Fisticuffs

The Gladiators of House Valens

@Estella Shit, forgot to mention you.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Tav the Traveller

Tav Brahn

"The road has no hearth, but it’s a good a home as any."

Profile

Full Name: Tavrel Brahn
Titles/Nicknames: “Tav”
Age: 29
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Combat Role:Frontline Counter-Attacker/Harrier

Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5’ 11”
Weight: 153 Lbs

Appearance: Tav is built like a traveler. Lean, all hard edges and lines. His shoulders are, perhaps, less broad than that of the average Togureni, likely a result of his mixed parentage. He has the start of a beard, and a noticeable scar on his head and face. His eyes are pale and clearly observant, if not always alert. He has a perpetual ghost of a grin on his face. His posture is less than stellar, with a slight backward lean.

Personality

Overview: Tav has seen much in 29 years. From the worst of Torgureni warfare, to the savagery of wild mongrels. He’s felt love and disgust, anger and joy. He’s seen much of the world. Despite this, Tavrel is far from wise and world-weary. He looks at new things with an almost child-like curiosity, and has a devil-may-care attitude towards even the greatest of dangers. He’s a bombastic drunk, and occasionally impulsive. Some call him vivacious, others call him immature.

Tav has some growing up to do, and a lot of that stems from an innate fear of stagnation. For him, responsibility means settling down, and that is really Tav’s only real fear. He makes friends easily, but dislikes staying still long enough to create life-long friendships. Tav has a lot of people who’d drink to his memory, a few that would spit on his grave, but none that would, say, name their children after him or take up arms in his honor.

Combat

Strength: 5
Dexterity: 7
Intelligence: 4
Cunning: 5
Magic: 1
Willpower: 1
Endurance: 3
Charisma: 5

Weapons of Choice: Tav currently wields a pair of blades. One, in his off hand, is a sturdy dagger, with dull edges, a sharp tip, and a thick handguard, meant for parrying. The other, in his right hand, is a Markothi saber, meant for slashing and hacking as opposed to thrusting. Both are of fairly common make, and he’s not especially attached to either of them.

Armor/Combat Apparel: Tav wears a tanned leather cuirass, and wears metal bracers on each forearm. He wears common, rough-cloth trousers with thin leather boots. The bracers are sturdy, and quite effective at warding off blows. His cuirass is adept at fending off glancing slashes, but a solid thrust or hack would easily get through it. However, his style changes depending on what is available to him, and, excluding the bracers, he’s not attached to any of it.

Fighting Style: Tav is a mostly stationary, frontline fighter. He prefers dealing with one opponent at a time, and does so in one of two ways. Usually, he holds fast, fighting defensively by parrying blows with one of his blades, and viciously retaliating with the other. When this proves ineffective for any reason, he falls back to a vastly different style. He rains down blows with both blades, harrying his opponent ruthlessly, hopefully overwhelming whatever defense they mount. The issue with that, however, is that it’s quite taxing to swing heavy blades around that hard, that fast. If he doesn’t kill or force back his opponent with that burst, he’s likely to be killed before he can get his blades up to block. As such, he prefers to fight defensively whenever possible.

Magical Affinity: N/A

Background

Place of Birth: Toguren (temporary encampment)
Social Status: Former Togureni Warrior, Markothi tribesman, Wanderer

History: Born in Toguren, Tav’s parents were of different heritage. His mother was a semi-prominent, Markothi Tribal Warrior, and his father was a Togureni Berserker. His early life was spent learning to fight, from both parents. Lacking the pure physical strength to fight like a berserker and the finesse to properly master his mother’s parry-heavy style, he decided to merge them both. He grew into, if not an outstanding fighter, then one who could hold his own. He earned respect on the many battlefields of Toguren, fighting alongside his parents and clanmates.

Inevitably, Tav’s parents met the end that accompanies a lifetime spent at war. He grieved for some time, but the wars didn’t stop just because his parents had died. He fought, and he became better at it. However, Tav, now a young man, liked his alcohol more than most, and was a bit of a womanizer. Eventually, he got exceptionally drunk and found his way into the bed of his chieftain’s daughter. Upon waking, he thought it best to not be around when the rest of the clan awoke.

He thought about finding refuge with another clan, but he thought about how little of the world he’d seen. So, he wandered, and found himself in Markoth. There, he proved his worth to a tribe by assisting some of their warriors with a hostile mongrel problem. He traveled with them, eventually becoming Markothi. For the first time in Tav’s life, he wasn’t constantly fighting. Markoth wasn’t exactly safe, but the bloodshed was nothing like that of Toguren. It was during this time that he received his scar, but he changes the story every time he tells it. Sometimes, he slips and slashes himself with his own blade. Once, he said that he’d bet a drunk archer that an apple can’t be shot off of his head, a bet he won, unfortunately.

Eventually, Tav grew bored. He left Markoth, with an empty promise to his tribe that he’d someday return. He thought about returning to Toguren, but decided against it. Even if the Chieftain had forgotten about him, a doubtful prospect, he wanted to go somewhere new. So, he wandered again. He found himself in Venatria, in the right costal town at the right time. Having only fought in arenas on occasion, and never in an organized tournament, he decided to try his hand at the town’s tournament.

The Gladiators of House Valens

@Estella Is there conflict between tribes in Markoth? If so, what's the scale?

The Gladiators of House Valens

Checking in.

The Lodge (A Superhero Kitchensink RP)

Intrigued.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Interested.

COSA NOSTRA

I'm interested. Might play a consigliere. That'd be cool.

Maybe a non-Italian, whose loyalty is assured out of respect for the boss that accepted him in an industry where nationality is everything.

Americana: A Magic Realist Roadtrip

The Writer

Name: Thomas "Tommy" M. McClellan

Age: 27

Appearance: Thomas is tall and lanky. He moves ungracefully, awkwardly, as though he doesn't know what to do with himself. His skin is pale, with dark circles usually adorning the underside of his eyes. His face is all hard lines and edges. Sharp, alert, green eyes are just a bit too wide for his face. He has messy, medium-length brown hair.

Background: Thomas was born in Iowa, to a 1st generation American-Irish father and a second-generation American-Scottish mother. His parents both worked menial jobs, and wanted more for their son. They pushed him relentlessly in school and, for a while, it seemed like it was working. Then, to his parent's surprise, he dropped out of high school just before graduating, moving to Berkeley with a group of friends. They made friends with university students, and partied like punks. One by one, the group split apart. Tommy ended up in Seattle for a while, working oddjobs. He lived in Portland for a while before heading East. He met up with a friend in Boston, but they soon parted ways, and Tommy ended up Northampton.

Americana: A Magic Realist Roadtrip

@WanderBug posted!

Americana: A Magic Realist Roadtrip

He wondered how, if he'd lived his whole in a desperate bit to break from the norm, to be unpredictable, he'd ended up being both semi-normal, and predictable. His days blurred together. The same job for a year and a half, the same apartment for close to two years, the same diner for seven months, and the same regular order for six. His life had stability, order, and it was driving him mad.

God forbid, it felt like he was settling down.

He loved his coworkers, didn't mind his job, was comfortable in his dwelling, and had nothing to worry about. That worried him. He'd moved away from his hometown, dropped out of school, to be a badass anarchist who answered to no one, not a slightly pretentious Democratic Party voter who paid his taxes. Surely, his high-school self was weeping.

He blinked his already-strained eyes, staring at the dim laptop screen. A blank document. It had been blinked when he'd gotten home from bartending that morning. It was blank when he walked into the diner when it opened, and it was no less blank now. Sometimes, he'd write a few words, then immediately delete them. When he'd started writing, writer's block had seemed almost like a myth. He'd written tons of material, back then. Stories, of varying length and quality. He'd been at it for years, and had managed to publish one profitable piece of writing. It was a novel, out of print now. It hadn't even sold past the advance, which was enough for one month's rent, beer, and cigarettes.

"Why do I only have existential crises when I'm sober?" He mumbled to himself. He groaned, and closed the laptop in frustration. He rubbed his temples, and looked down at himself. If he were seventeen, he might've looked trendy and counterculture. Faded jeans, a near-threadbare Streetlight Manifesto t-shirt, and a three-year-old pair of skate shoes. He didn't even know how to skateboard.

He packed up his things and walked to the counter.

"Check, please?" He asked, quite obviously comfortable with the waitress he was speaking to. She was older, older than him at least. Grey haired, rail-thin.

"Aw, hon, leaving so soon?" She smiled at him. He sighed.

"Yeah. I've got to get some sleep." He said, accidentally yawning for effect. She nodded, and walked off to get his check. He noticed, then, the girl he was standing next to. He'd never seen her around. Not at the bar, not at the diner, not on the street. Normally, he wouldn't have thought twice about her, but after his previous lamentations, it seemed self-defeating to pass up a possibly interesting conversation with a possibly interesting person.

"Yo." He said, holding out his hand. "You're not from around here, are you?" He smiled a little. "I like to think I've got a pretty good handle of the patrons here, and you're not a regular, far as I can tell." He cleared his throat. "I'm Thomas. Thomas McClellan."