time to get married. As was customary within the Lenape community, Tamanend married outside of his own tribe. Having met a lovely young lady, Weènchipah, from the Pële-clan a bit to the south of his own on one of the larger gatherings, Tama moved south after marriage, being welcomed into her clan and learning their Unami-dialect and customs. Whilst the marriage was fine and his wife was lovely, it all just felt to structured. Especially after his youth turning from exploring to learning and his adulthood going from learning to just doing, he started to get antsy. Off course, he had some standards to uphold, resulting in their first child, Oratam, when he was nineteen and their second one, Tamaqua, six seasons later. But even being a father and seeing his kids grow up, was not enough to satisfy his curiosity.

Rumors about a village on the other side of the large forest finally came to his ears. The town supposedly housed many light-skins, something which immediately piqued Tama's interest. A season after Tamaqua was born, Tamanend made the first trek through the forest looking for the light-skins. But always just to look from a distance. A trek he made many more times with increasing frequency, slowly starting to interact with some of the people that frequented the forest, until just after his twentieth birthday when he made the final trek to, what he later learned to be Greenstone. That day he packed all his possessions and said goodbye to his wife and kids, fully taking up residence in Greenstone. At the edge of the forest, near the harbor Tama decided to build his own little house, completely in the style of his tribe, choosing this place as he could easily watch the ships in the harbor. Since barely anyone spoke Dutch he had to quickly learn English, but luckily there were people who were willing to actively teach him the new language, making it go way faster than last time he had to learn such a foreign language. He just his physical labor and herbalist skills to provide for the community and earn some money, a new concept to the boy. His friendly nature got him caught up in some less then ideal situations with some of the vampires of Montadon, though his faith might change soon as he became quick friends with one of the newest people to arrive in Greenstone.

Tamanend holds a bit of a weird position within Greenstone. As a human he is clearly lower in the pecking order than the other groups fighting for dominance and the sense of superiority many Europeans possess isn't helping with this. Though he has some very useful skills that are getting recognized more and more and his ever-friendly nature and way of interacting with people has made sure he gained some friends, though not all of them as genuine as Tama believes them to be.

Due to his variety in skills Tama works a wide range of jobs depending on what is needed. He can help with building wooden structures, prepare the land for farming and go fishing or hunting. Besides physical labor, Tama is a skilled herbalist who practices traditional medicine. Knowing how to treat many ailments and especially knowing what the native plants are and how they can be used has gained him some extra work as people come to him with their problems. Whilst there are more skilled physicians among the settlers, many of the native plants are foreign to them, allowing Tamanend to have a slight edge over them in some cases. When treating someone, Tama does this in the tribe's way, freshly preparing the medicine and including a small ceremony, in his own home.

Over the course of his life, Tama has already learned three languages. First off all, he speaks the Lenape language, of which the Munsi dialect is his mother tongue and he learned the northern-Unami dialect from the clan of his wife when he got married. This makes that he also has mutual-understanding with people speaking the southern-Unami dialect as the three dialects are close enough. When he was a kid, he learned the beginnings of Dutch. In this language he can still communicate basic ideas and desires enough for rough conversations, though he is rusty as he hasn't spoken much Dutch since his childhood. Lastly, Tama has learned English, this time learning a foreign language in much more detail and being immersed in it for about a year now means he has picked it up quite well. Though more advanced concepts such as sarcasm or jokes would often be lost to him.
Tama has also never learned to read or write as Lenape doesn't have a script, he learned Dutch from pointing and speaking and for English he didn't need it as his primary goal was to understand people and reading and writing is still not a skill most people have.