Hola! Skulls put me on to this site and ya'll's Altaea roleplay. I am the magnificent 7 from Gateway. I played one of Mr. D's games some year or so ago. All of you look liked skilled and fun writers. Without further ado, my character;

A bad peace is worse than a good war.
When I go more than ten miles out of the city, the love and loyalty of friends comes to an end.
All citizens must place the common good before the private good.

[b]Name:[/b] Johannes Dobek

[b]Age:[/b] Early twenties

[b]Race:[/b] Human

[b]Nationality:[/b] Valanian

[b]Allegiance:[/b] Village of Casimir

[b]Appearance:[/b] Johann stands at 5'11. His broad shoulders belie his starved frame. His thick musculature isl taut and ropy from lack of nutrition, giving him a lean and hungry look. Thick sandy brown hair is shorn close to his scalp. A week's worth of rough, unkempt beard covers his face. A face soft with youth, but starting to show wear from a life of adversity. His hazel eyes, splashed with gold, peer down a strong, hawk-like nose. Johannes' hands are rough and calloused from a lifetime of labor.

 A single green stud, symbolizing the Valanian Auxiliary Corps, hangs in his left ear. Johann wears a rough leather jerkin, studded with metal plates, and steel shod leather boots. His breeches are thick canvas. Leather gloves with metal back plates cover his hands.

[b]Profession:[/b] Blacksmith, Auxilliary Soldier 

[b]Biography:[/b] Johannes Dobek was born the fifth child and third son of a carpenter in Casimir Village. He was raised by his mother and older sisters. They would often gather in the house and sing as they worked. Johann, when not terrorizing the pets and running amok, would sit and listen for hours.

At the age of ten Johann began to help in his father's woodshop. While his father had no intention of making the boy a master carpenter, Johann picked up more than enough in those years to apprentice in any village. Johann often ran errands to the blacksmith, Mateu, for anything more complicated to make than nails. It was here that Johannes first met Maria.

Maria was ten and Johann eleven when they first met. He found the girl to be annoying when happy and patronizing upset. He did not like her. Still, every time Johann would visit the shop to have a saw repaired or pick up a bracket, Maria was never far away. Her bright gaze, beneath dark curls, would follow his every move.

As the years wore on Johann's mother and father would find more excuses to send him to Mateu's shop. It wasn't too long before Johann began to notice Maria with a very different feeling than annoyance. If she were fetching water, he would contrive to carry it for her. If she were not in the shop, he would question her amused father. 

At the age of fifteen Johann was apprenticed to Mateu and moved into his shop Though he always dined with the family. Johann spent most of his hours in the forge or drafting designs at the small desk near his cot. Mateu often commented that had Johann been better born he should have gone to university. Johann would laugh and say that if he had been better born he would not have met Maria.

Maria often found excuses to enter the shop. Sometimes just watching as Johann worked the bellows or hammered a piece into shape. He never noticed, his focus was so great as to exclude all else.

As taxation became an inexorably heavier burden tradesman in Casimir began to take out loans, hoping to keep their livelihoods afloat. It came to a point where most had to choose between paying the debtors or the tax collectors. And then a time came when they could pay neither.

During that time Johann joined the Valanian Auxiliary Corps, doing a duty shift one week out of three. Mostly they fought wolves or the occasional bandits. They escorted drunks home and put out fires. But the Emperor's banner flies on the horizon, signalling the return of the tax collectors. 

[b]Notable skills/abilities:[/b] Smithing, singing, carpentry, drafting