Jerad
HumanName:Jerad Kroteck
Title:The Porcupine of Humility
Sex:Male
Age:21
Occupation:Bandit in name only, really he is someone who does odd jobs for people around him.
Personality: Calm, talkative, friendly, generous, kind and respectful.
Fighting Skills:Proficient swordsmanship which allows him to parry and riposte rather well his opponent’s attacks. He also uses his surroundings or just his body to get the upper hand.
You could call him a street swordsman.
Special Ability:Metal: He can transform his hands, arms and shoulders into metal that operate with internal gears. The mechanical workings of his shoulders to arms increase his punching power. His hands being also made of metal and also having mechanical workings can grip many different things and break them or squeeze them under much higher force. The metal would look a solid gray like stainless steel. The metal on his body he can place between him and an incoming attack, acting as a pretty solid shield that is very difficult to break.
Backstory: Jerad was the oldest of a household of twelve. There were five sisters and four brothers and all of which were younger than him. They ranged from infancy to thirteen years old and Jerad took care of them all. His parents were farmers who were always busy either tending to their animals or the farmland. Their responsibilities ranged from cultivating their land so that it could be planted for crops that season, watering the plants, watering the animals, feeding the animals and coping with good or bad weather.
Once every month Jerad and his father would load a cart full of grown animals to the local butcher. Jerad remembered how noisy the animals were as the cart rattled along on the bumpy road. The chickens were the worst at the back of the cart, sitting in their cages squawking like mad.
The butcher was named hugo, a giant of a man, widthwise. You couldn’t walk around him without taking an extra ten steps. Though he always had a grin on his face when he noticed Jerad and his father. Another load of meat the butcher could cut up and package for them and all they had to do was pay him a handful of silver coins. It was really more than a fair deal; The fact that all those animals were cut up to pieces bothered Jerad.
“Isn’t it just a waste father?” Jerad shook his head morosely, looking down while him and his father were riding the wagons back home and his fathered had the reins.
“Jerad son, we gave him only half of the animals.” His father turned to Jerad with a smile as he continued. “And besides, its the best of both, our family doesn’t go hungry and the rest of the animals keep us company.”
Jerad felt reassured by his father’s positive attitude and they made their way back home. Dining on cooked chicken, pig, milk and potatoes. One year as jerad had just reached adulthood, the land all around them was struck by a heavy drought. The air was dry with no moisture and the sun felt like an oven that burned people red and worse if you were out too long. Luckily their butcher friend hugo was doing well at his shop at the time and knew somebody who could help them out with their dying farmland.
Some fellow named Zadrino who built fancy furniture and weapons for the wealthy. Zadrino was such good friends with Hugo because Hugo sold the best meat in town. Zadrino bought their farmland to build another workshop there and ended up housing Jerad and his family for the year, while he went off to other workshops he rented from town to town in order to make his sale to the right customer.
Zadrino even offered to pay for their food as well provided that Jerad helped him with a favor.
It was quite simple advertise Zadrino’s work for him in town. That way when the man returned he was always busy making money.
At the end of the year Zadrino was beaming because Jerad’s advertising had doubled his profits. Such that Zadrino gave Jerad’s family back their land and offered Jerad a position being his apprentice craftsman/blacksmith. It went will. He labored with saws and the forge, honing both skill sets at the same time. Jerad turned out to be a natural at both trades. Things changed when a large group of bandits hit town when Zadrino went away on one of his trips. Noticing that most of the very wealthy families had guards crawling over their properties, drove the bandits to less lucrative targets. The third property from one of the rich was Zadrino’s, and they came in force. They kicked in the door and looked around them like they expected an army. Jerad was crouching behind the desk at the back of the room while the leader yelled, “Come out now! Or I’ll shoot your brains out!”
That’s when Jerad peeked and noticed the leader’s muskett. Jerad gave himself up as the bandits had the only way out blocked and were going to find him anyway.
They took all of Zadrino’s tools but didn’t find much else and they kept Jerad with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded as they exited town on their horses.
The next few months of Jerad’s life was hell. He found himself captive to them and forced to do their bidding or be killed as the other option. Eventually the leader got tired of having him as an errand boy and started working on trying to break Jerad’s free will. This was because the leader wanted Jerad to join him in truth as partners of their little thieving enterprise. So everytime Jerad told them no he wouldn’t- he was beaten, whipped, punched and burned. This went on for weeks and there were times when Jerad felt like pleading to them for it to stop. But on one particularly rough day Jerad heard a voice in his head. ‘Be humble and turn the other cheek, you are a man, stay true to being a man.’ Thus Jerad took to the attitude and faced the leader with a calm demeanor on his face. Which infuriated his tormentor to no end. Then one day the beatings stopped. He realized it was pointless and freed Jerad from his bindings. Other bandits actually respected Jerad’s stubborn will and half of them started following him as their leader.
The division sparked a bout of swearing between the two groups. Jerad quieted it with his usual calm attitude and voice. “Why not assist each other and learn things?” For some reason all the heat that came from their anger dissipated. The two groups didn’t end up assisting each other though and went their separate ways.
Although the group with Jerad actually told him alot about their lives. They also told him how to fight: Using any advantage you could have against your opponent. Jerad was strange though as a bandit. Jerad let the bandits do their thing provided the bandits let him do his. So when Jerad went to the church, and gave money to the poor; The others robbed people and broke into houses.
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