Time to throw my hat into the ring, as it were.

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[list][*][u][b]Name[/b][/u]: Rolan Herzog

[*][u][b]Age[/b][/u]: 27

[*][u][b]Gender[/b][/u]: Male

[*][u][b]Race[/b][/u]: Human

[*][u][b]Appearance[/b][/u]:
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Rolan is roughly 5'9" in height, with a lean figure that lacks almost any shreds of fat, either burned off during regular exertions during daily life, or deliberately worked off during exercise. He always keeps his hair short but otherwise unkempt, failing to obscure his dull red eyes.

[*][u][b]Personality[/b][/u]:
Rolan, first and foremost, is an incredibly pragmatic soul. Everything he has, does, or considers falls under the idea that it needs to have some practical, genuine purpose. Be it hunting between missions, gathering reagents for his alchemical studies, performing maintenance of his equipment, or even during times of rest, it all has a purpose behind it. He wears a pleasant, if mildly brazen, confidence as a face for those he deals with, showing the same casual demeanor that he does a lowborn beggar, and the most noble of blood. Anyone can lose everything and plummet into nothing, he knows his family is one long running story of that, so he only puts stock in what is practical and provable. Still, he keeps an even keel and tries to not let things get to him, taking it as a personal challenge to keep that confidence he wears going strong even in the face of terrible odds or downturns of fortune.

In reality, Rolan knows damn well he is fighting an uphill battle. The family legacy dogs him rather persistently, and his constant bounty hunting has made him a number of enemies in low places. He knows that someone is coming to collect on his actions sooner rather than later, but rather than fight it or try and run from it, he just keeps on living his life. No point trying to course correct when he can at least claim to enjoy his life currently, even if its more violent than he would have liked thanks to not taking kindly to bandits being problematic. Regardless, he thinks its enough to keep meeting the day with that same casual confidence that he wears as a mask, determined to not let it slip when he thinks anyone is looking. Last thing he needs is people prying into his private life, especially if they recognize who his family is. Of course, he never bothers to include his family name, even having gone so far as to say that he doesn't have one, that intent on stepping away from the many mistakes they have made. 

[*][u][b]Brief Backstory[/b][/u]:
Rolan Herzog would describe his family legacy as "Wasted potential", and he isn't far from the mark. The only son of a lineage of disgraced nobility, his family has the infamous specter of disgrace hanging over them and dogging their every step. His great grandfather, a vocal opponent of the ruling family of Thain, and of the practices of thrusting children into leadership, referring to the Iron Roses. This came to a head in a minor revolt that left the patriarch of the family dead and his surviving heirs shamed and stripped of much of their wealth, prestige, and standing. What little the family had would be wasted on seeking revenge, and with each generation that passed would end up having less and less to work with, until they had little more than a few heirlooms that hadn't been sold off to make ends meet.

Rolan, raised with the constant reminders by his aging father of what they had once been, mostly treats this legacy as a nuisance. Nothing comes of it besides sideways glances and muttered mentions in taverns and markets, becoming more pronounced the more upscale and civilized the place he visited. As such, once his father passed, he bid farewell to his mother and left for the woods. He intended to avoid all this nonsense of reputation, family lineage, or responsibilities for a life simply living in the wild. For her part, Rolan's mother knew she would not outlast her husband by long and had concealed her failing health from him, so that her death shortly after his departure would be a shock to all, including Rolan. Rumors, of course, abounded about how the boy had abandoned her, and after the funeral rites he was quick to vanish again.

Rolan intended to just spend his days hunting and practicing what he had learned, from marksmanship with the family's last heirloom they still owned, an ornate and well kept crossbow that still had the name Rittersturz engraved along the body of the weapon, to hunting and alchemy that he picked up during his time in the woods. He would rarely return to the local village the woods bordered, bringing back excess from his hunts so that nothing went to waste. He also began, albeit unofficially, helping out around the town when he visited, using it as a chance to not completely forget social interactions and trade for things he couldn't make or find for himself. Certainly not because he had gotten bored and, even, lonely in the woods. That would be absurd. He even saw off the odd bandit or two, though this quiet life would not last forever.

Bandits would raid the village that Rolan had taken a liking to, coming back to find it had suffered a great deal of damage and injuries, though fortunately no one who had been wounded couldn't be saved. There were a few dead, and he made a decision to go out and start hunting down the bandits in question. Tracking the gang that had raided the town, rather than make an attack outright, he began hunting and hounding them, picking them off a few at a time before withdrawing into the woods again. He couldn't take them all at once, and he knew it, so he dedicated his efforts to whittling them down and not giving them enough respite to recover. He would whittle them down like this until he could taken the rest of them out before they scattered completely, and went back to report his success to the village. Hopefully now things would go back to being calm.

Of course, things were never just that simple. Rolan had found he had a knack for tracking down criminals, bandits, and other troublemakers, and his abilities were quickly recommended to surrounding villages by the grateful folk who thought they were helping. Rolan begrudgingly began carrying out a sort of bounty hunter's life, preferring to bring in problems dead, regardless of the price for them alive. Life was simpler that way, plus it would hopefully keep vengeful encounters with those he had dragged to justice out of his life. Of course he would start building a reputation that would start making him enemies in certain parts of the country, and one that would no doubt get him into serious trouble. Until then, however, he would keep working, unaware fate, or chance perhaps, was nudging him towards a chance encounter with a certain knightly order. 

[*][u][b]Equipment[/b][/u]:
Rolan still carries his family pride and joy Rittersturz, a crossbow modified to maximize the amount of draw weight it could sustain without flying apart after repeated firings. He has a specially made wippe lever for reloading purposes, and a bolt case for his spare ammunition. He also has a variety of small tools, portable alchemical supplies and reagents, a sturdy knife that, while stated for cleaning hunted game, has shed more than its fair share of blood in combat when Rolan gets caught in close quarters. The vial he wears on his hip looks sinister, but is, in fact, a jam that he learned to make from his mother, and keeps handy for snacks. 

[*][u][b]Skills[/b][/u]:
Rolan lacks many of the typically knightly qualities one would expect of a noble in the Iron Roses. His combat capabilities are focused on crossbow and dagger, mostly the former, proving to be a talented shot in medium ranges, though he makes up for this lack of longer range finesse with a sharpness for firing into chaotic situations safely. When pressed into melee, rather than disengaging using his dagger, he aims to get in close, under the guard and reach of larger, longer weapons, and open them up from vulnerable points in armor. Compared to a dedicated fighter, however, he mostly relies on speed and brutality for when he cant evade melee.

Learning from his mother, Rolan is a practicing alchemist and hunter, enjoying both in equal measures. In alchemy he focuses on natural reagents and mixtures, adding to the family journal the various recipes and mixtures he has discovered, from poisons and herbal remedies to mixtures that burn on contact with air and the odd modification to his bolts to carry said alchemical mixtures. He also knows his way around general wilderness survival, be it hunting, finding shelter, procuring clean water, and other necessities for living in the wilds. By extension, he is rather capable in remaining unseen when he chooses to, though he has no formal training in such, tracking game undetected gives one a knack for stealth when the need arises.

However, when it comes to classical skills like riding, Rolan has not had the time nor opportunity to practice. He can keep himself on a horse, but is unlikely to be fighting from horseback to any degree without just dismounting and fighting on foot. Needless to say he also lacks any skill or knowledge of magic, knowing that it exists but little else. He also never particularly picked up on courtly graces, and can no doubt easily get into trouble if expected to be properly diplomatic on missions dealing with other knights and nobility in formal senses.[/list]
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