AGE: 43
RACE: Breton (Reachman)
BIRTHSIGN: The Warrior
APPEARANCE: Much like the rest of his ilk, Ducorach's features strike a weathered, wilder line than those of his High-Rock cousins. Where a Breton from the west might be carved of aquiline nose and ears that threaten on the elven, Ducorach's facial extremities droop and come to rounded and more wind-beaten tissue. His face wears the marks of a life spent on the trail, or on the brine of the Abecean and the Ghost, discoloured some in splodges that swivel around sunken eyes, ridged by calloused wrinkles yet, half-covered with his wet-mopped black hair, Ducorach cuts just south of handsome. From the lofty perch of 5'11", Ducorach stands quite-the height for a Breton, too, and coupled with the practiced arms of a sea-hand, you could be forgiven for thinking that he was the runt of Nordic stock.

PERSONALITY: For most of his adult life, Ducorach has found himself amiable, almost chirpy. Perhaps spending 10 years on an Imperial galley engenders a certain socialised demeanour, but Ducorach has always been the first to gather around the hearth, or the campfire, or simply a good cup of mead (some of the Nord-culture has rubbed off on him), eagre to swap meaningless, and all-too-often fictional tales of, in equal measures, valour and heriroic, and self-deprecating hilarity, with all company present.

However, he is not without his scars. Having grown up a Reachman in Nordic Markarth, Ducorach clangs with the paranoia that he is an outcast, without a home, destined to peek into the lives and dwellings of other peoples only to wander on again after his welcome has passed. Perhaps it is this sense that has driven him to wandering, first in his life as a sailor, and then as a petty-merchant peddling wares to skip-borders with as much haste as possible.

Over his travels, Ducorach has found music to be an excellent leveller, and as such, has taught himself to play the lute, cataloging all sorts of regional tunes.

BACKSTORY: Ducorach was born in 4E158 to a Bretic serving-class family, his father a cook in the Jarl's kitchens, and his mother a bookkeeper for the Silver-Blood family and their eponymous identured prison-mine. Owing to his mother's position, a cataloguer of a prison-population that, essentially, comprised the indebted, downtrodden Reachmen to whom their family belonged, Ducorach found scant friends among those of his kin who could afford to remain free. To the mind of a child, arbitrary notions of race mattered little, and, pragmatically, he began to draw his friends almost entirely from Nords.

From his youth, all the way up until he entered his eighteenth year, Ducorach scarcely noticed the shackles that bound people like he, even as all the skilled traders selected their aprentices solely of the Nordic stock of Ducorach's friends, or as the Warrens swelled with displaced Reachmen taxed, selectively, by a Nordic collector seeking favour with his friends and he himself was left to scrape pans in the house of the Jarl. These injustices seemed to pass him by - he was a model of integration, his nord-friends saw Ducorach, and not some wild-Bretic-youth here to cause trouble, and any misfortune on his part was put down just to that - fortune.

That was until the Great War, when soldiers filled out by their thousands, and within two years, some mad-men from the hills had overthrown the Jarl, and anyone with even a hint of Breton, in the end, became lamented and despised.

For two years, Ducorach lived under the rule of his own people, and it was a peaceful one, not in the least because his mother, as someone with extensive knowledge of the city's life-blood, Cidnha-Mine, was given care of its upkeep, along with a tidy commission which saw their coffers fill. The family ate at tables the father had once catered for, and though some Nord's seemed displaced, even as downtrodden as the Reachmen once were, Ducorach could not help but turn a blind eye, especially in the face of their new-found riches.

However, it was not to last. In 4E 176, Ulfric Stormcloak came riding into the city, swept away two years of industry by Ducorach's people, and exacted terrible venus cd for their "crimes". Out of nothing more meaningful than fear, many of Ducorach's former friends headed Ulfric's call-to-arms, and when they were through, turned Ducorach and his family over to the Nordic authorities. It was in Ulfric's mass killings that Ducorach lost his mother, along with a host of Nords too moral to participate in such an act.

Following the Markarth incident, Ducorach felt the need to flee Markarth, the petty dichtonomy of Nord and Reachman, one which never ought to have existed, as he was proof to. Heading for Dawnstar, Ducorach signed on with the Imperial Navy. For two years, he worked as a petty laborer, but the vacuum left by the Great War soon became his boon, and Ducorach was afforded every opportunity for improvement. Owing to his race, he was given basic-battlemage training, and within 5 years could conjure a healing-spell poweful enough to save a life endangered, a firebolt to help raise a galley or a ice-blast to make-brittle even the best of Legion steel. Swordwork, too, he learned, though he was no natural fencer, his magical skills gave him enough to compensate. Ducorach loved the Navy - patrols, after the war, were quiet, uneventful, save a handful of pirates in the calm of the Abecean, and each many and woman on the crew had a different story, a different tale, fundamentally far-flung from any told around them. Somewhere he could blend in.

But then, after 17 years of sailing, at 35, Ducorach was dumped with a pension, in some pissant port near the Imperial city, bristling with skills he no longer had a use for. There was mercernary work, sure, but the thought of a band of fighters camped out in the hills stoked too many memories of his losses in Markarth. So, instead, Ducorach threw in with an enterprising Khajiti friend, eagre to start a trade route, and pretty soon he was traipsing all across Tamriel, half-heartedly peddling trinkets in return for a chance to glimpse the wondrous provinces of the continent. It was in these days he became quite the adept wordsmith, to talk his way around checkpoint and guard and toll.

After eight years of wandering, the hollowness of his journey was made manifest when a letter arrived, dated and signed by the steward of Markarth himself. Ducorach's father, whom he had kept from the Warrens with coin from the legion, but scarce seen in all the years, had passed away. Ducorach realised it was time to return to Markarth, to make his peace with his past.

ARMOUR: Mismatch, patchwork leather plates stretched over slight-rusted legion chain mail. Fur lined boots, and thin fur-gloves for dexterity.

WEAPONS: Steel Shortsword, Fire and Ice Magic, Restoration and magelight

SKILLS: One Handed, Destruction, Restoration, Speech, Light Armour

NAME: Tss'lelis (He answers to Tss as well)
AGE: 25
RACE: Argonian
BIRTHSIGN: The Thief
ARMOR: Leather Armor, Fur Bracers, Fur Helm
WEAPONS: Hunting Bow, Iron Arrows, Iron Dagger, Iron War Axe, Pickaxe
SKILLS: Sneak, Lock picking, Archery, One-Handed, Light Armor

APPEARANCE: Short for an Argonian and more forward-leaning, Tss'lelis naturally moves closer to the ground. His build is lithe and defined though his tail is a little flatter than most. In the eyes of an Argonian, he wouldn't be that handsome or masculine but his looks tend more toward aesthetically pleasing than most and the soothing brown of his eyes can be disarming. His arms are also a little on the long side, almost enough to be touching the ground when he runs. His skin coloration is a non-uniform mottling of dark grays, blues and black. Combined with a swept back head crest he has a very subtle and unusual profile and is difficult to pick out and recognize from a dark background or the bottom of a body of water.

PERSONALITY: His time in the mines taught him to learn the behaviors of others quickly and to keep his head down and his mouth shut. He is one to work well but he never gives his all to a single task so that he has enough left to take a beating or handle other unexpected trouble. While he is illiterate, he has a bookish mentality. He studies by observation and has a keen eye for behaviors and trends in everything.

His natural instinct for survival leads him to act quietly and quickly without advertising his efforts whether he's setting up a campsite, picking a lock, or shooting a hawk on the fly. In short, you are most likely to realize that he entered the fight when an arrow flashes past you to strike an enemy that was paying too much attention to you and too little to the shadows in the background.

BACKSTORY: Tss'lelis was born in the prison mines owned by the Silverborn family. His mother was a prisoner there after failing to pay her husband's debt. She was kind but the work was hard on her and she had little left for her son at the end of the day. He lived and worked there with her until he was fifteen when his mother died in a small cave-in. This would have been a personal tragedy had he not been somewhat distanced from his mother by the extremes of their living conditions. In the mines, where he had been born and where he had only heard of things like weather and the sky, was the only world he knew. Here he learned the art of not being noticed even when he was right in front of someone. He also became strong and patient and honed his observational skills on the many people who were incarcerated during his life there. He picked up a few practical skills from them as well. Lock picking and the basics of using one handed weapons were the most useful of these skills, though he had only the most simple of locks and shanks or pickaxes to practice with. Thankfully, the guards and inmates treated him with some leniency since he had never been free.

The family's debt was mostly paid off by the time of his mother's death but a small amount remained. Since he was already employed there the debt was quietly transferred to him on the books and he continued as a worker in the only world he knew until he was sixteen.

A few months after his sixteenth birthday an enterprising hunter by the name of Ulster came and purchased his small remaining debt from the Silverborns. This hunter became the closest thing that Tss'lelis would know to a father figure. He was also the man who first showed the argonian youth the sky for the first time. But, before he left the mines, one of the guards gave him an iron dagger to help him in the real world. He and his mother hadn't caused any trouble, a very rare thing in those mines.

Over the next seven years Tss'lelis proved a diligent student and a talented one, though more diligent than talented. His master was a skilled enough hunter but needed extra help on longer hunts and it had actually been cheaper to buy out the remaining debt than it was to hire help. In this case, the hunter counted himself very lucky. Tss, as he came to be called by his master for the sake of convenience, was naturally gifted at swimming even in the strongest currents and proved capable with a bow as well as an axe. He made more money on the long hunts of those years than he had hoped for and rewarded his quiet helper with periodic gifts of equipment or trinkets to practice his skills on.

Those seven years of indentured service ended shortly after a bad river crossing when Ulster was attacked by seven slaughterfish and knocked into the deep water. Unable to fight in the water or get away to shore, he would have died if not for the skill of his quick learning servant. Tss dove into the water with his dagger in hand and killed the fish then pulled his master to shore. They were both badly wounded but they managed to reach a small fishing village and survived. After this incident Ulster completed the legal process of declaring the argonian's family debt paid in full. He also offered the young man an apprenticeship. Tss accepted quickly.

The next three years passed quickly with even more successful hunts and the gradual improvement of the skills that had proved vital so many times. However, all good times come to an end eventually. Ulster fell ill and died shortly before Tss would have turned 25. Without a master he found that his apprenticeship proved a handicap. He couldn't get good prices for meat or hides and his fortunes dropped considerably. Without knowledge of reading or writing he had little alternative but to continue on as he was. Soon he was only able to afford short hunts and had to live in the warrens, back underground and only seeing the sky when he could manage to get out to hunt. And here he remained, quietly avoiding notice and surviving until the plague and quarantine began and trapped him again in the dark.

NAME
Drenarald

AGE
32

RACE
Nord

APPEARANCE
Drenarald doesn't interact much with people besides issues coming up while on guard duty, during which he almost never removes his helmet. As such, most people will only recognize him as just another faceless guard of Markarth equipped with another identical set of armor.

Under the helmet, he is a typical Nord with hard features and bright blue eyes. His somewhat long, gnarly hair is tied into a short ponytail. A thick black beard adorns his otherwise young-looking face. To some, he may appear intimidating with his solid Nord height of 6'3" and his strong, muscled physique.

BIRTHSIGN
The Warrior

PERSONALITY
Drenarald, like many others of his people, is quite proud to be a Nord. Though he is more likely to lose his temper with a non-Nord, he certainly makes an effort at being tolerant with the other races. His tolerance runs the shortest with the Mer (especially the Altmer), as he usually isn't bothered by the Khajiit and once had an Argonian friend when he was younger. One of two equal treatments he can guarantee with all citizens is his short temper.

Drenarald is quick to annoy and can be quite sarcastic. He clearly dislikes dealing with trivial issues citizens will demand for him to fix, especially if they're stupid. being a guard, he also has developed a somewhat haughty and bossy attitude.

In the end, however, he is a good man. No matter the race, Drenarald will be quick to save the citizens of Markarth should they find themselves in danger, even if they deserve it. He distinguishes himself from other guards for having a clean record of never abusing or harassing any citizens.

BACKSTORY
Drenarald was born in and continues to live in Markarth. His mother would work in the stables, and his father was a guard.

When he was young, he was most certainly a late-bloomer. he was seen as the scrawniest, weakest, and softest kid in Markarth. He was picked on frequently and pushed around by the larger children. As such, he had no friends besides his parents. He remained strong-willed, however, and determined to grow to be stronger than the rest of the kids.

Through his early teen years, his father encouraged him to reach his goal and even trained him with his own experience in guard duty. Though he worked hard and indeed made progress, thus far the others were still taller and stronger than he was. His determination wavered when he was 14, as his mother died of an unknown illness. He nearly broke under emotions, but his father continued to support him.

"Do it for your mother," He would say, and that gave Drenarald the push he needed.

He made strong progress, and as he continued to grow, the rest seemed to slow to a complete halt. They watched from a distance in anger, as Drenarald grew to be taller and stronger than them. Soon, it would be he who called them milk drinkers.

It was around this time that he met a young Argonian who came to the city one day and called himself Road-Wanderer. They soon became surprisingly good friends. They shared stories, discussed random topics, and supported each other when they were feeling down. The good Argonian stuck around the city for around a month before he mysteriously and hurriedly left one day. Drenarald was the only one he spent time with to say goodbye. It was the last time he saw Road-Wanderer.

Eventually, when Drenarald was already an adult, his father died due to a terrible infection that was not treated soon enough. To honor him, Drenarald soon followed in his father's footsteps and became a guard himself.

Due to the way he was raised and the unfortunate death of his two parents, Drenarald's personality seemed to have changed. As before, he would be lacking in friends, though it would not be because he was the scrawniest, it would be because he was simply another mean guard.

ARMOUR
Markarth guard helmet and armor (quilted vest over a shirt of bronze chainmail), fur gauntlets and boots. A standard guard's shield with the ram of Markarth adorning the front is slung across his back.

WEAPONS
Steel sword, a hunting bow, and a quiver of steel tipped arrows (30).

SKILLS
One handed, light armor, block, speechcraft, archery.