HHShetland — Roleplayer Guild

Okaylay, here's my submission to this mission. Noticed we don't get too many unarmed brawlers/wrestlers in these sorts of settings, which I find surprising. I mean, in Dawnguard you can sneak up on enemies and Suplex them to death. :P

Name: Tennant Ibnazh
Race: Imperial
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Birthsign: The Warrior
Place of Origin: Riften

Appearance: Simply put, Tennant Ibnazh is a huge man, especially by Imperial standards. Standing at almost seven feet tall, he towers over most people he meets, besides the occasional High Elf. As one would expect from a Wrestler/Prizefighter, he is also very muscular indeed, though his face is surprisingly gaunt and angular, as opposed to square-jawed. His size and pale skin are signs of his Nord ancestry, but on the other hand, his eyes are hazel, his hair is dark chocolate-brown and worn in a Mullet, and is coupled with a small goatee on his chin. His missing right eye is almost always covered up by a dark grey bandage/headband, much longer than it needs to be so the loose parts usually sway about behind his head. Finally, he's often seen with black war paint on his face, in the form of two simple 'bars' just under his eyes.

Background:
Tennant's biological father was a notorious Nord outlaw and an enormous and unbelievably strong man who struck fear into the hearts of many a traveller, armed with a metal-plated wooden club that was almost as big as he was; he was so huge and resilient, he was rumoured to be part Giant. However, he was also as dumb as a box of rocks. Meanwhile, Tennant's mother was an Imperial immigrant and a Prostitute based in Riften. One night, the giant outlaw and his gang decided to reward themselves for a recent raid by bursting into Riften and partying in the streets. It didn't take long for him to spend half his loot on the prostitute's full services, for she was considered one of the most beautiful in the city. She reluctantly went through with it, and the giant outlaw, satisfied, then left the town to get mauled to death by Frost Trolls, to the immense relief of just about everyone.

The result of this union, Tennant (who, at the time, had no last name) was born with no real parents, for his mother was forced to abandon him at Riften's infamous orphanage by her Pimp, who didn't want to have to pay extra to support the child. As a result of these circumstances, the boy became rather violent and confrontational with his predicament, and often passed his time exercising to the point of hurting himself out of sheer frustration. He did manage to land a job as a carpenter's assistant for a couple of months when he was only eight years old, only to get fired when he decided to tell a rude (but wealthy) customer exactly what he thought of him. 

A few days later, a boy who was about three years his senior confronted him in a back-alley with a knife and demanded he hand over his food; instead of cooperating, the boy turned the tables and viciously beat his would-be mugger half to death, whereupon he was escorted back to the orphanage by the local guardsmen.

This is where Do'Zaddha comes in. Do'Zaddha was a Khajiit who travelled with a Trader's Caravan then parked outside Riften. Having discreetly entered the city to settle one of his boss' debts, he witnessed the boy's savage attack and took an interest in him, opting to pay to have him adopted. What he didn't tell the orphanage, however, was that he was also an ex-military unarmed combat instructor and anti-Thalmor Guerrilla fighter back in Elsweyr.

Despite some minor protests from the other Khajiit in the caravan, they allowed Do'Zaddha to bring the boy with them, and gave him the family name of 'Ibnazh'. As they travelled across Skyrim and eventually High Rock and Hammerfell, Do'Zaddha treated the boy like a son, teaching him how to read, the Khajiit belief system, and how to do properly do woodwork so he could earn some extra coin whenever they stopped over in one of the many settlements they camped outside of. Though the other Khajiit in the caravan eventually warmed up to him, the same could not be said of the people the caravan ran into, who often made a point of poking fun at his 'raised by cats' status and sometimes even threatened to take him away, and though this lead to violence quite often at first, Do'Zaddha made sure to teach him patience.

At age thirteen, while they were about to smuggle themselves across the border into Cyrodiil, Do'Zaddha revealed the reason why he took Ibnazh in in the first place. Back in Elsweyr, he had been challenged by a long-forgotten rival of his to find a young human and train them to be good enough at unarmed combat to become the champion of the Pan-Tamriel Fighting Tournament held at the famous Temple of Two-Moons Dance in Elsweyr, a competition dominated by Khajiit. Though the ex-instructor couldn't even remember said challenger's name, for some reason, he felt obligated to take up that challenge, but having grown to see Tennant as more than a mere ticket to the history books, he told him this to ask him if he was willing to be trained. To his surprise, Tennant accepted his offer. 
	
Thus, over the next decade, Do'Zaddha taught Tennant everything he knew from his days at the training grounds, while also allowing him to test his skills by entering him into various fighting events, both formalised and otherwise, held all over Cyrodiil and eventually Morrowind and the Black Marsh. Ibnazh recognised that his larger frame and lack of claws meant he was even less suited to Khajiit disciplines than he realised, forcing him to put a unique spin on Do'Zaddha's techniques which focused more on grappling than direct strikes, taking inspiration from Colovian Folk Wrestling. 

Eventually, at the age of 23, to prove that he skilled enough to defeat Do'Zaddha in a proper fight and was thus capable of winning the Two-Moons Dance contest, he temporarily left the caravan and trekked into the woods north of Bravil. His intention was to find a Troll so he could kill it with his bare hands; eventually, he found one, but unfortunately the initial encounter ended badly with the creature clawing one of his eyes out. After wrapping up his head and drinking potions to numb the pain, he chose instead to sneak up on the creature, jumping at it while it was barely awake and breaking its neck against a jagged rock. Dragging the Troll's entire corpse back to Do'Zaddha's caravan as proof, the Khajiit decided he was ready to take him on, and they fought each other inside a nearby cave. The fight lasted for hours, and by the narrowest of margins, Tennant managed to defeat him. Having finally taught a student good enough to defeat him unaided, Do'Zaddha told him he had nothing left to teach him.

The caravan then travelled into Elsweyr, and in spite of everything that had been happening, Pan-Tamriel contests were still being at held at Two-Moons Dance; despite being located inside Torval, where humans are forbidden from entering, a rare exception was made for non-Khajiit contestants in the contest. However, it certainly didn't help that, primarily due to Tamriel's rather turbulent politics, there were less non-Khajiit participating then there usually was. Despite receiving quite a few boos from the more conservative among the spectators, Tennant managed to fight his way to the second-to-last tier, becoming one of the very few humans to do so. Unfortunately, he was defeated by Shazakhi, a much swifter female opponent who copied all of his techniques, thus eliminating him from the contest. 

At first, Tennant was devastated and spent several weeks binge-drinking and taking Skooma in Orcrest, but after approaching Do'Zaddha again for advice, Do'Zaddha once again told him that he had nothing left to teach, and advised Tennant to go out on his own and diversify his skillset. Thus, Tennant decided to travel once more, only this time on his own, seeking out the strongest fighters in the provinces and learning from them. Naturally, such an expedition would need funding, so wherever he went, he always took up various odd-jobs, usually relating in some way to wood-working.

Eventually he returned to Riften, where he was born, and participated in an underground fight club held in the sewers, where he challenged the local champion the moment he arrived. However, after he defeated the man in less than five minutes (and cost the gamblers quite a bit of money), he began to feel as though he was not improving because the lack of any kind of danger or threat in a semi-formalised fight had made him grow complacent; after all, one of the main reasons Do'Zaddha got so good was because his life depended on it.

Thus, he decided that the best option would be to apply his skills to actual combat. To this end, he signed up with a Mercenary company that was operating in The Reach, naturally refusing every single weapon that was offered to him along the way.


Personality:
Tennant is a rather abrasive individual who prefers to stay focused on the task at hand, with little patience for meaningless small talk. He is also very straightforward and refuses to sugar-coat his words, always taking the opportunity to tell people exactly what he thinks of them, especially if they're arrogant; cowards he can tolerate (provided they have a good reason for it), but arrogance is something he has no tolerance for. He doesn't do it out of malice, though; on the contrary, he believes that being completely honest about people's flaws is the only proper way to get them to improve themselves. He knows when to keep quiet, mercifully (past experience has made sure of that), but that doesn't mean he'll like it.

Unfortunately, due to his preference for getting things done quickly and decisively and his desire to get into fights, he is not exactly the most tactful or diplomatic of people to have around. That being said, when he's in the midst of the action, his great focus works to his advantage; it can be rather difficult to get the jump on him for this reason, though trying to interrupt said focus is a good way to annoy him fast.

Most of the above is actually born of a deeply-ingrained mistrust of his own kind, formed from many unfortunate encounters with people on the road who didn't appreciate his adoptive family. He tends to soften up quite a bit when he's around Khajiit, Argonians, Dunmer and other 'underdog' races; especially Khajiit. Aside from that, he also tends to soften up around people he holds in high regard, especially those with good character, or people who have recently gone through some traumatic experience. 

He's not a very spiritual person, though perhaps uniquely among his kind, thanks to his upbringing, he identifies most with the Khajiit pantheon of Aedra and Daedra, viewing worship of the Nine Divines as a 'foreign' religion. This can be hard to detect at first, but may seep through when he casually refers to one of the Divines by their Khajiit name, or talks about being 'away from the sands'.

Capabilities:

Skills:

Expert:
Hand-to-Hand (advancing this to Master level is one of his main goals).

Adept:
Athletics
Unarmoured
Woodworking

Apprentice:
Acrobatics

Novice:
2H Blunt
Mercantile (common sense-level, really).
Sneak (not good enough to be in the Thieves' Guild, I mean, he's seven feet tall for God's sake. It's only good enough to momentarily get the jump on people who aren't expecting him.)

Physical Weaknesses:
Loss of Right Eye (got clawed out by a Troll.)
Non-physical Weaknesses:
Magical Incompetence (couldn't cast even the most basic healing spell to save his life.)
Weaponless (of course, Tennant doesn't consider this a weakness, and not without reason.)
Unarmoured (this should be fairly obvious, methinks. Lucky he's faster than he looks.)
Relations to Other Characters: N/A
Affiliation(s): Neutral; slightly biased towards Khajiit and other 'Underdog' races. Or should that be 'Undercat' races? *Bricked*
Spells: None. See Weaknesses.
Combat Style: Throughout most of Tamrielic history, fighting hand-to-hand has been considered something of a brutish and undisciplined affair, something to fall back on when you've dropped your sticks and rocks. Naturally, however, some cultures instead recognised the versatility and potential applications of a formalised unarmed fighting system; the Khajiit in particular, making use of their claws. The Khajiiti discipline in question, passed on from Do'Zaddha to Tennant, focuses less on mindlessly pummelling opponents and more on disarming, swift movements, counter-attacks and the use of one's weight to one's advantage. Combining his immense size and strength with his keen eye and surprising speed for someone like him, Tennant's fighting style specialises primarily in precise, well-aimed strikes and grappling techniques designed to effectively neutralise multiple armed opponents and pulverise their bones to dust. While he could use a weapon if you gave him one, he's much more comfortable with just tossing people around like normal; he doesn't consider a weapon an extension of himself, rather, he thinks of them as obstructive tumours stuck to his hands and getting in the way.
Other Capabilities: He's also a competent carpenter, specialising in the assembly of the heavy planks that form the foundations of many houses across Tamriel. He sometimes tries to make elaborate carvings in his spare time, but they're not that good.

Inventory:

Cash: 343 Gold (328 carried in pack, the remaining 15 in his pockets).
Keys and Lockpicks: He wears a Key around his neck that Do'Zaddha gave to him, but he can't remember what it's for. He reckons it must have been for his Skooma cabinet or something. He always takes it off before getting into a fight.
Clothing and Armor: Unarmoured, for the most part (to allow for maximum manueverability), aside from a pair of steel-plated Fingerless Gauntlets and big, stompy steel-capped Boots. Also wears a pair of stitched black trousers with red stripes down the side, held up by suspenders. Sometimes wears a grimy dark grey tunic when modesty is a concern but is usually seen without it, often having it tied round his waist instead.
Weapon and Ammunition: None. Have you not been paying attention? :V
Potion and Arcane Supplies: x3 Potion of Restore Health, x2 Potion of Restore Stamina (both carried in his pack).
Jewelry and Novelty Items: x1 File (used for his attempts at woodcarving; carried in one pocket).
Books and Documents: x1 Copy of Master Zoaraym's Tale (a book that Do'Zaddha particularly enjoyed citing (incidentally, on an OOC Note, this book is where I found out about the Torval fighting temple mentioned in his bio; had to come up with some headcanons there)), x1 copy of his mercenary contract.
Food, Drinks, Provisions: x2 Beer, x1 Bottle of Milk, x1 Bottle of Skooma
Bags, Pouches, Packs: x1 Large rugged drawstring sack which he uses to carry most of the above items.
Other: N/A
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