[OOC] The Absent King

[Life in Stasis]

When the interest check didn't have any takers, (and literally every person I personally asked turned me down) I actually lost faith and was willing to say I'd given it my best shot and throw in the towel. I'm too old and I've been out of the game for too long to have unlimited ambition.

I'm glad you want to keep it going, and because you asked, I will. I do have great plans and it would work with or without the Knights.

If I don't have something up by 10pm CST tonight, I'll have something in the morning. Thank you for your continued interest. Means a lot.

[Culluket]

Sorry for the wait, I was paralyzed with indecision and unsure how to approach things given the situation. I've gone ahead and posted, leaving the actions of Kolbe's BATTLE BROTHERS uncertain. There are plenty of options open; You guys can find safety in your own way, join Kolbe and the Captain at the standard, or lunge onto a horse as they either gallop by or seek you out since they're assuredly THAT well trained.

Otherwise, we'll assume we've lost each other in the chaos, and you can resurface later -- or not -- in whatever manner works for you.

[JulienJaden]

@Culluket I'd say it was well worth the wait.

@Life in Stasis Great plans require a little bit of endurance and at least half your players posted fairly fast, so you are doing something right, even if you have been out of the loop for a while.
Just bump up that interest check, be patient and let us continue. The only thing you can do wrong right now is giving up too soon.

[Life in Stasis]

Means a lot, @JulienJaden, thank you.

I have someone slated to join at the end of February, an old friend and entertaining writer, but I'll keep searching for others.

[Errant Son]

Lord Gawain Castagher of Keep Sudval

“Yeah? Well what did 'ya expect?! Fuck the Eretol, fuck the Elves, fuck the Dwarves, and above all fuck those Vicennians! They want war?! Well come get some, you fuckin' blasphemous mages!”

---

【Name】

Gawain Castagher

【Age】

22

【Gender】

I'm evidently male, ye' fuck!

【Race】

I'd be damned to ever be anything other than a pure-bred Aretian man!

---

【Appearance】

Gawain is a relatively nice-looking man, although beauty is as always in the eye of the beholder. No lady shall swoon over him if she doesn't enjoy his visage, after all. Gawain himself is less concerned with such trivial things as love and feelings, which is noticeable in his lack of care for his appearance. Some might say that is in and of it's own a trait that makes him more desirable. And to that, Gawain would say 'fuck off, you twat.' But, let us move on to a description of sorts.

His face has a nice bone structure - his jawline is sharp, as if drawn with a pencil and ruler, and ends in a slightly pointy, blocky chin. However that much is not very visible - his blonde thin beard covers most of that. He has skinny cheeks, making it look like he is malnourished, but that's simply the bone structure that seems to run within his family. No such thing as undernourishment is present in Gawain, no sir.

Furthermore, he has a thin, but sharp nose. It doesn't expand outwards too far, about 'average' in size if that is any good of an indicator. Besides that, he has thin lips. They are pale in color, only slightly darker than his own skin. Speaking of his skin, he's quite pale too. The most noticeable part of his body is likely the three dots on his forehead, a religious mark that brand him a 'Monarchist' - a slightly tolerated sect of the regular faith that believes the King to be the reincarnation of God on Earth. Divine Rule! Hence they are some of the utmost loyal people in the realm, despite the shortcomings of their God-King. That was illustrated perfectly well by how loyal they were even to the near-insane king that used his power to tyrannize the people. He was God, after all, who are they to doubt him?

His hair is well kept, and slicked back with a bandana over it to keep it in place. However the bandana isn't his only accessory - he wears a set of earrings, silver buttons the size of a small coin, one on each side. Anyway, moving on with his hair, it's blonde in colour due to his amazing genes. Just kidding. Both parents were blonde. What did you think, peasant? His hair moves on quickly into a thing beard lining his jawline, forming quickly into a full beard across his chin and upper lip - truly, what man calls himself a man without such beard?

【Brief character outline】

Fuck. Everything. No, that'd be too simple. Gawain is a very racist, sexist, anti-anything that isn't normal. And in his eyes, anything that isn't an Aretian human isn't normal. Women should be taking care of their children, Elves should be prancing in their own god-damn woods, Dwarves should bugger off into their caves and leave the REAL world-ruling to the humans. And for the Vicennians.. Screw them double over! Those blasphemous mages tempt God to war with them every day! If our God-King were here, Gawain would be sure that he'd declare war right away to go fight those blasphemous heathens.

Besides the vulgarities and hatred for anything that isn't Aretian human-like, he's actually an okay guy. Okay, that's a lie. He's pretty much an asshole. But he's an asshole with a title, so at least you can't say it to his face. He likes to fight, though, and he has this thin called honor, so he's not that much of an asshole. Okay, I lied again. He's still an asshole but he won't stab you in the back I guess.

【History】

Born the second son of a low-ranking nobleman in the family of Castagher, keepers of the keep of Sudval, yadda yadda, long list of purely useless titles here that were given to them by the insane cruel king for their services and money. Gawain was lucky being the second son, since he avoided the strenuous task of being tutored in all things that had to do with the management of a keep, and instead got to enjoy an education in combat. Fun!

Didn't take long for him to be allowed to squire for some other nobleman. The lucky nobleman was marcher-lord Kristofal, who lived in the march (a specific type of hold, which was exempt from taxes and was mainly just a fort with a large garrison on border provinces.. you know, to protect the important land and stuff..) near the border of the Vicennians. That's where Gawain learned how much of a blasphemous folk those Vicennians were! He never actually saw them doing blasphemous things but lord Kristofal told him all about it - they do not bury their dead, they throw them in a campfire and then cook potions over the burning bodies of their family, and then LAUGH about it. Obviously such blasphemy is intolerable, so they must be eradicated.

And so, his view is still the same. Minus the hocus-pocus, he just hates the Vicennians all together, not just because they are mage tolerators. Death to Vicennia! Death to the Elves, the Dwarves and those horse-shagging Eretol!

I slightly altered the skeleton, I hope that's okay. I also added a specific sect of the religion (whichever there is) to become the Monarchists. Doesn't mean much, just that to them their king is also a reincarnation of God on earth. Gives him a reason to scream ''MY GOD'' and mean it when he sees the king after such a long time.

Also gives him reason to believe they're on a holy mission.

[Life in Stasis]

Well he certainly is passionate. I wonder what drives his anger. Give him a sense of certainty in an uncertain world, perhaps.

The religion angle is fine with me, as long as you're okay with me treating it as a very radical interpretation of god. The sort of thing people would be leery of engaging him in dialogue about, even if they were loyal to their idea of god and king.

One minor correction I'll make is that the country is actually Vicenna, not Vicennia. Areta and Vicenna were named after Arateaus and Avicenna, doctors from ancient history. It's probably something I'll keep up with if I name any new countries.

It looks good from here, go ahead and add it into the char page.

Got most of the way through a post, but my schedule is tight and I'll have to complete it tonight. It'll perhaps give @Minato Namikaze and @StoneDogg1 one last chance before I essentially kill them in my upcoming post. @Errant Son, you can either retcon yourself in the traveling party (in which case, you'll have been traveling with these men for a couple weeks along a river, getting further and further toward the edge of the country), or you can wait until later and we can arrange a more creative entrance.

The power is YOURS!

[Errant Son]

@Life in Stasis I would wait a bit, since I want to read up on the rest of the posts. So we could perhaps go for a bit more of a creative entry if I don't read up in time.

[Life in Stasis]

Fantastic. I know just how to use you. Gawain will hate it. Absolutely hate it. Hopefully the loss of life will be minimal.

I'll send you a PM, but as I said before I'll be unavailable for several hours starting soon. Because I'll be asleep.

[Errant Son]

I can already tell you're gonna be a fun GM. Please, torture my characters. I promise I'll do my best to come out on top every damn time.

Fucking foreigners.

[Life in Stasis]

I'm hoping Juna is still with us!

[Errant Son]

There we are, I hope I do not disappoint with my post. If there are any remarks or criticisms, I'd be glad to hear them and then ignore them. (Just kidding. I'm really insecure about my writing, and this is only the second advanced RP I've done ever. So please go easy on me.) If I need to fix or alter anything in my post please let me know, I'd hate to cause a plothole.

[ZB1996]

I'm hoping Juna is still with us!

@Life in Stasis

Definitely.

[Life in Stasis]

@Errant Son Your writing is fine! Don't write to impress anyone, write to satisfy yourself. "Advanced" RP is just a hollow label that indicates you take RP seriously and know how to employ punctuation, in my opinion.

However the problem is that I placed Lothren inside the building that Gawain was imprisoned in. He had asked the others to meet him downstairs (where he was returning to) so I'm concerned that you may have taken events a little far, unless Lothren is just walking back in slow motion and watching Gawain walk around.

Is it possible to cut it short after he kicks the hell out of that mage? When the others arrive, they're sure to find an interesting scene there.

Definitely.

@ZB1996

Excellent.

[Errant Son]

the elf’s eyes widened and suddenly vanished.

I must've mistook the ''suddenly vanishing'' thing for himself vanishing, but I'm guessing his eyes vanished?

EDIT: As in he closed them in the dark so it seemed like he was gone?

[Life in Stasis]

My bad. I should have perhaps included Lothren's return at the end of the post. I still can if you prefer.

What happened (as is implied in the middle section of the Mummers post) is Lothren discovered the cell, knocked out the mage, and left. He went upstairs, called out for Juna, and then went to return downstairs. What Gawain does was meant to fit in the brief window that Lothren had gone.

No actual vanishing, just a quick departure. Perhaps bad word choice on my part.

[Errant Son]

@Life in Stasis nah that's fine, I'll remove the part after he kicks the mage.

EDIT: Should be set straight.

[Life in Stasis]

Excellent, thanks!

[Errant Son]

No problem, I know how annoying it can be on the GM side to get all things like that chronologically right.

[JulienJaden]

Not my best post and I kinda godmodded the three of us back to the house, but it was either that or posting two paragraphs. (And if anybody wishes for me to undo it, I absolutely will.)

That said, unless @Life in Stasis has other plans, I wouldn't mind Annara taking a little bit of punishment from Gawain, @Errant Son, and perhaps giving some back too. What better way to begin a friendship and welcome you to the RP proper than beating the shit out of each other? :P

[FateWeaver]

Ended up taking a nap and I'm running out of time before work. I'll get a post up in the morning.