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Arden

Skayleigh (primarily) | 28 | Male

Appearance
Arden is a young man who so far has been spared from any imperfections inflicted upon him by the hardships of life. His skin is smooth and devoid of scars or similar things, his eyes crystal clear and slightly striking with their green color. He does not put much maintenance effort into his bronze-colored jungle of hair obviously: As long as it doesn't stick to his skin because of dirt and, as an added bonus, doesn't get into the way of his eyesight that exceedingly often he lets it grow with pleasure. The same can't be said about his beard though as it is strictly confined to the region about his chin and rather unusual for someone with elven blood in the first place. Aside from that it's worth mentioning that even by Skayleigh standards he's on the very tall side of things and that his overall build is not as lithe as one might expect from someone of his kind. It almost seems as if something is a little messed up with his bloodline...

Personality
In his very core Arden very much fulfills at least some of the expectations his Skayleigh blood is associated with: As long as there's food and liquor left he'll eat and drink in order to fill his stomach and, unlike many of the other races, he'd have to provoked very badly in order to even consider hurting one of his own kind. In fact he doesn't like hurting people in general for he has seen enough of a bloodshed early on and that was sufficient to leave some considerable marks in his mind. However it's a rough world where being a mercenary is a major source of income and, albeit grudgingly, he accepts that.

The big problem he has is that he himself has locked away his soul in what matches the paraphrase of a bank littered with booby traps and backup security measures. Not many people find their way through to discover his more warm-hearted self, the remainder fails when trying to talk about things he doesn't like talking about and gets firmly rebuffed. He's not the kind of guy for cover stories, but for straightforward approaches. Needless to say that this only helps to drag him into arguments frequently.

BackgroundLower class
Small-time mercenary taking on jobs for training and making money until his great moment has arrived.
Has family, but none he'd be aware of.

History
Oriel was an Andredian woman of noble descent whose family, like many of their kind, had gained hold of a notable patch of land on one the southern isles where she could live in wealth and relative peace. Coin and material had never been a problem for her and that had not changed during the transition from Andred as well, but her husband's health had not taken the long journey accross the sea with similar ease. He had broken his leg when slipping below decks in a storm and it never healed well using on-board methods. Whether the subsequent developments can be solely tracked back to this circumstance or if some other kind of frustration was involved as well is up to debate, but not only did he arrive partially crippled, but became a more and more heavy drinker. An increasing hazard to Oriel's relaxed way of life so far and, maybe even more importantly, to her reputation. She could only keep whitewashing and not telling certain things in her letters back home for so long until somebody would find out the true extent of what was going on behind the nice and thick walls of her remote home. Maybe someone would even find her husband completely drunk on the open street and know whom he 'belonged' to.

It was a scandal waiting to happen and other nobilities would feast upon it with pleasure and make a mock out of her -- or at least so she thought and started weighing alternative options to maintaining the strategy of hiding. Of course, given her societal standing, she had some idea about Andredian law, what people would consider to be befitting to her rank and how complicated both of these things were. Aiming for a proper divorce might have been the standard action, but it would have made things public even more quickly and cost her a fair amount of coin and property right away. More importantly however it would not have solved the main problem of getting an increasinly aggressive and unpleasant husband out of her life for sure. So Oriel decided to use the window of opportunity while it was still there. She looked at her once dearly-loved again and decided that he had not much of a ruined life left to lose, so she handed it over into the hands of professional disposal. It would leave the world with the mystery of the killer and the motive, but she would be the only one left truly knowing what kind of an unbearable man he had become and thus save her from a lot of problems and humiliation.

The hired assassin never told his name, but he came in the form of a quite impressive looking local from the Caelic isles: A Skayleigh whose primary line of work was finding unconventional solutions for unconventional customers. A drunkard was an easy target for any good archer, but that was not the only thing the man did. She, with certain desires that her former husband had been unable to fulfill properly for long and an attractive woman still, could not hold back and managed to seduce him in their second and last clandestine meeting. It was somewhat against a loner by profession's usual demeanor, but what bad thing should come out of it ? They both believed this way when he left.

Reality told Oriel a lesson a few months later when her belly started to grow. She ultimately gave birth to a triple-breed of man, elf and giant. How would nature think about this infernal concoction ? Would the child be able to grow up nicely or struggle for the entirity of its life ? And then there was the simple fact that she felt of having no way of calling back its father out of anonymity while she would have to explain how she had been able to become pregnant while not even having any official partner anymore. It dawned upon her that in the same night one of her biggest problems had ceased to exist she had accidentally laid the foundations for a new one. Arranging for her husband's death was something she had been able to justify to herself given the circumstances, but killing a newborn child was an entirely different matter she simply could not commit to. A different solution had to be found.

Arden, so the child's given and more Andredian-like name for the lack of knowledge about Skayleigh customs, was handed over to Oriel's most trusted servant and her family as sort of an adoption. Enough money was paid to keep everybody's mouth hopefully shut and the servant agreed, knowing that otherwise she might fall back into poverty. Arden was to grow up with the story of his father having died even before his birth and the servant being his mother. The solution kinda worked, at least considering that Arden grew up halfway happily and that Oriel had effectively outsourced a major issue. She visited him from time to time, but always pretending to be a friend and not telling the truth.

Nothing could prepare things for the sheer power of randomness though. A couple of years later on the assassin Oriel had once hired showed up again in town on his way through. At this point Arden already was in his early youth and sticking out of the crowd a bit. Just how many young Skayleigh happened to roam around in an Andred town who also had an eerie similarity to oneself ? The assassin was intrigued and stayed, only to finally remember that night a decade ago and to suspect what might have truly happened. Infuriated, he dragged the boy back to Oriel's residence and demanded answers. What followed was a less than fruitful argument about the chances of calling back a man without a name from the criminal underground in order to tell him he had just got a child, just how little courage one could posess in order not to just tell the truth to a newborn and more.

In his rage the assassin's cold blood started to boil and he attacked Oriel openly. No effort meant to be lethal, but enough to make her scream and alert the guards. Oriel seized the opportunity and ordered them to kill the 'intruder': He had become too dangerous for her as a pissed off, professional killer who the place inside out from his former job. Arden, who had just witnessed the death of the one man having claimed to be his father, ran away. He no longer knew whom he could trust, so he decided to trust none. Not wanting to see any human anymore he sought refuge in Skayleigh homeland. His father had actually helped to produce two more children in a much more regular way, but no longer lived to tell Arden about his siblings.

Since then he's effectively battling his way through life, but has the strong desire to return to Oriel one day. He wants to squeeze every bit of truth out of her before she might die. He still holds a weak connection to the servant who actually raised him even though she's not his real mother and, in fact, she seems to exhibit more moral integrity than her employer. Appalled by Oriel's final act while still working for her she recently has given information that Oriel has started to make plans for a return to Andred mainland. With rumors about dragons being more and more restless however the old lady might deviate from the standard route, taking an alternative that will lead her caravan very close to or even through parts of the blackwoods at some point of time in the future. If there's a chance to confront her then it's there, before she re-enters the northern kingdoms.

Motivation
Prepare the best he can for not wasting a chance he might not get a second time in his life. And then hope that the odds are not stacked even more against him than they already seem to be.

Capabilities

Combat [1/1]
Blunt and Shield (1)

Intelligence [1/1]
Linguistics (1)

Charisma [1/1]

Health [1/1]
Strength (3)
Stamina (2)
Toughness (2)

Faculties [1/1]
Sanity (1)
Perception (1)
Concentration (1)

Agility [1/1]
Ride (1)

Mysticism [0/3]
None.

Equipment
One-handed hammer
Shield
Leather armor

Money
3 Royals, 6 Lordlings, 65 Commons

Languages
Northern, Wydarian
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