Ysgard - Character Profiles

[Nimue]

This thread is for posting, discussing, and approving character profiles. With a mod's help, I'll keep an updated list of all active characters and NPCs in this first post.

Please put a good amount of detail into your profile--at least a paragraph for each of the main sections. If you'd like to keep something a secret from the other players--part of your character's backstory, a magical power, an enchanted possession, etc--you can omit it from your profile, but pm the details to the GM so it can be approved. If you come up with something during play that you want to add, pm the GM and once it's approved, a moderator can add it to your profile. If a significant power or backstory aspect isn't in your profile, it can't be brought into the story. (The exception is personality traits, since writing with a character can definitely change how you see them, and hopefully character development will alter them further.)

As a note: While it is possible to play a dragon or dragonrider character, it will require a very good profile and considerable commitment to the rp. To that end, it is not recommended that your first character profile be a dragon or dragonrider--it's a much better bet that an existing character could be made a dragonrider during the rp.

Character Profile Template

[b]Name:[/b] 
[b]Gender:[/b] 
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Race:[/b] (Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Dragon)
[b]People:[/b] (Folk, Dun, Redbeard, Iridheen, etc)

[b]Appearance:[/b] 

[b]Clothing and Possessions:[/b]

[b]Personality:[/b] 

[b]Skills:[/b]

[b]Magic:[/b]

[b]History:[/b]

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Name: Addison Lane
Gender: female
Age: 23
Race: human
People: Cærnish


Appearance: a freckled redhead with wild curls and emerald eyes, average size, athletic build.

Clothing and Possessions: most of her clothing is carved from her kills, and considered fashionable among huntresses. She wears a carving knife on her left hip. Strapped to her back is a "grappler gun" which can function as a climbing tool, a crossbow, or both at once. For close encounters, she has her "lightning axe." She also has a couple of "shock traps," and phials that enhance her axe.

When hunting an animal, she prefers the elegance of the hunting bow she was given on her sixteenth birthday.


Personality: her name means "awesome warrior." Addy's moment in the spotlight came from simply trying to live up to her name. On the hunt, she'll do what she thinks it takes to protect allies and innocents, even if it means risking her own life. In peaceful moments, there's a softness about her that she can't always hide.

Taking arms is a male-dominated business, but Addy tries to come off as one of the guys (with mixed results). She savors moments in the company of women.


Skills: Addy's a decent shot, and stealthy when there's a need—and when there isn't, she's happy to yell out a good battle cry. She can ride a beast, though the closest she ever came to dragon-riding was the time she mounted the breel—stabbing it in the head as it tried to fly away after killing a fellow hunter. She believes she has the potential to ride a real dragon, and is interested in learning how.


Magic: She's not so sure she has magic in her, though she has a means of harnessing lightning. She believes that's a capability of her equipment. She hardly considers herself magical, and would scoff at the very idea.

Addison has enough magic in her to make it as a druid, but this inner power is untrained. Addy doesn't realize that she can channel lightning without her equipment, and that the equipment merely enhances her ability.

She also has a way with animals, but she does not think of it as magic. When she tries to communicate with an animal, however, her hair stands on end and her clothing clings to her body. She may even emit a spark. The reason for this: Addison can't disconnect her beast-speaking magic from her storm-calling magic.

Likewise, when she uses storm-calling magic, some woodland creatures may connect with Addison.


History: Addison has earned a living as a huntress since the age of 16. She started out hunting for food for the locals, then moved on to bigger game, using her skills to kill beasts that endanger people. She still loves a freshly carved and cooked chunk of meat, but finds herself occasionally letting a buck go or wanting to pet a wild creature rather than shoot it. She wonders if she's going soft, and a friend of hers she confided in brought up the topic of bounty hunting. Addy fears she'd have to kill a man in that business. She's been in a fight were men killed men and men shot her… but she has yet to kill a person herself, or even try.

Whenever she thinks back on that battle of men killing men, she prays to Ciardha: should she ever find herself aiming a weapon of death at a man, she'll know without a doubt he deserves it.

 

[Gryphos]

Name: Bendalitz Agrippen

Gender: Male

Age: 30

Race: Human

People: Dun

Appearance:
Fairly tall and thin, with dark brown skin and slender, somewhat delicate features. He has earthy hazel coloured eyes and long black hair, arranged into knotted braids, as well as a goatee beard just long enough to stroke.

Clothing and possessions:
His outfit contains a mixture of practical and elegant: a long, dark travelling coat over a bright purple vest with gold dragon patterns embroidered into it, as well as knee-reaching black riding boots. For weapons he carries a crossbow, bolts for it, and a single long dagger, and his other possessions include various items such as writing materials, books of various subjects, and a vial of deadly poison.

Personality:
A rather quiet, well-spoken man, prone to watching events unfurl around him, waiting for just the right opportunity to intervene. Ruled by logic rather than instinct, he would never willingly go into any situation without at least some kind of plan. He’s also something of a philosopher and moralist, and uses his philosophies to justify actions many would see as brutal and barbaric, claiming it’s ‘for the good of the realm.’ In conversations he will also spout these philosophies to try and verbally outmanoeuvre his opponents. When anything happens that proves him wrong or he encounters something he can’t deal with, he doesn’t take nicely to it, to say the least.

Skills:
Being the ‘Left Hand of the Queen,’ Bendalitz acts as an unconventional agent, and thus has many unconventional skills. He has basic combat and knife skills, but nothing particularly advanced. He’s decent with his crossbow, but not exactly an expert marksman, and often prefers to use it at close range just to avoid getting into hand-to-hand combat. Operating most of the time in towns and cities, his knowledge of the wild isn’t particularly extensive either. Where Bendalitz excels is in areas of subtlety. He knows much about the fields of lockpicking and pickpocketing, as well as assassination and espionage, and in conversations he has a knack for persuasion and interrogation.

Magic: None

History:
Born to the poor fishing village of Agrippen on the western coast, Bendalitz experienced first hand the tyranny of the Yvalhyn elves, a small group of whom occupied the village, no more than a handful, to enforce Yvalheim’s rule. After his father was sold into slavery by the Yvalhyn, he began to nurture a personal hatred, but suffered in silence, unable to fight back against the elves. Only when he was seventeen, when word of a dragonrider and revolution spread throughout the realm, did his zeal grow enough for him to act. He hatched a plan to kill the Yvalhyn that occupied the village, and one dark night, he carried it out. No one besides him knows exactly how he dispatched the elves, as he claimed to have tossed the bodies in the sea.

When the revolutionary war was waged, Bendalitz left along with much of his village to join the rebels. Though he was present at several battles, he never fought on the front line, as he gained the liking of a general, who took Bendalitz under her wing and kept him in her personal guard. It was under her unofficial apprenticeship that he learned to read and write. He began to read avidly, throughout the war, and developed an appreciation for the finer arts and scholarly studies.

During the war Bendalitz suggested (and ended up leading) several guerilla operations, attacking Yvalhyn supply lines and even assassinating key commanders (the latter he would carry out alone). These operations proved massively successful, and he quickly gained a reputation amongst the rebels and Yvahlyn. At the end of the war his achievements were even recognised by Queen Hala Svora, who appointed him as her ‘discrete enforcement agent.’ If Farrun Dragonrider was the champion and right hand of the Queen, Bendalitz Agrippen was her crooked left hand, carrying out investigation and espionage, on the enemy without and within.

 

[Nimue]

Bendalitz (can we call him Ben?) gets my stamp of approval! So does Addy, but she got that earlier, heh.

 

[Ireth]

Name: Rikhard
Gender: Male
Age: 23
Race: Human
People: Half-Folk, half-Dun

Appearance: tall and sinewy, with a suntanned complexion, dark shoulder-length curls and green eyes; very scarred with lashes and knives. He keeps those scars hidden under clothing and bandages as much as possible.

Clothing and Possessions: Rikhard’s worldly possessions amount to the clothes he wore when he escaped, various provisions both borrowed and stolen, and a golden pendant that formerly belonged to his mother. It depicts a pair of encircling arms, symbolizing Adannus, the divine protector of the Dun; Rikhard’s mother’s name is engraved on the back.

Personality: Rikhard is very much the timid, fearful sort due to eight years as a pirate captain’s slave. He follows Adannus, as his mother did after her marriage, and is extremely devout; it is that faith which largely kept him functional during those eight years of various kinds of abuse. He does not believe in killing except when it becomes absolutely necessary for survival, and he will not kill a helpless opponent.

Skills: Rikhard is proficient in many areas, most of them having at least some pertinence to life at sea. His greatest skills are swimming, sailing, navigation, cooking, and sewing. He is not a good fighter at all; his life experience, most importantly the past eight years, has taught him that running and hiding are the best he can do. He has some skill in stealth and pickpocketing, to which he owes his present survival and the reclamation of his mother’s pendant, which the abovementioned pirate captain stole from him.

Magic: none that he’s aware of

History: Rikhard was born to a free couple, a Dun man and a Folk woman who lived on an isolated island far off the western coast. His father was a sailor, and he took his wife with him on various trips. As a result Rikhard was born on the ocean, and spent the majority of his life there, knowing nothing about the conflicts and upheaval on the mainland. His father was lost in a storm at sea and presumed dead when Rikhard was two, leaving his mother to raise him on her own. She kept her husband’s way of life, and taught Rikhard everything she could. For his fifteenth birthday she gave him her most prized possession, a golden pendant symbolizing her deity.

On a summer day shortly after Rikhard’s fifteenth birthday, he and his mother were accosted by pirates led by Captain Alastore Grott. Rikhard’s mother was killed defending her son; the Captain abducted Rikhard aboard his vessel as a slave, and burned the body of Rikhard’s mother along with her ship and everything in it. The Captain also stole Rikhard’s pendant, hoping to break Rikhard’s spirit by doing so.

Rikhard served as a cook aboard the Captain’s vessel as penance for accidentally injuring the former cook. Whippings and beatings were common, as well as other forms of abuse--verbal, emotional, mental and physical. Every year on the anniversary of Rikhard’s capture, the Captain carved a tally into Rikhard’s right arm below the shoulder. In the autumn following the eighth anniversary, Rikhard finally mustered the courage to escape. He drugged the Captain’s wine with sedative herbs and took back his mother’s pendant, then stole a weapon and some food and high-tailed it for the shore in a lifeboat. He landed far to the southwest, where a pair of Iridheen rangers found him. They gave him some spare clothes and food, then helped him reach the Hintercrown safely.

 

[Tom]

Name: Einan
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Race: Elf
People: Iridheen, raised by Folk

Appearance: Straight, shoulder-length wheat-blond hair with grey eyes and sparsely freckled pale skin. He has a narrow face with finely cut features, and is tall and lean, but shorter and more muscular than the average elf. His hands are calloused from hard work; he bears several large scars on his chest and back from a wolf attack in his early life.

Clothing and Possessions: Dark green tunic and dark red undertunic, both of wool, as well as a leather overtunic lined with fur, brown trousers, and blue-grey wraps on lower arms and legs. His weapons consist of a composite short bow, twenty or so arrows, and a knife. He also has a pouch strapped to his belt, which holds essentials such as a fire-starting kit, whetstone, etc. In addition, he wears on a chain around his neck the glass pendant that is his only connection to his dead parents.

Personality: Einan is a natural flirt, using his charm and irreverent attitude to win over both friends and potential significant others alike. Despite being usually high-spirited, when danger arises he turns deadly serious. Rash and impulsive, he wouldn’t hesitate to jump into a problem—whether it be an argument or a full-blown battle.

Under his veneer of unshakable enthusiasm, though he’s loathe to admit it, Einan harbors a deep sense of insecurity. Unsure as to whether he should think of himself as human or elf, he often wonders if he would have been the same person he is now had he been raised by his true parents. He’s uncertain as to the right path to take in life, and drives himself mad by constantly second-guessing his own decisions.

Skills: He’s not the most skilled archer, but is fairly consistent in accuracy. His main strength lies in tracking and woodcraft, as well as hunting and trapping. Though most comfortable with a ranged weapon, he’s not afraid to attack at close quarters with a knife, and is equally unafraid to fight dirty—biting, clawing, and kicking up dirt are perfectly acceptable in his book.

Magic: As Einan taught himself how to work magic, his knowledge of its use is limited. Additionally, he has no real idea of what his own capabilities are, though he’s sure his magical talent is fairly low. He mainly uses it for hunting.

History: Einan’s Elven parents were part of a convoy attacked by starving wolves in winter; they were close enough to a human village to rouse its occupants. A human farmer and his wife, arriving with the rest of the villagers, shot and killed two wolves just as they began to drag Einan from his dead mother’s arms. Though he was left with long gashes on his back and torso, he lived—the only one of the convoy to survive. The two humans who had saved his life took him in and raised him as their son.

Now, at nineteen, he’s the eldest, and is looked up to by five rough-and-tumble younger brothers and sisters. The human denizens of the village have largely accepted him, and he even has a steady girlfriend—Troia, who happens to be the best dogsled racer in the region.

Though Einan likes his way of life well enough, for nearly a year now his sense of adventure’s been tugging at him. He wonders with trepidation if it’s his Elven blood calling him, but is eager to venture out of his familiar world and undertake the journey of a lifetime. He has undertaken the long, arduous trip to the Hintercrown to do so.

 

[DMThaane]

Name: Loke
Gender: Male
Age: 31
Race: Human
People: Folk

Appearance: A tall and fierce man, with a taut athletic build, watchful reddish brown eyes that glare out from beneath a thick brow, a crooked nose that’s seen several breaks, and a wry and mocking grin hidden behind a beard of rough dark brown hair. The sides of his head are shaved and covered in black tattoos of dragons. The rest of his hair is mid length, with the exception of a single long braid pulled from his front hairs and running along the left side of his head, looped in at the back, and tied with a red band. He has a scar over his left brow, barely missing the eye; another to the right of his nose, ending at his top lip; a third along the left of his neck, where a sword barely missed its mark; and a rope scar around his neck, from a hanging that didn’t quite take.

Clothing and Possessions: Despite his rough looks, war brought Loke a fair amount in spoils. He owns expensive clothes but never wears them, instead preferring the things we wore as a rebel fighter. He wears a rough brown tunic, a black leather vest engraved with dragons, and when things become serious he dons a mail hauberk. He wears black splinted bracers, brown leather boots with splinted greaves, and while travelling he wears a wolf fur cloak with a black metal pin with a dragon design. He wears a number of rings taken from elves he’s killed and an elegant locket of elven design under his shirt.

He owns more weapons that would seem necessary for any one man but he’s particularly fond of his axes. In battle he prefers to carry two throwing axes, a hand axe, a long seax, and a shield. He likes to keep a few weapons spare and travels with a sword, a spear, and a long axe; although he’ll only ever carry one of these into battle alongside his usual weapons. The only proper ranged weapon he uses is a sling but this is mostly for hunting and he doesn’t carry proper lead shot for battle use.

Personality: Intelligent and watchful, Loke likes to study and prod at people before fighting them. He maintains a sense of almost jovial aloofness but is savage in combat, tearing his enemies apart without ever losing himself to the bloodlust. His has an intense disgust for elves, although it’s more complicated than simple racism. He enjoys playing with people but rarely forms friendships. Those few he does form he values highly. Loke is capable of almost any violence or savagery in the name of victory.

Skills: Loke is a highly experienced warrior and rebel, skilled with fighting with little support against far superior numbers. He favours axes and has excellent aim with a throwing axe, although he’s also skilled with swords and spears. He knows the lands along the Western Kingdom border and can live off them almost indefinitely. A keen observer of human nature, Loke is difficult to deceive or manipulate.

Magic: Loke doesn’t innately possess magic, or at least the ability to manipulate it. He tends to distrust magic, seeing it as treacherous and unreliable, but this doesn’t extend as far as true bigotry. He’ll accept any magic if it helps him survive and did so frequently during the heaviest fighting of the war.

History: Loke was five when he was taken as a slave by an elven woman. He was trained by her as a body slave, serving in any capacity she required. Despite the abusive nature of their relationship, Loke was treated well and grew attached to the woman. This comfortable world collapsed when the woman fell victim to internal politics. Her house was stormed by a rival’s agents and Loke was forced to watch as every depravity was visited upon her until, eventually, he snapped and killed the leader with a pen knife. He fled out into the forest and found his way into a company of hunters. Selling them a story that his home was destroyed by fire and his family killed, they decided to take him with them. With them he learnt how to survive and plotted his revenge.

Loke started his rebellion early, before Farrun Ramshorn discovered a dragon egg in the mountains. He initially suffered under the full attention of the elves until the resistance started in earnest, which allowed him the freedom to build. He trained a group of rebel fighters, called Loke’s Raiders, taking special pleasure in recruiting half-elves into his force. Under his command, they attacked elven supply lines and raided villages, always behind enemy lines and with little support. These actions earned him the status of something of a folk hero, a reputation he inadvertently helped spread by writing poetry of his raids.

During the stalemate Loke continued raiding but the Wolf Queen, Hala Svora, grew concerned that he could provoke an attack before the Western Kingdom was ready, especially given the brutality of his tactics. She personally ordered that the Raiders lay down arms and quickly recruited them into other units. Loke, well rewarded for his actions, was kept near the Hintercrown where he could be carefully watched and, should open war break out, sent back into the fray. For his part, Loke tried to make the best of those peaceful years, although he found, more and more, that his dreams of vengeance were overcome by his other dreams. His dreams of dragons.

 

[Tom]

Name: Troia

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Race: Human

People: Half-Folk, Half-Dun

Appearance: Troia wears her dark chestnut-brown hair in two braids, has bright blue eyes and suntanned skin, and is somewhat short and stocky. Her face is heart-shaped, with thick eyebrows, rosebud lips, a cleft chin, and a widow’s peak.

Clothing and Possessions: She wears a dark blue woolen tunic-dress, burnt orange undertunic, and brown trousers, as well as a leather overtunic and fur-lined mittens and boots. Besides the ubiquitous belt knife and pouch, she also carries packets of dried herbs, cloth bandages, and other essential medical supplies. Her most prized possession, however, is her set of pan pipes. They were passed down to her along her father’s line, and on them she plays the ancient songs of the Dunmen her father taught her.

Personality: Troia is a serious, responsible person, and leans almost exclusively on rational thinking when approaching problems. She has a hard time understanding and expressing her emotions, and grows frustrated when they get in the way of reason. Unlike Einan, she doesn’t have a short, fiery temper—she is slow to anger, and even when angry, becomes icy calm and composed rather than flying into a rage.

Intensely loyal and honest to a fault, she would stand up for a friend without hesitation. Her bold streak sometimes runs away with her, and she can end up saying a lot more (and a lot more bluntly) than she meant.

Skills: She spends much of her time working with animals, and that has led to an understanding and respect for them that she can use to her advantage. She can fight decently with a knife or barehanded, but is reluctant to use her weapons or her fists on other people, and if arguments come to blows she will often pull out rather than hurt someone else. Though less knowledgeable in woodcraft than Einan, she can set snares expertly. She also has a working knowledge of herbs and other wilderness medicine, and can patch up wounds efficiently, though perhaps not gently.

Magic: Troia has no magic. She doesn’t particularly care, however.

History: Two years before Troia’s birth, her father, Beirard, an escaped Dunman, was living in what would become the Western Kingdom. He had slipped away from the coal mining camp he’d been part of, making his way through the mountains to a hidden settlement of other runaways. There he met Troia’s mother, Atana, a Folk slave woman who’d seen her chance and escaped her elvish masters in the chaos of a wildfire approaching her village. Beirard fell in love with her and they married, soon welcoming Troia, their only child. When she was five years old the rebellion started and her father marched to war to help free his kinsmen. He came back victorious, but scarred, in both mind and body.

Troia’s life has been uneventful all the years since the rebellion. Despite the lingering fear and damage left over from the rebellion, Firin, the village of one-time runaways—now freemen, under the rule of Hala Svora—has been a relatively peaceful place. At an early age, Troia’s father taught her how to work with the sled dogs he bred and trained. They were needed in the cold foothills, where harsh winters came early and left late, to bring supplies from the trading posts in the valleys.

Growing up on tales of her parents’ lives as slaves has set a deep resolve in Troia. She has decided to accompany Einan on his journey to the Hintercrown, so she can have a hand in the fall of the Yvalhyn elves and the freeing of her parents’ peoples.

 

[Nimue]

Name: Farrun Ramshorn

Gender: Male

Age: 29

Race: Human

People: Dun


Appearance: Farrun is big for a Dunman, at six-foot-three and eighteen stone, but not so big that he should be able to fill up a room as he does. He moves easily and entirely without self-consciousness, as though he has sovereign rights to the air around him. His skin is the color of umber, and crossed by a few scars—far fewer than he should have earned over the years, because of his skill with healing. His shoulders are generous, his arms sinewy, and his hands are broad and callused. The rest of him is fit, more burly than perfectly-cut, but when he flexes it's apparent how much of him is muscle.

He wears a short, stubbly beard, because without it his face looks a few years younger than his age. A sign of the magic flowing through him, perhaps. His hair is a very dark brown, and hangs in tight waves. He cuts it infrequently, so most often it's bound in a short horsetail at the nape of his neck, or else in shaggy curls around his jawline. Beneath the stubble Farrun's face is blunt and roughly-chiseled, though not without a hint of grace in the turn of his cheekbones and the arch of his nose. His mouth is wry and expressive. His eyebrows are thick, and his eyes are walnut-brown and straightforward.


Clothing and Possessions: When he's not been forced into ceremonial armor, Farrun wears simple clothing: most often an undyed linen shirt, a red leather jerkin, and dark woolen trews with sturdy boots. He avoids embroidery, ornament, or even silver belt-buckles, in no small part because it lets him go unnoticed through lower city and village. But all his clothing is very fine quality, if you look closely--sheerest wool, well-oiled leather, rich dyes. When traveling, he wears a brown cloak lined with sheepskin, and a chainmail hauberk beneath a red surcoat. If he expects trouble he'll don a leather-clad steel breastplate and helm, but he prefers mail to full plate.

His first weapon is his greatsword, honed steel with a design of Old Ysgardur knotwork etched across the flat of the blade. The hilt is elaborate with bronze, capped with a bright bronze pommel, and the grip is wrapped in dark leather. It was made by the only living magesmith among the Redbeards, and because of its forging can channel Farrun's magic as though it was an extension of his arm. He also carries a dwarven war-axe, hard steel and ironwood, and two horn-hilted knives for everyday use.


Personality: For those who expect grandeur from a dragonrider, Farrun is a good-natured disappointment. He is warm, courteous, and if not entirely humble, then firmly down-to-earth. Some might think him slow-witted, but he has a seriousness and depth of thought that he does not make a display of, until there is a challenge before him. He guards his scars and shadows so closely that most would say he has none.

When he was younger he could be proud and impulsive, but that has mellowed with age into mere irreverence for authority, tempered by common sense. He is still bull-headed, though, a quality often mistaken for more fragile bravery. At sixteen he had a raging temper, fueled by injustice; now his anger burns silently under his iron self-control. Above all, he has made himself capable, capable of everything asked of him, no matter how difficult. He does not fail, because the price of failure has always been too high.


Skills: Farrun has trained with the sword and axe for thirteen years, in and out of battle, though he fights with more force than technique. He may never be a swordmaster, but when paired with battlemagic, his blade-wielding is brutal and deadly. Better suited to his nature is bare-handed brawling and grappling, for he grew up fighting with the village boys, and slaves could not own weapons, even those used for hunting. He has trained much less in hand-to-hand combat—considered dishonorable for a dragonrider—but he's still damn good at it. From his time spent fleeing into the wild, he has learned hunting, tracking, and herbcraft. He rides well, and flies with Thoros as though he was born to it, which perhaps he was.


Magic: His magic is hot and golden, like tamed dragonfire. Over the years he has learned a great deal of wizardry and a little druidry, but the beating heart of his power is sorcery, bound by the strength of his will and nothing more. He is a formidable mage. Battlemagic is his greatest skill, for half his life has been spent fighting and destroying Yvalhyn sorcerers. Most dangerous of all is his determination and his refusal to accept defeat; many times he has crossed the limits of his body before his willpower or his magic had even faltered.

More subtle arts come slowly to him, with the exception of healing magic, which he has pursued passionately. To a young slave it seemed the most miraculous of his newfound powers, and to the man he is now it seems the only way of repaying the violence he does in battle. Though he does not have the finesse and depth of a druid healer, he can mend wounds and broken bones if given enough time, and can lend his own boundless energy to the weary.


History: Born in the mountain village of Ramshorn, Farrun knew no life outside of slavery, and barely dreamed of it. His father worked in the coal mines at the base of the mountain, and he knew that mantle of black dust, blisters, and bloody weals would fall on him, in time. As a child he herded the sheep and looked after his brother, five years younger and always small and shy. His mother spun the wool into fine yarn, gave it all over when collection came, and begged a little of it back to clothe her sons.

As he approached manhood he found his willfulness, his strength, and his laugh. He made good friends with everyone in the village, because happiness was scarce and he meant to give as much of it as he could. The elven overseers called him insolent, and sent him to the mines at fourteen. The work toughened his body and wore away at his soul, until he began to have strange, calling dreams. When he went into the mountain his mind echoed with them. He worked longer and later than he had to, listening to the stones around him. His mother worried, and his father spoke to him about despair and about hope, saying that the sun still rose and summer would come and he would have children one day, sons of his own to look after. Farrun, unable to explain himself, shook his head.

One night he crept into the mine with his pickaxe and labored in the vein he had been digging, hacking mindlessly until his fingers bled and slipped on the axe handle. As that stray blow fell, the rock wall before him crumbled. He stepped into a black cavern, and walked as though he knew what was beyond the dim circle of his lamp. In a crevice, he found huge brown bones nestled against the rock, and a black egg that sang to him in an unearthly voice.

He was held, entranced, for some time before the faintest, unmistakable tapping reached his ears, and then the egg wobbled, and cracked, and a small gleaming dragonling wriggled out into his hands. Farrun heard him in his mind, loud and wordless, like candleflame and crackling joy. And roaring hunger.

Farrun was so certain he was dreaming that he snuck into the castle kitchen—all the doors came unlocked at his touch, in this dream—and stole four hams and most of the remaining pig. As dawn crept across the wilderness, Farrun brought the stuffed, drowsing dragonling and the rest of the meat and secreted them away in a crack high up in the mountains, higher than the shepherds ever went. Then he went home and stared at the thatch above his bed until the call to work came, certain that if he closed his eyes the warm presence in his mind would disappear.

The months passed in a delirious haze of joy and worry. Farrun didn't dare ask for stories of dragonriders, because the truth might leap out of his mouth and betray him, so he muddled through. He discovered that he could hunt the elves' deer through sheer willpower—make them come to him so he could butcher them carefully with a stolen knife. He tried to convince himself that this wasn't sorcery, that this was different, and it felt different. The dragonling feasted on deer and stolen mutton and grew alarmingly quick; he began to learn words, and pestered Farrun while he worked in the mountain. One day the dragonling informed Farrun that his name was Thoros, and Farrun laughed aloud in the dust and sweat of the mine at the grandness of that name.

Then the elves caught him killing one of the deer. They bound him with sorcery that he did not know how to fight, and dragged him into the square to be executed. His mother was screaming. His brother cursed and struggled as two of the village men held him back. The knife was at his throat when a furious storm of claws, fangs, and bronze wings descended on his captor. In the chaos, the sorcery on Farrun broke and he seized his fury and lashed out at the elves around them and they, who mastered magic, were burned by it.

He stood alone on the gallows and stared down at the faces of his kin as Thoros spread his wings and screamed, with triumph and with vengeance. He had no words to say, but his blood raged with golden fire, and his dragon spoke for him, as he spoke for all of them.

They overthrew the elven lord that day, with pickaxes and stolen spears and the strength of those doing the impossible. Many died, and Farrun's father was among them, shouting in a joy like madness. Then they were free, and voices rang through the stone halls of the castle, and the banner was torn down, and pyres were built in the courtyard. Farrun stood on the outer wall, trembling with grief and fear, and watched the red sun set on the first day of the rebellion.

 

[Nimue]

Name: Thoros
Gender: Male
Race: Dragon

Appearance: Thoros gleams in the sunlight, all burnished bronze scales, more ornate than the finest metalwork. When he is clean, that is--weather gives him a patina, lets him blend into stone and moorland. He is large-boned, for his kind, and without another dragon to stand beside him he looks colossal. Seventeen feet to his serrated shoulder, more than a hundred fifty from his tail to his snout, and he's not much more than half-grown. Huge muscles bunch beneath his scaly hide. His wings are vast as sails, ridged leather with a sheen of bronze, bones like iron frets. He is solid as a mountain, even after the battles he has ploughed through, teeth and claws and his own skin for armor. His scars are hard to find, save in the membrane of his wings, where the sunlight outlines their gristle. His vulnerable places are also where he likes to be scratched, with a gauntlet or pitchfork: the hollow of his jaw, behind his angular ears, the softer places on his chest and belly.

He has an axe-like head, a big, blunt silhouette sharpened by the spiked scales that flare from his nostrils and the back of his jaw. His horns are long and curved-back, still aerodynamic despite their virile size. His eyes are a very deep, brown-touched green, like the heart of a forest at the first approach of autumn. In the sun, they glitter like gold-veined bloodstone.

Personality: Not many people know Thoros, besides Farrun. The impressions his majestic size and carriage give are both true and untrue. He has his dignity, and a certain politeness, as far as a dragon will choose to be polite. He is patient, and very careful and precise with his movements around fragile humankind--not nearly so careful with Farrun, who might be made out of oak. What his regal form does not give away is the roaring ferocity that he unleashes to protect those he calls his own. Nothing can stop him; he'll tear up earth and burn down fortresses.

Within that fearsome-looking head, he is keenly intelligent and deep-hearted. He has a sense of humor that is usually unfathomable to anyone other than Farrun, but it's possible to catch his draconic comments in his body language. The playful, mischievous streak he had when he was younger has mostly waned as he has matured, but meeting another dragon, or dragonling, might change that.

Skills: Thoros is ambitious in a way that Farrun isn't, and likes to test his powers. He has mastered fire-breathing, and can now speak in others' heads outside of his bond, though he must be close by and, for a true conversation to happen, he must be familiar with the person he is speaking to. He is aiming to learn earthshaking next, but at the moment the most he can do is a rumble, and it is not a power best practiced near settled areas…

 

[AkamaruGames]

Name: Chrisania Sala
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Race: Human
People: Ettarlander?

Appearance: Long wavy brown hair with green eyes and tanned skin. Her nails are long and healthy and her body, fit from a lifetime of wandering. However, through the aid of illusions she is capable of altering her form as the situation warrants and she often does when in the company of those she has reason to be wary of.

Clothing and Possessions: She tends to wear loose fitting clothes that are easy to move around in, though she tends to favor dresses over pants. Though she does not carry much in the way of jewelry (as that tends to bring unnecessary attention on the road), she does wear a silver necklace magical focus which is cloaked in illusion to appear as a simple leather cord to most observers. She also carries a sack, within which she keeps food, clothing and various equipment and reagents for potion making as well as a handful of ready-made potions for emergencies. For personal defense, she also is always sure to keep a knife hidden somewhere within easy reach.

Personality: Quick with a smile and cheerful around a dance fire. She seems friendly, but at the same time tends to keep her true feelings distanced from those who she hasn't grown to fully trust yet.

Skills: Though she has spent a lot of time wandering with travelling troupes (where she learned a lot about dancing, chicanery and entertaining a crowd), Chrisania has also spent a lot of time alone. As such she has learned to defend herself with a knife. She is also quite adept at potion making and occasionally relies on seduction or misdirection to slip potions to people she needs to deal with but might not be necessarily physically capable of overcoming. However, usually she uses her potion-making skills as a way to make a bit of income to help fund her travels.

Magic: Chrisania has been trained in wizardry though she favors illusions as well as mental charms. She tends to keep these abilities secret and instead tries to play them off as the mundane effects of her potions, and occasionally uses potions in conjunction with her spells to improve effect. She prefers to use her illusions to mislead threats (for example changing her form to appear more intimidating, tricking them into thinking she is somewhere she isn't, or subtly altering the landscape to lead foes into unfortunate situations). When choosing new companions, she usually examines their hearts to see if they can be trusted or not.

History: If you were to ask Chrisania where she was from, she would likely tell you a different story each time: the love child of a prince and a vagabond, hatched from a clutch of dragon eggs, gifted by angels to a family of wolves, the stories get as ridiculous as her whims take her on that particular day. To be honest, she has told so many stories at this point that she probably doesn't know herself. What is known is that she was raised by a travelling troupe of performers called "The Blackstar Troupe". The troupe consisted of a large number of performers, freaks and drifters, all of whom played a part in raising young Chrisania.

Though she tried her hands in many different acts, she never really had the talent to do any of the physical acts such as juggling, knife throwing or acrobatics (though she did manage to be somewhat successful at pick-pocketing, but that is more of a hobby than a career choice). In the end, she found herself splitting her attention between two different mentors. The first mentor was an old woman named Baba Blythe who served as the troupe medicine woman and also made money selling love potions and exotic cures to customers. The second mentor was a young illusionist named Dimitri Locke, who used his knowledge of illusion and mental magic to create marvelous scenes as well as to subtly manipulate the audience's emotions through the performance.

Chrisania enjoyed both the arts of magic as well as alchemy and quickly absorbed everything her mentors could teach her. As she began to grow proficient in each, she started to mix both alchemy and magic to enhance their effects. She created smoke bombs, flash bombs and hallucinogenic powders that could be used during shows to aid illusions and used magic to enhance the taste and appearance of potions as well as imbue the potions with emotions that would flood the user when drinking them.
Though she enjoyed her time with the troupe, from time to time she would leave. Sometimes for days, sometimes months at a time. Whenever she left, she would tell the troupe that she felt something "calling her" and that she would return when the feeling passed. Though the troupe would always be upset that they would not be able to benefit from her unique talents, all members of the Blackstar Troupe were free spirits, and it was not uncommon for people to come and go. Now she has once again gotten one of those feelings. Bidding her "family" goodbye, she is off to find out what her current feeling means.

 

[Ojara]

Name: Ojara a'Lenendra
Gender: Male
Age: 30
Race: Elf
People: Auroë

Appearance: He has a pale semi-translucent skin. He has shoulder length disheveled raven black hair, framing small, leaf-like ears. He has ice cold blue eyes, sitting atop a petite rounded nose. He has a large mouth, with thin lips sitting on top of an angular chin. He has a gracious neck flowing down to his broad shoulders. He has toned, skinny arms with a noticeable tattoo of a Lions head emblazoned with flames. His torso is seemingly flat and unimpressive, framing shapely, well-muscled legs.

Clothing and Possessions: He is wearing plain tanned leather pants, fastened with a dark brown leather belt. He has a simple white shirt underneath an indigo tunic with white stripes along the shoulders leading down the long sleeves; the back of the tunic has a hood attached. He has a simple brown water canteen slung around his shoulder.

Personality: Upon first inspection, he is quiet and focused. He tends to have a tense, stiff demeanor. However, when needed, his attitude can change drastically. He has a persona to fit any situation, making it so those who don't know him, want to, and those who know him, wish they didn't. He is not a people person, though he has a persona even for that. He has prepared himself to chase anything worth his while.

Skills: He is a freelance worker. He has molded himself into the ideal tracker. He is mediocre at many things, and excels at those few things he has committed his life to. However, he doesn't sell out to anyone, and will only accept a job if it falls under his guidelines. Only those whose jobs he has accepted, survive long enough to tell the tale of their stint with the Spectre.

Magic: He has magic, but I'd rather not reveal until it is necessary.

History:

​

It began on a cold winter night. I was a young, Auroë elf with glistening blue eyes. Everything was new, sparkly, and I wanted desperately to dig into anything I could, even absorb the world till there was nothing left. I was adventurous, prepared to face demons or worse, and send them shakin' in their boots from the Mighty Ojara. However, the only thing this night would do was cripple my spirit. I heard the sound softly at first, a gentle pounding in my ears, I thought it was just my own heartbeat and despite the sound growing stronger, I passed it off as imagination. I rested my tired eyes, and drifted off to the rhythmic beating of my ears.

​

I awoke to sheer madness. Despite the flames, I was cold, so cold. Screaming could be heard all around me, but after a few short moments, even that sound faded by the sizzling sound of wood, and who knows what else, being devoured by the flames. Part of me even believes, at that moment, my very soul was consumed in those flames. I struggled to free myself, as I was trapped underneath a fallen board. Shoving it barely aside, I shouted for my parents, I felt the boards under my feet shudder, and suddenly my world went black.

​

I awoke with a throbbing headache. Blackness surrounded me, and the sound of flames was gone. I started to sob softly, squirming this time with no luck to free myself. So, I screamed at the top of my lungs and flailed violently. A small beam of light suddenly shot through revealing I was buried under rubble. Soft sounds of rustling could be heard above me, so I screamed again, and finally, the flailing freed my leg. The rubble shifted uneasily, and in sheer panic, I dropped my shoulder and drove it into the rubble towards the pin prick of light. I busted through, breaking my clavicle in the process. Enshrouded in pain and anguish, I howled out. Help came quickly. As my eyes adjusted to the sun, I saw it; my house was nothing more than a black pile of refuse. My world came crashing down, and at that moment of realization, my eyes, once glistening with hope, were forever transformed to an ice cold glare and I found myself brooding with hatred. I would know who did this to me and my family, and I would kill them.

 

[Nimue]

I've sent you a PM with some questions! Once we work things out, LS can edit your post with changes, so you won't need to post it all over again.

 

[Nimue]

Name: Saethira
Gender: Female
Age: Likely between 20 and 80
Race: Elf
People: Likely Auroë

Appearance: Tall as any elf, and thin--very thin. Not willowy, but lean and resilient as yew. The breadth of her shoulders and the curve of her hip-bones suggest that she might be more substantial if she were well-fed, but now there is no softness to her, only wire and bone.

She has a startlingly pale face, framed by night-black hair, fine and straight and cut unevenly to her jawline. Her skin is white as wax, and her scars stand out against it with a greyish flush, most visibly the the thin scars that cross the sides of her face, creeping out from beneath her hair. These lines radiate like cracks from an ugly injury to the back of her head; it looks like her skin was shattered, like glass under fire, and has knotted up with scar tissue. She carries other marks, some new and purple beneath the skin, others older and silvery, like the mottling to her fingertips and ear-tips that rises when she's cold.

Her features are very fine, from the points of her ears to the gentle stubbornness of her chin. High and angled cheekbones shape her narrow face. Her full lips and ink-black brows are expressive--even when she would be impassive, the pinch of worry shows through. Beneath those brows, her eyes are large and tilted, rimmed with black lashes. Her silvery irises catch the light like coins. Saethira looks like a young woman, but there is something about her eyes, something that can be seen in the face of any elf who has grown to maturity, something that deepens as they grow older, even if their faces remain unmarked by age or weather. The shadow of years past, though she cannot remember them.

Clothing and Possessions: Her whole form is covered by a great wolfskin cloak, its outer lining of buckskin, held with plain but careful stitching and a silver cloakpin. It was given to her as a gift, from a grateful hunter who was beset by Yvalhyn raiders on the road, which she slew. Beneath the cloak, she wears what must be dress armor, of strange fashion. Outermost is a long, sleeved surcoat of black brocade, embroidered with Auroan designs in gold and silver. A few leaf-like plates of armor, similarly embossed, are fastened over the silk: a breastplate, vambraces, tassets. They do not afford her great protection, though beneath the surcoat she wears a long hauberk of leafmaille, which reaches to her knees. Beneath that is a quilted gambeson with long sleeves and a swallow tail, made of deep blue silk, and breeches of the same. Her boots are black doeskin, knee-high, and stitched with gold and silver like her surcoat. The fine appearance of her clothing is belied by the wear upon it: the dust of the road, dark bloodstains, rips and cuts unmended.

Sae carries a longsword of elvish design, curved and tapered to a double-edged point. The angled crosspiece flows into a double-handed jet-black hilt embossed with silver. Her second weapon is a long dagger, identical to the sword but in length. Last, she carries an ebony bow inlaid with gilt, and a quiver of crow-fletched arrows. Aside from these things, and the clothes she wears, she possesses very little. A few copper coins, a fire-striker, a waterskin, a small kit of bandages, needle and thread, and whatever food she has gleaned from hunting and trading.

Ainur, a young, long-legged gelding, travels with her. His coat is chestnut-brown, with black stockings, muzzle, mane and tail. He is sensitive but highly trained, and fast as the western wind. He is always much better groomed and looked-after than she is.

Personality: A great emptiness dwells in the moors and wastes of the North. It is there that Saethira woke, and it is there that she feels that she belongs. Something has hollowed her out. Not only of memory, but of feeling--she can hold onto neither joy nor anger. In the end she always returns to the silence of the wilderness, for it is close enough to peace.

Away from that wilderness, around others, Saethira is quiet and soft-spoken. It would be easy to mistake her reserve for coldness or elfish haughtiness, but in truth she is more likely overwhelmed. She falls back on formality and deference, to the point of meekness. But if that reserve is pierced, there is a steely core at her center. She has her rules--simple ones, against harm and in defense of innocents--and she will follow them with the alarming dedication of someone who has nothing to lose.

There is kindness in her heart, and curiosity about the realm she found herself in, and a profound enjoyment of simple pleasures. If she has time and circumstance to thaw, that heart will show. But the shadows in her head would keep her stiff and silent, would have her flee from strangers, and deny herself such indulgence, for any softness is a sign of weakness.

Skills: There is one thing that she is good at, one thing that has followed her intact into her wandering life, and that is her skill with a blade. She is nothing short of deadly with her sword and dagger, swift and sharp as lightning. Her left hand and her right have the same deftness; both wield a blade as though it were an extension of her bones. Though it is true that she has the strength to strike, but not to hold. If she is pinned or cornered by a larger opponent, all her fine skill won't help her block a blow at full force, so she relies upon agile maneuvering, whether on horseback or on foot.

She is most adept at combating Yvalhyn raiders--even lesser sorcerers, if she cuts through their defense before they can focus their power. Not that any Yvalhyn succumbs without a bitter fight, but she is far more skilled at that battle than the average Queen's soldier. She must have fought them in her life before.

With a bow she is quick and accurate, even from horseback, but no more than most elves. It is enough for hunting game, but anything cleverer may elude her. Outside of the martial arts, her main skills come from the wilderness: hunting, tracking, and woodcraft. As an elf, she can endure wintry cold and go days without eating, letting her to pack lightly and live almost entirely off the land. She can also travel swiftly on foot, though certainly less swiftly than Ainur's hooves.

Magic: Saethira has no magic. None that she can make use of--some memory of spellcasting control lingers below the surface of her consciousness, but at the slightest attempt to draw upon it, her head is seized by crippling pain, and no power comes to her. It is not something that she tried a third time.

 

[Nimue]

History: She woke one pale winter's day, lying on a windswept hill, with no memory of her name or her home. All she had to tell her what had happened was the blood trickling down her back and the blinding pain in her head. When she could, she got up and staggered downhill, until she found by a stream a chestnut horse with black stockings, who greeted her effusively. He was bare of saddle and bridle, but his gear was nearby, piled neatly beside a boulder.

In those first few days she lost a great deal of time, to wake and find herself sometimes still upright in the saddle, sometimes on the ground with Ainur waiting patiently nearby, ears pricked. Somehow, she made it to a nearby settlement, and traded on a rabbit she had shot in the wilderness and on the kindness of strangers for food and a bed and a length of bandage for her head. By a low fire she cut off her hair at the nape of her neck, so that the priest who took her in could clean the wound, and because dimly she knew that long hair among the elves was a sign of pride and rank, and she had neither.

Her nights were haunted by nameless fears and indistinct faces. Her name came to her in repeated whispers, as she woke from dreaming to cold sweat, but little else was so clear. A looming shadow in her mind drove her to travel south, west, away from the white ghosts of the mountains on the northern horizon. She hunted and foraged and traded in towns, sometimes, when she was not turned away by unfriendly stares or open hostility. With time her fits grew less frequent, and she learned the signs that predicted them, and her headaches dwindled into ordinary pain, that she could ride and sleep through.

One night, she came across a hellish scene. Yvalhyn raiders had captured a caravan of escaped slaves from the East, and were murdering all those who would not submit to chains again. In that moment, in the flames and screaming, she learned a great deal about the state of the world. For the first time, she drew her sword in anger, and ambushed the Yvalhyn from the darkness. With the aid of those freedmen who had weapons, she killed the executioners and rode with the caravan until it reached the safety of Fort Bitterwind.

For the year that followed, Saethira has ridden through the hinterlands with something closer to purpose: trying to defend those who cannot defend themselves from the predations of the northern elves. No greater aim has come to her, for the brevity of her life makes it hard for her to see ahead. She travels in loose orbit of the few villages and settlements where she has earned good-will, a strange gift. But most of the time, she stitches her own wounds and sleeps without a fire in dark hollows. She will always say that she prefers solitude, but perhaps only because it is familiar.

Spoiler: backstory secrets

There are some things that she will not share freely, if at all. The truth is that when she came stumbling into that first village in the wilderness, she spoke Yvaldri to those who met her. In panic, they tied her up and took her weapons, and were debating whether she should be turned over to the Queensmen or executed when a priest of Adannus interceded, telling the village folk that she was Auroë, and confused by the injury to her head. The folk could not agree whether she looked more Auroan or Yvalhyn, but her confusion could not be denied. She had little to say in her own defense, but she could say it in the tongue of men, and maybe her humble tone swayed them to the side of mercy.

Since then, doubt has always warred in her mind. It does not help that as glimpses of memory return to her in dreams and visions, they are full of pale Yvalhyn faces. Prayers to Vyrhel echo in her head when she awakens; dark images linger like splinters working their way beneath her skin. She cannot deny the evil of the northern elves, when she has seen their violence before her eyes, and heard stories of worse. Yet her subconscious knows them, and knows them too well. For this reason, she does not pursue remembrance, and, more than a little, fears whoever she once was. What part of her belongs to the Yvalhyn?

 

[tbgg]

Name: Elannor Tartsnatcher
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Race: (Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Dragon) Halfling
People: (Folk, Dun, Redbeard, Iridheen, etc) On the Human side, she is certainly of the Folk, but the Dwarven side is a mystery.

Appearance: shoulder-length wavy honey blonde hair, laughing brown eyes and fair skin, along with a slightly bulbous nose. Her build is curvy. She is about 50” (4’2”) tall.

Clothing and Possessions:

Clothing: Elannor likes gaudy colors and currently wears yellow pants and a bright green linen tunic on which she has sewn feathers, beads, and various items of interest that remind her of the experiences she has had in her life. She also has a bright red vest that she is especially fond of, though she normally only wears that to parties and on special occasions, owing to the fact that she can’t wear her leathers on top of it.​

Possessions: A set of leather armor, a small shield, a backpack and sleeping roll, numerous pouches (which hold the many items she “acquires”), a set of lockpicks, and a sling. Note that she can never list all of the items in her pouches at any given time and is always pulling new things out of them, though they are generally ordinary in nature (i.e. non-magic). One item that commonly comes out of the pouches, though, is a set of pipes, which she sometimes plays when she’s happy, though she can play only two songs on it.​

Personality:
Elannor has an intense curiosity about the world around her and asks numerous questions about it, although she is also easily distracted and won’t always listen to the answer to a question she’s asked if something else sufficiently interesting happens.

She is quite fearless and is nearly always open to new experiences, although she still hasn’t completely learned appropriate caution.

She does have a habit of “acquiring” the belongings of friends, but if she is asked nicely to return them, will normally do so, albeit with a bit of grumbling. The one exception to this is if the friend has said something that implies that s/he thinks she is a thief, in which case the friend must apologize AND convince her that the apology is sincere AND ask nicely for the item to be returned before she will do so.

If she takes something from an inn or a shop and the innkeeper or shopkeeper implies that she’s a thief and is not nice to her, she will return the item, but if possible, slip an even more valuable one into her pouches as she’s being run out the door. More than a few of these people have written the loss of these nicer items off as being worth it to be rid of her.

Skills:
Elannor has basic fighting skills and can fight using either a sling or a short staff (which needs to be shorter than an average quarterstaff), although she had to leave her last short staff behind owing to a need to leave in a hurry and currently lacks one. She’s also had a bit of training in how to throw a knife, though is by no means particularly skilled at it.

Possessing extremely nimble fingers, she has also been trained in the use of lockpicks and can open locked doors and boxes or chests. Due to her small stature, she can also fit in or climb through small confined spaces, and does not get claustrophobic.

She also has the habit of “acquiring” items which she finds to be of interest, which is on an average day is just about anything that’s small enough to fit into one of her pouches.

Finding ordinary insults such as “Human scum” or “Elven dog” to be decidedly lacking in imagination, she has a knack for ridiculing her enemies that often winds up enraging them, which can be used as a tactical advantage in a fight, as they are more prone to making stupid moves.

While not precisely afraid of riding large animals such as horses, it’s one of her less favorite things to do, but she can be persuaded to ride a pony if it is of a sufficiently gentle nature.

She can also speak and read Dwarvish.

Magic: None known

History:
Elannor knows nothing of her parents or origins, and her earliest memory involves being dropped off by a trading caravan with the Redbeard Dwarves when she was around 4. Here she was teased and ridiculed by other Dwarven children because she wasn’t strong enough to play their games and her tongue was not quite able to wrap itself properly around the Dwarvish language, although she could read it just fine. This is when she began to hone her ability with insults, and also learned that her fingers were quicker and faster than those of every last one of her Dwarven fellows. Stealing from them and insulting them while doing so became the only way she could get back at them and get them to leave her alone. Adults, even teachers, found her many questions about the world to be annoying as she asked things that they felt were irrelevant, and by the time she was 7, everyone was heartily tired of her. So she was taken by a group of dwarves who were venturing out from the Dragonbone Mountains to sell some armor made by the Dwarven smiths to the Men of the West and her Dwarven companions were told to “leave her somewhere”.

Her companions summarily dumped her in Tofnin, one of the Dun cities they passed through, and here she found her quick fingers could be used to help her survive. She was caught for the first time after “acquiring” some cherry tarts from the baker, and when she was caught and asked her last name, she gave the Dwarvish for “awesome”, but since the guard couldn’t pronounce that and didn’t know Dwarvish, he simply wrote “Tartsnatcher” for her last name, after her crime. An allegedly reformed thief by the name of Gudnor happened to be visiting another prisoner while she was incarcerated, and after hearing her story, he decided to put her abilities to the test. She impressed him enough that he paid her fines and told the authorities he would take her in, much to the dubious looks of the guards. But there were no other families willing to take in a halfling who had been arrested for stealing, and no one else who had any idea of what to do with her, so Gudnor got custody of her, promising that she would be taught to read and write. He did make her go to public school during the day, but outside of school, he began teaching her the art of lockpicking, noting how quickly she learned things that had taken him a lot more practice to master, and thinking that she might be able to be of some service in picking locks that weren’t attached to stolen boxes. He also began teaching her how to fight and defend herself. The following year, the Yvalhyn swept through Tofnin, tightening their control of Redbeard territory, taking the entire town including Elannor and Gudnor into captivity. Noting their quick hands, Elannor and Gudnor were sent to the North, to work in the same mines where the Dwarves of Clan Hoarfrost were held in captivity. Elannor was sent to crawl about in the mines, looking for likely veins of ore, while Gudnor was sent to a completely different area of the mine, being less agile than she. Although some of the other Dwarves of Clan Hoarfrost on her workteam were better than she was at identifying ores and recognizing where they could be found, she could crawl into smaller and tighter spaces and bring rocks back that the Hoarfrost Dwarves could assess for their ore content. The Hoarfrost Dwarves never said anything to her, given the closeness of the Yvalhyn guards and their willingness to beat everyone involved if a squabble broke out among the workers, but she could see the scorn in their eyes. They had no more respect for her than the Redbeard Dwarves had had.

After 8 years of captivity, she and Gudnor along with all the others in the mines were finally released, and the time there hadn’t been kind to her mentor, who picked up a constant coughing. They made their way to the nearest northern settlement, where Elannor promptly fell in with a gang of thieves, mostly so that she could afford the costly medicine that helped Gudnor’s wracking cough. Her thief friends started up her lockpicking lessons again, while she taught the smaller among them the tricks of moving through tight spaces. But although she was with them, she found that their constant interest in jewels and gold and taking things from others bored her silly, though she found it amusing indeed to take things from her friends after they’d pulled off a heist. Gudnor died 2 years later, giving her his prized set of lockpicks, and, lacking the need to provide for her mentor and feeling a curious need to see the world and find something she couldn’t name, she set out from their home in the North. She’s been wandering around Ysgard for about the last 3 years, hunting or “acquiring” things to care for herself, and hoping to meet some other halflings (having never met another one), or, short of that, to at least find a place to belong.

 

[Nimue]

As I said in pm, I love the idea of having a halfling burglar lady along. Welcome aboard!

 

[tbgg]

Thank you! It's good to be here and to meet all of you.

BTW, I meant for Elannor's 3 colors to be red, green, and yellow. I originally had her in red pants, a green tunic, and a yellow vest, but then realized that since she doesn't wear the vest most of the time that she'd look Christmas-y to a reader, so I decided to change it to yellow pants, a green tunic and a red vest. But if you read the actual description, both her pants and vest are yellow. I saw where the moderators have to do the profile changes, so I was wondering if I could get the vest changed to red in the profile?

I realized I also left out a belt knife, but figure I can have her pull that out the first time she goes rummaging through her pouches.

 

[AkamaruGames]

Edits on this forum are possible for a short time (I think about an hour or two). After that you have to get a moderator to do it. Welcome to the group. I'm kind of the other newbie that hasn't officially been brought into the group yet.

 

[tbgg]

Hi Akamaru, I see you have been writing the character of Chrisania, and it looked like you were about to be officially welcomed. It's nice to meet you!