[hider=Garo Minassian]
[B]Name:[/B] Garo Secundus Minassian
[B]Race:[/B] Imperial
[B]Age:[/B] 32
[B]Birthsign:[/b] The Lady
[B]Family Origins:[/B] Cheydinhal, Cyrodiil

[B]Appearance:[/B] 
[img]https://i.imgur.com/oXZ6ID2.jpg[/img]
[sub]A portrait of Garo upon his return from Elsweyr[/sub]

With a somewhat thick figure and a welcoming expression on his face, Garo is about as Imperial as Imperial gets. Standing about 5’9’’, Garo’s silhouette stands rather average, although his large brown eyes, expressive, long eyebrows and thick neck do allow him bear a certain visual presence. His thick nose juts down from between his eyes like a stone pillar, flaring right above his reddish lips, whose vibrant color creates a slight contrast with his fair skin. While a curly reddish beard further accentuates his wide chin, his hairline has not been so lucky and, save a widow’s peak stalwartly hanging on, the remainder of his brown hair has entered a recession. 

Garo carries himself with confidence, and though he is not muscular enough to look threatening or bear any martial connotations, his limbs are thick enough to persuade most from challenging his body language. Should he show it, Garo’s presence can be felt even when he is in a large crowd; the man seems certain that he has a right for the attention he attracts, and does not exert any caution in acting like he owns it, either. All this is further reinforced by a strong voice, which Garo holds commendable control over – it is not deep or fundamentally intimidating, but he has a stark voice, and he will make it heard should it be a necessity.

His attire, while not extravagant, also speak of a similar level of confidence; his green coat bears false sleeves, is fastened with silk cords and is trimmed with light embroidery, and his leggings are of a red color. Although he has a dagger tucked into his white, florally patterned waist sash, a sword belt also dangles below it, the weapon’s scabbard decorated with a velvet covering. A camel hair cape acts as his all-purpose insulator, being strong enough to deflect glancing blows, and wonderfully keeping cool in the summer and keeping warm in the winter.

While his physique is devoid of any scar or tattoo or any other kind of marking, Garo’s palms are lightly marred with dark, discolored spots, like faded ink spots; a side effect of the various dyes and alchemical substances that he had to handle in his youth. 
[hr]
[B]Personality:[/B] Garo is a rational man, awfully rational, maybe one could say – oftentimes finding himself in situations far too irrational for his liking. Of course, he’s not an insufferable genius who is constantly infuriated with the world not playing by his whims, on the contrary, Garo has a strange, almost saintly resignation to the ways of the world, often finding the situations he finds himself in more darkly funny than truly harrowing. He’s come to realize that his plans may not go the way he wants and has become an adaptive creature, trying to present an amiable impression towards anyone he meets, not out of some moral duty, but merely because it is convenient. While he bears no joy in the more disturbing aspects of survival and adult life, he’s accepted them for what they are and, though he does not enjoy it, does not see himself above relying on them as a last resort. 

A Nibenese gentleman at heart, Garo can be quite jolly when the opportunity presents himself, and although some may see this as a vice rather than a virtue, does have a streak of greed in his veins, never averse to a little profit. Perhaps the only thing keeping this in check is the well-earned wisdom that sometimes, moral profit outweighs financial profit, and Garo, while not a frivolous spender of money, is not above making ‘moral and social investments’ for his friends and comrades. Garo is often a serious man but can be witty when he needs, or wants to be – and although he hides it well, he can get about as petty as everyone else. Still, even though he is not without his darker side, if things should take a turn for the brutal, Garo does not have it in him to be actively life-threatening. He is a self-defender at best and a passive observer or a runaway at worst.  
[hr]
[B]History:[/B] Garo has always considered himself a city man, and his story, fittingly, begins in a city – the City of Cheydinhal. Of course, born a Minassian, it would be hard to separate the early chapters of his life from the story of the Minassians – a family of well-known glassmakers, the family profession easily traced all the way back to Vvardenfell in the Third Era, being one of the few families brought along by the East Empire Company to overtake local glass production for the Empire. By the time Garo was born, however, the family was but a vestige of its former days, as with most of the rest of the Empire. Vvardenfell was long gone, with all their holdings and estates there, and the Minassian family had stooped down to the production of common glass. Still, once a craftsman, always a craftsman – even with such great losses, the family business soldiered on, as it had through the centuries.

Garo, named after a long-dead patriarch of the family just like one elder brother, was the eighth of thirteen brothers, all of them toiling in the family workshop. Their father, Aram, was a strict disciplinarian, more a master to his workers than a father to his children. That is not to say that Aram was a cruel, loveless or unfair man; the business had simply occupied too large a part of his life for him to see family outside the business. Schooled at home by his mother, Anush Minassian, until he was old enough to bear the heat of the workshop, Garo found himself handling the warm produces of the workshop to carry to the market at the age of thirteen. Minassian glass was in high demand, even outside Cheydinhal, and Aram’s ties to various wandering merchants meant that they got a cut from sales outside the province, let alone the city. It was not a significant amount of money, for the bulk of the profit still came from personal orders, but the fact that Minassian glass was a thing meant quite a lot to the man. 

Of course, this all did not mean much to young. The Minassian family was respected in the city community, but there were greater families than them, Imperial, Breton, even Dunmer – the Indarys family, for one, founders of the Thorn Knights and Heroes of the Oblivion Crisis. Garo knew and appreciated the meager wealth and luxuries that he could only enjoy thanks to being Minassian, and while he did not want to downplay how glad he was for those, couldn’t there be a way to rise above molding and rolling red-hot glass all day? Garo yearned to find out, and in an attempt to do so, began spending more of his free time in the market, befriending traders and investing in safe venues such as antiques. His mother Anush, having been educated in the Synod as a youth, knew of Daedric tongues, and so he could easily verify if the things he bought were fake or not. One Ashlander idol, one fake Akaviri Katana and one giant’s thumb later, Garo finally found something of use – a Dwemer auto-drill, which, with the help of a carpenter and a blacksmith, was converted into a dough kneading machine for his mother. 

While Aram was personally cautious about his son’s seemingly meaningless hobby, did not voice any concerns or act to stop him; it was his son’s own money, and he figured his son was old enough to know the value of it. It was a pleasant surprise when he found out that Garo was also selling them and even making a meager profit. What he definitely did not expect, however, was Garo approaching him with a business proposition one day. Still, his son had grown old enough to grow facial hair, and so, recognizing him as a fellow adult than one of his younger sons, he decided to sit down and hear what Garo was to say. It was not about antiques, as he expected, but instead a long and well-framed explanation of how they weren’t making all the money they could from exports; were a member of the Minassian family sell their wares by themselves, instead of selling them to a trader for them to sale wherever, they would be bringing in far more money.

Aram was more a craftsman than a tradesman, but he could tell a profitable deal when he saw it. Garo was far from his best glassworker, and he understood, from the very fact that Garo himself showed the opportunity, that the boy’s aptitude was outside the workshop. And thus, Aram loaned Garo the money necessary to join a trading caravan – were Garo to make a loss, he would have to pay for it; were Aram to make a profit, he would get his fee and the Minassian workshop would get its rightful due. For a true, dyed-in-the-wool tradesman, it wasn’t exactly the best deal, but for Garo, whose primary motivation was to get himself some agency than to get himself some Septims, it was perfectly acceptable. The young Imperial got to work immediately – he bought two small wagons, two horses, the precautions necessary for the glass to not shatter on the way to its destination, and off to Skyrim he was sent.  

Garo’s journey towards the cold lands of the North was not a particularly favorable one, for even though he’d sold off half his inventory in Bruma (there was an upcoming wedding and the groom’s father wanted the best of the best), the journey through the Jerall Mountains made it a nerve-wracking endeavor to traverse with a wagon full of glassware. By the time they were down the Pale Pass and in Helgen, Garo had sacrificed one of his horses to save a wagon, and loaned the dogs of a musher in its place. Thankfully, the clientele of Whiterun were affluent enough for Garo to sell some of his remaining stock to make up for his losses during the journey, and from Whiterun on, it was smooth sailing. Plains were crossed, giants were observed from afar, and many an astonishing sight was witnessed on the way to Solitude, as if to strengthen Garo’s desire to stay on the road. It wasn’t without its problems, of course, but what experience was free to man without any toil and suffering? 

It was in Solitude where Garo revealed the crown jewels of his wares; flexible glass. Folks first thought of it as Malachite, but Garo was quick to prove the claimants otherwise by help of an alchemist who appraised it. While not as durable as something made of Malachite, it was bona fide glass, as opposed to a material with a glassy look, and more importantly, it was far cheaper. Though he’d only brought one exhibition piece and one dinner set, it was bought for the Blue Palace itself, selling for more than the worth of his entire wagon. While he would later learn that his profit from the dinner set was due to noble families competing for a unique gift for an upcoming wedding, and not because of its actual value, the profit was made, and so was the point – this was all the proof Garo needed for his father to continue this new business venture. In a hurry to bring the good news, Garo even sold the wagons to make for a faster return. 

The entrepreneur’s return was much celebrated by the family, and the money he made was well accepted. Turned out that, in Garo’s absence, a fire had broken out in one of the apprentice workshops, and although insured, compensations had to be made for the families of the workers that had lost their lives. While the family was tangled in the ensuing busywork, Garo learned that his father had already paid for preparations for a repeat trip, this time with a much larger stock. Unable to explain the conditions in which he’d made such money, he found himself obliged to make even bigger profits, and with a younger brother in tow, he was sent again to Skyrim. While anxious about the increased responsibilities at first, on the road up to the Jeralls, he found enough time to socialize with his younger brother, Decimus, to realize that others in the family shared his feelings about the business. Perhaps it was brotherly vigor, or perhaps it was the desire to see his desires act further, but Garo managed to put his fears aside and begin considering how they could make a profit from the trip that they had found themselves in.

More knowledgeable about the Pale Pass than the last time, the brothers Minassian were able to pass the border without issue, and although the sights of Skyrim were no less exhilarating to see the second time than the first, foreboding omens clouded the brothers’ journey. Learning that the High King was killed on their way to Solitude, and that Nord separatists, named Stormcloaks, were rebelling throughout the land, Garo and Decimus decided to avoid the possible rumble awaiting them in the city and made their way back to Whiterun to unload their remaining goods, and leave the province for good. However, they ended up finding themselves beset by separatist bandits on the road. Decimus was about to unsheathe his sword when Garo decided to leave one wagon behind as an offering and get away with Decimus on the second. Although the bandits were quick to turn back on their heels once they found that the wagon was full of glassware, the brothers’ wagon had covered enough distance for the bandits to decide that the chase was not worth it. 

The rest they had in Whiterun was short, and was not exactly filling them with confidence. Glassware was not exactly in high demand during times of civil war, and the brothers had unloaded their wagon for a pittance. Decimus was fearful of looking like a failure upon their return, and Garo was fearful of his venture being shut down. But fear was no cure for fate, and thus, they accepted their lot and decided to return. While passing through Helgen, Decimus remarked of the Colovians’ demand for the beverages of the north, and Garo made his last gamble, buying some barrels of Helgen Juniper Mead before making their way back home. Their wagons filled with booze, their hearts filled with fear, the brothers made their way through the Pale Pass into the Jeralls – and woke in the early day to unearthly roars, bearing witness to a great black dragon laying waste to the town they’d spent the other day in.

Alduin had made the brothers rich.

Descending hurriedly to Bruma with news of the situation, the brothers were first lauded as fearmongers, but when official reports of Helgen’s destruction reached the city, they were promptly summoned to report for the Count of Bruma. For their ‘service to the Empire’, they were given a meager sum of money, but they would later learn that the jackpot lay in their wagons. With the breweries of Helgen burnt to ash, and their workers similarly gone, the brothers Minassian were in all likelihood the owners of the single largest amount of the remaining Juniper Mead on all Tamriel, a vessel with which they could strike deep into the pockets of rich Colovians. Saving a barrel for the family to keep, the brothers began traveling through Colovia, telling tales of how Alduin had laid waste to an entire town before their very eyes, and then selling the heavily impressed, fearful Nords the ‘last bottles of Helgen’s finest’. By the time they returned to Cheydinhal, their coffers were full of gold.

Nonetheless, the experience was not without its damage. Garo was somewhat harrowed by their fear of being attacked through the journey, and the apocalyptic sight of an antediluvian monster wiping out a city before his very eyes was not exactly beneficial for his mindset. He quit traveling for a while, leaving it to his more adventurous brother Decimus and whoever Decimus could convince, himself taking to bookkeeping for the family’s trade venture and planning for the future. He began reading up on contemporary accounts of the Dominion, wondering if there was any money to be made in the southern provinces – they would not have the protection of the Empire, but it was not like it had served them any in Skyrim anyway. He figured that Aram would not mind if he spent some time for himself, having created an excellent business opportunity for the family to capitalize upon and bringing in the lion’s share of the profit. 

Garo’s next five years were spent at home, refining himself – at first, he joined the town militia in case of the Civil War going awry and reaching south, although the Cheydinhal Trained Band soon proved to be no more than a bunch of grown men dressing and marching like toy soldiers. Nonetheless, because of his status as a member of a prominent family, and his presence in the militia, he was approached by a Knight of the Thorn to be inducted into their brotherhood. Garo accepted the offer and quickly made use of his newly forged connections to make his family the sole supplier of glassware for the families of the young nobles that were now his brothers-in-arms. From his knighthood onward, Garo spent most of his time joining the Knights in hunting parties, drinking parties and, well, just parties. Not only was it a good time, but it also allowed him to deepen his family’s influence in the city, which never hurt. 

It was around this time when Garo, constantly urged by his parents to settle down and start a family of his own, decided to heed their advice. While he’d had a few escapades in his youth, and some short-stint lovers to accompany his partying with the Knights of the Thorn, when he looked back upon it, there was nothing concrete in his personal life. He began accompanying his mother Anush to ladies’ gatherings, and after hours upon hours of listening to the tales of the wives of burghers and stealing glances at their daughters, he eventually found a suitable candidate. Elena Albarnian was her name, a well-built lass about eight years younger than Garo, and even though Anush was concerned about her having Colovian or Nord ancestry, her argument being that no true Nibenese woman could stand at the same height as a man, the Albarnians were well established for their reputable ancestry as bankers, and more importantly, Garo had found something captivating in the girl’s gaze.

The marriage was arranged quickly, his father and his brothers congratulating Garo on finding a proper girl with a proper family (think of all the investments they could make!), and although Elena was not entirely loveless towards Garo, finding him a decent man, their feelings for each other did not seem to go beyond the initial spark. Along with that came the problem of Elena’s father, Hasphat, dying soon after their marriage – with no living child other than Elena and two other daughters, there was no man left to handle the family business, and the responsibility fell on his sons-in-law, one of them being Garo. Being only properly introduced to his in-laws at a rather tense dinner, he found that oversight of the Albarnian banks were divided to three upon Hasphat’s death, with Garo being responsible for the bank’s activity in Elsweyr and Valenwood. While somewhat peeved about his lack of consent to his new responsibilities, Garo was not exactly in a position to refuse and ended up abiding, for the sake of his newly wed wife, if nothing else. 

Of course, after some dinners and some time, Garo would receive news that his in-laws had used their position to take considerable loans from the Imperial Treasury, before selling their shares in the bank and running off to parts unknown; last Garo heard, they were in southern Morrowind, supposedly planning an expedition to Akavir. Whatever the plans of the two were, Garo found that he alone was responsible for paying off the in-laws’ loans, as to not get into further legal trouble with the bank’s new shareholders – one fat, quarrelsome Dunmer by the name of Helseth Girano, one Khajiit whose name he forgets, even fatter than Helseth, and worse, the Imperial Treasury itself. Under threat of legal action, Garo began seeing to the liquidation of the bank, considering it the safest option since he had no knowledge of banking nor any enthusiasm for it, and made his way to Elsweyr with the fat Khajiit to proceed.

And boy, it was a doozy. 

Caught up in a chain of events involving a completely emptied bank vault, at least three drug syndicates, an attempted coup, a Daedric cult, a gigantic toad swordmaster and copious amounts of Skooma, Garo found himself returning to Cyrodiil three years later a disheveled, balding mess, and found that he had been legally declared dead and that his wife had inherited his share of the Minassian wealth and remarried. While Garo did not hold any contempt against his now ex-wife, since he himself wasn’t sure if the whole ordeal wasn’t a dying dream, the fact that he was alive was the cause of a lengthy legal battle, which he was only able to fund thanks to his family. Some years later, the court was settled, with Garo still responsible for liquidating the bank assets in Valenwood, and Elena still a divorcee. In debt to his family both spiritually and financially, and in debt to the Imperial Treasury, Garo ended up journeying to Valenwood to wrap up his business, and had just managed to write off the Albarnian Bank and chase new trade opportunities with the Dominion before finding himself tangled in yet another adventure. 

[B]Biggest Regret:[/B] While he has since been divorced, Garo considers marrying his ex-wife Elena to be the worst mistake of his life, mostly because of the matters that he found himself having to contend with after marriage. He is still partial to Elena and the two are coolly civil with each other, but nonetheless, having lost nearly three years in Elsweyr, and almost his life, in trying to save his in-laws' debts from taking his family down with them, Garo is understandably not very chill about the matter.

[B]Garo‘s Goal:[/B] Garo has a simple goal in life, to be rich enough to not worry about work or debts anymore. While he is not without greed, the goal is fueled more by a desire to settle back down and live his life in peace, rather than a Sisyphean desire to amass more money.
[hr]
[B]Skills:[/B]

[i]Expert:[/i] Mercantile
[i]Adept:[/i] Alchemy, Hand-to-Hand, Speechcraft
[i]Novice:[/i] Acrobatics, Athletics, One-Handed Blade

[b]Spells:[/b]
None

[B]Equipment:[/B]
-A burgher’s outfit
-A sword belt
-A potion satchel
-A Nibenese sword
-A Khajiiti dagger
-A Camel hair cape 
-A purse heavy with Septims

[B]Misc. Possessions:[/B]
-A quill and inkwell set
-A few wraps of parchment
-A bundle of financial documents
-A ledger of sales
-A personal journal

[/hider]