[hider=Brandon Rivers][b][color=aba000]• Character Name:[/color][/b] Sir Brandon Rivers

[b][color=aba000]• Age:[/color][/b] 35

[b][color=aba000]• Gender:[/color][/b] Male

[b][color=aba000]• Height:[/color][/b] 7'1"

[b][color=aba000]• Race:[/color][/b] Dragonborn

[b][color=aba000]• Class:[/color][/b] Paladin

[b][color=aba000]• Character Appearance:[/color][/b] [url=https://i.imgur.com/RpBisKS.png?1]Brandon[/url] is a hulking brute of a Dragonborn, whose scales glimmer like tarnished gold. A giant even among his own kind, he carries more than twenty-five stone in scale and muscle, and in his plate armor he weighs a full quarter ton. Ragged scars stretch across his face and body, remnants of a life filled with battle. His armor fits him strangely, as it was forged in a human style, but its proportions match Brandon's size. The remnants of his golden heraldry are barely visible, the armor is rusted at the edges and shot through with bolt-holes, and he has completely forgone his helmet, boots, and gauntlets. 

[b][color=aba000]• Short History:[/color][/b] Brandon Rivers does not know the name he was born with, he was too young to remember it when his family was killed, and there was no one among the people that found him that could read his clan's name set proudly at their gate. The clan that bore him, the mother that laid his egg and cared for his clutch, were put to the sword by a rival Dragonborn clan, a dispute over some farming land at the border of their two territories. Vultures came to pick over the remains the next morning, and found a golden, infant dragonborn clutched under the body of a she-dragon with six arrows in her back. The baby was dirty and sick from cold and hunger, but alive.

This was a find too rare to pass up. The scavengers took the baby with them, and as quick as they could manage it put him up for auction in a public slave market on the Sword Coast. A rare specimen like a Dragonborn would fetch a generous price quickly, they imagined. However, by a stroke of luck or fate, an emissary of Cormyr passed through the same market square as the baby was being auctioned off. The emissary thought nothing of the goings-on, but the knight leading his protection detail was aghast. At once he stopped their procession and bought the infant himself, swearing to raise him to defend the weak and innocent.

The infant Dragonborn, now named Brandon Rivers at the whim of the knight who had adopted him, was raised in the monastery of their order in Cormyr. Brandon was brought up among knights, monks, and priests, all sworn in service to the merciful light of Lathander. Brandon grew up idolizing Sir Harold Rivers, the knight that had saved him from a life of slavery, and as he grew (quickly, as Dragonborn children are wont to do) he trained and studied to be inducted into the Knights of Lathander himself. All the while he did his best to integrate into a human-majority society that either considered him a curious oddity, or a monster in the making.

Brandon grew like a weed, by age 13 he was taller than all of the human knights in their order. It was two years later, and after much struggle, effort, seminary study, and martial training that Brandon was knighted by his father and inducted into the order of Lathander. It was not long after his ascent into knighthood that the Dragon Cult of Tiamat enacted a bloody scheme on Cormyr, and the knights of the realm were called upon to put down the uprising. For years Brandon battled dragon-cultists and the twisted monsters that they used as weapons. Many of the cultists being Dragonborn that worshiped the Scaled Tyrant, Brandon grew distasteful of his own kind, considering their violence against the common people of Cormyr to be cowardly barbarism. 

Eventually the cult's threat waned, and Brandon and his father both came away from the war as hardened veterans and celebrated heroes. Sir Harold Rivers was named Grand Master of their order, and Brandon earned many accolades and favors. The sight of the massive Dragonborn cutting down foes in swathes inspired his brother knights to bestow him with such epithets as "Drakehammer," (which Brandon despised, being neither a drake nor wielding a hammer) and "the Knight of Goldwyrm," (which Brandon still did not like, but was at least accurate). Not one to turn down a gift, Brandon begrudgingly accepted a coat of arms gifted to him by the king of Cormyr, depicting a golden serpent guarding a serene river, as a matching, purple serpent flew imperiously above it, with the golden rose of Lathander above all. 

Brandon's days of heroism and chivalry came to an end as a power struggle emerged among the bickering nobility of Cormyr. The old king had passed away peacefully, but news of his hidden corruption came to light after his death. Nobles rallied to unseat the heir apparent and Brandon began to feel the tide turning against the crown. However, his father and master of their knightly order passed down the proclamation that the knights of Lathander would stand with the rightful king, their loyalty unwavering. Brandon's loyalty to his father outweighed his reliance on his instincts, and they took up arms against the usurpers. Brandon had been right, the rebel noble faction had far greater support than the crown, and while they fought bravely, their numbers could not be matched. Brandon's aging father was killed on the field of battle, while Brandon himself was captured and ransomed back to the king.

The king was eventually overthrown, and the knights of Lathander were left without a king to serve and without a grand master to lead them. The remaining knights, including Brandon, took and oath of vengeance against the rebel sat on Cormyr's throne, and went their separate ways into exile. Brandon took his arms and armor with him, as well as a keepsake of his father: the man's skull, stripped bare of flesh and dipped in gold. The experience embittered Brandon enormously, as he had spent his entire life in service to the people of Cormyr, enduring their suspicion of him as well as fighting zealously against his own kind. All of that effort was for nothing, as he was now a hated exile, a knight without a kingdom. He has wandered for years since, selling his services as a sellsword, searching for a new purpose in life. Brandon has gained some reputation as a powerful paladin for hire, the golden fetish-skull he carries him earning him the nickname, "Knight of Goldskull."

[b][color=aba000]• Personality:[/color][/b] Brandon strikes many as a hard, taciturn man; his emotions and thoughts kept closely guarded. He listens much and says little, though his scarred, scowling reptilian face often says more than enough on its own. While he has a warrior's practiced calm under pressure, a boiling rage still churns within him. While difficult to bring to the surface, Brandon's fury typically explodes in a literal gout of flame. His exile and the events leading up to it are a source of bitterness and shame for him, and in most cases he will refuse to discuss the matter. That aside, Brandon has little trouble finding work, as his clients find his service to be efficient and professional, a welcome difference from the majority of eccentric mercenary adventurers. 

Additionally to his exile, Brandon considers his own race to be a source of personal embarrassment for him. Raised among humans, he was always aware that he was not like them, and they never let him forget it. He spent his youth kowtowing to the anxieties of the humans around him, and did his best to act like one among them. When he met other Dragonborn in the war against the dragon cult he was ashamed to see that these evil cultists were what others saw when they looked at him. To this day Brandon looks down on other Dragonborn, likening them to bloodthirsty barbarians, and has a poor opinion of dragons and draconic races in general, even having some reservations against Bahamut and his worshipers. 

[b][color=aba000]• Weapons & Armor:[/color][/b] Brandon still wears (most of) his knightly armor, though it has seen far better days. His typical armaments include a huge, [url=https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/9a/e6/219ae6597ef322d9ee11dd2380016a3b.jpg]golden halberd[/url], too heavy to be wielded by a normal human, enchanted by the clerics of Lathander, a simple shortsword and hand-axe to use as sidearms, and a tower shield that once depicted his coat of arms, but now suggests some kind of gold and purple mosaic.

[b][color=aba000]• Accessories & Miscellaneous:[/color][/b] Brandon's holy symbol that invokes his oath of vengeance is the skull of his father, mentor, and senior knight, which has been dipped in gold and often hangs at Brandon's hip by chains looped through the eye sockets.

[b][color=aba000]• Skills and Abilities:[/color][/b] As a paladin, Brandon is both a powerful warrior and a wielder of divine magic. A veteran of many battles, Brandon specializes in wielding his oversized halberd with both hands and rending his foes apart with his incredible strength and surprising speed. Brandon has the innate power to sense sources of positive and negative energy around him, can heal others with a touch, and can abjure his foes to suffer great harm at his hands, all by invoking his oath of vengeance. Brandon knows a considerable number of divine spells, such as those that invoke healing, courage, and protection, as well as those that search out his foes, undo their evil works, and smite them down. In his mercenary work, he has picked up a few other spells, mostly those that invoke greater harm on his foes, track them, or bind them in place. Brandon can summon a celestial mount to bear him into battle, which takes the form of a sturdy, robust bicorn (known among many races as a rhinoceros). 

[b][color=aba000]• Other:[/color][/b] While Brandon has the ability to breathe fire like many other Dragonborn, he chooses not to except in matters of absolute life or death, as he finds such a display of his inhumanity to be embarrassing and distasteful.[/hider]