Lemons

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

Working on a post now. Sorry for the long wait, it's been a busy few weeks.

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

@POOHEAD189

Need to make sure the fort itself is safe. Aidann will make sure the first hall isn't covered in corpses.

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

Thanks a lot, Storm. I was worried it was a touch short.

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

The arrival of the next man was heralded by a long, pale gray horse floating ghostlike and silent out of the woods and into the light of the fire. The horse's rider held his head high and proud, his unruly flaming red hair announcing his presence better than any kind of banner. As he grew closer, those paying attention would be able to see the chainmail and leather that enwrapped him. Those paying even more attention would notice how easily he moved in it, how natural it seemed to him as he hopped down off of the horse, tying her to a young tree. "A'right then, girl," he cooed softly to her, "jus' stay nice and calm here, an' I'll get you some oats later, maybe an apple if we're lucky. Sound good?" It had been a long ride up the Yaruga from Cintra for her after they landed from Skellige, and he was happy she would be able to get some rest now. He'd been pushing her a bit harder than usual lately.

Steam nickered, and the man laughed quietly, giving her mane a quick rub before turning to the group spread out about the clearing, looking at each in turn as he analyzed and moved in closer to the fire, looking for a place to sit down. First, a sorceress. He'd worked with them a few times over the years. The higher vampire of Novigrad, for example, had only been lured out by using a sorceress as bait, and he didn't think she'd quite forgiven him over it yet. Still, before that, they'd gotten on okay. Hopefully, his interactions with this lass would be a friendlier sort than the terms that he'd parted with the other on. He didn't know if he quite trusted her--sorceresses were notoriously hard to work with sometimes, and always had their own agenda--but they were to be defending a fortress, so the more help they could get, the better. He nodded at her, face caught in an expression that had likely been seen by few enough on a witcher: a warm, almost conspiratorial grin.

The next in line was a little bit stranger. Her skin color was strange to him; he'd traveled a long way, and it was still uncommon for him to see that tone. Still, he could tell she was Nazairi: the tattoos around her biceps left little else as a possibility. He'd spent quite a bit of time in Nazair as a younger witcher, close as it was to Amell and, by extension, to Haern Cadwch. The silver in the large sword that was strapped to his back had come from Nazair, actually. So he knew a bit about the brigands that made up the majority of the country's highlands. He knew some of their culture, what some of their customs were. He also knew they could fight like the dickens, and so he was glad to have what appeared to be one of them with them. A nod to her as well, the smile on his face growing a bit sharper.

There was a younger but hard-looking man, wearing the crest of the Temerian lilies and scars with equal weight. This, he assumed, was Balidvar. As the witcher approached him, he spoke to a person for the first time since he'd arrived, and the faint burr of Skellige in his accent became more apparent: "I'd assume you're Balidvar, then? I'm Aidann, here about the Rakald Keep contract. Needed someone to keep the monsters at bay, aye? I'm yer man." Once he'd spoken, he turned back towards the fire. He would talk to Balidvar more later, but he looked like he was busy at the moment; that was where the sorceress was, after all, and he didn't want to intrude too much.

As much as he wanted to sit down and relax, though, he turned his eyes towards the man sitting on a stump fairly close to where his horse was tied, cowl pulled down over his face, cleaning and oiling a sword.

A silver sword.

Keeping his eyes peeled, Aidann spied the Griffin school medallion and tensed slightly. The Bears and the Griffins, while never...overly adversarial, were still different schools, and so there would likely be some tension. Simply the way of things, between witchers. Still, it would be nice to have someone who was...hopefully equally competent as he was nearby. Perhaps they could spar; Aidann was always looking for practice.

As he took a seat around the fire, he sighed deeply and grimaced, distressed: the men parted around him, looking at him warily. Some stood up and actively walked away, taking a seat on the other side of the fire. He closed his eyes lightly, trying to pretend that it didn't bother him, that he was as clinical as most other witchers were in such situations. He didn't know how effective it was, but he didn't like his chances.

After a few moments of being stared at distrustfully, he sighed again, standing and brushing some dust off of his habergeon where he'd sat on it, rising to his feet and stomping out of the circle of soldiers. They closed once again, the gap filled, and he closed his eyes momentarily as another wave of disappointment washed over him. Still, though, he kept moving, rolling his neck as he approached the other witcher, giving him a very faint nod as he inclined his head towards the horse. Zerrikanian, if he wasn't mistaken, and of exceptional breeding.

"Tha's a beautiful animal you have there."

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

Aidann na Oisin

Aidann na Oisin

Race: Human...ish?
Age: 174
Gender: Male
Birthplace: The fortress of Kaer Muire on Ard Skellig, Skellige
Profession: Witcher (Bear-school)

Appearance:
Aidann is a big, burly man, standing at nearly 6’3”, and as age has not dulled his instincts and skills, so too has it yet to touch his build. Despite how many winters he’s seen, he is covered with rippling, corded muscle; very little of his 230-pound mass is fat. His fair skin, leathered from long exposure to sun, sea, and snow, is festooned with crisscrossing scars earned over the course of a Witcher’s long and dangerous life. His hair is still thick, and relatively coarse; while there are streaks of gray shot through it now, most of it remains the flaming red that he’s so proud of. He keeps his beard long, but doesn’t style it as he used to, decrying such things with a laugh as the vain playacting of a younger, more foolhardy Witcher. He does, however, sweep his hair back over his high forehead, wrinkled with sun, age, laughter, and worry, so as to keep it out of his eyes during combat.

Speaking of his eyes, they are, as with most, his most distinguishing trait as a Witcher: brilliant gold, with pupils that snap open into catlike slits at his command, or when it’s too dark for him to otherwise see. They are set deep into his face, and surmounted with a pair of bushy red brows. The skin around them, just as his forehead, is deeply creased, as are the corners of his mouth. He has thin lips that are quite brightly colored, though it can be hard to see them past his bushy facial glory. He has the high cheekbones of one with good breeding, but again--these are swallowed by the beard. His face is crowned by a large, bulbous nose.

When not in armor, he prefers rich, dark colors; burgundy, chocolate, black. His choice articles of clothing are heavy tunics and long, fur-trimmed cloaks, as they feed a sense of luxury that he is seldom able to explore. But they are just that, for him: rare. He seldom removes his armor, only doffing it to sleep much of the time. A relic of a time when monsters lurked around every rock in Amell and every one of Skellige’s trees, he is determined to always be prepared to fight. Said armor is very, very precious to him. It’s a hauberk of heavy steel rings backed with brown leather--straps buckled with steel--and worn over a brown linen gambeson. A shoulderbelt of pouches--potions, tools, supplies--run across his chest, affording more protection if needed. His arms are protected by heavy plate gauntlets, and a similar situation--greaves and sabatons of unyielding steel--holds for his legs. All of it is covered in marks where it’s been hacked or smashed or torn, but lovingly repaired every time. Aidann is very attached to his armor.

Finally, we come to his tools of the trade: the swords, and the slightly unique property that his have. The typical-sized blades of most Witchers felt just a touch too small for him; with his larger frame and bulkier build, they felt more like broadswords than longswords. And so he custom-commissioned a pair of Witcher’s blades with blades perhaps four to five inches longer than are found on most of his school. They are, in the way of Witchers, slung over his shoulder, the hilts bound in leather. Each has an artfully-worked bear’s head, perpetually snarling, carved into the pommel. And as a Witcher of the Bear school, Aidann makes additional use, near-unique to his school, of a light crossbow strapped to his back next to his swords. It is a utilitarian construction, but grants a certain completeness to his appearance: armed to the teeth (one of which has been replaced with a replica carved of silver, after being knocked out in a brawl decades ago).

Personality: Aidann has a complicated personality that stems from one of the more important ways he views the world: he’s old. A relic from a time where Witchers were viewed less as a menace and more as a terrifying but necessary evil, he has a hopeless streak of...well, hope. He wants to see the best in people. He really does. He still remembers when he would return from a hunt, a wyvern’s head slung over his broad shoulder, and people would thank him profusely, pay him his due, and see him out of town. Never really offer him a place--a Witcher is always a Witcher--but perhaps not throw him out simply for being one. Never see him step into an inn, and decide that despite being largely vacant, they had no space for the night. And so every time he finishes a hunt--fewer and farther between now, so different from when he left the then-thriving fortress of Haern Cadwch--he nurses a desperate hope that they’ll thank him the way they used to. And every time he finishes a hunt, his hope gets kicked down again as doors slam and all-too-often, he goes without his pay.

He’s never angry over it, though. Not really. Rarely bitter. No, beyond his personable (for a Witcher) exterior, Aidann is desperately sad. But more than that; he’s...misplaced. His time has passed, and he knows it. There is a lesser need in the world for a Witcher now, and even room for one.

Yet despite that bitterness, that feeling of disjunction, he can’t completely suppress his care for people. He’s seen so much heartache, so much pain, both his own and others, that every time he enters a village in search of a contract, he tells himself that he’s only there for that contract. If there’s one to be had, great, he’s in luck. He’ll hunt the monster down, kill it, collect his reward, and leave. If not, then it’s as he expected anyway, and he’ll move on to the next village, or town, or city. And yet...as much as he tells himself that, as much as he knows it’ll lead to disappointment and pain more often than not, whenever someone on the corner begs for help--cattle taken, purse stolen, house robbed or burned to the ground--he stops, listens, and does his damndest to help them. Perhaps when he stops, they won’t listen to him. They’ll shy away, make signs of good luck or warding of evil, or attack him. But there’s always that chance that perhaps, they’ll tell him what’s wrong. And when he returns the cows, or brings back the money and thieves and arsonists...he almost feels like a Witcher again.

There is lesser need for a Witcher now, it’s true. And yet here he stands.

History: Nearly two centuries ago, a Skellige man named Oisin na Diarmaid was trekking along a lonely island road on Ard Skellig. His wife, a lovely lass named Bronagh, had been on the island instead of their home for many months, and now was heavy with child and almost to bear. He was in high spirits heading to his home on Hindarsfjall: He’d stayed a bit longer to speak with some old friends, and now was returning home.

Then he froze on hearing a high-pitched screaming, and threw himself to the ground as a massive griffin’s talons scythed the air where he’d been standing a moment before.

He scrambled to his feet and ran, screaming for help and putting every ounce of his energy into dodging the monster. And then, just as it looked as though Oisin’s time had come, the creature screamed in pain as a flash of pale metal sheared into its wing-joint from behind. He could only watch as the strange young man circled the griffin, darting in and out with what seemed impossible speed, crippling its wings before finally dealing a death-blow to the neck. Stunned, disbelieving, impossibly relieved, when the man sheathed his sword--why did he have two?--Oisin could only gabble out a vague promise for...well, anything at all. A life saved? No price was too high. And so the young man--a Witcher--invoked upon Oisin the Law of Surprise. The next gift he received--no matter whether it was a lamb, or a fortune’s worth of diamonds--would belong to the Witcher, who Oisin later learned was named Kondrat, in five years’ time. Nod, nod, nod, agreement. A life saved. No price too high, and certainly not that. And with that, Kondrat vanished into the mists of Skellige.

Oisin hastened back to Kaer Muire: he wanted, more than anything, to embrace his wife Bronagh, and to celebrate the fact that he was alive. So imagine his surprise when he stumbled into the healers’ hut to find Bronagh holding out to him an infant. “Look, Oisin,” she sobbed, beaming, “a gift from Freya herself.”

And with that, Oisin’s face grew ashen, and his heart fell.

Five years later, when he awoke to milk his cattle, he found Kondrat outside of his house, and worldless, he carefully carried out the sleeping child, named Aidann. In his gruff voice, he whispered to the Witcher: “you take care of him now, y’hear?”

A nod, and Kondrat was gone, and with him Aidann.

Aidann only vaguely remembers the faces of Bronagh and Oisin. Kondrat was more of a parent to him than either, in his own strict way. Haern Cadwch was a hard place to grow up, and for the first year or so, he desperately missed both his mother and father. But he grew past it, and trained hard. The Trial of Grasses, so often lethal, refused to let him die, and he emerged from it with the necessary mutations to be a Witcher. And so began his training in earnest, and he took up the silver sword.

For many years, he traveled as an itinerant monster hunter, the Path of a Witcher, hunting any monster that dare show its face: a higher vampire in Novigrad, a swarm of the normally-solitary royal griffins terrorizing the east of Temeria, a slithering horde of lamiae in the deep Nilfgaardian south that had lured many men to their envenomed doom...the contracts were as varied as they were numerous, and his purse grew heavy with coin. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the world changed. Monsters grew less common. Coin grew shorter. And most of all, people grew harder. Aidann had always thrived off of the gratitude given to him by those that he’d helped, even more than he’d thrived off of their coin. Sometimes, he would simply let them keep the money in the past, as long as he had enough. No more. Times grew scarce, and contracts became fewer and farther between, and smaller. A rogue forktail here, a dawnwraith there...

And then everything came to a head as the riots began. In just a day, Haern Cadwch was gone. So was his surrogate father, Kondrat. Perhaps seventy years old at the time, Aidann fled his decades-long home, the place he’d returned to time and time again, the place where he’d been mutated and seen mutation happen, the place he’d grown into the man that he’d become. And everywhere he went, he saw the same, decade by decade. The pogrom of the Wolves. The steady dying-off of the Cats and Vipers. Witchers were slowly, surely, going extinct.

But what was he to do? Though he’d learned the way to make boys to Witcher--the mutagens were etched into his mind--what would he do with the knowledge? His school was gone. So few left, only occasionally passed on the road. As were the supplies to make the mutagens for the Trial of the Grasses. So what was a Witcher to do, when there is no home left to return to? The only thing left was to make his home on the road.

So, for many years hence, he’s been wandering. A contract here, a contract there. Even smaller than before, no more than a few wraiths, or perhaps a group of drowners stopping fishermen from getting to their boats. A far cry from the grand challenges that he once faced. He overwinters wherever he can. Increasingly often, he spends time in Skellige, finding the climate there to his liking, and it's perhaps more wild--with more contracts to be found--than most of the Continent. One day, he has promised himself, he will return to Haern Cadwch. One day, the Witcher School of Bears will be restored. And then, perhaps, he will be able to rest from his Path.

But for now? The road awaits.

Skills: Unsurprisingly, Aidann is by far the most adept as swordplay out of all the Witcher's arts. Never a great hand at signs, he relies on his armor instead of Quen to get him out of a jam (that’s not to say he doesn’t use Quen or other Signs at all, but he hasn’t put much time into training them in comparison to his more martial skill sets). He’s an exceptionally aggressive fighter, surprising some who expect a man in heavy armor to play more defensively; he advances relentlessly, striking as hard as he can as often as he can.

That said, he’s a man who’s experienced much in his life, and he knows when he’s outmatched by something. When he is, he’s much more careful, staying back and using his crossbow to slowly whittle foes down before moving in for the kill once they’re weakened.

A very important thing to mention: he has great difficulty with highly mobile adversaries. While he can hold them down with Axii or blast them down with Aard, neither of these signs is very developed in him, and so they often dodge away, or retake the skies, before he can actually strike them after disabling them. It becomes a frustrating, monotonous fight, plinking away with crossbow bolts until one of them finally hits something important, or simply waiting for them to come too close and then lash out with a sword.

And finally, something that people don’t usually expect out of him, perhaps because of how little he touches on Signs: he is quite skilled at Witcher alchemy. He’s an old, old Witcher, and he’s had many years to practice and perfect some of his potions. While eschewing some of the recipes that he finds more niche (‘I can already see in the dark very well. What need have I for the Cat potion?’), he always carries with him the ingredients to make most of the useful potions that he might need in a situation, as well as a variety of oils. While he doesn’t actually carry the potions themselves, he’s always ready to prepare for a contract.

Specialty:Aidann’s specialty is martial combat. While he’s fairly skilled at alchemy and rather weak at Signing--only using signs if doing so is pretty much necessary for success--he’s a paragon of martial skill, moving far more quickly than such a bulky man ordinarily could and striking like a lightning bolt.

Equipment:

• Alchemy supplies: herbs, monster parts, alcohol, and of course, a small mortar and pestle, spread out in pouches on his shoulderbelt and his regular belt, all across his big body.
• A whetstone and a small skin of oil; need to keep the blades sharp, after all.
• And what would a Witcher be without his Witcher medallion? It is the medallion of the Bear school, carved in an artful depiction of a snarling bear.

Weapons:

• A large steel longsword with a cruciform hilt. It has a 45-inch blade and a proportionally-sized grip wrapped in dark brown leather with a ring about the middle to assist in two-handing. Nothing about it is particularly fancy, but he’s taken care of it well, and so it’s polished brightly and very sharp. The pommel is carved with a snarling bear’s face, very similar to that of his medallion.
• A silver longsword, about the same length as the steel. It has a cruciform hilt as well; in fact,, the hilt looks almost exactly the same as the steel’s including the bear’s face on the pommel, but for the fact that the leather wrapping it is black instead of brown and the guard is angled slightly towards the blade.
• A small handheld crossbow made of wood and steel, and a quiver strapped to his waist filled with various bolts; broadheads, bodkins, and bludgeons, all made up in both steel and silver versions. There are perhaps five of each type, for a total of thirty.

Armor:

• The previously-mentioned armor: heavy chainmail backed with scarred, scuffed brown leather worn over a brown linen gambeson to cushion blows from maces, hammers, and other weapons that chainmail wouldn’t do much to stop, as well as heavy plates worn both on the legs and on the arms.

Misc:

• A tinderbox containing flint, steel, and charcloth.
• A letter from a young lady that he was once a lover to, nearly a century ago. She’s long-dead now.
• Enough rations, mostly dried meats and hard breads, for a conservative week.

He carries little else; much of the space in his pouches is filled by the alchemy supplies and tinderbox, so he has little other room since he refuses to carry a haversack or knapsack. He sleeps under the stars quite often, and when he does so, he continues to wear his armor.

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

@POOHEAD189
Thanks fam

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

@POOHEAD189
Is Aidann cleared for takeoff?

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

@POOHEAD189

Right, a few edits to Aidann to show some of his experience over the years.

The Elder Scrolls: Legacy

Bruma, 20th of First Seed

There were a very few things that Aud had gleaned how to read and write over the course of her short life. One of them was her name.

But simply writing her name wasn't enough for her to apply to a guild, and so she'd gone to the inn and payed out a few coins from her meager purse to a studious-looking fellow to write down her application as she dictated to him. There were a few words and phrases she'd had to repeat, as he'd apparently had issue parsing through her rather thick Solstheim accent, but she hoped it was mostly alright. She didn't have any way to be sure, of course, but she didn't see a reason for him to lie to her.

She wriggled out of her small, low tent, breathing deep and savoring the chill in the air. It was getting warmer, now, during the day. Too warm for her tastes, really, and during the summer, she knew it would get much worse from her brief stint at the Fighter's Guild in Cheydinhal. Still, she'd always been an early riser. Had to, really, to get a full day of hunting in. And so she was still able to shiver gently as the sunrise bled over the peaks of the Jeralls, and was reminded that she was alive.

Today the list goes up, she thought, throwing on her cloak and tossing the quiver of spears over her shoulder in a single fluid motion. I hope I make it in. I can hunt my food and make my repairs alone, but companionship is a different matter. It'll be a hard year if I don't find some soon.

She sighed. The fact that she couldn't read or write was a black mark pretty much everywhere she'd tried to fit in since she'd left the Skaal. She didn't expect much out of this one either. Still, what was another guild's rejection when she'd been rejected already, or found them too far removed from her tastes? If she was rejected--the likely outcome--she would keep moving on, as she always had. She caught herself fidgeting with the dagger hung around her neck, and hastily crammed it down her tunic. No sense in freely advertising something so valuable, and so precious to her.

The walls of Bruma loomed above her as she trudged onto the road, then into the city, her thick fur-and-leather books shuffling through the thin layer of snow. Ignoring the quizzical looks that came her way--you'd think that the people of Bruma had never seen a woman carrying six spears walk through their city in Skaal clothing and a backpack that clanked with the muted sound of metal--she continued her walk unabated, headed towards a noticeboard around which was clustered a...rather diverse set of characters. Argonians she was more used to, as some had occasionally come from Morrowind to Solstheim and she'd spied them from afar while hunting, but the mere existence of khajiit as a people still held surprise for her, not least in the way they spoke.

Shouldering none-too-gently through the small gaggle of people and shoving her way between the khajiit and a Nord woman significantly smaller than her own considerable bulk, she stepped up to the board, scanning down the list. She couldn't actually read much of it, of course, but the depiction of a crossed sword and shield had her reasonably convinced that it was what she was there for, and she was rewarded midway down the list with one of those very few things that she could read: Aud Longspear

She let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding, and spoke more quietly than those around her, in her husky, heavily accented voice:

"Well, I'll be damned."

The Witcher: Under the Shadow

@POOHEAD189

Aight, will do! Glad you like him!