Tamatz Kahullumary

[Widdershins]

Before I begin, I would like to make a note here and a citation; almost all of this is based on the ancient Toltec tradition, in Mexico, and the modern day Wirrarika people. Tamatz Kahullumary is based on one of their deities, the blue deer. Though my character’s actions might not mirror exactly what this sacred deity would have done as a human, I had the inspiration while reading The Toltec Oracle by Victor Sanchez, to use the name of the blue deer in the Toltec language along with other terms that can be found throughout his profile here. What my character does, doesn’t exactly mirror the legend accurately, and since I did not want to create a deity character, I decided to create one that is currently a human, but one who is unaware of his true nature. If anyone has read the book Orion by Ben Bova, then you can make a comparison: it’s like the character Anya (or whichever of her many names), who is in fact a Goddess, but in all her incarnations she is not directly aware that she is a deity. Only once she dies does she realize it, and she remembers entering the life, living the life, etc.
In all probabilities, even in a human incarnation, Tamatzin would not do things like have the kind of warrior tendencies that I shall describe, so I must impress the difference between what I have created and what the tradition of the Toltec say. I have merely borrowed his concept and use the Toltec language to create a fictional story to attach to him. With all due respect. Also, I have used the definitions given in Sanchez’s book as a reference, like the concept of Tlamatinime, but it is not to say that this is what a real Tlamatinime would do necessarily (this is a title that is used by the Toltec – and the Wirrarika as far as I know – for actual, living people), so once again, all due respect to the reality, but this is probably inaccurate. Since he is a manifestation of a deity, Tamatz will obviously have some odd powers and he will be lacking in certain places where a normal human would not be, since it is a natural train of thought that a deity cannot comprehend being human fully, just as we cannot fully comprehend being a deity. This particular deity is trying to amend this however, by living a life among humans as a human. Certainly it would all be futile if he were aware of his true nature, so it is natural that the only thing really special about him during his life is that 1. he has a quality to him which induces the outside observer to think he was rather designed than born (lacking in certain areas, or having abilities that not everyone has), and 2. when he dies he has a realization hit him. He’s going to live for a while however, so no need to worry about that detail yet, and once he does die, his life in Old Kingdom will end as well just like any other mortal, and shall not continue his existence as a deity (within the physical plains). Logically he cannot make an appearance in the world if he is no longer living as a human (unless for some reason, respectively, Halohill thinks it a good idea to keep him, but that will most likely depend on what kind of character developes out of him during his human life).
What I have borrowed and does reflect reality is the legend of the blue deer, where I describe how the sacred deity Tamatz lead the Wirrarika people to Humun-Kulluaby, the sacred lands, because the Kakayares (the ones who organized the world according to Toltec tradition) were worried that humans would not be aware of the spiritual forces within them, all they were concerned with was living, and they didn’t know anything about pilgrimages, or seeking the Great Spirit, so on. This is a very real thing, the Wirrarika people make this 300 mile trek every year, to this day. So I repeat once again, all due respect to them and their tradition. Also, it is in Toltec tradition that the Toltec people originated from Tamoanchan.
In Toltec tradition Kahullumary is a Kakayare who is the holder of the book of knowledge. The Poderios (Kakayares) were trying to call the attention of humans using all sorts of things, what today we call natural catastrophes (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.), challenges, many blessings, but the humans didn’t become aware of their connection to the Poderios no matter what they did. So they called upon Kahullumary, assigning him to the task of attracting people to the path of knowledge. Thus he became the blue deer, tricking the people into thinking that he was edible, and leading them on and on.
These two elements (Tamoanchan and the legend of the blue deer) I have kept unabridged, and I have based some things on actual definitions of certain words, the rest is a fictional interpretation, and any other accuracies are pure coincidence. For example, the concept of Kalli (house) is not based on facts nor traditions, though the word Kalli does mean house, it does not mean what I shall interpret it as in the story of Tamatz Kahullumary-the-human. Also I decided to use some terms as names since I really liked the sound of it (later on I might contemplate to make characters out of them), but for now they are somehow related to Tamatzin.
So, with that note, here’s the actual character description (I have also provided a short dictionary of reference, though I explained each one in the text, I find it useful to have a concise list of words; it takes a while to get used to, especially to type it up!):

[Widdershins]

General Stats:[/b]
Name: Tamatz Kahullumary (also known as Tamatzin)
Race: A human manifestation of a deity
Gender: Male
Age: In this life 29
Class: Tlamatinime (man of knowledge)
Alignment: Neutral, but mostly Good

Personal Stats:[/b]
Body Build: Tamatz’s build is nothing terribly extraordinary in any manner; he is average height, healthy looking, sharp features and has a sunny smile that radiates from him the fact that he knows what he is about (though in reality, he hasn’t got a clue). He has golden-bronze colored skin, and as his people of Tamoanchan, he has the characteristic features, including dark and penetrating eyes, with dark hair. His longish, sharp nose bends downwards a little, and despite the fact that he has a rather small mouth, he can have an exceptionally wide grin if he finds a reason to flash it. Sometimes in his more relaxed moods, there is something soft about his features as well, which reminds most people of a deer, though this is a rare moment when this can be seen, as he is only relaxed when he is in his habitual, deep contemplation.

Distinguishing Features: His eyes are one part of him which is very different from the rest of him, if you gaze into his eyes for too long, you get the eerie sense that you are being faced with some kind of power that few can comprehend, least of all interpret correctly to be the eyes of a deity’s manifestation. Tamatz is quite unaware of what shows in his eyes, though he has noticed that he can render people harmless quite effortlessly if he meets their stare. Also his two middle fingers on his right hand are noticably the same length, though it is a feature inconspicuous enough to make a person wonder for a good 10 minutes before realizing what was so odd about his right hand. Once one notices however, it is not easily forgotten.

Clothes: Tamatz wears soft desert boots with a beige colored desert “suit”, and a black cloak that he hides under if he remembers it. He wears a pendant around his neck with his family emblem on it, but keeps it hidden for most of the time, and a blue wristband with strange patterns on it, and a small depiction of the blue deer embedded within its center.

Personality: Tamatz is a human manifestation of the blue deer, a deity, so it is not surprising that most of the time he appears wise and reserved, since the blue deer is the holder of the book of wisdom. In his alert moments he looks and feels like a formidable warrior, with a hard expression that reveals absolutely nothing, and in his amused or relaxed states he is simply someone who is rather confident about where his life is leading him, without too many troubles to hinder him from following his destiny. What shows frequently on his face is a kind of deep desire to merge with something that few outside Tamoanchan know about – the sacred lands. He gazes into the distance for long moments, longing after a land that he wishes to lead his people to. Usually he acts as an outside observer of the world, and is capable of staring at an event without showing – or feeling for that matter – any emotion at all, no matter how happy or tragic the event is. When he senses that something is very wrong, then he fearlessly seeks out the answer and handles the situation to the best of his abilites. Sadly this has ended quite a few times in taking someone’s life. Tamatz tries to live and explore in a manner so that at the end of his life he can look back upon his life and not regret a single thing he had done. This is reflected in his actions, as he never acts without thinking it through, weighing the possible consequences of his interference with something. He will act for what seems the best thing at the moment, so often it can result in something that most people would try to avoid – like saving the life of an innocent child, but doing so by killing many more people who were threatening her. This is the reason why his alignment is neutral, since sometimes his actions cannot be excused as in the name of doing good through and through. His actions always stem from something good (such as saving that life), but the actual finalization of it is not always the best alternative when viewed from the point of view of doing good deeds. Also the fact that he is a warrior enables him to carry out his actions and accept all the consequences fearlessly and without any emotions interfering. This warrior aspect of him is something that his people do not really understand about him, since they believe not in fighting, but in uniting opposites, and the fact that Tamatzin himself is a Kiname (more on that in History) makes it all the more confusing. Not to mention the fact that as the human manifestation of the blue deer, it is not really in his place to even do something like this. His people are not a warrior race, but a race of people who seek knowledge. His family, who had held the secret of his suspected origin from him, had often scolded him by saying that he would have made a better Aztlan child than one of Tamoanchan. Tamatzin, as a result, tries to avoid using his warrior aspect, and only touches it when he finds himself in need of it (though he is not terribly good at judging what a good time is).

History: Tamatz is from Tamoanchan, the legendary city where the Toltec originate from. He is a Tlamatinime (men and women of knowledge), a man of knowledge, and is also recognized as a Kiname – those who cultivate the art of Kinam, which is the power that arises from harmonizing opposites – seeking qualities in the world and those around him that he himself does not posess. Sometimes he is known to have the gifts ofa Yolteotl (an oracle), but as it is not his chosen path, he does not cultivate it. He also has a natural talents of a Curandero, a healer, but only rarely does he make use of them; since he is a Tlamatinime and as a result tends to avoid situations in which he would have to use them, there usually isn’t anything for him to heal. In the course of his life he has abandoned many opportunities to become someone very great via his talents in specific areas, but since he blindly and stubbornly focused only on striving towards his one ultimate goal – to become Urukuakame, “the one who leads” – he refused all of his skills and abilities to be able to reach the place which he believes is his destiny.

Tamatzin’s name comes from the Tamoanchan word for the blue deer, the holder of the book of wisdom. It reflected his vast knowledge, the natural skill that he did not need to cultivate for it to bloom, and the fact that his family strongly suspected that their child was no ordinary child. Ironically, they named him exactly what he was, though to this day he is unaware of his true nature. In this life, he is Tamatzin, a young and ambitious Tamoanchan who seeks to become someone who his people would remember as the one to guide them to knowledge and wisdom. The story goes that Tamatz was asked by the Kakayares to lead the people to awareness and knowledge, because they didn’t want them to be so unaware. They had created the sacred lands to which Tamatz was to lead them, so that there they would make their pilgrimage to knowledge. Tamatz was very clever in drawing them there, for he knew that the people were very hungry, so he changed himself into a blue deer. The people saw him and wanted to eat him, but he was very fast. He lead them to the sacred lands where Hikuri cacti sprouted in his footprints, and then disappeared. Tamatzin’s family took it as a grave sign that the boy wanted to become Urukuakame, when he was named after the deity that was the first to lead the people to the sacred lands. No matter how unaware he is in any life, his destiny remains unchanged, and so strong is it within him that he cannot ever deny it nor hide it from himself.

Tamatz is quite an interesting person not just for these reasons, but the fact that he is not familiar with his own legend. His quest partly for knowledge as a Tlamatinime included a quest for finding out about who he himself was, but he had set it up so intricately before being born so that while he was living this life, he could never find out his true nature. He wanted to experience once what it was like being a human who has to learn his knowledge, and who does not have it at hand already. To become fully human, he deliberately entered this life with certain flaws and drawbacks, convinced that part of what being human meant was to experience such things as well. As any normal human being, he has strengths and flaws, special abilities and drawbacks; in all senses of the word, he is human. For example, his strange warrior aspect was a flaw that Tamatz-the-deity planted in someone who is from Tamoanchan, which in and of itself is a peculiarity that few of his people readily accept. As a deity he used all his knowledge of humans to mold a perfect manifestation that he can use at any time he pleased. The one thing which he could never fully hide, however, was his ultimate destiny, the most he could do was transform it into a drive to become a leader of his people that draws him to the same place. He set it up for himself so that he could not become the one-who-leads until the end of his life, for if he becomes such, then his life will end and he shall merge with his true being. Tamatz-the-deity knows that it is a very difficult thing to do, to stall Tamatz-the-human’s arrival as a leader of his people, and accepted the fact that Tamatz, as a human, will have a relatively short life, and as a result, he tried to place as much possibility for experience in the earlier part of his life as he could, without giving cause to too much surprise from his now fellow humans.

Though even in Tamatz-the-human’s eyes his task is a very serious one indeed, having an extremely driven soul that gives him no rest until he fulfills his destiny, he still enjoys a game of Ullama with his childhood friends, now that he gained the right to play the ritual ball game upon entering adulthood, and often can be found in deep contemplation in which he literally thinks with his whole being, and cannot be disturbed even if the world were about to end. This is another trait that he neglected covering up in his mortal life; the sense that even if catastrophe happened on the Earth, he would not be directly effected by it, though in his deity form he would do anything to help save mankind. Since he is unaware of his true nature however, he is simply not effected by the threat of something like that. He does take care to engage in this activity in seclusion however, seeing the truth of the matter that outside of Tamoanchan, in the violent rest of the world, this state he is in could also be interpreted as being rather vulnerable, since at the time he is completely unaware of his surroundings. He does make use of his peculiar ability to fend off unwanted attention in these states, but generally speaking, the outside world is so unpredictable to him that he is never certain of his success, never having had a chance to test it.

Battle Stats:[/b]
Armor: He wears a small glass ball no larger than his thumb to help enhance magical capabilities, and that serves him as sufficient armor; he sees no need to over protect himself when he can fight whenever he wants to.

Weapons: A sword, and two daggers in each boot.

Accessories: Tamatzin carries with him a small pouch of Malinalli (herbs), a Tlachialoni (an instrument to calculate the movement of celestial objects), and a small copy of the Tonalamatl (the Book of Destiny), which is based on the combination of the 20 day signs of the Tonualpohualli, with the numbers corresponding to the 13 months of the sacred year.

Strengths: He has a strange effect on everyone around him if he pays attention to keeping the effect up; no matter their origin or alignment, people of all races tend to find him as no reason to fight, even if they already were resigned to do just that before encountering him. He doesn’t make use of this often, and he has fought with countless people before. In his deity form he did put certain restrictions and limits upon his abilities, seeing that the more able he was to protect himself, the less experience he gained, so Tamatz-the-human sometimes experiences what he calls a complete energy drain, where he is left alone with his pure, physical strength and his wits. He is quick minded and is very well read and well learned, with a talent for gaining and storing knowledge.

Flaws/Weaknesses: Tamatz has a posture problem. His back hurts, and more often than not he sits in a slumped position. Apparently he was born with a problematic spine, and since there were no healers left alive after a catastrophe hit the sacred city, it went untreated, and leaves him with problems, especially when sitting for too long, since he tends to forget his surroundings completely. He also has a particularly sensitive neck, and if he makes a too violent move with it, then it can become sprained, possibly worse. He also has a mild problem with his feet; they have some element missing in them, which causes his feet to cramp very often, whether he is walking or sitting, and it makes him just stand around for a while until it passes, if he wants to avoid the pain, that is, and the possibility of never stretching his toes out again.

Extra Abilities/Magic: Tamatz can sometimes influence the weather, like make storms come and the like, but nothing as serious as a tornado. Just regular weather patterns. Also, he can merge with his sword, become the sword (not physically, but mentally), which improves his fighting skills greatly. He is known for bringing life to things as well; once, for example, he made a flame do a quite intricate dance. This is a skill he doesn’t really have much influence over; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and it only works on smaller things, he could not, say, bring an animal back to life, but he can heal plants and nourish them with his touch. Also he has an ability to heal people from their sorrows, if he is in the right mood, just by being in their presence and listening to them, whilst looking into their eyes. This is something that he can do if he makes a conscious effort, and he has nothing else occupying his mind important enough to take some of his attention away.

Other Info:[/b]
Element: Earth and air
Likes: Tamatz likes warm places, greens, kindred spirits and good food.
Dislikes: He doesn’t like mud to the extent that you could call it a phobia, but other than that, he has little to despise, except perhaps, when someone hurts someone else without a satisfactory reason.
Allies: N/A
Family: His Kalli is one of high status in Tamoanchan, with influences that stretch far and wide; when in his deity form, he decided to give his human self a relatively steady starting point, so he selected a family that was well of and respected. His family cress or emblem is Mestli, the Moon.

Short Dictionary of Terms:
Curandero: Healer
Kalli: House
Kinam: The power that arises from haromonizing the opposites
Kiname: Those who cultivate the art of Kinam
Malinalli: Herb
Mestli: Moon
Nagual: The mystical/spiritual side of the sacred duality
Ninomashtik: Teaching oneself
Sipaktli: Dragon
Tamatz/Kajullumary/Tamatzin: Blue deer (Tamatzin means “little blue dear”, an affectionate term used by the Wirrarika for Tamatz)
Tamoanchan: Mythical place of origin of the Toltec
Teotl: Sacred
Tlachialoni: An instrument to calculate the movement of celestial objects
Tlamatinime: Men and women of knowledge
Tonalomatl: Book of Destiny. It is based on the combination of the 20 day signs of the Tonualpohualli, with the numbers corresponding to the 13 months of the sacred year
Ullama: Ritual ball game
Urukuakame: “the one who leads”; guide of the pilgrims among the Wirrarika people
Witsillin: Hummingbird
Yolteotl: Oracle

[Larwick]

Just a note that this character is still pending approval.
(Widdershins, sorry for the wait, but with all that writing, you might have to wait a while longer.)

[Widdershins]

That's fine. Heh, I remember when I posted this... forever ago... and Akkarin was supposed to read it, ah, I gave up hope on that a looong time ago. Take your time, I'm used to waiting.

~Widd

[Akkarin]

Have your Fingers not Eroded yet woman? ¬_¬
Character Approved

[Larwick]

Wow, i must praise your efforts Akkarin! Hehe >.<