Character Sheet

[img]http://orig07.deviantart.net/3c68/f/2008/173/2/7/dwarf_by_88grzes.jpg[/img]

Name: Yarik Maugrim

Race: Dwarf

Appearance: With weathered and cracked skin like old fractured stone, Yarik's age is betrayed by more than just his long and silvery beard. He stands at roughly 4'4' and weighs a stout 170 lbs. His eyes are grey and the top of his head is balding, while his teeth are yellowed from prolonged tobacco smoking. Under his clothes, his body is marked with the tattoos of his former street gang, also marking out his former position as an enforcer, as well as being covered in the scars of dozens of skirmishes and fights. His clothes are sodden and muddy messes from prolonged use, his heavy boots and gloves are worn and stained pieces of leather held together by old stitchings, and he's covered by a heavy dark grey hooded cloak that isn't in much better condition. He doesn't have a single piece of jewellery on him.

Age: 62

Former Profession: Smith's apprentice, Hired Muscle, Builder, Gangster Enforcer, Drunkard and Gambler. 
Skill:

[i]Criminal Contacts[/i] -Having spent the later part of his life as an Enforcer in a now disbanded Dwarven Street Gang, Yarik has several associates and friends in various elements of Kings Knell's underworld, with his seniority bringing him a measure of privilege among some of the older elements.

[i]Basic Tactician[/i] -Working as private protection and overseeing Gangster crews separately over the course of several decades has given Yarik a fair bit of knowledge of how to plan and organize people. Though he'd never make commander material in any army, he knows more than most of the wetbacks and prospects who think they can just run into a fight axes and swords gleaming and have everything turn out well.

[i]Iron Will to Physical Pain[/i] - Could also be classified as learned stubbornness, the process of taking beatings, dishing them out, as well as taking part and being the subject of various "creative" means the gangs come up with to initiate prospects and deal with rats or debtors has made Yarik exceedingly tough when it comes to dealing with physical pain. He'll suffer enormous injury before giving up what he knows to an enemy.

Personality: When sober, Yarik's mostly an old curmudgeon and does not possess a very friendly or inviting personality. He generally likes to keep to himself and is suspicious/cautious around most strangers, but even around those he knows he's generally considered to be a grumpy old bastard who's either to be respected or feared, but certainly not loved. When drunk or otherwise intoxicated, he generally either becomes nostalgic and depressed, or nostalgic and slightly more jovial depending on the situation he's in.

History: Born like most Dwarves as a descendant of those of stayed behind out of the Miner King's Throng. With his father setting himself up as a blacksmith forging construction materials and military grade of mostly middling qualities to support him and his family. Facing discrimination and eventually gang protection rackets to keep said bigots away, early life for Yarik's family was hard but relatively stable as work was plentiful for a Dwarf of even middling smithing skill in a city that constantly needed tools, weapons, or equipment. Yarik himself started out as his father's apprentice, but found that although he had the ability, he hadn't the patience for the work to become extremely skilled or the tolerance for constantly having to live on a constant treadmill of paying protection rackets. This led to conflict with his parents and other siblings, and eventually with Yarik striking out on his own right before he turned 20, his family subsequently disowning him as well. 

Now without clan and with little money, he decided to apply for a position that his garnered strength from beating iron anvils and working bellows might prove useful: hired protection for merchants. With numerous traders working moving goods from the Twinkling Mountains and surrounding territories along the River Knell to King's Knell to sell, they were always looking for muscle to deter trouble and for Dwarves particularly out of the partially misguided belief that Dwarves in the Twinkling Mountains wouldn't try to mess with their own kind. Many would even pay to equip their crews if it meant protecting their cargoes, the only condition being that the muscles signed on for several months of service before getting their pay checks (if they lived long enough, or didn't break any other fine print in the contracts that is). In any case, Yarik fit the bill well enough and signed on as a member of a crew for a goods merchant moving cargo up and down the River Knell. 

Work was interesting at first as he left the city and got to see the lands up and down the river, though would eventually become as monotonous as most jobs become, broken up by the occasional skirmish with bandits, thieves, or gangsters trying to steal money or goods off his employer when he otherwise wasn't a short and stout scarecrow. After one round of his contract (7 months!) Yarik got his paycheck of a hundred and forty crowns. Frustrated, but not seeing much of an option towards what he saw as a "decent" job like this, Yarik stuck it out for two more contracts before his employer lost his boat as collateral for debts and subsequently went out of business as a trader. After he and his fellow formerly hired muscles had beaten their last pay checks out of the poor miser, Yarik went his own way again, now back to square one in King's Knell, out of a job with only a little money to his name.

So, Yarik went into another typical profession for Dwarves in the city, as a builder, or more specifically a labourer. He and the crew he was assigned to build and repair several houses, temples, and public structures, but never the palaces. That work was for more professional craftsmen than he and the crews he was with. While working in construction, he ran into familiar faces from his old family's smithy, gangsters. Specifically Dwarven gangsters, since they had among other things, a monopoly over most of these low tier construction crews, not only taking cuts of the workers' meagre pay checks, but also ordering them to sabotage projects they were working on when they felt like screwing clients who wanted to play hardball with money. Yarik, though pissed at having to deal with these same scum again, noticed something very particular about the whole situation: the gangsters never had trouble getting their hands on money, and next to nobody tried to mess with them, not even the increasingly poorly equipped and trained guardsmen in most sectors of the city. It dawned on Yarik that in this city of bigots, thieves, liars, gangsters, mercenaries, and pompous rich folks, it payed to belong to a group that actually had a degree of control over their futures and be their own bosses than to constantly scratch about for scraps. To this end, he approached the nearest Dwarf Street Gang he knew that he didn't consider to be total pricks and treated their members well, the Salt-Packers, based out of a namesake Salt processing warehouse on a particularly dark branch of the river.

Like most gangs, Dwarven gangs were only open to those of their own race, but not everyone could just get in, first the gang had to be "prospecting" for " new and rich material". Then the prospects had to prove themselves capable of actually being valuable and loyal members. In the case of the Salt Packers, initiation was very symbolic. The Prospects first had to beat up an assigned target for the gang til they passed out, get them back to the gang's warehouse, then proceed to chop up the victim into pieces. They would then pack said pieces into salt for preservation and to be sent by couriers to the victim's relations, the heads to be packed in salt as trophies, and disposing of the rest into the river. If they'd done this to the gang's satisfaction, they'd be personally initiated next, with the prospect taking a beating from every member of the crew that was there until they bled, upon which they'd then rub salt into the wounds. If the prospects didn't pass out, whimper, or hit back, then they were in for life as a member and celebrated with a night at one of the locally gang-overseen taverns. Yarik passed through his initiation with distinction, his will to get out of the rut he saw his life becoming worth the pain and macabre work, he was 25 years old.

For the next 30 years, Yarik worked as a made member of the Salt-Packers Dwarven Street Gang. Working protection rackets, carrying out hits, and doing the grunt work for the gang alongside his fellow members, and all the while making decent money almost every day off of suckers who hadn't shown the same will to succeed as he had. His earlier despise for gangsters melted over the years as he lived and worked alongside them, coming to understand how and why they did what they did. Sure some were sick bastards who got off to killing whoever they pleased and acting untouchable (as many actually were on the streets), but at heart they all shared one thing in common: a desire to make the best of the shitty hand dealt to them by fate, and not caring about screwing over others who didn't share the same conviction. 

Rising to the rank of Enforcer at the age of 38 due to his increased age and experience, Yarik was put in charge of personally overseeing a section of the gang's territory, and various rackets, as well as its members, associates, and potential prospects that resided within it. This was the life for Yarik, as he was now master of his own tiny domain within the city, and only had a couple bosses whom he could deal with to worry about. He ran his territory and crew with a hard but fair hand in most cases, but carried on the gang's zero tolerance for rats, snitches, and of people who thought they could sneak out of paying what they owed. He amassed a fair fortune by criminal standards over the years and enjoyed the pleasures of life within this city in his prime. 

Nothing lasts forever though, and when he was 55, Yarik's world turn on its head as new movements in the criminal underworld took place. Fresh gang wars ignited and the fight for territory was on again as new hot-heads sought to carve their own piece of the pie in King's Knell's criminal enterprises. The Salt-Packers became embroiled with wars with other gangs over territory as well, and lost many members in the process, faster than they could replenish them, and soon their enemies were nearing their old warehouse of a base. Appealing for aid, the boss of the Salt-Packers, Zargruff Holmstein, made a deal with a new up and coming Dwarven gang, the Iron-clad Kings, and their boss Valton "Ironhide" Fergus. The deal being that if the Iron-clad Kings came to the aid of the Salt-Packers, Zargruff would hand the gang over to Valton and work for him as an underboss, uniting their gangs and making Valton and the Kings even more powerful in the ongoing gang war. Valton agreed, saying his crews would come once fighting began. The enemy crews came in force on the warehouse, and the area became a battleground as Dwarf fought Dwarf in brutal street-fighting that mocked the wars of their clans of old. Yarik and his crew along with other fought hard, but were slowly overrun, beaten back to their very gates, they cost their rivals every inch in blood. Using desperate measures, their enemies set fire to the very warehouse they were in, engulfing it and the nearby streets in flame. Tons of Salt-Packers died in the fire along with their enemies, while those that could dived into the river for safety, their boss not among them. City Guard came after the fighting to extinguish the flames with the help of river boats and clean up the mess of looted bodies. 

The remnants of the gang found out later that the Iron-clad Kings had arrived and smashed the fleeing gangsters of their enemies, but only after the warehouse was in flames and most of the Salt-Packers were dead. Valton had proved to be a pragmaticist and thought it better to send a message to the rival gangs by eliminating several of his potential rivals and enemies with one stroke, and showing what he thought about the idea of sharing power with leaders of other gangs. All the same, he offered the remaining Salt-Packers homes as Iron-clad Kings, though Yarik and many older members refused, their distaste left unstated but apparent. 

Ever since, Yarik has dwindled away what remained of his fortune, drinking away the memories of how his life has gone, and peddling his money away on small pleasures. He still has many friends among criminals, but he has never joined a gang since, none of them are like they once were during his time in his eyes, and he has never been sober or bold enough since to form his own. With gambling debts accumulating his options have grown slim, but unwilling to die yet, he knows of one route to at least temporary salvation for one such as him, oddly enough: a city guardsman.