» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Raisa
Current AGE: 19
Player TIME ZONE: EST
Personal JOURNAL: mustachio
IM & SERVICE: aim | mustachepies
Player PLURK: mustachio
Current CHARACTERS: N/A

» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Malik Al-Sayf
Canon & MEDIUM: Assassin’s Creed
Canon PULL-POINT: Post AC1
Character AGE: 26
Character ABILITIES:
Malik has no supernatural abilities, but he is an excellent fighter. He’s been trained for most of his life in the Assassin arts and is one of the best the Brotherhood has to offer. He isn’t the best and there are people who could beat him, but it would be a challenge for anyone without supernatural powers to beat him in a hand to hand fight, even with his missing arm. He’s especially skilled with blades such as swords and throwing knives. He is a master at stealth, able to easily hide in plain sight as the Assassin’s Creed requires. Parkour is another one of his abilities, although this particular skill is hindered by his missing arm quite a bit. It’s hard for him to climb nearly as quickly as he once could, but running on rooftops is still easy for him.

Character HISTORY:
Malik's Wiki Page

Malik’s part in Assassin’s Creed is small, but he plays possibly one of the most important roles there is in in the first game.

From the moment the tutorial ends and the actual game starts, Malik’s distaste for Altaïr is made abundantly clear. The first thing we hear is Malik saying “wait, there must be another way. This one need not die” in response to Altaïr’s plan to kill an old man in order to clear the path through Solomon’s Temple to the Templar treasure they and Malik’s younger brother, Kadar, were tasked to retrieve. From there, Altaïr and Malik continue to argue about Altaïr’s methods. The argument is futile. Both men are too set in their ways to listen to the other and Malik soon storms off ahead of the other two. Finding the treasure is easy from this point. Fortunately, the artifact Al Mualim had ordered them to retrieve was in the next room; not so fortunately, so was the Grand Master of the Templar Order.

And here is where the events that color Malik’s opinion of Altaïr really begin. Hot headed and unwilling to listen to Malik’s protests, Altaïr attacks Robert de Sable with little thought beforehand and begins a battle they had no chance of winning. Though Altaïr is thrown from the room, Malik and Kadar are left to deal with the Templars in a battle they never wanted. In the end, it is Malik who takes the treasure (the Apple, the Malik is unaware of just what it is at this point, beyond something their master wanted), but this victory does not come easily. During the battle Kadar is killed and Malik wounded severely enough that his left arm would have to be amputated.

It’s as Altaïr tells Al Mualim that Malik and Kadar are dead that Malik makes his reappearance in Masyaf. He delivers the Apple to Al Mualim and yells at Altaïr, blaming him and his unwillingness to listen to reason for Kadar’s death and their near loss. Prior to Solomon’s Temple, Malik disliked Altaïr. He disliked the man’s arrogance and felt he was undeserving of the title “Master Assassin”, but he did not wish Altaïr dead. Now things are different.

Now, even before Malik has his arm removed, he feels the only appropriate punishment is death. Malik does not get his wish. While Altaïr is given a chance at redemption if he can kill the nine Templars Altaïr commands him to go after, Malik is demoted thanks to his newly “crippled” state. He is given the position of Dai, a highly regarded, but lower position than Malik had been headed for before Solomon’s Temple. Dai’s are scholarly men, men who do not see the battlefield and mainly exist to provide the Assassins who do fight with information. This is an extreme slight against Malik who had been a Master Assassin right along with Altaïr.

The next time we see Malik it is, once again, in Jerusalem, though this time he is in the Assassin’s Bureau. Here he lectures Altaïr about how he should properly go about his mission and only begrudgingly gives the man the information he requires to properly go about finding the Talal. Here he not only accuses Altaïr of going about his mission the wrong way, but flat out insults the man claiming that he deprives Malik of safety and peace (a reasonable accusation given the state of his arm). Though one would think Altaïr would have learned his lesson on discretion after his last failed mission with Malik, Altaïr goes about killing Talal in the least discreet manner possible, allowing the whole city to see him kill the slaver. Malik, of course, yells at him for this, but Altaïr, of course, doesn’t listen to him and claim his method worked as well as any other. Needless to say, Malik sends him back to Masyaf with a less than warm goodbye.

By the time Altaïr is sent back to Jerusalem to kill Majd Addin, Malik’s distaste for Altaïr has calmed just a bit. While he is still hostile towards Altaïr, he has heard of the man’s successes and can no longer deny his value to the Brotherhood. He holds a grudge against Altaïr, still considers him nothing more than a novice for his continued (though lessened) defiance of the creed, but he can’t yell at him every time they are in the same room together when Altaïr is bringing the Assassins closer to their goal than anyone else ever could. The insults continue, Malik still begrudges Altaïr his arrogance, and he goes as far as to admit that everything Altaïr does troubles him, but their relationship is not in quite the same state of disarray as it had been some months earlier.

The third time Altaïr visits Malik in Jerusalem, this time with Robert as his target, Malik’s grudge has almost completely faded. Time has passed and wounds have almost completely healed. Malik has heard of Altaïr’s progress, of the lesson’s he’s learned, and how the disgraced Master Assassin has taken each of the rafiq’s words to heart. “Truly you are not the man I once knew” he says of Altaïr, and it’s true. They speak civilly, like friends, and though Malik still warns him against falling to his old hotheaded ways, Malik gives his advice and assistance immediately when asked. Altaïr goes about his mission and Malik admires him for the efficiency with which he does his work. And then Altaïr apologizes and though he still teases Altaïr, Malik makes peace with him easily. He takes some of the blame for what happened in Solomon’s Temple, claimed that his jealousy over Kadar’s admiration effected his ability to go about the mission, and that as brothers in arms, they must share the pain of their defeat in the same way they would share the glory of their victories in order to become stronger.

With their friendship repaired, Malik dislikes the idea that Altaïr would go after Robert without Al Mualim’s permission, but can’t argue with him in the face of Altaïr’s reason. The things he says makes sense and while the idea of their Master keeping things from them and potentially betraying them is hard to stomach, Altaïr has become someone he can’t doubt without doing his own investigations first. As it happens, Altaïr was right. Malik goes back to Solomon’s Temple and finds the hard evidence of their Master’s deceit and betrayal. Armed with this knowledge and the knowledge of the Apple, Malik takes a few of his men and travels back to Masyaf to aid Altaïr in his fight against Al Mualim. Though Malik does not take part in the actual battle against Al Mualim, he provides a distraction against the men Al Mualim has brainwashed and keeps them from going after Altaïr. When Altaïr has killed Al Mualim, Malik rushes to join him and sees the projection of the globe that the Apple is displaying and that is where canon ends for Malik and the Syrian Assassins. More is known about their activities after this point thanks to side material and Altaïr’s memories in Revelations, but none of it would occur close enough to his canon point to make a difference.

Character PERSONALITY:
Malik is generally a calm person, with cold, serious demeanor with additional snark for those who he dislikes, but it isn't very hard for him to lose that calm when irked badly enough. Cynicism and sarcasm are almost an art for for Malik. With a biting tongue and no shortage of bitter words for those who he deems deserving of his scorn, Malik can make even the most confident of men feel uncomfortable and small. Malik is unafraid of speaking his mind no matter how insulting it may be to the person he is speaking with and, in fact, it is quite likely that insulting the other person is exactly what Malik was intending to do when he opened his mouth. If anyone does something that he doesn't agree with he will not hesitate to say the most degrading of things. Who could really blame him for his bitterness, though? After losing both his arm and his younger brother to nothing but a careless mistake, bitterness is to be expected.

Malik himself admits to having something of a jealous streak. He is jealous of Altair and his skills as an Assassin that far surpass his own and, more than likely, he is also jealous of the way his own brother looks up to Altair more than he seems to look up to Malik. This jealousy does nothing to lessen the bitterness that he feels after Solomon’s temple and really only serves to make it stronger. Anyone else, Malik included, would have been killed for disregarding the ways of the Brotherhood as Altair had, but of course Al Mualim’s favorite gets the chance to redeem himself even after his failure.

On that note, Malik is also a master grudge holder. The line between his good and bad side is thin, extremely so and it is not hard to make the switch from the former to the latter. Unfortunately, the same does not go for the latter to the former. Once you are on his bad side, it is difficult to make it to his good side. It is only with a great deal of reform and obvious change in attitude that he will even begin to consider making the switch. He hates those who wrong him, and in the same way he feels no hesitance in telling someone when they've done something wrong, he feels no hesitance in making his hatred of a person known. Unlike it would for most people, though, a grudge will not stop him from working with someone no matter how much he dislikes it. He takes his job seriously and though he may have some snide remark to give out before helping in any way, if he is needed he will do what he can to help. There is little that will keep him from doing his job thoroughly and efficiently and he has high standards that he will always hold himself to as well as others who are performing the same task.

Despite his cynicism coming to him as near second nature, he knows when to tone it down and simply get to the point of something. In a dire situation he can think quickly to come up with the best way of doing something so that everything happens with as little problems as possible and as quickly as possible. He is extremely smart and observant, trained from a young age to notice everything that happens around him and use it to his advantage. His focus is rarely ever lost and he always manages to keep his goal in sight. Malik is skilled in the art of death and as such he is also a master of concealment. All of these skills aid him in his job as a cartographer and more importantly as an Assassin.

Malik is very confident in his abilities, but he is not arrogant by any means. He knows what he can do and knows that there is room for improvement. This is an important trait, especially as an Assassin, because one wrong move can cost him his life and the lives of his allies if it is a grave enough error. He knows that it is important to be cautious in everything he does and never act like he has everything planned out because there is always, always room for error. He also does not take glory all for himself. Even if he is the one to successfully complete a mission, it is not just his victory, but the victory of his brothers as well. Nothing that he does under the terms of the Brotherhood is done for himself or for any individual and even failures are something to be shared among them.

As an Assassin, most, if not all of Malik’s life is dictated by the Assassin’s Creed and its three tenants. He keeps a strict adherence to these things and would never dream of going against them. Killing an innocent person – someone who has nothing to do with the fight between the Templars and Assassins – would be unthinkable, there’s no reason for it. It does not matter how much he dislikes the person, if they are an innocent then they will be allowed to live even if he could kill them before they even realized what had happened. That is how he acts according to the first tenet of the creed – “stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent”. The second, “hide in plain sight, be one with the crowd" keeps him from doing anything rash. He does not make a scene when he is carrying out a mission or doing something that may not be a thing normal people do in their everyday lives, but he does make it seem that way. He remains in tune with his environment and acts as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened even when it most certainly has and gets the job done very efficiently that way.

The last tenet is likely the most important one – “never compromise the Brotherhood”. Assassins, as is to be expected, are often put in very compromising positions and it would be very easy to make a mistake and act in a way that puts everyone around in danger. This tenet exists so that this does not happen to anyone in the Brotherhood – no one in the Brotherhood will be the cause of a brother’s injury or worse – death. Malik would never put one of his brothers in arms in a position that put them in danger in anyway and he expects the very same from all of them, not that their adherence to the creed and all its tenets really makes a difference in how he follows it. Even if someone were to go against them, Malik would still feel compelled to help them and ensure that they are not put in a compromising position, as shown in the way he helps Altair despite his very grave mistakes that cost him an arm and a brother.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON:
Malik’s weapon is going to be something from home (though not something he’d usually be able to use thanks to his missing left arm) – the hidden blade. To start it, will just be a normal hidden blade. It functions as a good method for stealth kills, but can only stab and cut. Over time the blade will become stronger and gain the ability to cut through materials it may not have been able to cut originally like steel. After that the blade will gain the ability to become poisonous, similar to the enhancement it canonically gets, though this will not require the poison to be loaded or reloaded the way it would have to be in the Assassin’s Creed Universe. If a further development is needed, it will gain the ability to be used as a firearm (another technically canon development for the hidden blade.) Like the poison blade, the gun won’t require loading or reloading as it would normally.

Character INVENTORY:
• 15 throwing knives.
• Longsword.
• Emergency bandages, water, ointment.
• The clothes on his back (sash, Assassin robes, Dai robes, etc).

» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
[ It takes days before Malik is able to honestly get the hang of what each button on this thing does and just how it’s supposed to be used. And even when he works out how it’s supposed to be used, he remains skeptical that it will actually work. Still, there’s no way to honestly know until he gives it a shot. ]

The idea that speaking into this thing will allow others to hear and respond to me would be considered mad anywhere else. I feel mad even attempting such a thing. [ He pauses for a moment, half waiting for some sort of response, half thinking on anything else he could possibly say to his unseen audience. ] Perhaps, given what I have seen recently, I should not be so quick to judge. More and more it seems the impossible is becoming possible. Or maybe this is all an illusion. Perhaps the heat has gotten to me and I have well and truly gone mad.

[Altaïr actually learning to be a decent person, Al Mualim brainwashing over half the Brotherhood… Yeah, if he’s not insane, Malik really needs to rethink his definition of “impossible”. But on to other things, now. ]

Those responsible for bringing me here must truly be trusting if I am allowed weapons. [ Malik shakes his head, the beginnings of a sneer forming on his face. ] To be unwittingly brought here and made to fight in a war I know nothing about is a senseless thing. If I am to risk my life, I would know that the end result would truly benefit me in some way. I have seen no trustworthy evidence of that so far.

[ That’s enough. This is ridiculous. He’s speaking into an object and expecting people to hear and answer. Nothing could possibly make him feel less certain of his sanity. ]

Third PERSON:
Malik’s Test Drive Thread

» ADDITIONAL NOTES
None!