Shaudawn

(a.k.a. Shaudawn)

I was born on the dusty plains within the Yellowstone River valley where I chased antelope & jackrabbits, and scared unwary foxes. Its sandstone rock made my bones. Its water, born of geysers, made my blood. Its cottonwoods wove my skin. Its winds filled my lungs with air.
Eventually I went to the Southwest deserts to learn. I returned north, and eventually came under the shadow of the mountain properly called Takhoma, the Mother of Waters where I pretend to do important things.

Mental characteristics

Gender Identity

male who rejects the myth of machismo

Sexuality

old & tired

Education

University of Arizona, B.S. aerospace engineering (wind turbines are friggin' awesome)
Seattle University, M.A.P.S. — it took me about seven years to come to the conclusion that we're all just mostly making this all up as we go along.

Employment

I make sure the wings stay on airplanes.

Failures & Embarrassments

Most of them.
I dunno, how much time do you have to waste?

Morality & Philosophy

1. The universe is a unity
2. The universe is created good.
3. Human Beings are created good.
4. Energy must be allowed to ethically flow (i.e. power must not pool)

Taboos

violence

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

It would be cool to have my prose published one day. I would be hella humbled/excited/honored if some of my universe ideas became the playgrounds of other writers

Virtues & Personality perks

usually a pretty nice guy for real

Vices & Personality flaws

rants; sometimes insensitive and dumb as a pile of rocks

Personality Quirks

as my son puts it, sometimes I get "all sigh-y"

Hygiene

organized piles of chaos

Social

Family Ties

A wonderful, amazing wife and kids who amaze me every day. A mother-in-law down in the Cedar Valley. I'm the oldest kid of six, and my folks are still youngish. More cousins than I can count.

Religious Views

Formerly part of one of them there popular world religions until I realized something: nine times out of ten, when people talk about their religion, it is for the justification of that person's cultural values and norms. Of that one time, nine times of out ten of those, religion is used as a philosophical construct, mostly to "prove" that one's god is bigger, better, smarter, stronger, sexier, etc. than any other god. Of the last percent of religion that remains, nine times out of ten, people are actually talking about ritual and rite-of-passage, which can be arbitrary, specific, and relies highly on context—not bad, necessarily, but not exactly "truth" that these world religions claim. When people talk about religion, as I see it, 99.9% is irrelevant. It's that tiny, last, most basic, most fundamental kernel in a religion that is a real "truth" between us. And, sadly, that's the part almost nobody recognizes, understands, or talks about.
So, as one of my ancestors once said: "Your people claim to know everything about God, and you know nothing about other human beings. Our People do not claim to know anything about God, and we try to learn everything we can about our fellow human beings."
I picked up my tent, which was already on the fringes of the City of God. I took it down and left the country that they controlled. And I went deep into the wilderness. On the other side of the River. Where nobody controlled anything. And there, I found my home.

Social Aptitude

So introverted, it makes introverts look like crazy, out-of-control floozies—but friendly and I like most people. I just get so exhausted. I love to give people compliments and spread joy when I can. I also don't have very much self-esteem, but I cope with it by using humorous self-deprecation

Hobbies & Pets

writing, mostly about fantastic worlds

Speech

halting baritone, vague understatement, sentences have a way of trailing off...

Wealth & Financial state

you're kidding, right?

Alignment

anywhere from Lawful Neutral to Neutral Neutral. I only get evil when it comes to potato-based chips/crisps. And sometimes chocolate-based chips.

Current Location

Earth

Life

1970 1492

Circumstances of Birth

See...when a boy human and a girl human love one another really a real lots, they...oh, wait. You know that one already? Well, let's just say I was a mistake surprise.

Circumstances of Death

Show spoiler

made ya look!

Birthplace

In the Valley of the Yellowstone
Where sandstone cliff overlook Strawberry Hills
Under the Big Sky with my brothers Hawk, Coyote and Elk
Covered in cottonwood seeds
Baptized by the geyserite waters of fire in the wind

Current Residence

In the Country of Tahkoma, Mother of Waters, that which is taller than Koma.
Where the Black River and Cedar once flowed in a place where a forest once stood.

Gender

male

Eyes

Well, my father used to say that I was so full of s███ that my eyes are brown. Some girl once told me I had flecks of gold in them, like a distant lightning storm.

Hair

These days, mostly gray and nowhere near as long as in my youth.

Height

5'8"

Weight

186 lbs and falling!

Quotes & Catchphrases

"NOT IN THE FACE!" "very small rocks" "I'm sorry... ... What?"

Known Languages

• 99% North American English
• an embarrassment of mostly forgotten Deutsch (German)
• an atrophied memory of American Sign Language
• a handful of Bohemian Czech from my grandmother
• a poor recovery of my other grandmother's néhiyawéwin (ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ)

Appears in...

• 1-07 Biin Hejj Was Dying