[@TheLazarus] [hider=Drostan Welm, Kinslayer] Name: Drostan Welm (Under an assumed name, "Osmund Griff") Age: 31 Gender: Male Race: Human Country of Origin: Ethora (Claims Falke) Appearance: [hider=image][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/267150993953652741/366638291707101184/1df6afe305ae85b66042ec3fdb1105b8--character-portraits-art-daily.png[/img][/hider] Personality: A sort of burnt-out idealist, his former devotion to egalitarianism has been tempered by time into aimless hate of hierarchy, class, and authority. However, this hate is kept in check by a sense of cynicism and resignation (as well as a touch of alcholism), that way things are is the way they will probably always be. This manifests in a feeling of weariness that almost radiates off of him. But, there are moments when his former self peaks through. Get him talking about his beliefs, and you may not get him to stop. He can manage some dry wit, when he bothers to try. He has a sort of default respect for most people, regardless of race, sex, or class, but it doesn't seem to extend to the wealthy or the noble. Once very confident in himself and his abilities, staggering defeat has humbled him greatly. He's cautious, doubly so when he's responsible for other people. He has deep-seated self-doubt, though he usually tries to swallow it. No one wants to hire an insecure mercenary. History: The second son of Lord Robert Welm, Drostan led an incredibly privileged childhood. Free from the burden of inheriting his father's title, since his older brother would be heir, he was free to more or less do as a pleased. He learned a few things about himself early-on. He liked to fight (with both blades and words), he liked to read, and he [i]really[/i] liked to travel. Beginning at age twelve Drostan accompanied his uncle on economic and diplomatic journeys to the surrounding nations. Falke was his favorite, and there he got his hands on the writings of Elven and early Falkian thinkers. This, combined with the things he saw in his travels, left him with the vague sense that something was [i]wrong[/i]. He couldn't quite put his finger on why, or how he would go about fixing it, but the way things were didn't sit quite right. When he was eighteen, his uncle died, and his travels were suspended for the time being. He stayed once more in his family's home, developing his martial skills with his brothers and reading everything he could get his hands on. When he was twenty-one he began writing things of his own. A sort of synthesis of all he'd read, combined with his own observations, Drostan's brand of social and economic egalitarianism was entirely too radical for much of the nation, though it did find [i]some[/i] purchase among the very lowest rungs of society. Realizing his work was sort of seditious, he sent it around anonymously. He let only one person know that he was the one writing it, his childhood friend, Sir Garren Curtis, a knight sworn to his house. He tried to live a more typical Ethoran noble life, participating in a number of tournaments over the next few years. Though he often did quite well, he was never able to win one. He courted Alys Curtis, a cousin of Garren's, and was engaged to be married. At twenty-six, however, just a few weeks prior to his wedding date, Drostan had a crisis of conscience. Surrounded by wealth and privilege, he couldn't escape a lingering sense of guilt, that people suffered while he lived so comfortably. So, Drostan and Garren slipped out one night with a handful of soldiers who bought into his ideas. They carried with them copies of Drostan's earlier writing, and rode to rally townsfolk and farmers to his cause, with limited success. After a week, he had gathered about two dozen people. Against Garren's advice, the small group of radicals decided to mount a poorly planned coup. After some successful raids on merchant caravans and the such, Drostan decided that he was going to try and kill the king. This failed spectacularly. Their attempt to ambush a carriage that was supposed to be carrying the king went awry as the carriage's guards put up a much better fight than expected. Drostan's forces were more or less dismantled. Garren was captured, and Drostan was forced to flee. The king wasn't even in the carriage. In hiding, all but a handful of his followers deserted him. Eventually, he was found. Sir Garren Curtis had been tortured into revealing the location of Drostan's hideout, and then was promptly executed. A manhunt, led by Drostan's own father, came upon them in the night. Drostan's few remaining allies were slain and he was cornered. Fully expecting to die, Drostan put up the best fight he could, and in the process killed his father. But Drostan wasn't killed, he was taken away in chains. His older brother made a show of stripping Drostan of his lands, titles, and nobility, erasing his name from House Welm's lineage. He was guilty of treason, and to be hanged like a commoner. However, hours before his execution, his younger sister, Amelia, visited him in his cell. She hated him for killing their father, but she had been in love with Sir Garren, and couldn't forgive the kingdom for torturing him. She bribed a guard to free him, and secured him passage to Falke, but left him with a warning. If he ever came back to Ethora, she'd kill him herself. Drostan believed her. In Falke, he created a new identity. He became Osmund "Oz" Griff, a Falkian mercenary. He lived in Falke for a couple years, studying the spear and trying unsuccessfully to learn archery. Work was scarce, however, and so at twenty-nine he left for Miraheim in search of opportunity. There, he worked independently for some time before falling in with Varian's group. Weapon Preference: Drostan wields an unremarkable, circular wooden shield in his offhand, and a Falkian short-spear in the dominant hand. He keeps a more traditionally Ethoran one-handed sword on his hip, but he hasn't used it in quite some time. Side: Mercenaries [/hider] I didn't notice until after I finished the sheet that a Lord Robert Welm is responsible for the quote in the OP. I can change Drostan's house, if anything there contradicts. I also don't know if the whole coup backstory is too much, I tried to make it small and relatively easily snuffed out, so that it doesn't throw too much of a wrench in the established history.