Arbol

Árbol (ツリー Tsurī) is an independent Mage that has secreted himself away from the rest of society to go live in what is know as "The Woodlands". He's an adept user of the Lost Magic known as Great Tree Arc, and he employs in combat, much to his advantage, and defends in what is now his permanent home. Rumors have been floating around for some time about The Green Man who is said to live in the woods, and snatch disobedient children when they stay out too late.

Appearance
Since Árbol has hidden himself away from the rest of society, he has grown to distrust most travelers and chooses to hide his identity behind a strange mask. This mask is almost porcelain-like in composition, and appears to be a blank, white mask with two slits for eye holes and a jagged, purple scar-like marking running down the right eye. The foreboding mask, dark clothing, and ominous posture only further fuel the wild rumors about The Green Man.

Beyond the imposing mask Árbol is a very normal-looking person with the exception of his sharp features. Árbol's face is narrow, and framed with sharp edges that give him a hawk-like appearance which can intimidate most onlookers. His eyes and hair, both the same, dark shade of black, radiate a cool, calculating intensity that makes people feel like they're being heavily scrutinized. Árbol's hair stands straight down in a mess of smooth spikes that usually hang over his mask.

To add to his menacing figure, Árbol dresses mainly in black, with a large, wool trench coat hiding most of his body. Other than that, his outfit is rather normal with a regular T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers (except, of course, they're in black). With all three parts to his attire together, Árbol is widely regarded as a shadowy, sinister figure who haunts the wide woods.

Personality
Contrary to popular belief, Árbol is not a soulless specter bent on abducting wayward children. Instead, he regularly enjoys his peaceful walks in the woods and philosophizing with himself and what he has come to know as "Mother Earth". He is, by nature, a staunch pacifist and transcendentalist who attempts to avoid physical confrontation as much as possible. Despite this, Árbol is more than happy to fight when it comes down to it, as he is also a fierce guardian of The Woodlands and its inhabitants and has had to defend it more than once. In spite of his normally peaceful disposition, Árbol has become increasingly socially alienated and distrustful of anyone he meets. Living alone in the woods for over half his life has isolated himself, and thus, he has become paranoid leading to very few social confrontations. For the most part, he sticks to either the outskirts of the woods, or the deep recesses when travelers come through, and has only had, at most, 7 actual conversations with people in his entire time in his woods.

Árbol views humanity as a foolish, adolescent child that has yet to learn the value in their planet, and has instead opted to spend its days fighting with itself and destroying its surroundings. He is not some tree-hugging, para-militaristic hermit who wishes to wipe out humanity. Far from it in fact, Árbol holds strong convictions that humanity is a young race that seeks guidance and an outlet for their ravenous curiosity. Árbol does believe, however, that there are plenty of rough spots and bad apples that must be weeded out if humanity wishes to advance beyond their current, primitive state. As such, Árbol is more than happy to voluntarily dispatch any "bad apples" he finds lurking around in his woodlands.

History
Due to the lack of real human interaction, Árbol's past is largely only known to him except for a few small details that can either be inferred or have been referenced in the few talks people have had with him. It is rumored that Árbol was born to two loving, relatively normal parents who raised him well. Furthermore, it is rumored that one parent, either the mother or father, held within them the genes that passed on the Great Tree Arc to Árbol, and that Árbol wasn't even his real name to begin with. He was raised in his childhood home until he must have been atleast 8 or 9, as his first sighting was estimated to be at the age of 10, before he discovered what he needed to do in life. Árbol's father owned what is now a bankrupt mining branch that specialized in natural caves and fissures around Fiore, it was at this age that Árbol was exposed to the hazardous waste that the mining produced and its effects on the local fauna.

Árbol, at the time being around 7, was met with a horrifying sight on his first trip outside his dad's working perimeter, he watched helplessly as a mother deer slowly slipped into a silenced death from both the hazardous waste dumped into what was once the fresh water, and the now poisoned plant life that the local deer population subsisted off of. The further he walked the more Árbol was sickened at the carnival of horror that swirled around him, sickening mutations from newly born animals, landscapes covered in slick,poisonous sheets of toxic waste, and emaciated creatures barely clinging on to life.

Árbol rushed home and plowed through the door to his surprised father, who could only sit in stunned silence at his own son's insurmountable rage towards the waste management. Unsurprisingly, once the tirade ended, his father's own rage blossomed at his insubordinate son who knew nothing of the perils of business and the sacrifices that needed to be made. He immediately decreed that his son be sent off to boarding school to learn some proper respect, and hopefully some business practice, before storming away. That awful night fractured the father-son relationship into a pile of irreparable fragments that could never be nursed back to health. The following night, approximately 7 and a half hours before young Árbol was to be whisked away, he drew on his rage and mounting magic power to crush his father's machinery and rend the diseased earth so that it could not longer harm the surrounding land.

Even Árbol does not know his parent's reactions to the damage he inflicted, he only knows that it sent his father's business into bankruptcy, little to Árbol's surprise or regret, before he skittered away to what is now known as The Woodlands. There he stayed, for another 10 years guarding the fragile ecosystem from any threat, be it human or otherwise. Most of the time his duties included keeping the landscape in some pristine, non-harmful way so as to attract like-minded folk who would one day help him. And in that sense, it had worked, the unique aesthetic feeling and look of the woodlands brought many tourists and fueled the nearby town with commerce. Many came to appreciate the beauty of the place, and even more came as a sort of spiritual pilgrimage and had started a tradition of short camping trips the lovely woods. Occasionally, Árbol would have to drive off some disrespectful campers, tourist agencies wanting to make a quick buck, and multiple small-time "dark guilds" that usually consisted of 4-5 mediocre thieves with magic one step above parlor tricks.

It was at this time that fiery rumors of an alien forest god, or some kind of nature spirit had taken hold of The Woodlands and claimed it as its own. The rumors spread like wildfire through the town and the surrounding villages and people had begun to both fear and revere the woods as a sort of mythic oddity like a more nature-oriented Mount Olympus. Parents told their kids that if they stayed out too late after dark The Green Man would take them away and turn them into a tree, and bored teenagers would venture into the woods (or more likely send some gullible kid) and set up some elaborate prank. Still, sightings and rumors drifted around of the so-called Green Man and his apparent abductions (of which there was still no evidence). This trend continued and has continued for years now, and it keeps the town alive with some commerce and provides Árbol with a steady stream of volunteers to take care of the woods as a sort of offering to him.

Magic and Abilities
Great Tree Arc (大樹のアーク Taiju No Āku): is a Caster-Type Lost Magic