Torack

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Like one massive convergence, eh? I like it! I like it a lot!

As Darkness Fell - A dark fantasy story

Eovaine

Name:
Eovaine

Gender:
Male

Age:
135

Race:
Mûl Elf

Appearance:
Eovaine is average height for a Mûl elf with dark blond hair that falls to his waist. His face is angular with a pointed chin, high cheekbones, and somewhat hollowed cheeks. Golden eyes peer out from underneath thick eyebrows that seem to always be turned down in a perpetual frown, and his ears are overly long, fanning out on either side of his head.

Personality:
One would assume upon seeing Eovaine that he is a rigid individual with an incredible amount of self discipline. However, that isn't really the case with this particular elf. Despite his stoic face, Eovaine is a humorous individual with a very laid-back attitude and the only sort of self discipline he shows is keeping himself from getting too many women in his bed (human females have a strange attraction to foreigners and he uses that to his advantage). He has a strong personality, often wanting to be the center of attention and loves when all eyes are on him. Being a hero thus works wonderfully in his favour.

History:
Eovaine was born into a family of mercenaries. Although he never quite picked up the mercenary lifestyle, he enjoyed it nonetheless. His childhood was often filled with uncles and aunts that had extremely colourful personalities and would often steal him away on adventures when his parents weren't looking. As Eovaine grew, he learned at a youthful age the harshness of the world while on an expedition with a small team they were all, save for Eovaine, killed in a freak accident. Strong, hardened elves and men gone in an instant before they could react.

This struck Eovaine and he sought to change whatever of the world he could in anyway he was able to. Often he would go into small towns and hamlets where the folk would tell him of some official, or some stuck up small noble who would take more from the people than they had, or had in some way abused them. He would then take it upon himself to threaten the official or nobleman to fix their ways or he'd return; for the especially nasty he would make disappear and make the people elect a new official.


Equipment:

• Steel hauberk over a hardened leather vest
• Ancestral cloak
  An heirloom from his father, this beige cloak looks as though it were made from thousands of autumn leaves that appear to fly off every time a gust passes through it; one would think the cloak is flimsy and brittle, but some sort of ancient magic makes it sturdier and warmer than it should be.
• Twin steel scimitars
• Sword belt
• Studded leather knee-high boots and leather gloves

Example Post

With the last customer finally out of the bakery, the woman walked around her counter and into the back room where she snuffed out the stone-oven fire and put every utensil in its place. Some minutes later she walked back to the front and turned off the lantern lights before heading out and locking up. She stood there for a moment, the key still in its hole and her head on the wooden door. This place would have to close down soon, she knew, and it hurt her that she couldn't afford to keep this place open any longer. For generations this place would make the best pie, and now, because of her failed business plan, her family legacy would no longer exist.

"Hey!"

The woman looked up sharply and squealed as she tried to stifle a shrill scream. She took a moment to catch her breath and looked back up. "Eovaine, you bastard! What are you doing up there?"

"I came for some pie."

She stared at him. "I'm closed."

"Open up, then. I want pie."

"Get it from somewhere else, there are countless other bakeries open this late."

"Yes, well. They don't make pie like you do, and I need my fix."

"You need your fix," she muttered shaking her head as she took out the key and walked away. "I'm closed. And I doubt I'll be open much longer."

"You don't have to worry about that," he said following her from the rooftops. "Not anymore at least."

She stopped and looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"I took care of it."

"You took care of it?"

"I took care of it," he nodded.

She looked at him open mouthed. "What? How?"

He shrugged. "I know people. And I didn't want my favourite pie place to shut down... so."

"How'd you even know?"

He smiled then jumped down from the rooftops, landing silently and walked up to her. A sudden dangerous aura emanating from him. "I don't let stuck up bankers decide when it's time to shut down my favourite pie-place." Then he backed up and walked towards the bakery. "So, as a reward, bake me some pie."

She rolled her eyes and walked back, smiling despite herself. "Fuck you, Eovaine."

He grinned. The bastard.

Other: Eovaine has an unhealthy obsession with pie.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Eyyy Awesome!

Sadly that's true even though they're amazing books.

How do you mean by the continent deal? As in jumping from continent to continent as the books did?

As Darkness Fell - A dark fantasy story

Eovaine

Name:
Eovaine

Gender:
Male

Age:
135

Race:
Mûl Elf

Appearance:
Eovaine is average height for a Mûl elf with dark blond hair that falls to his waist. His face is angular with a pointed chin, high cheekbones, and somewhat hollowed cheeks. Golden eyes peer out from underneath thick eyebrows that seem to always be turned down in a perpetual frown, and his ears are overly long, fanning out on either side of his head.

Personality:
One would assume upon seeing Eovaine that he is a rigid individual with an incredible amount of self discipline. However, that isn't really the case with this particular elf. Despite his stoic face, Eovaine is a humorous individual with a very laid-back attitude and the only sort of self discipline he shows is keeping himself from getting too many women in his bed (human females have a strange attraction to foreigners and he uses that to his advantage). He has a strong personality, often wanting to be the center of attention and loves when all eyes are on him. Being a hero thus works wonderfully in his favour.

History:
Eovaine was born into a family of mercenaries. Although he never quite picked up the mercenary lifestyle, he enjoyed it nonetheless. His childhood was often filled with uncles and aunts that had extremely colourful personalities and would often steal him away on adventures when his parents weren't looking. As Eovaine grew, he learned at a youthful age the harshness of the world while on an expedition with a small team they were all, save for Eovaine, killed in a freak accident. Strong, hardened elves and men gone in an instant before they could react.

This struck Eovaine and he sought to change whatever of the world he could in anyway he was able to. Often he would go into small towns and hamlets where the folk would tell him of some official, or some stuck up small noble who would take more from the people than they had, or had in some way abused them. He would then take it upon himself to threaten the official or nobleman to fix their ways or he'd return; for the especially nasty he would make disappear and make the people elect a new official.


Equipment:

• Steel hauberk over a hardened leather vest
• Ancestral cloak
  An heirloom from his father, this beige cloak looks as though it were made from thousands of autumn leaves that appear to fly off every time a gust passes through it; one would think the cloak is flimsy and brittle, but some sort of ancient magic makes it sturdier and warmer than it should be.
• Twin steel scimitars
• Sword belt
• Studded leather knee-high boots and leather gloves

Example Post

With the last customer finally out of the bakery, the woman walked around her counter and into the back room where she snuffed out the stone-oven fire and put every utensil in its place. Some minutes later she walked back to the front and turned off the lantern lights before heading out and locking up. She stood there for a moment, the key still in its hole and her head on the wooden door. This place would have to close down soon, she knew, and it hurt her that she couldn't afford to keep this place open any longer. For generations this place would make the best pie, and now, because of her failed business plan, her family legacy would no longer exist.

"Hey!"

The woman looked up sharply and squealed as she tried to stifle a shrill scream. She took a moment to catch her breath and looked back up. "Eovaine, you bastard! What are you doing up there?"

"I came for some pie."

She stared at him. "I'm closed."

"Open up, then. I want pie."

"Get it from somewhere else, there are countless other bakeries open this late."

"Yes, well. They don't make pie like you do, and I need my fix."

"You need your fix," she muttered shaking her head as she took out the key and walked away. "I'm closed. And I doubt I'll be open much longer."

"You don't have to worry about that," he said following her from the rooftops. "Not anymore at least."

She stopped and looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"I took care of it."

"You took care of it?"

"I took care of it," he nodded.

She looked at him open mouthed. "What? How?"

He shrugged. "I know people. And I didn't want my favourite pie place to shut down... so."

"How'd you even know?"

He smiled then jumped down from the rooftops, landing silently and walked up to her. A sudden dangerous aura emanating from him. "I don't let stuck up bankers decide when it's time to shut down my favourite pie-place." Then he backed up and walked towards the bakery. "So, as a reward, bake me some pie."

She rolled her eyes and walked back, smiling despite herself. "Fuck you, Eovaine."

He grinned. The bastard.

Other: Eovaine has an unhealthy obsession with pie.

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Alright, fair point. How does being slow sound? As in he's slow due to all the armour he's wearing, which I'll have to edit to make this make sense, and his swing speed is not as fast as the average swordsman.

EDIT:

I've also lowkey been craving a Malazan roleplay so this works out perfectly!

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Yes! One of the best series I've ever read! I'm just about to finish Toll the Hounds and I'm shook.

Also edited my character!

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

He's one of my all time favourites too!

Aight, fair enough points. I guess I didn't quite understand the weakness part. I'll fix it up ASAP

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Kalam Tobli

Kalam Tobli

Name:
Kalam Tobli

Age:
28

Race:
Human

Class:

Major:
A city guard

Minor:
Mercenary

God:
Michael

Appearance:

picture

Kalam stands at 6'5" at full height, has broad shoulders with a lean, athletic build and a kind face. His skin is dark with bright blue eyes and a goatee covers his chin. His full lips are perpetually turned upwards in a small smile, only ever disappearing in extreme circumstances. There are no visible scars on his body save for the dorsal surface of his hands which look like they've been mistook for a cutting board.

Personality

If there's one thing to say about Kalam, it's that he's an optimistic man. He always tried tries to find the good in every outcome, even if it's a stretch. He believes wholeheartedly that a person decides their own happiness, and so he chooses to remain happy. He is also something of a generous man, believing that he should spread whatever happiness he can in a world so full of sorrow and dread. And along with his optimism, Kalam is one with both a dark and healthy sense of humour both, knowing well the dark corners of his mind and tapping into it as an ironic method to brush it away, to make light of the dark thoughts that swim in his mind and threaten, in some small way, the happiness that he works so hard for.

He is also a man that is, when the time calls for it, incredibly self-controlled. He holds himself to a high standard, higher than many others hold him to, and some see this as stuck up or that he is in some way better than them. Kalam holds to no such thing, he believes a man is as great as he makes himself to be and so, like happiness, he tries to make himself great in what little corner of the world he's in.

Of course, along with these qualities, he has just as many flaws, or even a bit more. Despite his self control, he's a man that struggles with rage issues. Although not exactly quick to anger, when he does become angry, it's severe and usually resultes in him lashing out in some way, and takes ages for him to cool down. Not something he is fond of talking about. He is also afraid of facing his faults and would rather smother them under his great outlook towards life than confront them and deal with them head on. Faults that include his unhealthy addiction to alcohol, somewhat slight paranoia, and his obsessive nature to perfect everything including himself.

Spirit Animal: Lion

Equipment

• An old steel shield
• Steel bastard sword
• Steel plate with a massive pauldron on the left shoulder
• Steel chain and leather tassets
• Lobstered gauntlets and spiked greaves
• Tattered green cloak

Skills:

• Incredible Endurance
  Kalam's endurance is incredibly high, from hours of having to patrol the city with heavy gear along with his old captain having him and several other men jog around half the city with full gear before the sun rose and the other half just as it set. It was torturous, but it gave him near superhuman endurance. It would take an incredible amount of physical strain to even make Kalam break a sweat.
• Absorbance
  Kalam's shield was enchanted by an old friend of his, long past, to absorb a small amount of damage, decreasing the jarring effect on his shoulder and elbow every time he blocked an attack, thus allowing him to follow through with a counter-attack that much quicker.

Magic:
N/A

Strength:
Kalam's greatest strength is perhaps his endurance. He can, in most circumstances, push his body to its limit without even getting winded and uses this particular gift in his fighting style; using a mostly defensive style to tire his enemies out before taking them down.

Weakness:
As an alcoholic, his obvious weakness would be alcohol. He will often accept any drink from just about anyone without a second thought, and although he knows this is stupidly dangerous on his part, he can barely help it.

Due to all the running he had to do with full armour, Kalam's knees are incredibly worn, often causing him debilitating pain when he moves too quickly, when stands for long periods of time, or when he overuses the joint.

In addition to this, Kalam is slow due to all the gear he's in, and because he doesn't at all rely on his strength, swinging his large sword is rather slow compared to the average swordsman.

Post Color: teal

History

Kalam was born as the third and only surviving child to an incredibly poor family in Menover. His days as a youth were filled with adventures through the city slums, the wild adventures of street urchins with their own dangers in the form of belligerent adults and vicious street bullies, the former of which Kalam quickly learned to stay away from but the latter was a problem he could never quite escape. That is until he joined them. As a youth Kalam was big, big enough to get the notice of the local thug and with the promise of wealth and a chance to help his family, Kalam joined them. There were few opportunities otherwise for one in his position; and as he terrorized children, even some of the adults, he found himself beginning to like this newfound power. Thus, gone were the days where he would run away from bakers threatening him with a cleaver, the butcher throwing knives in his direction, the shady man on the corner of the alley trying to convince him to follow.

Instead, bread was given to him as a favour, money was thrown at his feet just by walking into a store, and whoever didn't pay up would find themselves tottering on Death's doorway, compliments of his fist. For the first few years, Kalam was given a taste of a great life. His family finally managed to move out of the slums and into a district that was, although still poor, deeper in the heart of the city and far removed from the slums and his father finally found a job as a butcher and worked towards bettering their lives.

As he rose through the ranks, however, many became jealous of Kalam's sudden favour. The way he strut around like everything was his, the way he could make the older thugs give him respect and treat him like one of their own. It rubbed them the wrong way. And so they decided to pull him down a few pegs. Teach him a lesson. He had to climb the ladder the old-fashioned way.

Alas, the next morning Kalam woke to his mother screaming and upon entering their room had found his father killed. Throat slit wide open, trachea and esophagus lacerated with a clear view of the vertebra beneath. Horror stricken and distraught, Kalam went on a rampage throuhgout the slums to find who had killed his father only to learn it was the local thug's boy who had done it. Kalam knew to do anything to him would be suicide and so he gave up and resorted, instead, to drinking.

Several months thereafter, a friend of his told him a safe way to get back at his father's killer: joining the city guard. Nobody would question a guard taking down a local thug, no one would question the guard's honour if he hapened to kill the boy. It was a thought, and it mulled within his mind for several days until he went and signed up for the city guard.

They knew him, of course, and at first laughed him off until the Captain of the guards told him he'd give him a shot. But he'd be trained harder and dealt with harsher than anyone with him. He agreed. And so, he joined the recruits and went through the usual training with a special twist specifically for him. Every morning he would jog around half the city, in full armour, and do the other half just as the sun set.

The first few weeks he could barely do it without passing out a quarter of the way through, by the end of six months however, he was able to finish most of it without throwing up. By the year, he was jogging with only a little difficulty, and by the second year, it had become almost second nature. His body had become rougher, stronger, whatever fat he had been carrying had disappeared replaced with lean muscle. He was officiated six months later as a city guard and thus his hunt began. He started by rooting out the smaller thugs, gaining information on his target, learning whatever he could to indict the man who killed his father. Several months of this and he was finally able to convince the Captain of a massive raid in the slums. It was a massive success. The thugs scattered as the guards began breaking down doors, tearing down shops, and razing several houses to the ground. And Kalam found his target kneeling, begging for his life as he plunged his sword into him.

The raid caused massive backlash from the populace which eventually reached the ears of the nobility. Even though they had wiped out the thugs, many civilians were killed and Kalam was their fall-guy. Seeing an opportunity in this, he quit from his service as a guard, talked his way out of being goaled, and decided to sell his skills to the rebellion as they arrived in the city, freely advertising himself and his capabilities in the way he took down the thugs within the city.

Sample Post

The horses' hooves drummed against the dirt road as a pair of riders rode south at a canter, their cloaks billowing behind them while thunder threatened overhead as they crested a hill, the man in the lead pulling on the reigns until they came to a stop. Ahead of them, by several klicks they could see the evergreen treeline that marked the valley floor of the mountain ranges. The man, Captain Hoardy, had been experiencing a loss of men of late and had sent a squad to scout the area several days back with yet any of them to bring back word. Normally he wouldn't get involved, these areas were known for their banditry and it was common for the harsher men of mercenary bands to leave their brothers behind to join the bandits. He had suspected as such and would have sent another squad after them, were it not for reports of the Rebellion creeping in these parts.

Thus, he had little choice in the matter.

The other man, Sergeant Crapper, reigned up next to him and spit on the ground. A bald, but otherwise handsome fellow. "I think we should've brought more men, Captain. An entire squad goes missing and we're the only responders?"

"Aye. We're not to engage, unless we absolutely have to and even then, far easier for the two of us to escape than a squad."

"It don't smell right to me."

"Nothing smells right to you, Sergeant."

Sergeant Crapper grunted and mumbled a few curses under his breath.

Hoardy spurred his horse forward down the slope into a canter following the dirt track until they reached the forest, reigning in to a trot as they went inside and eventually to a walk. It wasn't long after that they found a clearing and decided it'd be best to continue on foot. After tying their horses, Sergeant Crapper began following a track that led towards a shallow stream that cut across a second clearing where they found evidence of a broken camp and a severed hand.

Half an hour later they came across the bodies of the missing squad. Their corpses arranged in a circle as though they were fighting a single target. Beyond the bodies by some distance a man was sitting on a tree stump sharpening his sword.

He looked up without stopping, a smile playing at his lips. "Took you long enough. And here I thought you'd never show up."

Captain Hoardy gripped his sword. "Shit. Kalam."

The dark skinned man grinned as he stood and grabbed his shield. "I have to admit, Hoardy. Never thought I'd be the one to kill you."

Hoardy closed his eyes for a moment then turned back to the Sergeant. "Crapper, go back to the city. Tell them I've been slain. Tell them it was the rebels."

"Sir?"

"No questions, Sergeant. Just do it. That's an order."

Sergeant Crapper saluted and walked back.

Once he was out of sight, Hoardy turned to the bodies and walked towards them. "Good men these. Loyal. Died honourably."

"As honourable as any man can."

"I suspect you took their drinks off them?"

Kalam chuckled and tossed him a clay cup, producing a bottle of a particularly strong brand of brandy and poured them some.

"Here's to dying honourably," Hoardy said.

"It's all we strive for, Captain."

The both downed their cups in one gulp.

Captain Hoardy then unsheathed his sword and approached. "Let's get this over with, then."

"Aye, let's."

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

Kalam Tobli

Name:
Kalam Tobli

Age:
28

Race:
Human

Class:

Major:
A city guard

Minor:
Mercenary

God:
Michael

Appearance:

picture

Kalam stands at 6'5" at full height, has broad shoulders with a lean, athletic build and a kind face. His skin is dark with bright blue eyes and a goatee covers his chin. His full lips are perpetually turned upwards in a small smile, only ever disappearing in extreme circumstances. There are no visible scars on his body save for the dorsal surface of his hands which look like they've been mistook for a cutting board.

Personality

If there's one thing to say about Kalam, it's that he's an optimistic man. He always tried tries to find the good in every outcome, even if it's a stretch. He believes wholeheartedly that a person decides their own happiness, and so he chooses to remain happy. He is also something of a generous man, believing that he should spread whatever happiness he can in a world so full of sorrow and dread. And along with his optimism, Kalam is one with both a dark and healthy sense of humour both, knowing well the dark corners of his mind and tapping into it as an ironic method to brush it away, to make light of the dark thoughts that swim in his mind and threaten, in some small way, the happiness that he works so hard for.

He is also a man that is, when the time calls for it, incredibly self-controlled. He holds himself to a high standard, higher than many others hold him to, and some see this as stuck up or that he is in some way better than them. Kalam holds to no such thing, he believes a man is as great as he makes himself to be and so, like happiness, he tries to make himself great in what little corner of the world he's in.

Of course, along with these qualities, he has just as many flaws, or even a bit more. Despite his self control, he's a man that struggles with rage issues. Although not exactly quick to anger, when he does become angry, it's severe and usually resultes in him lashing out in some way, and takes ages for him to cool down. Not something he is fond of talking about. He is also afraid of facing his faults and would rather smother them under his great outlook towards life than confront them and deal with them head on. Faults that include his unhealthy addiction to alcohol, somewhat slight paranoia, and his obsessive nature to perfect everything including himself.

Spirit Animal: Lion

Equipment

• An old steel shield
• Steel bastard sword
• Chain hauberk with a pauldron that fits onto his left shoulder
• Lobstered gauntlets and spiked greaves
• Tattered green cloak

Skills:

• Incredible Endurance
  Kalam's endurance is incredibly high, from hours of having to patrol the city with heavy gear along with his old captain having him and several other men jog around half the city with full gear before the sun rose and the other half just as it set. It was torturous, but it gave him near superhuman endurance. It would take an incredible amount of physical strain to even make Kalam break a sweat.
• Absorbance
  Kalam's shield was enchanted by an old friend of his, long past, to absorb a small amount of damage, decreasing the jarring effect on his shoulder and elbow every time he blocked an attack, thus allowing him to follow through with a counter-attack that much quicker.

Magic:
N/A

Strength:
Kalam's greatest strength is perhaps his endurance. He can, in most circumstances, push his body to its limit without even getting winded and uses this particular gift in his fighting style; using a mostly defensive style to tire his enemies out before taking them down.

Weakness:
As an alcoholic, his obvious weakness would be alcohol. He will often accept any drink from just about anyone without a second thought, and although he knows this is stupidly dangerous on his part, he can barely help it.

Another weakness would be the subject of his father. Although he is an emotionally strong character, broaching that topic cripples him both physically and mentally.

Post Color: teal

History

Kalam was born as the third and only surviving child to an incredibly poor family in Menover. His days as a youth were filled with adventures through the city slums, the wild adventures of street urchins with their own dangers in the form of belligerent adults and vicious street bullies, the former of which Kalam quickly learned to stay away from but the latter was a problem he could never quite escape. That is until he joined them. As a youth Kalam was big, big enough to get the notice of the local thug and with the promise of wealth and a chance to help his family, Kalam joined them. There were few opportunities otherwise for one in his position; and as he terrorized children, even some of the adults, he found himself beginning to like this newfound power. Thus, gone were the days where he would run away from bakers threatening him with a cleaver, the butcher throwing knives in his direction, the shady man on the corner of the alley trying to convince him to follow.

Instead, bread was given to him as a favour, money was thrown at his feet just by walking into a store, and whoever didn't pay up would find themselves tottering on Death's doorway, compliments of his fist. For the first few years, Kalam was given a taste of a great life. His family finally managed to move out of the slums and into a district that was, although still poor, deeper in the heart of the city and far removed from the slums and his father finally found a job as a butcher and worked towards bettering their lives.

As he rose through the ranks, however, many became jealous of Kalam's sudden favour. The way he strut around like everything was his, the way he could make the older thugs give him respect and treat him like one of their own. It rubbed them the wrong way. And so they decided to pull him down a few pegs. Teach him a lesson. He had to climb the ladder the old-fashioned way.

Alas, the next morning Kalam woke to his mother screaming and upon entering their room had found his father killed. Throat slit wide open, trachea and esophagus lacerated with a clear view of the vertebra beneath. Horror stricken and distraught, Kalam went on a rampage throuhgout the slums to find who had killed his father only to learn it was the local thug's boy who had done it. Kalam knew to do anything to him would be suicide and so he gave up and resorted, instead, to drinking.

Several months thereafter, a friend of his told him a safe way to get back at his father's killer: joining the city guard. Nobody would question a guard taking down a local thug, no one would question the guard's honour if he hapened to kill the boy. It was a thought, and it mulled within his mind for several days until he went and signed up for the city guard.

They knew him, of course, and at first laughed him off until the Captain of the guards told him he'd give him a shot. But he'd be trained harder and dealt with harsher than anyone with him. He agreed. And so, he joined the recruits and went through the usual training with a special twist specifically for him. Every morning he would jog around half the city, in full armour, and do the other half just as the sun set.

The first few weeks he could barely do it without passing out a quarter of the way through, by the end of six months however, he was able to finish most of it without throwing up. By the year, he was jogging with only a little difficulty, and by the second year, it had become almost second nature. His body had become rougher, stronger, whatever fat he had been carrying had disappeared replaced with lean muscle. He was officiated six months later as a city guard and thus his hunt began. He started by rooting out the smaller thugs, gaining information on his target, learning whatever he could to indict the man who killed his father. Several months of this and he was finally able to convince the Captain of a massive raid in the slums. It was a massive success. The thugs scattered as the guards began breaking down doors, tearing down shops, and razing several houses to the ground. And Kalam found his target kneeling, begging for his life as he plunged his sword into him.

The raid caused massive backlash from the populace which eventually reached the ears of the nobility. Even though they had wiped out the thugs, many civilians were killed and Kalam was their fall-guy. Seeing an opportunity in this, he quit from his service as a guard, talked his way out of being goaled, and decided to sell his skills to the rebellion as they arrived in the city, freely advertising himself and his capabilities in the way he took down the thugs within the city.

Sample Post

The horses' hooves drummed against the dirt road as a pair of riders rode south at a canter, their cloaks billowing behind them while thunder threatened overhead as they crested a hill, the man in the lead pulling on the reigns until they came to a stop. Ahead of them, by several klicks they could see the evergreen treeline that marked the valley floor of the mountain ranges. The man, Captain Hoardy, had been experiencing a loss of men of late and had sent a squad to scout the area several days back with yet any of them to bring back word. Normally he wouldn't get involved, these areas were known for their banditry and it was common for the harsher men of mercenary bands to leave their brothers behind to join the bandits. He had suspected as such and would have sent another squad after them, were it not for reports of the Rebellion creeping in these parts.

Thus, he had little choice in the matter.

The other man, Sergeant Crapper, reigned up next to him and spit on the ground. A bald, but otherwise handsome fellow. "I think we should've brought more men, Captain. An entire squad goes missing and we're the only responders?"

"Aye. We're not to engage, unless we absolutely have to and even then, far easier for the two of us to escape than a squad."

"It don't smell right to me."

"Nothing smells right to you, Sergeant."

Sergeant Crapper grunted and mumbled a few curses under his breath.

Hoardy spurred his horse forward down the slope into a canter following the dirt track until they reached the forest, reigning in to a trot as they went inside and eventually to a walk. It wasn't long after that they found a clearing and decided it'd be best to continue on foot. After tying their horses, Sergeant Crapper began following a track that led towards a shallow stream that cut across a second clearing where they found evidence of a broken camp and a severed hand.

Half an hour later they came across the bodies of the missing squad. Their corpses arranged in a circle as though they were fighting a single target. Beyond the bodies by some distance a man was sitting on a tree stump sharpening his sword.

He looked up without stopping, a smile playing at his lips. "Took you long enough. And here I thought you'd never show up."

Captain Hoardy gripped his sword. "Shit. Kalam."

The dark skinned man grinned as he stood and grabbed his shield. "I have to admit, Hoardy. Never thought I'd be the one to kill you."

Hoardy closed his eyes for a moment then turned back to the Sergeant. "Crapper, go back to the city. Tell them I've been slain. Tell them it was the rebels."

"Sir?"

"No questions, Sergeant. Just do it. That's an order."

Sergeant Crapper saluted and walked back.

Once he was out of sight, Hoardy turned to the bodies and walked towards them. "Good men these. Loyal. Died honourably."

"As honourable as any man can."

"I suspect you took their drinks off them?"

Kalam chuckled and tossed him a clay cup, producing a bottle of a particularly strong brand of brandy and poured them some.

"Here's to dying honourably," Hoardy said.

"It's all we strive for, Captain."

The both downed their cups in one gulp.

Captain Hoardy then unsheathed his sword and approached. "Let's get this over with, then."

"Aye, let's."

Allaria - Classical Fantasy Ch. 5 - Recruit the Shadowwald!

So I'm almost done with my character creation, I just wanted to ask, since I'm a little stuck on this, what would be considered a strength and a weakness?