Allan Laithwaite

Allan Laithwaite is the main character of the fantasy battle series 'Cedar Smoke: Gisli,' the first part of 'Cedar Smoke.'

physical appearance
Allan has straw blond hair, brighter in the summer than it is in the winter, and aqua- or algae-colored eyes. He's somewhat handsome, but mostly has the appearance of a shrewd young man. He's of slightly below average height for the time, at 5'7".

notable objects
He wears silver-rimmed glasses at the beginning of the story, which are replaced with Persian glass-and-bronze spectacles after his original pair are broken in the Cedar Forest. He has them replaced several times throughout the story, with British Maltese and Dutch Indonesian models, along with a few others. When he first hears that he's traveling back to Mesopotamia, he's very excited to bring his Iraqi dishdasha (a traditional kind of robe) out of his dusty English closet. because he's a dedicated historian, he often keeps his notes and pen near to him at all times.

preceding events
Allan Laithwaite was born in either central England or East Anglia in the year 1896. At some point in his early childhood, he became infatuated with the study of ancient civilizations, and vowed to go to university. At the age of 17, he was accepted into Cambridge and came under the tutelage of a renowned archaeologist, Samuel Purnell. After he proved his competence to Professor Purnell, he works in the university's archives, organizing ancient artifacts and studying cuneiform. After a time, he travels to German and becomes simultaneously fluent in both German and the ancient language of Sumerian; he's the first person in thousands of years to be fluent in Sumerian but not Akkadian.

He travels with his professor and his class to the ancient city of Eridu in 1914, where they briefly conduct an excavation before being forced to flee as a result of the Ottoman Empire's entry into the first World War. He's forced to bury his notes in a wooden box in the sand. He spends the next year and a half working tirelessly at the university, until he's enlisted into the military in mid-1916. He fights in the war on and off until the end, then returns to his hometown. He's not exactly motivated to do much of anything when he returns home, but he very quickly pens a letter to Dr. Purnell, asking for pictures of cuneiform tablets to analyze. Being 1919, the pictures aren't particularly good, and Allan simply keeps to himself for around a year, working and wasting away in his room.

fravashi [animkii]
Allan's fravashi is Joss Sprig. Although he's the first main protagonist in 'Cedar Smoke,' his abilities fit in with the main protagonists of later parts; his fravashi fits in with the traditional Sioux view of cosmic order. The protagonist of the next series, set in Japan, will have a fravashi whose ability fits in with the ancient Sumerian view of cosmic order, and the protagonist of the final series in the triptych, set in the Black Hills, will have a fravashi whose ability fits in with the Japanese view of cosmic order.

Tákuškaŋškaŋ, Romanized as Takushkangshkang, is the Lakota term for the supernatural force that imbues he universe with motion. It is associated with the medicine hoop and the sun in the beliefs of the Lakota and other Plains tribes. Joss Sprig has the ability to imbue forces with rotational force, either keeping them rotating in place or moving elsewhere.

On the Versatile-to-Powerful scale, Joss Sprig is much more versatile than it is powerful. It's useful in a variety of situations.

Joss Sprig is able to distinguish between two kinds of rotation; rotating in place and rotating locomotion. He sharpens his ability to switch between these and turns the rotation of Joss Sprig into a legitimate battle strategy over the course of the series. As a result, during certain battles, especially later battles, Laithwaite and Joss Sprig's battle strategies resemble those of the Hoop Dance practitioners in 'Merganser.'