Markiel smiled, "I am glad to hear that I am in," sounding relieved. For a moment, he felt like he had made a mistake, but it turned out he did not. "I bet, and I have traveled with a few scholars, and it is surprising how some seem oblivious to danger." Not all scholars might you, just some, as Markiel has observed during his travels.
"But a story," Markiel grinned eagerly. "I have some stories I can share that are good." With some, he would not like to speak about. Mainly one, but when being a traveller for some years. You experience some good and some bad things. Especially out in The Plains of Morgador.
"Well, which would you like to hear? An odd venture into The Plains of Morgador or that time I almost had to fight a beastfolk?"
"Tell us of the Morgador," Hagen requested, with a cheerful smile, "I have spent plenty of time in the frozen lands of the North but have never ventured into that place. I had been planning an expedition to the uncharted lands South of here, but then the young lady approached me and suggested I join her for a time," he nodded towards Aderynel.
"But anyway, on with your tale! I hear there are ruins in the Morgador, the scale of which is beyond imagining!" he declared.
The mention of the north, or perhaps the sound of a Vedosever Jugkraian accent, drew sudden attention from a hunched and silent figure lingering near the bar at the back of the establishment. Wreathed in the haze of smoke that filtered through the establishment in the dim firelight the figure sat upright quite suddenly, not fast, but a slow and deliberate unfolding that revealed a large figure with a broad and powerful shoulders.
Then came the slow turning.
The dim firelight of the tavern caught half in light and shadow an expressionless face - one full lines and scars and the texture of weathered and worn leather - marked by two cold blue eyes that slowly rolled over the collection of adventurers assembled behind him. The man's nose was crooked, like it had been broken more than once. He wore a simple woolen tunic as weathered as his face, cut short at the arms. He came to rest his right elbow on his knee, turning to the group a right arm of corded muscle etched with scars that seemed kin to those he bore upon his face.
He wore a worn leather belt, from it the hilt of a long steel dagger peaked from his left hip from where he'd twisted in his seat.
If the man was interested in any member of the group, his face betrayed none of it. His gaze, though, seemed to finally settle and narrow decisively upon the young Jugkraian noble, Markel Sviatolev.
Slowly, calmly, the scarred figure shifted and emptied his earthen cup, his expressionless and unblinking eyes not leaving Markel for a moment even as rivulets of frothy liquid began to run through his broad, dirty blonde beard. Eyes still fixed, he shifted again as he set the stein almost gently upon the bar. He took his time before running a broad forearm across his beard to clear it.
The scarred man seemed not to care if he was staring at the Jugkraian noble. Like a cat watching a canary. At the same time, his left hand had come to rest upon the hilt at his side, not gripping it, but thumbing the leather bindings - threadbare, half worn away - that wrapped the dagger's grip.
Regnum Arventia is usually referred to as 'the Regnum' or 'Arventia' if people are shortening it - the name translates as 'the Kingdom of the Arvenses' who are 'the people of the fields'... lol but like I said, no need to remember that!
Name: Leofric Aelwinovich syn Otric (The Shieldbearer Leofric, son of Aelwin) aka Leoka Species: Human Race/Nationality: Eahamingas Gender: Male Age: 39 Languages: Northern Jugkraian(native), Arventian(fluent, heavy Jugkraian accent), Eahamingan(clumsy, heavy Jugkraian accent), Sidfirian(broken monastic teachings) Appearance: Leofric stands around 6’2” with broad shoulders and arms, and an overall very athletic physique. He’s most notable for his long, slightly curled blonde hair, beard and blue eyes. Personal Effects: Travel kit - including an axe used mostly for firewood, battle worn mail hauberk, splinted greaves, vambraces and gloves. He’s never without a long, sharp dagger. Weathered tunic, hose, furs for cold weather. A fine, but worn travel cloak, with faded religious order heraldry. A sturdy oaken round shield reenforced with iron rim, he also keeps an old spear suitable for either one or two-hand grip. His most notable possessions are a fine spatha style sword, custom made with an elongated grip, and a stiffer more tapered point. And of course his trusty mule, Zapas.
Background:
Role: Swordmaster/Shield-bearer Backstory:
Leofric, was only six when he was recruited by the Eruheronosetsy pri Ordynskaya Storozha, The Holy Militant Order of the Horde Watch, which for generations had guarded the main pass through the great Rzhagomir Mountains against the orcish hordes. Hundreds of years protecting Jugkrai, only to be stabbed in the backs by the very people they’d been sworn to protect.
The men that took Leofric in were the grizzled survivors of that losing battle, passing through Eahamingas on their pilgrimage south, seeking the benediction of the Sidfir before embarking on their great vision to redeem themselves and their order, and reclaim their holy citadel.
He was raised among these men. On their stories of the desperate fighting in the passes and in the unfamiliar snows. Training with them, as they travelled the land, recruiting, preparing, talking always of the great journey north.
Leofric grew strong among them. Trained as a shield-bearer - a squire - to the knights of noble men the Order took on. The Order taught him many things. He learned to speak northern jugkaraian, until his own native tongue began to feel clumsy and unfamiliar on his lips. He learned how to make camps, how to be a shield-bearer - but most of all he learned that if any of them were to survive they would have to train to fight. He learned and trained, until the mother and father and sister he’d left behind faded into distant dreams and he could no longer recall their faces or names.
Leofric was no knight, but he took to the blade. He trained like his life depended upon it. Trained whenever he could. The knights, who had honed their skills now with some of the finest warriors the world over found it amusing at first, then interesting - then useful. They tested each other constantly, honed their skills together until none could best him with a blade. As a young shieldbearer not yet come into his prime, already he was acknowledged as an emerging master of the sword and frequently began to train both knights and squires.
And then the day came when it was announced they would be returning to Junkai - for Leorfric, the first time, but he was confident. They all were.
Leofric won great renown for his surpassing skill with a blade as a squire in Jugkrai, both an instructor and fighting as a squire in many battles against both orcs and the Northern Jugkrai army. Unfortunately, mostly on the losing side.
Twenty years of fighting, and Leofric, son of Aelwin is done with Jugkrai and its wars, the Ordynskaya Storozha he joined is dead and gone, he’s done with dreams of knighthood, done with the other Eruheronosetsy orders, done with civil war and everything else around it.
He left Eahamingas a boy, with dreams of becoming a great swordsman and left Jugkrai, a bitter and jaded master of the blade after so many years with little ambition left save to continue perfecting the craft he'd taken up in youth - in truth more now from habit and stubborness than any real drive. Crossing half the world, through many trials, he returned to Eahamingas chasing work; a caravan guard while travelling, a deckhand at sea, he'd thought he might retire to teaching young nobles his craft, perhaps finding kindred spirits to follow in his footsteps but quickly found he had no stomach for youthful nobles. Eventually he sought out the half-remembered life and family he'd left behind, only to find them passed with barely a remembrance of the son that might have carried on their line.
Eventually, Leofric found work once again as a squire for an aging knight-errant on some quest or another, while Leofric confronts the trajectory of his life.
Character Intro:
Leoka squinted into the golden sunlight that pierced his eyes from just above the treeline as he scanned the fallow field that stretched before him, searching for something, anything familiar. He glanced back over his shoulder down the narrow, muddly lane that wound its way down towards the village off in the distance, comparing the track against half recollected memories and dreams.
“Are you lost stranger?”
Leoka turned abruptly enough the weathered, middle aged man standing a distance away took a step back and gripped his pitchfork tighter. The man’s weathered faced regarded him with wary eyes beneath a brow etched with sweat as he planted the haft of his pitchfork in the earth. Leoka’s blue eyes searched the face and features as they’d searched the fields, but there was nothing familiar there either. “I lived here.” He was painfully aware of the thick Jugkrian accent that afflicted what was once his native tongue as he turned back again, searching one last time against the treeline for some trace of the daub and thatch hut he imagined from his youth. “Somewhere.”
The man’s face scrunched in disbelief though his shoulders relaxed and he leaned on his pitchfork, seeming less wary and more amused. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here. I sure don’t recognize you.”
“I was here all the same. My name is Leofric, son of Aelwin.” Leoka waved his hand, vaguely toward the field and back towards the village. “The homestead was here. I remember this. This lane, to the village. It was here.”
“Aye, Aelwin lived here…” The man’s face shifted, the disbelief given way to now searching Leoka’s face for something familiar, struggling to do so. He seemed to give up on the attempt pointing instead towards the distant treeline. “Over there.”
Leoka studied the treeline, the ground of it, trying to fit the fallow field and trees to his memory.
“Aelwin died, about ten years back. Not long after his wife passed if I recall. I don’t know I ever met a son…”
Leoka stood still a moment, and only nodded. He glanced back towards the village. “There was a daughter too. She was my sister…” He tried to remember the name, the face, but somehow it was lost to time. He’d known it once. As familiar as breathing but somehow, somewhere along the line it’d been lost. It hadn’t seemed important then, and now it was gone.
The man took a moment before responding. His previous standoffishness evaporated as something in Leoka’s bearing told him this man was exactly what he seemed. “The lord said she sold the sharecrop back after he passed, and left soon after. Not sure anyone did hear from her. You might ask at the manor house.”
Leoka said nothing, and just inhaled, taking in the smell of wet hay and manure sensing some distant memory linked to the scent drifting just beyond his ken.
“There was a cousin too, I think. Next village over.” The man offered after a fashion then, not getting a response ventured further. “You got a place for the night, Leofric?”
Leoka sensed an offer there, but his hand went instinctively to the pouch on his belt, his thoughts turning to the road, to costs, to how far he could get - his other hand coming to rest on the pommel of his sword. “Aye, I’m well appointed enough. I’d just hoped old Aelwin might take comfort, knowing his son was alive and made something for himself.”
“I am sorry friend.”
“What reason is there to be sorry?” Leoka asked brisquely, turning the faded holy emblem on the back of his weathered cloak to the man, while giving a conciliatory waive of his hand that whatever ill he’d done was forgiven. “This too is Eruharion’s grand Design. Who are we to complain?”
The man said nothing then. A simple grunt of acknowledgement to The Maker.
“Eruhu vamu spasi, good man.” Leoka gave the reign of his mule a tug, and the beast lurched forward following the warrior off, down the road.
The old farmer stood there a time, leaning against his pitch-folk as he watched the holy warrior disappearing into the setting sun. Finally stood upright, took a breath and turned back to his fields, resolved to ask the elders in town whether any among them recalled as son of Aelwin who’d gone off to one of the holy orders.
There followed for a few days among the elders in the village discussions and recollections of the day fine knights and riders, their armors gleaming had come riding through town and that poor old Aelwin had sent his son away with them to become a man.
Not that any of it mattered. The man himself was long gone, and never did return.
@Tesserach From the Co-OP discussion the 'cash-for-tots' stuff feels like its from a more cynical world rather than a mythic heroic fantasy we're leaning into. If there's an understanding both ICly and OOCly that going to serve with the Orders leads to a better life and the payment to the family is to recompense them for the lost labour then we're okay with it.
We are breaking with the modern George R R Martin tradition of a crapsack fantasy world and going back to the Old Master!
For what it's worth Leofric is objectively both materially and socially advanced for having joined the Holy Orders. I'd say under normal circumstances, a better life is almost certainly the idealized intent of both parties but obviously the civil war in Jugkrai isn't exactly situation normal, being as it is a frozen land having spent the last 50 years fallen under the shadow of literal evil... and there's a civil war on.
Leofric's character is something of a dialogue with Tolkien's conception of good vs evil.
@Tesserach With Leofric, we were wondering why he was recruited as a six year old? It's also from a country quite a long way from where the order is doing its thing. Was it you were intending he went to work as a page for an Order Knight? I'm guessing it's that... but just wanted to clarify! Other than that the app is fine.
I didn't expand on the politics of it, but he was picked up by a band of exiles going around drumming up support all over for their order's return north. He was part of the cash for tots program - sold into what his dirtfarmer parents were told would be a better life.
Page work with order knights was the initial implication, yes.
The exiles basically spend a few years trying to fleece support before meeting up with the rest of their surviving old gang and went north for one last big hurrah. The journey sets up 1) Why he's here and 2) That this sword maniac did train with guys that were picked up all over the world before he spent 20 years at war.
Name: Leofric Aelwinovich syn Otric (The Shieldbearer Leofric, son of Aelwin) aka Leoka Species: Human Race/Nationality: Eahamingas Gender: Male Age: 39 Languages: Northern Jugkraian(native), Arventian(fluent, heavy Jugkraian accent), Eahamingan(clumsy, though his accent is less pronounced), Sidfirian(broken monastic teachings) Appearance: Leofric stands around 6’2” with broad shoulders and arms, with a modest if athletic physique. He’s most notable for his long, slightly curled blonde hair and blue eyes. Personal Effects: Travel kit - including an axe used mostly for firewood, battle worn mail hauberk, splinted greaves, vambraces and gloves, he’s never without a long, sharp dagger. Weathered tunic, hose, furs for cold weather. A fine, but worn travel cloak, with faded religious order heraldry. His most notable possessions are a fine spatha style sword, custom made with an slightly longer grip, and stiffer, more tapered point for thrusting. And his mule, Zapas.
Background:
Role: Swordmaster/Shield-bearer Backstory:
Leofric, was only six when he was recruited by the Eruheronosetsy pri Ordynskaya Storozha, The Holy Militant Order of the Horde Watch, which for generations had guarded the main pass through the great Rzhagomir Mountains against the orcish hordes. Hundreds of years protecting Jugkrai, only to be stabbed in the backs by the very people they’d been sworn to protect.
The men that took Leofric in were the grizzled survivors of that losing battle, passing through Eahamingas on their pilgrimage south, seeking the benediction of the Sidfir before embarking on their great vision to redeem themselves and their order, and reclaim their holy citadel.
He was raised among these men. On their stories of the desperate fighting in the passes and in the unfamiliar snows. Training with them, as they travelled the land, recruiting, preparing, talking always of the great journey north.
Leofric grew strong among them. Trained as a shield-bearer - a squire - to the knights of noble men the Order took on. The Order taught him many things. He learned to speak northern jugkaraian, until his own native tongue began to feel clumsy and unfamiliar on his lips. He learned how to make camps, how to be a shield-bearer - but most of all he learned that if any of them were to survive they would have to train to fight. He learned and trained, until the mother and father and sister he’d left behind faded into distant dreams and he could no longer recall their faces or names.
Leofric was no knight, but he took to the blade. He trained like his life depended upon it. Trained whenever he could. The knights, who had honed their skills now with some of the finest warriors the world over found it amusing at first, then interesting - then useful. They tested each other constantly, honed their skills together until none could best him with a blade. As a young shieldbearer not yet come into his prime, already he was acknowledged as an emerging master of the sword and frequently began to train both knights and squires.
And then the day came when it was announced they would be returning to Junkai - for Leorfric, the first time, but he was confident. They all were.
Leofric won great renown for his surpassing skill with a blade as a squire in Jugkrai, both an instructor and fighting as a squire in many battles against both orcs and the Northern Jugkrai army. Unfortunately, mostly on the losing side.
Twenty years of fighting, and Leofric, son of Aelwin is done with Jugkrai and its wars, the Ordynskaya Storozha he joined is dead and gone, he’s done with dreams of knighthood, done with the other Eruheronosetsy orders, done with civil war and everything else around it.
He left Eahamingas a boy, with dreams of becoming a great swordsman and left Jugkrai, a bitter and jaded master of the blade after so many years with little ambition left save to continue perfecting the craft he'd taken up in youth - in truth more now from habit and stubborness than any real drive. Crossing half the world, through many trials, he returned to Eahamingas chasing work; a caravan guard while travelling, a deckhand at sea, he'd thought he might retire to teaching young nobles his craft, perhaps finding kindred spirits to follow in his footsteps but quickly found he had no stomach for youthful nobles. Eventually he sought out the half-remembered life and family he'd left behind, only to find them passed with barely a remembrance of the son that might have carried on their line.
Eventually, Leofric found once again as a squire for an aging knight-errant on some quest or another, while Leofric confronts the trajectory of his life.
Character Intro:
Leoka squinted into the golden sunlight that pierced his eyes from just above the treeline as he scanned the fallow field that stretched before him, searching for something, anything familiar. He glanced back over his shoulder down the narrow, muddly lane that wound its way down towards the village off in the distance, comparing the track against half recollected memories and dreams.
“Are you lost stranger?”
Leoka turned abruptly enough the weathered, middle aged man standing a distance away took a step back and gripped his pitchfork tighter. The man’s weathered faced regarded him with wary eyes beneath a brow etched with sweat as he planted the haft of his pitchfork in the earth. Leoka’s blue eyes searched the face and features as they’d searched the fields, but there was nothing familiar there either. “I lived here.” He was painfully aware of the thick Jugkrian accent that afflicted what was once his native tongue as he turned back again, searching one last time against the treeline for some trace of the daub and thatch hut he imagined from his youth. “Somewhere.”
The man’s face scrunched in disbelief though his shoulders relaxed and he leaned on his pitchfork, seeming less wary and more amused. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here. I sure don’t recognize you.”
“I was here all the same. My name is Leofric, son of Aelwin.” Leoka waved his hand, vaguely toward the field and back towards the village. “The homestead was here. I remember this. This lane, to the village. It was here.”
“Aye, Aelwin lived here…” The man’s face shifted, the disbelief given way to now searching Leoka’s face for something familiar, struggling to do so. He seemed to give up on the attempt pointing instead towards the distant treeline. “Over there.”
Leoka studied the treeline, the ground of it, trying to fit the fallow field and trees to his memory.
“Aelwin died, about ten years back. Not long after his wife passed if I recall. I don’t know I ever met a son…”
Leoka stood still a moment, and only nodded. He glanced back towards the village. “There was a daughter too. She was my sister…” He tried to remember the name, the face, but somehow it was lost to time. He’d known it once. As familiar as breathing but somehow, somewhere along the line it’d been lost. It hadn’t seemed important then, and now it was gone.
The man took a moment before responding. His previous standoffishness evaporated as something in Leoka’s bearing told him this man was exactly what he seemed. “The lord said she sold the sharecrop back after he passed, and left soon after. Not sure anyone did hear from her. You might ask at the manor house.”
Leoka said nothing, and just inhaled, taking in the smell of wet hay and manure sensing some distant memory linked to the scent drifting just beyond his ken.
“There was a cousin too, I think. Next village over.” The man offered after a fashion then, not getting a response ventured further. “You got a place for the night, Leofric?”
Leoka sensed an offer there, but his hand went instinctively to the pouch on his belt, his thoughts turning to the road, to costs, to how far he could get - his other hand coming to rest on the pommel of his sword. “Aye, I’m well appointed enough. I’d just hoped old Aelwin might take comfort, knowing his son was alive and made something for himself.”
“I am sorry friend.”
“What reason is there to be sorry?” Leoka asked brisquely, turning the faded holy emblem on the back of his weathered cloak to the man, while giving a conciliatory waive of his hand that whatever ill he’d done was forgiven. “This too is Eruharion’s grand Design. Who are we to complain?”
The man said nothing then. A simple grunt of acknowledgement to The Maker.
“Eruhu vamu spasi, good man.” Leoka gave the reign of his mule a tug, and the beast lurched forward following the warrior off, down the road.
The old farmer stood there a time, leaning against his pitch-folk as he watched the holy warrior disappearing into the setting sun. Finally stood upright, took a breath and turned back to his fields, resolved to ask the elders in town whether any among them recalled as son of Aelwin who’d gone off to one of the holy orders.
There followed for a few days among the elders in the village discussions and recollections of the day fine knights and riders, their armors gleaming had come riding through town and that poor old Aelwin had sent his son away with them to become a man.
Not that any of it mattered. The man himself was long gone, and never did return.
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