[b]Name:[/b] Tylan (Tie-ler-n) Hallaw
[b]Age:[/b] 21
[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Bisexual
[b]Role in Society:[/b] Commoner
[b]Occupation:[/b] Sailor

[b]Legend: [/b]
The Battle Upon Red Waves was a bloody affair between rivaling bands of pirates and smugglers, scuffling for dominance of the black-market in the region’s seas. Scores of ships clashed over waves. Cannons became the song of the night as the sky turned black, and the waters even darker. Flaming arrows descended like thick rain, setting fire to ship and man alike. Hundreds of screaming torches fell overboard, only to be engulfed by the thrashing waves, pulled down to the seafloor for the fish to feast on. As the Battle waged on, a foreign prince watched from the shore, worried eyes flecked with gold from the flaming beacons on the water, for his betrothed was lost at sea, trapped on a galley caught in the corrupted wrestle for power and gold. 

They say that the ship appeared from nowhere, as though a curtain had been drawn and spliced, to reveal the standard of the princess’ father, rippling and tossed high in the ocean wind. The galley cut through the water, and at its head, steering it from storm to port, stood a skinny boy of ten-and-six. A commoner from the worst part of town, who’d never set foot on a ship before, but had at that moment taken to sailing as a fish takes to water. So skillfully did he maneuver the ship on his maiden voyage, that not one arrow had befallen the deck, as was discovered when dawn came and the galley was inspected for damage. So talented was he, that the princess raved about him to her beloved when they were reunited. “He crept forth from the depths of the stores,” she cried, “when the captain suffered an arrow to the shoulder.” The only casualty to be had aboard the princess’ galley. “He took over the wheel without a pause, and as the night grew dark, he grew only bolder.

“He danced on the waves, a courteous lead. Oh, he was brave, no doubt can there be! He called for the crew to move down below, while he stayed on deck, and beckoned the blows. Fall they did, a relentless hail. But none struck us, with him we were hale. Arrows drowned in the water, and pierced not we. Cannons would not bother, sorcery it must be! And when a pirate flew onto the ship, he protected his deck, with a sword through the hip.”

The boy-hero was commended for defending the galley and bringing the prince his bride, but he would give no name. During the ceremony of gratitude, after the prince had presented him with a bag of gold and the nobles attending struck up a dance in his honour, the boy slipped away soundlessly. The prince and princess never found him again, or learned who he was, and the boy-hero has been dubbed Lord Stowaway, a faceless legend young boys hear when bounced on the knees of their dams. 

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[i]The thrashing waves enslave my heart as would a wife. 
The pirates and smugglers and nomads of the sea: they are my brothers.[/i]
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[b]Appearance:[/b] Tall, thin, and reedy, Tylan is extremely light – both on his feet and in terms of weight – with a mop of brown, unruly curls crowning his head. He is agile, with sinewy muscles and unadvertised strength.

[b]Personality:[/b] Tylan can appear mischievous, bordering on childish. His behaviour is not malevolent, but slightly chaotic. Energetic, he comes across as high-spirited with his laughter and smirks. However, Tylan is just as likely to be chuckling at a joke, as he is to be scanning his companion for chinks in the armour, opportune for a dagger in the back should the need present itself. Innately dark-humoured, Tylan is – in reality – discerning and brooding, but does not oft give the impression of being anything other than immature. His juvenility is for the most part deliberate and exaggerated, a constant dramatic performance. Tylan is no fool, but acting as one has given him the occasional advantage, that he plays to the fullest. Behind the japes and façade, Tylan is intelligent, cunning, and prone to the occasional moment of sobriety and generosity.

[b]Skills: [/b]
[u]Sailing (Master)[/u] – Tylan is most at home aboard a ship’s deck. He has sailed the far seas, knows of many a shipman’s tale, and can don a sailor’s tongue when it befits the situation. His stomach is iron-cast as well when he rides the waters, and seasickness does not plague him. He can scale a ship-mast as well as a squirrel shimmies up a tree, and is easily mistaken for a monkey when he leaps from the ropes and riggings of a ship. 
[u]Knife-Handling (Master)[/u] – From deftly sawing through fisherman’s rope, to cleanly slitting a throat, Tylan knows intimately how to arm himself with daggers and knives. He isn’t half-bad at throwing them either, and his aim is something to boast of.
[u]Spearing (Expert)[/u] – Lighter than swords, but with a greater reach, the spear is no stranger to Tylan, who has found the weapon practical on both land and sea. Tylan has speared fish-bellies for dinner before when he tired of maritime provisions, and has fended off his share of incensed merchants in the markets with the nearest object – often a long skinny stick, abandoned by passing visitors. He knows how to flick his wrist just right to land a blow that thwacks against his opponent’s side, and how to drive the butt of the spear into another’s ribs and steal his air. He can also twirl a spear expertly behind his back, but that particular skill is reserved for cocky show-offs. 
[u]Archery (Journeyman)[/u] – Tylan does not spend much time on land, but half of it is devoted to learning archery from a kindly traveller who frequents the ports once a full moon. He favours his blades, but the utility of a bow and arrow is not lost upon him. 

[b]Combat Flaws:[/b] Suited for nimbleness and haste, Tylan does not have the strength to wield or swing a sword for long. Shove a longsword into his hands and he is like to bleed before the fifth cut. Wounds sustained in battle will also take their toll on Tylan, whose health is admittedly not the strongest, which is why his defensive stance surpasses his offensive.

[b]Personality Flaws: [/b]Tylan is untrusting, and skittish around the strange. He does not lend his loyalty easily, and will erect a fortress of suspicion around himself that takes twice as long to dismantle as it does to build. Similarly, Tylan is not to be trusted wholeheartedly. He will avoid base treacheries where possible, but should push come to shove, his survival will still take precedence over all else. This trait might make him selfish, and a craven, but it preserves him. Of course, his habit of overplaying his immaturity is another point to note. 

[b]Magic Spells:[/b] -

[b]Abilities:[/b] (Tylan is a youth of one-and-twenty years, with humble experience to speak of. Furthermore, the persona he chooses to don makes it rather difficult for hardship to come his way and be endured, so that Jergal might bequeath him with Deep Magic.)

[b]Backstory:[/b] Tylan is a baseborn lad, son to a whore. Bastards aren’t few and far between, but the shame they bear upon their names like a cross above their hearts can be potent enough to follow them through their lives. The brothel his mother resided in was located just to the side of the harbour, and Tylan’s earliest memory as a tyke included him dodging around merchants’ stalls and crates of fish. He remembers toddling up a damp wooden plank, feeling it rocking beneath his feet, only to be plucked up by the armpits. The well-meaning sailor didn’t want to contend with barely-whelped stowaways, but Tylan needed only to flash a precocious smile for the sailor’s resolve to dissolve. Few ships at the harbour could close themselves to a young boy with harmless flashing eyes since. Tylan feels most at home onboard any deck, and learnt that day to beguile and charm to attain his whims. 

His mother has long since passed, but Tylan found unlikely kin among the sea-bound. They entertain his company when they stop at port; bring him trinkets, and bawdy raucous stories of battle, trade, and women from far-away lands. When he was eleven he sailed for the first time on a maiden voyage. Though the journey was to a neighbouring port, and no further, it thrilled Tylan to no end. The rock and lull of the boat, the icy spray of the sea: he loved it all, and spent the next five years learning from the most lucrative of traders, pirates and smugglers how to man a ship, learning the ropes with deft hands. 

By the time he was ten-and-six and the Battle Upon Red Waves crossed his path, Tylan was no stranger to the seas, as the songs and stories would have others believe. Tylan had been aboard the galley, only because he’d called in favours from the captain, who was as familiar to Tylan as a brother. He commandeered the wheel when his brother-at-sea could no longer hold it, and when one of the princess’ knights presumed to demand he relinquish it, Tylan barked out a sharp order that the princess and her entourage be protected. Gods forbid that a grassland knight who knew only how to seat a horse between his legs try to command a ship. Like as not, the knight would only dash them against the rocks and corals. The galley-crew hastened to obey, and ushered the princess and her pesky knight away to safer quarters. 

Though there was a storm of arrows, there was no rain. Steering was no more difficult than it would have been on a warm summer’s day, and the fire around them made for adequate lighting. Tylan was blissfully fortunate: the pirates and smugglers had by then exhausted their supply of arrows, and the brief reprieve let Tylan breathe easy as he steered the galley into harbour, where an overjoyed prince was waiting for his love. Once Tylan was handed the reward he had tried to refuse, he climbed out the window, before the newly-weds could ensnare him once more with talk of uprooting him and making him their Master of Ships in the nation they would rule together. He was still a child, only six-and-ten, and he did not seek responsibility. He returned to his life of darting through the market, and sailing the seas, taking opportunities to man ships as they came. 

Tylan gradually shed the moniker Lord Stowaway of his youth as he grew older, living an unassuming life of adventures at sea and daily acts. He continues to play the foolish child, because the brazen pirates and smugglers he comes across so easily fall for his performance. Those who know how to roar with laughter become his fast friends. Those who do not can only swear, and shake their fists at him, because they have likely lost something to Tylan when they realise the act – a bet, valuables, or pride. And nothing hurts quite so much as injured dignity.