Salem D. Caldwell

SALEM D. CALDWELL

AT FIRST GLANCE

FULL NAME	Salem D. Caldwell
NICK NAMES	Sal
AGE	19
DATE OF BIRTH	December Nineteenth
GENDER	Male
SEXUALITY	Heterosexual
YEAR	Senior
SOCIO-ECON	Lower Class

MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL

FACECLAIM	Ricki Hall
HEIGHT	6'2''
WEIGHT	180 lbs
HAIR COLOR	Brown
EYE COLOR	Brown
COMPLEXION	Tan
NATIONALITY	American
APPEARANCE	A large man covered in tattoos and sporting a full beard, Salem certainly doesn't look like a kid nearing the end of puberty. At nineteen. Salem has, at last count, nearing fifty tattoos etched into his skin. The most prominent being a severed deer head covering most of his chest, the words "DOLLFACE" across his knuckles, and a rose on the back of his left hand. Most of Salem's tattoos remain covered by obscure band t-shirts, flannels, and, when he's feeling particularly dapper, dress shirts.

BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS

LIKES	Tattoos, Marlboro Reds, Engines, Muscle Cars, Motorcycles, Classic Literature, "Heavy" Music, Old Movies, Black Coffee, Larceny, Gasoline, Finer Things
DISLIKES	Early Mornings, Alarm Clock Buzzers, Snitches, Restrictions, Tea, Sirens, Cops,  No Smoking, Rust,
BEST SUBJECT	Classic Lit.
WORST SUBJECT	Math
STRENGTHS	Skilled Mechanic, Sleight of Hand, Cunning, Prepared, Unscrupulous
WEAKNESSES	Running, Overconfident, Restless, Avaricious, Nicotine Addiction
HOBBIES	Automotive Repair, Driving, and "The Game" aka Thieving.
PET PEEVES	People bumming cigarettes off of him and people telling him he shouldn't smoke.
PERSONALITY	Confident, charming,witty, it's hard for most people to not take an instant liking to Salem. The ease in which he speaks the honeyed words that drip from his silver tongue. The platitudes filled with all of the sincerity in the world. It doesn't take long for someone to gain some sort of confidence in him, a sort of trust. It takes even less time for Salem to stab that person in the back and smash that trust to pieces. Beneath the swagger the boy is an unscrupulous miscreant  with no qualms about breaking the society's rules. Salem is just about everything a good thief, if there were such a thing, should be.  Salem feels that he deserves the finer things in life, nice cars, large houses, disgustingly large amounts of money. The best and fastest way to go about obtaining these things is simply to take it from someone who already has it. He writes off his acts as a life lesson for his victim often stating, "If you're dumb enough to have it stolen you probably didn't deserve it." Salem's greed is a learned trait rather than something natural to him. It's a way to explain away his true love in life; the chase. Salem loves the buildup he feels when he's staking out a prize, the adrenaline that starts pumping when he's picking a lock or about to get caught in a lie. He loves the thrill of his escapades more so than the actual objects he steals. Salem finds it almost impossible to put his full trust in anyone. His time intermixed with the criminal element has taught him that very few people do anything without an ulterior motive, himself included. While he finds it easy to start the process of friendship he always seems to hit a brick wall of sorts because of his inability to put his faith in anyone. For the few people that resemble something close to friends Salem is a cheerful, boisterous young man. Laughing the hardest, always making up some sort of story or joke, and usually sporting a grin. From a far it's difficult to tell that he feigns trust in just about everyone he meets.

THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME

MOTHER	VANESSA LYNN HAYES- 37 - Paralegal- "I haven't seen my mom since I was about three. So, I guess that you could say that things are pretty rocky between us. I used to spend a lot of time being upset with her for just handin' me off, but I got over it, y'know. Everyonce in awhile I think it'd be nice to give her a call, just give her a 'Hey, I'm still alive. How's life?'."
FATHER	ERIC H. CALDWELL- 45 - Con-Artist- "The man's raised me by himself and taught me almost everything that's worth knowing. He can get on my nerves at times, but I'm pretty sure that's just how parents work. We still talk every now and again, but he keeps pretty busy with his 'career'. He thinks that I should go to college once I finish up my stint here and do something worthwhile. I'm not inclined to agree with him."
SIBLINGS	N/A
OTHER	N/A

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

HISTORY

Salem's past is checkered with run ins with the law and bouncing between being a freeman and being holed up in some sort of detention center. By the age of eighteen the lad's already served a two year stint in juvie, spent a total of four weeksin holding, and, allegedly, committed twenty seven felonies, but has only been convicted of one. An impressive feat for someone so young. The cause of this young man's skewed sense of morality can all be traced back to a single factor; his father. Salem was the product of, what his mother wrote of as, a horrible mistake. Eric Caldwell was a two bit con-artist and a thief and using all of his wiles it wasn't hard to sweet talk his way into the bed of newly wed Vanessa Hayes. As quickly as the romance had begun it ended with Eric in the wind and a child unknowingly conceived. Vanessa desperately tried to pass off the child as her husband's, but her attempt ended in failure. The man filed for divorce soon after. She abhorred the child she had conceived and cared for him only as long as it took to find his biological father. For three years Salem was in her care before she found a chance to dump him upon Eric's doorstep. For the first few months Eric had no idea to do with a child and thought to put him up for adoption. After all, his way of life wasn't the best to rear a child. Some fatherly affection had wormed it's way into the man and he found himself pushing off taking the boy to an adoption agency. "One more week," became two weeks, two weeks a month, and before he knew it he'd held onto his son for over a year.  His father's nomadic lifestyle made it difficult for Salem to put down any kind of roots or attend any school for more than a few months. By the age of six he'd already been placed in "home school." Eric had promised himself to try and keep his son on the straight and narrow to the best of his ability, but the multitude of uses a toddler could serve for those of a more unsavory nature were boundless. Salem helped his father perform his first con at the age of six, his first lesson in the arts of the underworld. As far as true schooling went his father simply threw books at the boy and expected him to read them. Salem's lessons for the next several years included a plethora of subjects. Lock picking, pick pocketing, con artistry, burglary, hot wiring. On a more scholarly note Salem devoured every book his father threw at him and had a growing fondness for the classics. Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, the Bard, Jane Austin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky to name a few of the boy's preferred authors.  At thirteen Salem discovered a talent that aided immensely in his and his father's work. During a routine smash and grab an off duty police officer came by and gave chase to the young criminal. Salem darted out of the storefront with his loot in hand and the cop close on his heels. Just as the pursuer was about to snatch him Salem turned and threw his stolen goods at him along with forty pounds of burning ash. The cop suffered serious burns along his skin, eyes, and lungs. Salem ran back to the hotel that he and his father were living out of and, as best he could, tried to explain what happened to his father.  It wasn't long after that Salem was approached by a recruiter for Ashford Academy. The first of several and the first to be turned away. Salem refused to attend a school for "freaks". Salem and his father stole away and continued their escapades. For the next year Salem worked at utilizing his powers, applying them to his work. His skills reached a new height thanks to the ability to manipulate ash. With his new found abilities came a sense of invincibility and ultimately the boy got cocky. At age fourteen Salem was caught during a break in when an officer of the law got the jump on him. The world moved in fast forward as Salem was placed in a holding cell, tried and sentenced to four years in juvie.  Juvie was a new experience for Salem. It was the first time he interacted with kids his own age and sat in a classroom setting. Salem played nice with the other kids, kept his powers under wraps, and spent most of his time catching up on some reading. His father visited from time to time and another associate of Ashford came, offering a way out of juvie. Salem rebuffed him and continued enjoying the serenity that imprisonment brought. Imprisonment introduced Salem to two new loves. A job training program introduced him to automobile repair and several kids with handmade tattoo guns were the first to give the boy his first dose of ink. He remained content and, for the most part out of trouble allowing him to get out early on good behavior. Like most criminals Salem returned to his life of crime immediately. Unfortunately he was out of practice and his second attempt was a horrendous failure. Grand Theft Auto gone awry, Salem was caught in a stolen vehicle and found himself before a judge charged with his first felony. Before the judge delivered his sentence he was given an option; jail or Ashford Academy. Salem had spent years trying to avoid the school, but finally gave in. His lack of formal education caused Salem to be placed a year behind most students and he quickly established a reputation as a troublemaker.

ALL THE SMALL THINGS

POWER	Tephrakinesis
POWER DESCRIPTION	The ability to generate, manipulate, and absorb burning or burned matter. Salem can produce his body weight in smoldering ash and manipulate it freely. The ash that he generates is a very fine gray powder with capable of reaching a temperature of 800 degrees fahrenheit. It didn't take long for Salem to learn about ash's unique properties. Being burned matter it is practically impossible to burn and incredibly effective at putting out fires. It has also shown that by burning nearby matter it can create more ash, granting Salem access to more ammunition.  Salem mental control over ash is limited to a one hundred foot radius. Once it passes that threshold Salem is incapable of manipulating it. The most common use of this ability is to create various shapes out of the slow burning material. At his current level Salem can only create simple shapes, blunt weapons, and a densely packed dermal armor. His favorite weapon to manifest is a baseball bat like construct with a super heated barrel. He can certainly use it in various other manners as well.  In a criminal capacity Salem uses his fine control over the material to pick locks, manipulate objects from afar, and create a smokescreen in order to obscure his escape. By forcing ash out from his palms he's capable of creating a volatile stream of heated matter with enough force to push a midsized sedan back several feet. Recently he's begun to experiment with raising the temperature of his ash past the 800 degree mark. This experimentation has revealed the ability to force his ash to explode in a manner akin to tnt at a ratio of 20:1. For every twenty pounds of ash Salem sets of equals one pound of dynamite. Once Salem detonates ash it takes several hours for his body to generate more meaning he must use the ability sparingly.  While incredibly useful Salem's powers posses several limitations and weaknesses. Water douses any remaining flame left in the ash and turns the fine grain into a muddy slurry that's almost impossible for Salem to use effectively or even absorb and ultimately hardens it. While he's capable of creating more ash by incinerating material he can only control a finite amount of matter, about his own body weight. Intense winds can blow away any ash not formed into a heavy enough construct and outside of Salem's sphere of influence.
SPECIAL ITEMS	Salem smokes like a chimney and as such always has a crumpled pack of cigarettes on him and a worn zippo lighter.

PULLING THE STRINGS

ALIAS	Vyril
CREDITS	THIS APP WAS CREATED BY RYN ★

Accepted! Please make your claims and enjoy your stay at Ashford.