Appearance
Oren is 6'3" tall and at 200 pounds, has always been on the skinny side. He has some muscle definition in his arms and legs, but doesn't work out often enough to have a body that anyone might want to emulate. At thirty-three, Oren now has a few wisps of grey hair starting at his temples and showing through the thick beard that he keeps trimmed. His eyes are a mixture of brown and green, and some might even call them soulful, though Oren disagrees. As far as style goes, Oren is a simple man who prefers not to draw a lot of attention to himself. He can often be found in jeans and long-sleeved shirts and a pair of boots. Oren has no tattoos or piercings, and doesn't believe that will change any time soon.
Personality
Scholarly: Having suffered through a rather stunted and controlled upbringing, Oren has a healthy love of learning. He will read anything and everything, and when he is particularly interested in something, will study as much as he can about the subject. He is a fast learner as well, and has a knack for remembering and recalling facts.
Outgoing: Something of a natural public speaker and not shy in a traditional way, Oren is friendly and open with strangers. He likes getting to know those around them, and does his best to make sure that everyone is engaged in a conversation and having a good time. Being so outgoing, Oren is also quick to take a stand against things he deems morally wrong.
Frugal: Thanks to growing up with next to nothing, Oren is incredibly resourceful and knows how to stretch every last dollar he makes. He can be cheap at times, but is not greedy and would never dream of doing anything on another's dime.
Difficult: Maybe it has something to do with pride, but Oren can be incredibly stubborn. When he sets his mind on something--even if it's his own opinion that he sees as fact--it is nearly impossible to change. Oren will argue with someone day and night if he believes that he's right about something, and many just don't want to bother wasting such energy.
Ignorant: Again, an isolated childhood has a lot to do with Oren's odd social cues. He has a tendency to say the wrong things at an even worse time, but he also doesn't realize that he is being inappropriate. As he experiences new things, however, Oren has learned what is and isn't acceptable in conversation and has taken many steps to separate himself from what he was taught as a kid.
Biography
Oren was born and raised in an incredibly small and isolated community in West Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal pastor who was head of the local church in which the services included snake-handling, faith healing, and asking for donations from people who didn't have much of anything to spare. Oren has one sibling, an older brother, and has no real memory of his mother, who left the family only two years after he was born. His father, a violent drunk, believed in the word of God above all else and felt that the bible offered the only education that a person could ever need. As a result, Oren wasn't in a traditional school very often.
When he was around eight years old, Oren was forced to start participating in church services. His father taught him how to preach to the parishioners, which Oren took to rather quickly due to the positive attention. Along with preaching, he was also taught how to handle the snakes without getting injured and a few years later, at age eleven, he was doing his own faith healing. Although it never seemed to help when his father prayed over someone with a cold, or ran a hand over a broken leg, things were different for Oren. The locals said that he made them feel better, that they could breathe easier when he prayed, that their aches and pains went away. Years later, Oren's older brother, whose leg had been badly broken in a mining accident, was able to walk without a cane after days of dedicated prayer.
At sixteen, when most teenagers were preparing to take their driver's test, Oren got married to his first girlfriend. It was a small wedding at the church, there was no cake and Oren wore jeans to the ceremony. They had only been dating for a few weeks when he'd popped the question, believing that happiness without marriage was a sin against God. It was only nine months later that Oren was a father and trying to raise a family while still essentially being a child himself. Still, Oren was dedicated to his son, and although he later discovered that he and his wife weren't well suited for each other, he fully embraced fatherhood.
A year later, during a particularly rough winter, his son got sick. Having believed and relied on faith healing for so many things, Oren never took the boy to a doctor. He got sicker as the days went on and eventually, it was too late. Prayer had failed, and Oren felt abandoned by God and everything he'd once known. He came to the painful realization that the church was a lie, and he was doing more harm than good. Oren tried to stay in his marriage, in the small town that now looked at him with such pity, but it was too hard.
At twenty, Oren left his wife and family in the middle of the night and never looked back. He cycled through poverty as he moved around the southern United States, fending off poverty with odd jobs; having never graduated high school, manual labor became the norm. He didn't go back to faith healing for nearly ten years until he hit a stray dog with his car one night and found that he missed the feeling that came with fixing things.
Oren met the group by chance when they were investigating a haunted site in the town he was residing in. He asked what they were doing, and told a few stories about smacking the devil out of people when he was a kid. They might still think it's all a lie, but getting to tag along has been an interesting experience.
Relationships
!! -OPEN- !!
Specialties & Abilities
Faith Healing: Oren has the ability to cure diseases and ailments through religious devotion, though his faith in God waxes and wanes, and he now needs an emotional connection or response in order to effectively heal anything. It can be a useless ability and often makes him feel like a fraud.
Object Exorcism: Whether or not Oren has ever banished a demon from a person as a child is somewhat debatable, but he does have the ability to cleanse objects of negative spiritual energy.
Other
*Smells like sage and cigarette smoke.
*Unafraid of any snakes.
*Doesn't sleep much.