Age: 67
male
Shaun Mark Bean (born 17 April 1959) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Bean made his professional debut in a theatre production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983. Retaining his Yorkshire accent, he first found mainstream success for his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the ITV series Sharpe, which originally ran from 1993 to 1997. Bean's film roles include Patriot Games (1992), GoldenEye (1995), Ronin (1998), Don't Say a Word (2001), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Equilibrium (2002), National Treasure (2004), Troy (2004), Flightplan (2005), North Country (2005), The Island (2005), Silent Hill (2006), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Black Death (2010), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and The Martian (2015). His television roles include the BBC anthology series Accused, Broken, Game of Thrones, and the ITV historical drama series Henry VIII and Legends. As a voice actor, Bean has been featured in the video games The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, and the feature films Wolfwalkers and Mummies among others. Bean has also been the main voice over for O2 and their adverts for over 20 years having originally taken the job in 2002. In 2022, Bean won the British Academy Television Award as Leading Actor in Time, a BBC One drama.
The story begins with our protagonist waking up inside a nautiloid, a dimension-crossing illithid flying ship. They are implanted with an illithid tadpole, parasites that enthral and transform people into creatures known as mind flayers; however, before the transformation is complete, the ship comes under attack from githyanki warriors and their red dragons. The protagonist is freed during the fighting and steers the damaged ship back to Faerûn, where it crashes. As the protagonist searches for a way to remove their parasite, they encounter other survivors of the wreck, all likewise implanted with tadpoles: the githyanki fighter Lae'zel, the Sharran cleric Shadowheart, the high elf vampire Astarion, the human wizard Gale, the human warlock Wyll, and the tiefling barbarian Karlach. Meanwhile a deadly cult which follows a mysterious entity called the Absoulte has started to gain traction and spread across Faerûn, and coincidentally seems to be the source of the recent rise in tadpole infections.
