[center][h1]Sir Brandon the Broken Blade[/h1]
[img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f5/74/1f/f5741f656db193b1f2b6ac537c202b1f.jpg[/img]
[sub][i]Art by [url=https://www.artstation.com/abfeemster]A.B. Feemster[/url][/i][/sub][hr][hr][/center][h3]Name[/h3]
Sir Brandon of Bainbridge, formerly Knight Captain of the Order of Saint Helios, Sworn Sword to Royal House of Vortigern, Champion of the Crown, Third Blade of the Kingdom, Knight Paragon of the Virtues of Duty and Vigilance. Now known as Sir Brandon the Broken Blade, Traitor and Apostate to the Crown and the Church.
[h3]Race[/h3]
Human
[h3]Gender[/h3]
Male
[h3]Age[/h3]
Forty Four
[h3]Appearance[/h3]
Sir Brandon is a tall man, standing easily over six feet in height. His build is muscular but lean, Brandon's physical prowess always relying more upon his speed than his brawn. His skin is tanned from long hours riding under the sun and time spent pursuing outdoor activities. A lifetime of combat training and actual warfare has left him with a number of faded silvery scars that mostly cross his upper limbs and face.

Brandon's face would generally be considered handsome, if a little bit stern and brooding. It's are long, with an aquiline nose and high cheekbones. A pair of grey eyes stare out from under a dark furrowed brow. Similarly dark hair frames it, shot through with a scattering of grey, and a short beard hides his chiselled jaw. 

Captivity has changed him somewhat however, he is thinner than he was before, paler, more dishevelled. Fresh scars and old bruises mark his face and body, the skin at his wrists are raw and bloody from long periods spent wearing irons. Where before his dark hair was merely lightly flecked with grey, it is now well and truly streaked with it, and almost completely silver at the temples. But more than just those external changes, something more fundamental has changed inside of Brandon. There's a look in his eyes what wasn't there before, an emptiness, a void of despair and self loathing even deeper than the prison they have cast him into.
[h3]Personality[/h3]
Duty and diligence are the two ideals to which Brandon has organised his life. First to his father and family, later to his lord and liege, and finally unto the Crown itself. Always, he has put the desires and ambitions of others before his own. Always he has done what others have asked of him to the best of his abilities. Brandon was a man made to serve, much more comfortable following orders than being the person giving them out.

He is a man of few words. When he does talk, he speaks slowly in a careful and deliberate manner. His speech is far from coarse, but there is a degree of plainness to it. In fact there's a degree of plainness about Brandon in general. He dislikes ostentatious dress or drawing undue attention to himself. Despite his considerable martial prowess he was never considered much of tourney knight, only ever entering the lists at the command of his superiors. 

A stern knight of few words could easily come over as a cold or unfeeling individual. But where he could Sir Brandon would always try to temper what he had to do with other ideals a knight was supposed to uphold. He tried to offer mercy where he could, he tried to be chivalric, defend the poor and the weak from the strong and the wicked. From behind his stony mask he tried to uphold both, his duty and his conscience.

Then it all went up in flames.

Brandon is a lost man. A broken blade. A mess of despair and self-loathing. He has committed crimes against his King and Country and even worse crimes against his own conscience. Sometimes he wishes he did not feel empathy, so he could have done what they asked of him without it destroying him. Other times he wishes he had plunged his sword into Tyronde's heart the first time he had laid eyes on him. Mostly he wishes that he was dead.
[h3]Background[/h3]
[hider=You Weren't There]The tavern stank with the odour of stale ale and unwashed bodies. Three weeks the regiment had been on the march. Three weeks of rain, mud, and sore feet before they were finally back on a good Imperial road, one with actual inns that served proper beer, instead of the horsepiss the locals round here somehow drank. 

Gav pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers at the bar to slam his coin down. He returned minutes later with several mugs of foaming ale to put before his drinking companions. There was Alf, the gangly archer, Old Drummond, the pikeman who'd spent more years on campaign than some men had in their god-given span, and Little Oller, a greenhorn on his first outing as a soldier of the Crown.

And, like most nights when they got the chance to sit down and get drinking, they were swapping war stories. Drummond was talking, banging on about how he almost shat himself when they had held the line against the Black Baron's cavalry charge back in '76. Oller was lapping it up like he did most of Drummond's bullshit.

"O'course we won the day in the end. Tyronde had the Baron's head on a pike by the end of the month, and I pulled a set of the nicest boots I ever did own off of a corpse on that field. Did I ever tell you about those boots Gav? Those boots wer-"

"Yeah but what was the time you was most afraid of anything?" Oller interjected before Drummond could finish his tangent about the dead man's boots.

"Most afraid yer say?" Drummond paused for a sip of his ale, stroked at the scraggly white beard that hung beneath his jaw. "That's easy..." He continued after his momentary hesitation. "Sir Brandon of Bainbridge, the Third Blade. The night he lost it and killed Inquisitor Thomond." 

The veterans of the group glanced at which other and all shifted uncomfortable in their seats. Some of the noise and laughter in the groups around them also began to die down.

"Just one knight? I thought you fought monsters and mages and heretics and all that?" Oller joked, seemingly obvious to the change in atmosphere that his question had created.

"Aye we have and more. But still... Bainbridge. You hope you never see anything like it. I seen him fight before that night, knew how quick he was, how that plain ole' sword of his could slice and man up three ways before he had a chance to sneeze. But... it was... the fucking savagery of it. He gutted anyone who got within a stones throw of him. Only reason I'm alive is told the sergeant to go fuck himself when he told us to form up against him."

"He killed near a hundred men that night. Fifty more on the road to Port Imalys the way I hear it told." Alf spoke quietly from the other side of the table.

"And not a drop of monster blood or magic about him. Just steel, and anger, and fucking madness." Drummond shook his head. "Always was a buttoned up prick, barely ever raised his voice. Not good for a man like, bottling all that in."

"But... why'd he do it?" Oller asked the question they'd all been dreading.

It was bad enough remembering that night. Remembering the fucking demon that Bainbridge had turned into once he had hacked off the Inquisitor's head. But it was worse remembering what had come before. What had made Sir Brandon snap. What he had done, what they had all done. 

His mind filled with the flames. The screams.

They didn't talk about it, but there was one thing Gav was sure about. All the men at the table who had been there, none of them blamed Bainbridge for what he did. None of the regretted the hole he made through that fucking bastard Thomond's chest.

"Shut the fuck up kid." Gav finally said. "You weren't there."[/hider]
[h3]Talents[/h3]
[b]Third Blade of the Kingdom:[/b] At one point in time Sir Brandon was considered one of the greatest knights of the Westerlands. Particularly skilled with a blade, there few other than the most elite of swordsmen could stand up to him in single combat. 

[b]Knight Paragon:[/b] Sir Brandon was once a member of the nobility, and served in the Royal Court for many years. He understands court politics, heraldry, the history of the great houses of the Westerlands, and how to conduct oneself amongst the aristocracy. 

[b]Knight Captain:[/b] Sir Brandon was once a military commander as well as a champion. He knows how to command and discipline men, how to plan a campaign, how to employ military strategy. Some of his former subordinates might even still have a degree of loyalty to their old commander...
[h3]Flaws[/h3]
[b]Broken Blade:[/b] Sir Brandon is not the disciplined and dutiful knight he once was. He is broken man, his convictions shaken, his faith  shattered. He despises himself for what he has done both for and against the Crown. Sometimes he thinks it would have been better if he had let himself fall in battle than endure the despair he lives with every day. 

[b]Traitor and Apostate:[/b] When he killed an Inquisitor of the Sun Temple and forsook his vows to the King, Sir Brandon became more loathsome in the eyes of many than those monsters and heretics the Inquisition dealt with. After all, many were born evil or did not know any better than to believe in evil demons and spirits, but Brandon was raised good true in the Faith and yet still chose heresy and treachery.

[b]The Pyre of Children:[/b] He still sees it his dreams. Still hears the screams. He cannot face it again, not in the waking world. Brandon loathes fire, and there is nothing in this world than could compel him to raise his blade against an innocent child again. He would rather die.
[h3]Equipment[/h3]
Though he mostly discarded his knightly regalia during his attempted flight to exile. Sir Brandon retains a serviceable set of steel chainmail, along with a breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces, greaves, and an open faced helmet. His shield is oak banded with iron, and his sword, although exceptional fine, is unenchanted and largely unadorned. A dark hooded cloak helped to hide his identity before he was finally apprehended.