Wilhelm De Winter

By Dust and Memories

• March 18, 2015




Age: 28 (32 if you include Extended Canon)

Gender: Male

Species: Pegasus

Appearance: Navy blue coat, bright blue, glacier ice-like eyes, darker brown hooves, mane and tail a dark grey shot through with darker grey streaks.<br />Always poised and careful, it is unlikely you will see Wilhelm trip up, physically or verbally. He has a very specific type of trot, measured and with each hoof precisely placed, that gives him a air of purpose and imperiousness. When he's talking to you, he continually keeps eye contact, sometimes as if he's staring you down, though if he's wearing a small smile, he's likely just teasing you about something. Can get rather intense, and has a penchant for hoof gestures to illustrate his points. Like most Canterlot ponies, and unlike ponies living in smaller towns like Ponyville, Wilhelm often wears clothes.

Cutie Mark: A swirling white orbital map with four planets. He acquired it the first time he looked through a telescope at the moonrise and wrote down what he saw. His special talent relates to astronomy and the things beyond even the skies of Equestria.

Personality: Distant to those whom he does not know well, and dislikes most social interaction. However, he's quite congenial with those he loves and at least friendly with his friends. Brilliant but reclusive. Tends towards the side of law and order, and can be quite stern. A perfectionist to the last, and uncomfortable around ponies without the same standards.<br /><br />Spends some time obsessing over small things, and has a compulsion for instinctive neatness and order. He has lingering trauma from the death of his sister, and the locket he wears is a picture of her. <br /><br />He's prone to severe moods varying in intensity, from "Did you know how high this tower is? I don't, but I could use your body to measure the distance..." to "I could kiss you right now, but..kissing? I'll be right back, I just need to grab a book on the subject..." Sometimes, he can be abrupt if he's working on something, and often doesn't want to speak when he's busy. If under pressure, he calms down rapidly and can often be the clearest head in the room, but for little things, he tends to panic easily. He possesses a sharp tongue and a very well-developed sense of sarcasm.

Backstory: Born into a high-class family of three in Canterlot, he grew up without many friends, despite his parents' efforts. Young Wilhelm, or Will, as his parents (Friedrich de Winter -- a career Guard officer and amateur thespian -- and Andromeda Eclipse, an astronomer and researcher) and sister (Celeste de Winter), called him, spent most of his time locked inside a library, rarely preferring to socialize. When he did, however, it inevitably ended in several caustic remarks about the colt or filly in question's intelligence and/or breeding, which put a end to further calls very quickly. Despite this, he enjoyed a very close relationship with his family, especially his sister. Celeste and him shared roughly the same interests, although she tended to lean more towards music, being employed as a opera singer in the Canterot Operatic Company, starring in such greats like Hoofner's Cycle Of The Ring before her death at the age of thirty. Moving back to Wilhelm, the first major event of his life was when he was around eight. On a particularly auspicious winter day, he had spotted a telescope in the local toy store, and begged his parents to buy it. He obtained it for Hearths' Warming Eve, and ended up using it the next night. Carrying up a cup of hot cocoa, his notebook, and a pencil, little Wilhelm opened up the telescope, which he had assembled with the help of his father, and turned it to look at the moon. He scribbled down a brief notation of the craters and a rough sketch, and when he went downstairs after several hours of viewing time, he realized only at the excited exclamations of his family that he had earned his cutie mark.<br /><br />By his mid-adolescence, he had already applied to Canterlot University, with an immaculate cover letter and accomplishments -- though volunteer work was noticeably absent -- and was accepted. At the university, however, over the course of a four-year course and doctoral studies, Wilhelm was finishing up his studies, majoring in astronomy and minoring in magical theory, a subject he had always enjoyed (although, being simply a Pegasus, he could not practice some of the things he was learning of) when his sister, Celeste, died in a tragic stage accident; during a dress rehearsal, a stagehand had apparently lost control of a spotlight, which fell onto Celeste from twenty hooves above, killing her instantly. He finished the last six months of his study (with a noticeable drop in quality) and then went home, Ph.D in hoof.<br /><br />This trauma would affect him for the remainder of his life, and although the deep unwillingness to fly -- an activity Celeste had enjoyed, unlike Wilhelm -- ended relatively soon, and despite the calming efforts by his friends and family, he simply shut himself back into his repository of literature and mathematics (what normal ponies called a "library") and wasted away. During this time, he went back home to his parents, where he planned to stay until he could get a job at Canterlot University. However, when he became eligible for military service in the Equestrian Royal Army, he joined immediately for unknown reasons; he was never very patriotic, and he's never told anyone why, exactly, he joined. Some think he did it to drive out the memory of his sister; others think he did it because his father wanted him to finally follow in his hoofsteps. Perhaps both. During boot camp, he showed proficiency with a bow and arrow, as well as a excellent sense of practical tactics, and was assigned as the designated marksman for his squad and commissioned as an officer. He never got a chance to fight, however, and in the intervening years between attacks by the forces of evil, he turned his gaze up to the sky again.<br /><br /> After publishing a study titled "On the Phenomena of the Equestrian Night Sky" in the prestigious journal known as the Journal of the Equestrian Scientific Academy, he became a full-time astronomer and scientist, based in a small home in Canterlot, being honorably discharged from the Royal Army into the Royal Army Reserve Corps, where he still serves with a sergeant's rank. After three years of work in both fields, the Princesses, impressed, elevated him to the peerage, whereupon he was given a knighthood (which he declined), his current home (which he accepted) and an appointment as the Royal Astronomer, which he also accepted. Unfortunately for him, he's also responsible for tutoring the odd foal or filly, which he never finds fun, though he can take a liking to his students if he finds them good enough.<br /><br />Soft Canon Section (Read: Can be omitted from RP. Based on roleplays Wilhelm has been in.)<br /> <br />After a year, he, along with a team of various heroes, was sent into Tartarus to retrieve an artifact of Celestia's, which held a powerful dark magic from one of the Elder Gods. The team fought their way through the Nine Circles, eventually banishing the Alicorn Lord of the Pit and retrieving the artifact, upon which they came back to the Overworld. At this point, all of them became temporary heroes, though it was quickly hushed up, and not many ponies know of their roles, especially that of Wilhelm, who was embarrassed by the recognition and took his own steps to shut it down.<br /> <br />Two years after that, during a visit to the Saddle Arabian National Observatory, Wilhelm was kidnapped by insurgents during the resurgence of the Saddle Arabian Civil War. While they planned to use him as leverage, Wilhelm was broken free by Royalist forces and forcibly conscripted until the end of the conflict. During this time, Wilhelm gradually became more and more disgusted with the events going on, and upon his repatriation to Equestria, Wilhelm only went back for long enough to join the crew of a ship before leaving again. During this voyage, Wilhelm and the crew, including a warrior mare from the frozen north, a deserter from Braytain's armies, and a black magic user from the infamous Darkmane family, recovered ancient pirate treasure, defeated the sea wyrm at the center of Dead Mare's Cross, and explored ancient temples used by the ancestors of the current Zebra Confederation. <br /> <br />When the ship returned, Wilhelm returned to his duties as the Diarchy's Royal Astronomer, and such it was for another year before he entered the Arena of Gladiators, meeting everypony from the members of his old sailing crew to the even older Tartarus adventurers. New faces included Anette Brightstrings, Wilhelm's marefriend, and Lektra Bolt, Wilhelm's friend and sometimes rival. After a stint in the Arena, he returned to his duties, and has reportedly has enough adventure to last a lifetime.