I've got two characters now that I'm having a hard time choosing between, so I'm wondering if anyone would like to offer their opinion. If they care. :P Or if you guys, or Maxwell in particular, might prefer one over the other. :) Let me know. If not, I might just have to flip a coin.

[hider=Sir]
[b]Name:[/b] Sir
[b]Age:[/b] 12
[b]Species:[/b] Anan – A long-lived(up to 30 years) subspecies of canid, said to be a feral remnant of the giants’ dogs(nb: it hasn’t yet been proven that giants exist or have dogs to suit their size) that shrank to fit their island homes. They have an excellent ability to find living prey even in dense thicket, and the third eye suggests a connection to foresight or time. (really, it just gives them better visual focus up close, they do, however, have a different way of seeing the world, air and empty space are black, while living matter shines a bright silver and other solids gradually diminish to greys) If taken in as pups, they make surprisingly tractable companions and can be taught to understand the rudiments of our language. Owners of these beasts have occasionally reported seeing and sensing things they had not noticed before when touching them, but the phenomena has yet to be fully explained. (they can pass on their own observations of the world around them, and rudimentary visual cues, through touch) Members of the feral population are considered to be dangerous pests and often driven off or killed, and have become relatively rare. Those that are tamed, however, can become a valuable resource in keeping other wild predators away from livestock.

[b]Position:[/b] Sir is mainly a glorified pet. He was also, however, meant as a secondary line of defense for the king, in case the walls and guards weren’t enough. 

[b]Skills and Abilities:[/b] He knows how to fight by instinct and training, but has never actually needed to, except once or twice against other beasts, and so is not entirely ill-prepared to take a well armoured and well-armed fighter head on, but he’s not exactly experienced. He is a very good hunter, however, and often went out with the king whenever the time could be spared. His senses of smell and hearing are well above average, at least compared to a human’s, and his ability to spot hidden, unmoving, prey is slightly above average for most other canines. He’s also got endurance, strength and durability on his side. And can jump over 30’ horizontally, and 15’ vertically with a running start. He can keep up a 12 km/h trot for hours and sprint at ~80km/h for a short time. With better conditioning, he might increase these measurements a little.

[b]Appearance:[/b] The animal Sir most closely resembles is a dog. Albeit an extremely large, three-eyed one. He stands six feet at the shoulder, with a length of eleven feet from nose to rump and is possibly slightly overweight at ~300 lbs. He looks heavy, with a loose gait, broad chest and shoulders, and fur you could lose a hand in. Standing, he has a straight back and slight shoulder hump of muscle, with thick legs and huge paws that he seems to still be growing into. His skull alone measures nearly two feet long, with a wide muzzle, black nose and loose jowls. Its width makes it look a little top heavy from the front, but is designed to accommodate the third eye, set just above the ordinary pairing, in the middle of his forehead. His three eyes make a small triangle, with the paired set sitting below the single eye. Sir’s teeth are the standard set for canids, with four canines, shearing carnassials and molars meant for crushing bone. His ears, slightly rounded at the tip, are oversized, even for his measurements. They sit a little to the sides of his skull, and are erect, no flopping. They are extremely mobile, and very good indications of his mood. 

His fur is thickest around his shoulders and along the back of his neck with a nice feathering on his tail and down his legs. It is thinnest on his face and around his paws. It is of relatively similar length along the rest of his body. The longer hair is coarse and slightly waterproof while the short underfur is soft and denser. His whole coat has a healthy sheen and sleekness to it from a good diet, and hides plenty of muscle underneath. Sir’s colouring is predominantly russet, black and cream. He has a black mask covering his face from nose to cheeks that lightens to reddish-brown around his paired eyes and then continues to his ears. The black also goes a short ways down his throat before fading into grey and then cream. It colours the rims of his ears and draws a line down his spine and halfway down his tail. His ruff and flanks are whorled with a mixture of black and russet, with the red tinge being stronger. Reddish-brown also covers the backs of his ears and the very tip of his tail. The rest: stomach, legs, middle of the tail and throat, are all creamy white.

He has dark brown irises that soften his gaze and can glare, beg and look wistful as well as any other dog. Though the markings on his face do give him a slight edge for being expressive, even accidentally. There is very little hair inside his ears, letting pink skin show through, but nowhere else is his fur even remotely that thin.

There are a few scars hiding under his long fur, most are simple mishaps from a hunt or play fight, with plenty of small nicks and scratches covering his muzzle. He has a few notches in his ears from his littermates roughhousing and chewing on them, and a slight kink in his tail from an unfortunate encounter with a door. Sir also has a variety of noises he can make, from the usual range of growls and yips and barks and something resembling a howl, though his tend to end on a wailing note that sounds rather like a crying baby. He can grumble and groan and whine with the best of them, and each sound can be combined as he needs. Being a large beast, the volumes he can reach are unsurprising, but he can also be amazingly quiet when making noise. 

[b]Personality: [/b]Generally mild mannered and affable, Sir’s method of interacting with the world is a mixture of curiousity, caution and eager attentiveness. He’s never been treated poorly or left uncared for, and he’s perfectly comfortable within walls as without. Though, admittedly, his large size can sometimes make maneuvering inside challenging. So, thus far, he’s learned mainly about the things he likes. People, warmth, food, play, hunting… And very little about what he doesn’t like. Fire hurts, so do sharp things, and scaring horses is not a good idea, neither is leaving his tail in a doorway. He learns through experience, and, as such, cannot easily understand a concept through theory alone, though he can extrapolate from similar experiences. For example, the first time he encountered fire, he did not know it would hurt. Now he does, and he usually expects that if something feels hot, prolonged contact with it will also hurt. He is also an observant creature, and so, does not need it to be [i]his[/i] experience, though, as ever, seeing and understanding can be two very different things. He’s a fast learner though, and has a surprisingly good memory. 

He is a social animal who enjoys the company of others, most particularly those he has come to view as pack and friend. As a daily part of the late-king’s retinue, the foremost important person in his life was the king, and after him, his family. When he is not near the king or his children, he is more fretful and less difficult to manage, but he will recognise others of the king’s court and seek interaction with them if the better choice is unavailable. As the king is now dead, and all his family, Sir has little other choice. He has lived with humans and those others in the court almost as long as he was alive, and can read them almost as easily as he can read the body language of another Anan. He can gauge friendly intention from harmful, read another’s mood and sense when tension is too thick to break. He has learned, and continues to actively listen to, much of the language used around him, and though connections are still at a rudimentary level he [i]has[/i] ascertained the difference in tone between an order, a suggestion and an uncertain command. 

This is important to him because, while usually calm and tractable, he is not above testing his limits, and, as he is just into his prime, he is feeling more confident in what he knows and what he can do and judging for himself whether or not he should do something. If someone he trusts gives an order, he is liable to obey immediately, if they offer a suggestion, he can conclude what they like or do not like him to do. If they scold him, he can learn from that too. But if someone entreats him, or tries coaxing, he will trust them less and test them more. Sir knows he is a big animal, he knows he is not as fragile as those he lives with, and he knows that this frightens some of them. Mostly, he will avoid those people, but he also knows that uncertainty and fear can be turned to his advantage if he does not like the situation with nothing more than a little posturing. It is natural, for him, to fall back on warning and threat in those instances, and to lie with his body language to gain the upper hand. 

He knows to be observant, and to understand consequence, but he has not yet fully grasped the difference between thinking ahead and acting to avoid trouble, and thinking ahead to know the trouble your actions will cause. Mostly, this means he’ll try not to do anything others seem to think troublesome and that he’s still relatively straightforward to deal with. If he does not like someone, he will carefully observe them and grow snappish the closer they come. If he does not mind a person, he will mostly ignore them. The same if he thinks a person unimportant. If he likes someone, he will go out of his way to be friendly. Most familiar faces are somewhere between like and don’t care about, and most unfamiliar faces he merely distrusts until he’s been introduced. Sometimes, however, he can take an instant dislike to someone and not change his tune for anything. This can be as simple as because their laugh hurts his ears or as reasonable as because they are in the wrong area.

Sir is not easily frightened, though he can be provoked to greater caution; pain and the actions of those around him are good deterrents for impetuousness. He is also, however, not easily provoked into anger, and acts violent usually only when protecting himself or others, or believing he’s protecting them, and when hunting. But while he is predictable, he is also still an animal. If people do not respect his space, he won’t respect theirs and two way communication can be difficult. He is patient, but only to a point, and the more frustrated he gets, or anyone else gets, the less kindly he’ll respond as time goes on. 

[b]Backstory:[/b] Sir was born in a large den beside a river town, near a heavy bridge that served as a central trading hub. Of course, this meant little to him or his siblings save that there was often noise well into the night. His mother and father paid slightly more attention to it, however, as they were fed from the scraps it turned out and kept nearby to chase away vermin and the larger scavengers that could threaten the lives of livestock and traders alike. The whole town pitched in to look after them, though they were rather more self-sufficient than less, it paid to keep them happy and nearby, and full, so that they didn’t become scavengers themselves.

For the first two months of his life, all he knew was the faint silver sheen of the dirt around him and the brighter light of his littermates and the way his mother’s warmth and milk made him sleepy. But they did not stay in the den for long, and almost the same day his mother coaxed them out for the first time, the townsfolk sent the butcher to gather the pups so they could raise them the rest of the way themselves. The butcher being the one who had the most contact with the pair. His mother and father were still half feral, but if they accustomed the pups to human contact, they could sell them for further profit. And that is exactly what they did.

He and his two siblings spent the rest of the year playing in a fenced yard, eating, growing and putting up with daily visits from children and learning about the world. They were not completely removed from their mother’s care, as she could easily get over the fence where they could not. But she never tried to get them out as it seemed safe enough and she had nowhere else to take them. It was in that yard that Sir first learned to understand the tone of human language, and the differences between their strength and his. Even a pup could bite hard enough to break a human’s skin. And it was his own mother who disciplined him for that mistake when the child began to wail. He learned to be patient with pulled ears and a pinched tail, and how to tell a human to stop without going too far himself.

He also learned that humans were the source of his food as much as his mother was, and that when they asked something of him, he should try to do it. Often, during that first year, he’d go through every action he knew how to do, from running over to sitting, lying down, licking their face and knocking them over until they managed to show him what was wanted. They didn’t like that, and he figured out that patiently admitting his confusion by simply standing there and tilting his head could win him their favour, and the answer, far faster than trying to figure it out for himself.

At the end of the year, before he was fully grown, Sir and his siblings were put in a cage and fed drugged meat to get them asleep and docile. The cage was set on a boat and sent down the river to a larger market set up just beneath the king’s castle, where they were to be sold to the highest bidder. His sister was bought for the pitfights. His brother for a farming hamlet that needed the extra protection, and Sir was bought for a young lord who was pleased with his new pet for all of five minutes, before moving on to other things. His father was a travelling dignitary, there to attempt drawing out concessions from King Erasmus. He’d bought the pup in the hopes of keeping his son happy.

His wife did not appreciate the gesture, and in a very calm fit of rage when he ruined a dress worth more than he was, she picked the animal up by the scruff of his neck and brought him before the queen with a gracious smile. She gifted the Anan to her, claiming it to be a loyal companion and well worth royalty, hoping that she might forgive her for appearing so rudely before her in less than fine clothing with the gift. The queen, wise enough in the ways of both young boys and young dogs, accepted the gift with a smile, and promptly dumped the Anan into the care of the kennelmaster with the charge that he should make something of the beast.

The man, who knew what he’d been given, and didn’t really want the pup near his own hounds, spoke with the Captain of the Guard, who spoke with the chamberlain, who spoke with the king, who came down to the kennels to see this beast for himself. Sir was on his best behaviour, having fully realised he’d done something wrong, and won the king over with a well-timed whine and tail wag. It was agreed that if he could be trained as a guard dog, of which the kennelmaster was in no doubt, then the king would keep him nearby thereafter. 

And so, Sir’s real training began.	

The kennelmaster taught him how to behave indoors, and stay calm near crowds. He showed Sir where to get food, and inadvertently how to charm the cook, and ensured that he visited the king as often as possible, so they might be accustomed to each other. He was quite happy with the Anan’s treatment of the royal family when he was introduced to the children, and the queen even deigned to give him a pat on the head. Working with the guards, he was also taught that, sometimes, attacking a human was allowed. But also, that they could be harder to bite than usual and had sharp sticks that hurt. A lot. He had to learn how best to disable such an opponent and how to ignore any fear of being hurt himself that he might feel in the process. Mostly, he figured out that attacking from the back is a much better method than attacking from the front. He learned the basic commands that most household dogs should know, sit, stay, come, heel, down(that was an important one) and even fetch. But he also learned guard, hold and how to threaten when the king set his hand just so on his neck. 

He was taught to listen only to the king and queen, and also, to think for himself. Although, that was a side effect of being rewarded when he did his job well. 

When he reached his full growth and what the kennelmaster thought was his full potential, he was presented to the king and has been at the man’s side since. Or, at the very least, outside the door. The queen doesn’t like him in her bedchamber, and it was her forceful expression of that fact that broke his tail when she slammed the door on it. Sir still tucks his tail in whenever he has to go through or sit near doors now. 

He has stopped two assassins since, leaving one dead and crippling the next, but has been of more use acting threatening in the courtroom than actively doing anything dangerous. And was always just as happy to doze under the weight of a grandson or daughter when they came to distract their grandfather as settle his chin on his master’s knee or go running beside his horse beyond the castle. He learned who was and wasn’t trusted by the king, and was well settled into King Erasmus’ routines when the sudden tension grew around them. He didn’t understand why, winter was usually the quiet period, when his humans didn’t want to go outside. But now he has learned that some humans do not care about the weather, and now they are inside while he is outside.

Sir did fight when the soldiers bulled their way through the castle, but the king’s last command was to guard the children. He kept them all in one room, and guarded the door. He was struck more than once across his face and chest, and killed more than one man, and might have kept them safe until others could arrive to get them out, but he had not remembered the other door, and the enemy found it first. He turned at their cries and saw most already dead. So, he picked up the nearest and ran, forcing his way through the press of strange soldiers as he searched for the king. He did not find him, but he did make it outside the castle walls with his burden, and dug himself and the child a snow den, where he curled around her and tried to keep her warm, licking his wounds and hers. But she bled out while he slept. 

Now he only wants to return to find his master, or any other he knows, and if they are strong enough, chase the invaders out of his home. 

[b]Notable Possessions:[/b] He’s got a few cow’s thighbones and hooves cached about the place, but has carefully kept them outside the castle since being sternly reprimanded for making the king’s royal bedchambers stink to high heaven by saving a whole leg for later under the bed and then being unable to reach it…
He also has a solid iron collar with the king’s sigil on it. It’s only a collar, though it is meant to protect his neck and throat in a fight.
[/hider]

[hider=Gilda]
[b]Name:[/b] Gilda Thatcher
[b]Age:[/b] 19
[b]Race:[/b] human - Altranoran
[b]Position:[/b] head kitchen maid

[b]Skills & Abilities:[/b] 
Kitchen work – Gilda knows how to cook more than a few meals, though they’re mainly on the rustic side, bread and meat and porridge being staples of hers. She can make a pretty good pasty and peel a potato faster than many. She’s handy with a knife and knows the ins and outs of cleaning and preparing most small animals for the table. She’s also learned plenty about herbs, spices and tisanes from her mother and grandmother.

Tailoring – while her work might not stand up to the eye of the king’s tailor, her stitches are neat, her weaves tight and her knitting not bad either. It’s been a while since she made any cloth, but she still does all her own measuring and cutting and sewing of her own clothes, and they hold up quite well, thank you. 

Animal husbandry – she’s familiar with most farm animals: dogs and cats and chickens and geese and pigs and cows and horses and rats. She knows how to deal with them and care for them, as well as the specific uses they can each be put to, alive or dead. She knows how to ride bareback, well enough not to fall off, anyway, but much prefers sitting in a cart. And can harness up horse or oxen adeptly. 

Hunting and protecting herself – Gilda knows a small bit about hunting and tracking, mostly pertaining to smaller game like birds and rabbits and squirrels. She can also see the signs for areas she should avoid when walking through forest or plain where predators or poisonous animals might lurk. She has very good aim and a good throwing arm, and, given any palm sized object(rocks, sticks, shelf decorations), can hit a small target accurately each and every time. 

Intuition – Gilda’s trust in her intuition is strong enough that it’s almost as though she has eyes in the back of her head. She’s been known to catch trouble before it happens, mostly little things like near spills or too much salt or slippery floors or pregnancies that could be chalked up to an observant nature. But she also prescribes different solutions to regular problems that often work pretty well. Her ability to work with sympathetic magic is hampered mostly by her lack of money for the more extravagant things she sometimes knows she needs(and therefore doesn’t use that spell) and by her work, which usually takes up too much of her time to go gallivanting about town and country looking high and low for any old bits and bobs, as she calls it. Still, she makes do with what she has and if the commissioner’s willing, and it’ll work that way, she’ll just tell them a list of what to get. 

[b]Appearance:[/b] Being a young woman of low social rank and poor income, Gilda has very little about her that captures the attention. She usually wears a comfortably fitted linen gown, cinched up at the waist by a leather girdle and dyed a dark blue. In colder weather, she wears another, sleeveless woolen gown overtop the blue one, which is undyed beige. A staple of her outfit is a white apron tied about her waist that she uses to clean her hands or carry seeds and grasses or keep her clothing safe from spills. Simple leather shoes keep her feet protected from the elements. 

Gilda is a short woman at 5’2”, with a round face, wide smile and sturdy build. She’s hefty enough to manage the work that goes into keeping a castle running from the bottom and buxom enough that it isn’t hard to find a willing shoulder for those chores she isn’t strong enough to manage herself. Her hands are calloused and her face already getting weather worn and ruddy, but it’s still unlined and easily bright enough to win her a return smile from most. She has shrewd grey eyes and no freckles, though a purple birthmark does cover a bit of her right shoulder and the back of her neck. Her hair is rather like straw, being thick, unwieldy and coarse, as well as blonde. Loose, it would reach past her hips, but she plaits it neatly into two braids and ties them together over her head before she goes out in the morning, and often covers the whole of it with a headscarf. 

[b]Personality:[/b] Gilda is smart and resourceful, she has a glib tongue and a steady hand. She knows when to voice her opinion and when to keep quiet, and merely to duck her head and bob into a curtsey when she encounters anyone above her station. That being, most anyone at the castle. She is not, however, readily cowed by their pomp and circumstance or flair, and should one ever invite her to speak up, she most assuredly will. Politely and pointedly. She isn’t easily intimidated, though she certainly knows the difference between foolish, foolhardy, brave and picking the right moment to stand her ground.

She is not generally a quiet woman, being perfectly happy to talk amongst her peers and share the latest news and gossip and warning about any overseer in a mood. She enjoys listening to a good story and sharing her own if she’s any good ones to offer, but she’s never thought that any of those fire side legends might ever happen around her. Gilda does not believe she is built for adventure, [i]she[/i] thinks she was meant to find a nice man and settle down and raise a family. That being said, she has not taken kindly to her future plans being ruined as they were. While she leaves most boisterous and bawdy behaviour to others, she does like to have a bit of fun, and enjoys the time she spends out with geese.

Gilda is a hard worker, diligent and proud of being able to say “I did my best” and have it be worth something. She appreciates being noticed for her hard work and did indeed have ambitions to reach employment beyond the kitchens when the invasion occurred. She is a determined woman, and not afraid of getting dirty or a little rough if she has to. Nor of asking for help when she needs it. She knows her place well, and is confident in her abilities and knowledge of what needs to get done and how to get it done that she is not afraid to give advice or demand better from those few beneath her, nor to do it herself. She will take the initiative when she has to, and knows that, sometimes, unconventional methods can get the best results. 

She is superstitious, and enjoys a myriad of old wives’ remedies for anything from a sniffle to a haunting to a, well, she’s never heard of a remedy for an invasion, but she’s figured she might as well try to find one herself and add it to the list. She is very much a do-it-herself girl if no one else seems able or willing to step up to the plate, and is just as willing to accept the consequences for her own actions as she is unwilling to accept the consequences for another. She’s certainly been known to hold a grudge on that score. She’s surprisingly fearless in her practicality, but not always as practical as her parents would like.

[b]Backstory:[/b] Born and raised in Torvel, a small farming community a stone’s throw from a strange rift in the ground, Gilda grew up listening to one after another of the stories and legends that went around the fireside about that place. She heard about falling giants and long winded wizards and even about a huge toad that lived over the edge and ate the lost lambs and little children that wandered too close. She snuck close with her brother when she was little, and still swears she heard the rattle-purr of the toad in the stories, though it might have been nothing but a stone knocked loose by one of the sheep. Her parents raised her to understand the value of responsibility, team work and rolling up her own sleeves to get in the thick of things when needed.

In hindsight, she liked living out there, and liked learning all there was her family and neighbours could tell her about dealing with hoof rot or scaring off the hillcats. She liked looking after the geese and helping her father with the thatch roofs of their house and the rest of the village. She enjoyed the calmer winter months and the babies coming in spring. She didn’t much like doing laundry though, or milking their goat. She had a hard head and knew how to use it. But what she liked most was walking with her gran and finding the hidden treasures under stone and grassroot. It was Gran Keri who taught her how to trust what her instincts told her, even if her head thought they were silly. That old woman could find lambs in a blizzard and start a fire from even the wettest wood. She made luck charms and protective bracelets and kept hillcats away with nothing but seedpods and twine. (although she admitted that that last was more because they didn’t like the noise than through any magical means)

Still, when she was old enough be on her own, Gilda went the way of most of her friends in the village, towards a bigger town, looking for work. She went farther afield than most of them and wound up living in the king’s city. Every day she’d wake up early and do her rounds, looking for any household that needed the extra hands or could afford the help. Sometimes she ended the evening with a bit of coin and sometimes she didn’t. But eventually she did work up the courage to ask at the castle gate. It took a few months, and was almost happenstance when a guard usually standing at the gate caught her late at the market on his way to a tavern and told her if she hurried herself now, the king was holding a feast and he swore he’d heard the cook complaining about being shorthanded.

Well, she rushed there straight away and was immediately put to work. And after that tiring night, she was given a permanent position. She started as scullery maid. She cleaned the floors and scoured the ovens, scraped the pots and plates and swept down the tables. She fetched water when it was needed and plucked so many birds she couldn’t count that high. Her hands were always raw from the work, and she was often tired, but she was paid for it well enough, and she never complained. After two years, she was raised to the position of kitchen maid.

She was still plenty well-worked and busy, but she was freer to talk with the others as she did; now her position was better secured. And so she did. She learned about the king and the court and who was secretly seeing who and the king’s favourites and visiting dignitaries and started offering her own rudimentary services as a witch to her fellows when they felt they needed something a little stronger than common sense to cure their ills or troubles. And for that the cook made her head kitchen maid, mostly for her apparent luck in averting disasters; a responsibility she takes quite seriously. It helped her learn how to delegate and oversee a larger operation than anything she was previously used to, and gave her a chance at a bit of a breather, not to mention a glimpse of her future. 

While the position is not exactly reaching any exalted heights, it was better than she’d been expecting. It made her ever so slightly more visible to those above her, and her reputation as a good witch spread even among the nobles, though they were hardly likely to admit they’d gone to a kitchen maid for help. And there are plenty of single men around to consider making into family men. Or, there were… She’d already found her man among the guards though. In fact, he was the very same man who told her about the open position in the kitchen. And she was going to marry him next spring, but now he’s dead. He’s dead, and the kitchens are a shambles, the cook’s had his throat slit and most of the other maids are dead or going to be wishing they were. She felt the magic coming, but she thought it was only a bigger storm than usual. 

If only she’d thought to tell someone, things might have gone differently. Who would have listened she has no idea, but she feels she should have realised sooner. Or at least taken Davi with her. Then he wouldn’t be dead, and she wouldn’t be losing a sure future or hiding in an oven worried about getting her legs spread, whispering nonsense under her breath and hoping that no one hears her as she tries to make sure no one looks inside. But she saw the man who did it, and she wants him dead too. And she won’t leave until she’s managed it. If that means hiding forever, or making food for these wretched soldiers, she’ll do it, until she can slip something into their meal, or drag her knife across that man’s throat. 

[b]Notable Possessions:[/b] She has a sharp little paring knife rolled in her belt, and a few charms for luck and good health on a pouch at her belt. Her worldly possessions don’t amount to much.
[/hider]