[hider=Dakgu Elf-Scalper] [b]Name:[/b]: Dakgu Elf-Scalper [b]Age:[/b]: 24 [b]Sex:[/b]:Male [b]Breed:[/b]: Full-blooded orc, mother was an outcast from the Cha-yesh tribe, father unknown warrior of the Graldak. [b]Appearance:[/b] Flat-nosed and high forehead, green-gray skin. He wears his hair in a topknot, and otherwise remains dressed in a cuirass of leather with metal plates riveted the inside, though his is decorated with furs and spikes of bone, which serve a further purpose besides decoration. Most of the time, he goes bare-armed into the fight, while wearing a pair of ratty brown trousers and fur boots, not being much a worrier after fashion. Notably, Dakgu has a cleft palate, which makes him even less attractive to the humans. It splits his upper lip. His ears are the typical pointed and splayed-out arrangement of orcish ears, though he wears an intricately wrought golden ring through one-- that being a battlefield trophy of his most infamous hunt. Dakgu is of only average height and build for an orc. [b]Skills/Abilities:[/b][indent]- Animal empathy, specifically with wargs – Dakgu was raised with a pack of wargs, and they consider him one of them and he considers them family; his pack is the part of the breeding stock for Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi . He might not speak tongues very well, but he can growlingly communicate with wargs. - Tracking. Dakgu is an infamously talented tracker. - Archery – as many a human with a price on their head, as well as the ranger Myrmith Tinuviel, found out, Dakgu is surprisingly good with a bow. See below for details - Stealth and movement in the wild – Dakgu is a master of camouflage, able to paint himself or decorate himself with grasses, bark, mud and leaves. He crawls like a snake, climbs like a squirrel and...well, all that. - Poultices, herbs and natural cures – He is the go-to veterinarian of the Company, as he knows ways to bring down swelling and cure fevers with natural remedies. - Damn good forager – Dakgu learned to feed himself and a pack of hungry wargs with his bow. He knows lures, bait, traps and the whole shebang. Knowing what mushrooms can be eaten and which frogs aren't poisonous is always an asset among voracious eaters like orcs. - Fletching – Dakgu learned a long time ago to make his own arrows. He's picky. - Speech impediment – Dagku has a hard time speaking. - Visible deformity – Cleft palate. [/indent] [b]Equipment:[/b][indent]- Leather with metal plates riveted to the inside of the armor. He wears padding under that to keep it from chafing. It has bone spikes attached to parts of it which allow him to attach strips of cloth or wildlife to it to further break himself up against the foliage. - Longbow, orcish. That means it's thicker than a human or elven bow, with a considerable draw power. Most orcs are indifferent shots, but Dakgu is an exception to that rule. While some orcs consider bows to be 'fairy weapons' the Tuskers of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi are generally well trained...and that is partially due to the likes of Dakgu in the ranks. - Axe; Dakgu prefers a bearded axe for fighting, something that can smash through shields or doors or whatever. A sword only has one use, but an axe has many. - Knives; he keeps a couple of these handy. - Belt pouches and the like; he wears a couple belts wrapped around his waist with his survival needs attached – dried food, fishhooks, rope, line, climbing claws, etc, etc. He manages to keep it fairly light, and doesn't tote around some silly backpack like others do.[/indent] [b]History:[/b][indent]Dakgu was born to Virda Wargkeeper of the Cha-Yesh, a tribe destroyed by the Graldak tribe some years ago. His mother bore him after the surviving the rape and being left for dead, and raised him among the pack of wargs she cared for. They made a living on the outskirts of human and orcish society as Virda plied her folk cures and skills with curing animals to those few humans that would let an orc near their livestock or orc tribes that would pay her a pittance for her considerable skills. She managed to scrape by on grit and her skills. Dakgu was probably better off that way – he was born with a deformity, a cleft palate, that would have seen him killed in among the tribes of the orcs, whereas Virda raised him lovingly, for an orc, and the wargs didn't care if he couldn't speak the tongues very well. As he grew older, he became an accomplished hunter and trapper, supplementing his mother's gathering efforts, by bringing meat to the table as they moved from place to place. They tended not to stay in one area too long lest the locals decide that the local orcs and their unnatural monster-wolf pack were the cause of every deformed calf birth and bad crop in the area. Despite these precautions, his mother was killed by humans bandits; they got her and her warg when they were foraging in the badlands between tribal lands of the Graldak and the city of Urkesh, a human settlement. In Urkesh, no one was willing to bestir themselves for one dead orc wench and her monster-wolf, but they were willing to pay gold for the bandits, who were a plague on the area. Killing the bandits was vengeance and profit; Dakgu's first blood and his way into bounty hunting. While a fourteen year old human boy would be considered too young, at fourteen, an orc was all grown up. He spent several years hunting scalps and moving from place to place with the warg pack that he now cared for by himself – they assisted in trailing the quarry and were fed their horse, whereas he took their scalps and equipment and sold both back to humans in varying settlements. He was good at his job, able to track quarry, move silently and kill precisely, using his warg pack when it became necessary. As an orc, he always worked alone, for none would partner with him, a state of affairs that only honed his self-reliance. Despite his abilities, he was often mocked for his speech impediments and his employers often tried to cheat him, assuming him simple in the head. Betimes, he had to kill or maim a local mayor or sheriff to make his point about being paid fully for work done. The most notorious bounty he ever pursued was no human, but the mad, renegade elven ranger Myrmith Tinuviel, a renowned archer and magic user of centuries worth of experience who had decided to wage war on the human towns of the Veldaron reach, starting with the killing of poachers but moving onto merchants, travelers and any that strayed into his range. The hunt lasted three months wherein the two skirmished constantly; the ranger Myrmith would strike, and then Dakgu would track. Eventually, Dakgu gave up on chasing the man and laid bait of his own, trailing a caravan of loggers into the forests in secrecy, waiting for the elf to strike. But when the elf struck, he didn't trail him. He let the ranger and his animal companions strike, slaughter the human loggers and plunder them for supplies. He trailed the ranger from a distance, learning his habits and his methods and what he did when he wasn't waging a one-knife-ear war against anything that came into his forest. By the time Dakgu had a very good idea of how the elven ranger operated, the human baron of Veldaron added a considerable bounty onto the head of Myrmith Tinuviel. A number of hunters were drawn into the region. Dakgu hired himself as a guide and took them into the forest. These men scorned the orc with the speech impediment, ignored his advice and were brash, all of which made them very good bait. When Myrmith came for them, Dakgu managed to disappear. Using his knowledge of the elf's methods, he tracked down the elf and fought a running battle where one might assume that the orc might get the worst of it, being a stupid orc. Days of moving, ambushing and fighting, of laying traps and killing the animals and spirits the elf sent against Dakgu and his pack were not enough to finish the fight. In the end, the Orc had to rely on something else: the unexpected. The orcish bounty hunter surprised even the elf with the last possible ploy that any haughty knife-ear would expect from a brute orc – the orc used his intelligence and knowledge to get the better of the elf and trapped him in a snare, shot him through the chest thrice, and took his ears and scalp for proof, along with all his possessions. When he presented these things to the Baron of Veldaron, he was promptly paid and promptly banished, the typical attitude of haughty bunny lords toward hired orcish help. But by then, Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi, along with many others, had heard of Dakgu Elf-Scalper. He served in the pikes for a time, as all do, in order to learn the new way of war, but it came easily to Dakgu. He'd worked with his pack for so long that he understood that he had a job within a larger framework. It seemed surprising that a formerly independent, hardscrabble hunter-gatherer would easily integrate into the company, but he seemed to find a niche – he was quickly moved into the Wargs as the head keeper of the beasts, the one that knew their needs and habits the best of any in the company, and the one that a tusker had to answer to if there was anything amiss in the treatment of the warg. A couple times in the Pikes he was given shit for his deformity and speech problems, but a knife to the balls and a promise to take their scalps was enough to settle a couple of the young, dumb ones out. [/indent] [b]Personality and Psychological profile:[/b][indent]Dakgu doesn't have much use for society, but he was tired of being alone when old Radush Eye-Drinker sought him out as a recruit into the company; he joined in the first year and has been with the unit for for four years total. His experiences of civilization have left him with a bitter taste in his mouth and he considers himself an outcast, and the Company a band of such. But within the company, he tends to watch people carefully and say little, since he can't speak all that well anyway. As a result, he seems calm, but the reality is that he's easily as angry as any orc – but he burns cold and mean, taking bloody and final vengeance on things that mess with him or his wargs, who are what he considers his actual family. He puts his blankets in the pen with them every night and trims claws and digs out ticks. He relished being a bounty hunter, because he got paid to kill bunnies, and now he's part of a mercenary unit being paid even more gold to kill even more bunnies. [b]Relationships and Acquaintances:[/b][indent]Dakgu's non-Wargish socializing is limited, and he somewhat prefers it that way. [/indent] [/indent] [/hider][hider=Koloch the Butcher][b]Name:[/b] Koloch the Butcher, but most people just call him 'Drillmaster' and that title counts for something in the company. [b]Age:[/b] 34 [b]Sex:[/b] Male [b]Breed:[/b] Half-Orc [b]Appearance:[/b] Koloch is a good near seven feet of muscle and fearsome power, with a flat nose, very little hair and dark skin. He has no idea what stock he is of, and there's some speculation in the camp about his orcish lineage. In most circumstances, he wears a very well-wrought suit of armor that is impossibly thick for a human to move well in, but like any tusker in these suits, he's alright with it. Outside the armor, he wears the padded underclothing that allows him to put on the armor. [b]Skills/Abilities:[/b][indent]- Human knight training - Koloch knows how to fight like the bunnies and mated his natural strength to the discipline of steel. - Halberds - Koloch's a specialist with the weapon and prefers it in a fight. As far as he's concerned a halberd will get you through in just about any situation, except on wargback...or even on wargback, when you get right down to it. - Tourney Champion - Got a bunny that thinks real highly of himself and is flashing his sword around and issuing a poetic challenge to personal combat? Send Koloch. - Loud lungs - Koloch usually is quiet for an orc but he can send his voice across a battlefield's clash and clangor.[/indent] [b]Equipment:[/b][indent]- One suit of human-wrought armor, a rarity even in this company, to orcish size and strength. This was one he's had since he finished puberty, and it is painted a dark red over black lacquering, with the addition, over the years, of mythical monstrosities to the greaves and gauntlets,to the pauldron and gorget, and similar. Koloch walks into a fight with a gallery of gargoyles leering and medusae sneering, and a helmet that has horns atop it. He adds a spike here and there to keep in with the fashion of the company. - One company issue sword, big and cleaver-like, strapped to his belt by a hook on the pommel but left unsheathed. - Sometimes a shield, a thick, scarred monstrosity. - His halberd, with a scarred, studded, worn-smooth haft. Occasionally, he has to replace the haft with a likely candidate from the company stocks, but the company does its best to maintain a supply of extremely quality wood for that purpose, seeing as the company uses pikes, bows and halberds.[/indent] [b]History:[/b][indent]Whatever the circumstances of Koloch's family were, the long and short of it was that he was found somewhere by a human woman of noble birth. He was taken in as an oddity, a pet and even raised as a child by this woman in a castle, and she was a bit of a buffer between Koloch (that wasn't his name at the time) and the rest of the world, the cruelty of it toward orcs. That didn't mean it was precisely easy as he grew faster than other kids his age and was isolated from them. All the same, perhaps realizing what he was in for eventually, this human woman sent him to the castle's master of arms, a man named Sigmund. To the public that was Sigmund Shieldbreaker, one of the fiercest champions of his time, also known for breaking his charges. He didn't break Koloch, and molded him into a better fighter. Needless to say, the young orc found a home and solace in the training of Sigmund. Meanwhile, his mother, a spinster, grew ill and he tended to her when he wasn't learning to fight. It wasn't to last; his mother succumbed and the lands went to a distant relation that wanted nothing to do with Koloch. Koloch took service as a caravan guard and mercenary to eke a living as he could, though often paid less. In wartime, fighting as a free sword, he prospered from the plunder and his prowess. In peacetime, he sought out tourneys that would have him and fought ferociously. Ironically, being a 'bestial orc' made for an interesting matchup and his matches racked up gold from the novelty. That led to more tourneys being willing to consider the orc in the foot lists (he was no jouster). Sigmund's training was thorough. He was a surprisingly analytic duelist, with an eye toward weakness that also gave him the appreciation for it on the battlefield. His attempts to reach out to other orcs in the tribal lands were somewhat disastrous. He found, quickly, that orcish society was not for him and he was a halfie besides. In due time, Koloch attached himself to the warband of Radush Eyedrinker, who was already an orc of dark renown and a thinker under all that. Their conversations, along with the input of others, turned toward how to get the best use out of the positive attributes of orcs. Ferocity, raw strength, aggression. How to temper these things into a fighting formation that would work. Koloch, a veteran of battles, introduced the idea that they train them all as pikemen first, forced to rely upon one another and hold firm. As the company built up, Koloch had more business as one of Radush's toughest drillmasters. It wasn't sufficient that the company could fight. They needed to be able to march, move together and otherwise work as a unit if they were to survive at all. They had to be better than the humans and, even then, they'd still have to continually fight and strive for what little they earned, with no guarantee that they'd be paid without forcing the matter. When there is a fight, his place tends to be at Radush's right hands - Koloch has a loud set of lungs and a ferocious eye, and it means he's useful for relaying orders as well as keeping enemies off the Eyedrinker so the old warlord can keep giving those orders.[/indent] [b]Personality and Psychological profile:[/b][indent]Koloch is calm for an orc, but it's all a facade. He's dealt with years of bunnies not paying up and other employers betraying them. As a half human/half orc, he's learned the cruel lesson that both societies want little to do with him, and that's why the company is important to him. Without it, they are adrift and wanted by neither. He waits for the moment when he can cut loose, when he can just skewer some sniveling human on his halberd and give a good shake in the air that sends them flying. He's all too happy to burn down elven glades and have the wargs piss all over it. He wants to sell dwarven craftwork on the open market cheap and hear the lamentations of the women stumpies. War is his craft and his love. Koloch is fine with the idea that he will live out his life doing what he does now, and that someone else will certainly take command of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi when Radush is too old. They can count on Koloch to do what he does. He's found the closest thing to contentment that he will in this world, and it involves thumbing his nose at the rest of them. Since his strongest paternal influence was his arms master, he tends to think of himself as a paternal figure to a lot of tuskers in the company, seeing as he helped train a number of them.[/indent] [b]Relationships and Acquaintances:[/b][indent]Everyone knows Koloch.[/indent] [/hider]