[@Crimson Raven] It's not a bad thing to have contradictory character traits, but in most cases it's "he acts X. on the outside or in A. situations, but is Y. on the inside or in B. situations." Otherwise it seems like he has a mental disorder like being bipolar or something. In this instance I wasn't given quite enough information to draw any sort of conclusion-- that's the only reason why I bring it up. That could just be me, but I would suggest adding a little more to guide me and the other players in the direction you want us going in. 

Obviously we won't REALLY know what kind of person Ark is until the character interactions begin, but this is the part where you want to make sure we as players have a clear view of your character. This makes it easier for us to form the story together and make predictions about each other's characters. For example, let's say I want to have my character accidentally step on someone's foot and I want a very interesting/tense reaction to come out of it. If I, as the player, had the choice of stepping on a nice character's foot and an abrasive character's foot-- I might make my roleplaying decision based on that. 

[quote]
Next, The bandits were slavers, and Ark had been 'sold' by his greedy drunkerd father to pay a debt. His mother...lets just say thats for the IC. =] I wasn't too sure about the geography and the map, so I chose based on the discription.[/quote]

I might refer to the bandits as slavers from the beginning in that case-- as it still seems a bit confusing why bandits who are also slavers would bring someone back to their home if they saw any potential in keeping him as a slave. If I were an evil bandit slaver I wouldn't want to pay for the kid-- I'd just take him. 

With the geography thing-- definitely not your fault. I haven't mentioned much in the way of Coake's climate.