[b]Name:[/b]  Linus Kolbe
[b]Age:[/b] 35
[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Race:[/b]  Aretan Hume

[b]Appearance: [/b]
There are no fair or courtly words to encompass the horrifying appearance of Linus Kolbe.  He is by every impression a dead man who refused to lay down.  His eyes, one milk-white and sightless, stare from a red, patchwork ruin of deep furrowed wounds and unspeakable burns, the whole of his skin and skull held together with crude wire-thread stitching and scar tissue, hair long since burned away.  His voice comes as a shuddering rasp from somewhere in his chest, deeper breaths rattling in his lungs.  Few know what further atrocities are visible on his flesh beneath the padding of his armor.  

It works well, in putting the fear of battle into the Crown's foes.  Unfortunately, it often has the same effect upon its friends.


[b]Brief character concept:[/b]
Quartermaster and record-keeper.  He has one good eye and can still swing a blade or hammer with the best of men.  And one thing you can be sure of:  He isn't afraid of getting hurt.


[b]History: [/b]
Who was he, before he was left an embittered husk, cast off from the crucible of war?  It barely seems to matter, when few can say who he is now.  And following his last return from battle, Linus would have been forcibly retired were it not for his unwavering loyalty and a curious pressure from the clergy that he remain available for duty.  A compromise was reached, and he soon found himself relegated to duty as Annalist and Quartermaster; Battle-ready, but kept away from younger, idealistic recruits, those who still believe war is all glory and bright, shining armor.  It would not do for the impressionable to see the true, terrible face of war.

As with many older knights in the service of the Aretan crown, Linus is a veteran of a few of the kingdom's renowned campaigns.  But what follows him more closely, more cautiously, are the whispers of other, lesser-known campaigns, rumored forays pushing deep into the hidden east.  Campaigns of which there are no songs, of which no tapestries are woven, of which there are no writings and any discovered are burned along with their authors.

There are no certainties in this whispered hearsay.  But the rumors -- as surely Linus himself -- refuse to die.