Ame Pfren
Master Ame Pfren
Master Ame Pfren is many things to many people. A respected Gam Pfa'a practitioner, Island Ranger, world traveller, storyteller, and folk hero to Ovinex peoples throughout the Manifold Sky, Ame Pfren strikes his listeners as a humble, sage individual even as he awes them with the epic tales of his younger years.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Ame Pfren is surprisingly strong and limber for a ram of his age, a product of constant practice and an adamant refusal to spend his seminar royalties on a motor vehicle to ease travel. His numerous scars, gnarled hand keratin, and battered horns speaks to the violence inherent to his profession. On cold mornings, the wiry old ovinex walks with a little bit of a limp, but this won't prevent him from attending to his engagements.
Specialized Equipment
Ame Pfren is never seen without his trusty ba'amba slung across his back or grasped in his hand as a walking stick. The loop-holding end is shod in a battered bronze cap to reinforce it for the latter purpose; he often raps this cap on hard floors for emphasis or to set the rhythm of defensive tactics exercises he is leading. Pfren is quite a marksman as well, preferring a grease gun with a collapsible stock so that he has the option of a free hand, though he has expressed interest in an assault needler for its non-lethal utility.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Ame Pfren was born a shepherd's son in the otherwise unremarkable flock-village of M'bekt in the Ovinex Island Tribes territories. He spent his childhood watching the village militia train, shadowing their movements whenever he could get time away from shearing or milking the village's Rostral Grand Sheep.
Education
His mother, seeing that the lamb was not made for an agricultural life, supported Ame Pfren in his efforts to learn the traditional ovinex martial art of Gam Pfa'a. When he was 12, he approached the militia and offered his services as a warmount attendant in exchange for combat training; the local sergeant-at-arms agreed to this arrangement, and Pfren quickly proved himself in this regard. As Phren grew as a fighter, the sergeant recognized that the young ram was too independently-minded to serve in an organized military unit. To solve this problem, the sergeant introduced Pfren to his old friends in the Island Rangers who would complete his training. This was ultimately how Pfren became a member of the Island Rangers himself, a profession he would hold for the remainder of his life into present day.
Ame Pfren's skill in the martial arts grew from long experience. The martial art of Gam Pfa'a is famous for its utility in taking opponents alive, as it was originally developed by Ovinex slavers to acquire 'involuntary flock members.' While ram rex can only rarely be reformed, other targets of the island rangers (i.e. bandits) are usually not killed. While hand-me-down firearms are frequently carried by Island Rangers for extenuating circumstances, the ba'amba is an important tool. In this regard, Pfren was forced to deal with many opponents in close quarters, honing his skills with each encounter. He also worked with other Island Rangers to share information about which techniques would and wouldn't work in a given situation - lessons learned through gruelling physical trial-and-error - refining the art of Gam Pfa'a as a whole. Because there is no formalized administrative body for the study and practice of Gam Pfa'a (as of yet), Ame Pfren achieved his title of 'Master' by appelation from his peers; almost all Island Rangers, having met the old ram, agree that he is the best they have to offer in terms of defensive tactics.
Employment
Above all, Ame Pfren is known for his exploits as a member of the Island Rangers and for his mastery of Gam Pfa'a. Even after more than three decades of service to the native ovinex people, Ame Pfren is still hunting ram rex and fugitives from justice. He travels the world, giving seminars to law enforcement cadres in the use of Gam Pfa'a weapons and grappling techniques. Furthermore, while he lacks the subtlety to become a full member, Ame Pfren is a long-time advisor to the Black Sheep specialist program within the Island Ranger community.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Ame Pfren's earliest claim to fame was taking part in a quest to hunt down The Greenwell Mangrove Monster, a verdialized ram rex which had been terrorizing locals who strayed too deep into the Greenwell Mangrove. While he was a neophyte Island Ranger at the time and only an individual member of the group sent to kill the Monster, Pfren landed the killing blow and was one of the only survivors of the encounter.
As news of Pfren's exploits spread, his workload also grew, as ovinex from his region approached him with bounties on other ram rex. Pfren quickly developed a reputation for tenacity on the hunt, a trait which drew the eye of law enforcement from the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy. In one notable instance, Pfren and a few members of the Black Sheep were tasked with capturing a dangerous rostran pirate who had gone to ground in an Ovinex Island Tribes port city. Despite of the fact that the pirate and his co-conspirators had heavily fortified their warehouse hideout, laying traps and laying in wait for the Black Sheep with heavy weaponry, Pfren and his team were able to break through from the upper floor of the building and capture all four fugitives alive.
Ame Pfren's most recent exploit was his mission to exfiltrate ovinex slave labor from the Bamboo & Brass Resort run by the infamous Verdant Order. Pfren and two Black Sheep snuck into the camp and attempted to blend in with the slaves held secretly in the base - only to discover that, for reasons best left to the imagination, the vast majority of slaves there were female or gelded males. Pfren was soon captured and strenuously interrogated by the resort's security forces, but not before his distraction allowed his teammates to escape.
That night, under the cover of darkness, the Black Sheep, an RACMF black ops team in muffled auto-armor, and agents from the Petalcap Vale Customs Authority parachuted into the nearby jungle to assault the resort. The team managed to sneak in, kill several sentries, disable the resort's RadNet transciever, and break into the room where Pfren was held, but not before the Verdant Order's security team raised an alarm. What followed was a pitched close-quarters battle within the resort as Pfren and the Black Sheep broke the slaves out of their underground chambers, killing many members of the Verdant Order along the way. By the time the operation was done, the resort had been nearly depopulated. To this day, the Verdant Order still sometimes sends assassins after Ame Pfren for his involvement in this incident, though all such attempts have thus far ended in yet more disaster for the Order.
Social
Religious Views
Ame Pfren is a believer in the unnamed ovinex religion, but doesn't believe that the spiritual world has the power to make changes in the temporal world. After seeing and experiencing some things in life, Pfren has learned not to leave important matters to the spirits to solve - the spirits watch over every action, and judge accordingly, but do not interfere in the affairs of mortals.
Mannerisms
Ame Pfren is remarkably mellow for an ovinex. As he explains it, all his fear was wrung out by his experience with the Monster, and all of his anger was wrung out by his experience at Bamboo & Brass; most other annoyances in his life pale in comparison. Often, when things aren't going his way and people expect him to snap, he merely smiles and offers a little witticism based on some previous experience of his.
Pfren's other defining personality trait is his bluntness. He usually doesn't chastise students, but he isn't above telling a gruesome tale to explain why a given course of action won't work in the real world. He has been challenged on matters of technique before - especially early in his teaching career, before many of these techniques had been adapted for humanoid anatomy. He faces these challenges not through getting upset, but by explaining (often in lurid detail) why the original technique was developed and how the ideas behind them might be implemented in other circumstances. This graphic method of description is not meant to shock the listener so much as being a product of Pfren's distaste for euphemisms which conceal important truths - as he puts it, "better offended and alive than comfortable and dead."
Ironically, it is Ame Pfren's sometimes irksome bluntness that makes him such a good storyteller, as the listener can be sure that what he's describing happened - to the best of his recollection - just as he tells it.
Relationships
History
While most ovinex relationships are polygynous, Island Rangers are frequently monogamous. Ambra Baxbr met Ame Pfren in Exivaun shortly before the mating season in 9991 AR and was immediately impressed by the older ram's pedigree as a folk hero. At the same time, Ame Pfren was impressed by Ambra Baxbr's charm and intellect beyond her years, especially with regards to cultural issues he had seen during his travels. The two quickly became on-and-off lovers - such Sunten-Abseldun relationships are not uncommon in Ovinex societies - with Ambra Baxbr bearing Ik'ba Pfren on the Lambing Day of 9992 AR.
Alignment
Lawful Neutral
Current Location
Species
Ethnicity
Year of Birth
9946
54 Years old
Spouses
Ambra Baxbr
(Lover)
Siblings
Children
Gender
Male
Eyes
Amber
Hair
Light brown wool (graying)
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Charcoal
Height
4'8"
Weight
150 lbs
Appears in...
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