Cormac Fifth-Chance / Male / 37



Appearance

Cormac is a tall, scarred veteran who clearly has seen better days. He's missing the lower half of his right leg and has replaced it with a wooden one and walks with a noticeable limp. He's also missing a finger from his left hand. He cuts his curly auburn hair short and keeps his scruff in check as best he can. His scars, size, and steely face make him a rather imposing figure.

Personality

More than one fellow has compared Cormac to a boar (and lost his teeth for it), but it would be better to call him an old crow. He has all the charm of a hog, certainly: he's rude and tends to frown and glare far more than he smiles. He has a habit of drinking himself into fits, too. However, he's a very patient, calculating man, and he's damned cunning, too. The trouble is he's also stubborn.

If proof of his intellect is needed, one need only look so far as Cormac's skill at construction. He has an eye for architecture, easily able to spot weak points in a building, and he knows how to shore up those weaknesses and how to exploit them. He just has a knack for knowing how to make sturdy tools and engines of war, too. In short: he's resourceful.

Cormac has an outlook on life that can be best summarized as world-weary, pragmatic, and pessimistic. He's been through roughly a dozen wars and has found himself missing a leg, a finger, and a goodly number of friends. He expects horrible things to happen around him, and often they do; yet despite his terrible luck he's somehow managed to survive constant warfare while his compatriots have fallen all around him. Cormac suspects Lady Luck is just toying with him.

Despite his rudeness and pessimism, Cormac is a calm and professional individual who can be depended on when fighting starts. If he's working alongside someone, it doesn't matter how often they argue, brawl, or hate each other: Cormac will fight for that man as if he were his brother. In battle, they are kin. In battle, they are brothers.

Background

The Hundred Realms have ever been a bloody place, and Cormac knows that better than most folks. Born a serf along the southern coast, he saw his first battle at a young age when his master's holdings were invaded (and subsequently conquered) by a neighboring warlord. Said warlord then found himself conquered by one of his neighbors, and that realm was then divided up by petty squabbles between that lord's sons when he died of disease.

Needless to say, by the time he was sixteen Cormac had fought in a several battles between these would-be rulers. By the time those wars were over, he realized most of his friends were dead and that he'd actually fought against some of his neighbors. He realized, too, how expendable he was: he was an uneducated peasant youth and only had a lifetime of hard work ahead of him if he managed to survive the ceaseless bloodshed that choked the Realms. He reckoned it was better to get paid to fight than to fight for no thanks at all. So, Cormac fled his home and broke free of the shackles of serfdom.

It didn't take long for Cormac to join a band of mercenaries called the Cackling Coyotes. They were a rough lot of men, most of them deserters and runaway criminals, but they were disciplined as well. Cormac learned a lot more about fighting from them, especially such lessons as "Logistics wins battles more than skill" and "There's no such thing as fighting fair." It was also here that he first was introduced to the art of the siege: the Coyotes found themselves fighting alongside larger units rather frequently, and sieges are safer to conduct than battles. Cormac quickly showed a talent for the construction of siege weaponry and camp defenses, so he was apprenticed to the warband's chief engineer. When that man died, Cormac replaced him, and he did better than his tutor ever had.

Of course, nothing good lasts forever. Battles took toll on the Coyotes, and although a fair number of them retired before the worst came, the majority of them were scattered or killed in a disastrous battle against an enemy whose leader carried a relic tube that launched exploding darts that could kill a dozen men at once. The Coyotes were dissolved, and Cormac found himself missing a leg. That didn't stop him, however, and he went on to fight for a number of other mercenary companies.

Now, at the age of thirty-seven, Cormac is a highly experienced soldier whose ability to fashion palisades and the tools to break them is somewhat famous. He's been up and down the entirety of the coast of the Realms and has fought for more causes than he can remember and few that he actually felt were worth anything. He's called "Fifth-Chance" because he should have been dead five times over but somehow is still alive.

Motivation

All Cormac has ever known is war and getting paid to fight it. Upon hearing of a great adventure to be had that would most certainly involve fighting and great reward, Cormac decided to volunteer for the job. Call it wanderlust or simple greed: the mercenary doesn't care. Cormac may not have the most noble of reasons to embark on this journey, but he's nevertheless present and ready to do his damnedest to get to one end of the world and back again.

Equipment

Cormac has some good, thick linen clothes of brown and red hues, and he also has thick leather traveling boots. He wears padded cloth armor reinforced with metal rivets, a cheap and serviceable alternative to higher quality protection. He also has a black cloak and hood made of wool. On his right hand he wears a thick scaled gauntlet.

Cormac's chief weapon is a spiked two-handed mace that he uses as a walking stick outside of combat. He has a smaller mace as well, a weapon easily usable in one hand, and he also keeps a dagger tucked in his belt. A small buckler bounces against his hip when he's not using it.

More important than his weapons, though, are Cormac's tools. He keeps a few of them on his person: a hammer, a pouch of nails, and a few other useful crafting items, but the majority of his supplies are kept on his mule-drawn cart. On his cart he keeps his saw, his woodcutting axe, and a small anvil as well, not to mention spare chunks of metal. Oh, and keeps a sack of oats there as well.

Most importantly, Cormac keeps two bottles of good, hard whiskey on his person at all times.

Traits

Basic Weapons - You are skilled with the usage of less specialized weapons, such as knives, clubs and staffs. +1
Light Armors - You are comfortable in leather, chain and scale armors. +1
Imposing - You are good at intimidating others, due to size or some other factor. +1
Soldier - You have direct, firsthand experience fighting on the front lines of a battle. +1
Tall - You are of significantly imposing size. +1
Intelligent - You are naturally smart. +2
Craftsman - You can construct relatively complex tools and structures, given the time. +3
Master Siege Engineer - You have some particular talent in which you are an absolute expert. +5
Abrasive - You are rude, and generally disliked for it. -1
Ugly - You are not fair to look upon. -1
Drunkard - You have an alcohol dependency, and a tendency to get drunk obnoxiously and often. -2
Maimed - You are missing a limb. (Right leg, lower) -4

Name/Sex/Age
Rhys (born Remy)/ Female*/ 24
*Rhys is transgendered, and identifies as a man.*

Appearance


Rhys has dark straight hair with greenish eyes. His complexion is a bit pale, largely unmarred with freckles or scars. Rhys is very lean, with a toned build. In a larger city, he would have been a good messenger, running packages and notes to those willing to pay for the expedited service. He has no facial hair-- it isn’t likely that it will miraculously begin to grow anytime soon-- and as a result looks to still be in his teens. He doesn’t bind his chest beneath his shirt, nor does he need to. He has no tattoos or piercings.

Personality
Rhys is friendly outright, but assumes that people don’t like him. He is slow to trust people, and doesn’t think anyone will ever be able to compare to his twin brother, who left home to explore. He was a role model, and Rhys often adopts his traits when he is conflicted about what to do, putting on a façade when he is able to get over his own skittish nature.

Rhys might seem like a walking contradiction at times, because he is still trying to figure out his place in the world. Sometimes, he is sure that he can play music to soothe the soul, and other times he is convinced that music is a waste of time and energy, and he should be devoting it all to improving the traps he builds, and more ‘useful’ hobbies.

Background
Located along the eastern shore in the middle of the Hundred Realms, the King’s castle was in the hearty center of the near peninsula, and was well-protected by the water on three sides. There were a few larger cities, that cropped up near the western ports. The journey by sea wasn’t far, and it was easier than traveling north to where the land met, but both were riddled with their own perils. The King didn’t like people leaving his home, and it had been said that the ships along the shore were all his own, and people trying to buy themselves passage only bought themselves into slavery instead.

The journey to the northern land was not easy either, as it was common knowledge that the ruler to the North was far more savage and cruel than their own lord. Perhaps the rumors were spread by her own king, to keep her people from protesting, but the rumors became the bedtime stories that kept children from sneaking out from their homes. It was said that in the Northern kingdom, the King’s men snatched children from their sleep and dragged them away from their homes, forcing them to mine. It was said that the women were raped and the men who fought them beaten and starved. It was said that the savagery of the North was more terrifying than the slavery to the West.

Born as Remy, she was the second child born of a set of triplets. The third died in childbirth. That left Remy and Rhys, born only a few minutes before her. Rhys was a good elder brother, and their father was as kind as he was fixated upon his work. Remy and Rhys were always attached, with Remy following in her brother’s footsteps.

As she grew older, Remy identified with her brother far more than she identified with other girls in the village. She would often dress up as the men they heard about in stories, the ones who fought beasts and defended those who could not defend themselves. She had no interest in the things they liked, and embraced the hobbies that her brother preferred, instead. He was a hunter, and she was the trapper. They were a perfect team, and nobody understood or accepted her like her brother. But Remy wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel like she fit in. Her brother left home when they reached adulthood. He wanted to learn what else there was out there, to explore, and go to the west. He invited her to come too, but Remy was too frightened and refused. What was there to the West that they did not have in their home? What could be found there that was neat heartache and despair? She thought that by refusing, he would come to his senses and stay, or return the very next day.

He did not return.

After her brother left, she was heartbroken. She couldn’t cope with him being gone. No one else understood her, no one else accepted her, and so she cut away her fears by chopping off her long, feminine hair. She put on her brother’s clothing that was left behind, embracing the person she always wanted to be, but was too scared to become.

Remy always knew she didn’t feel like a woman, and so adopting her brother’s name felt as natural as any other. But those in her home couldn’t cope with that, and so she left as well. She might have been a few months too late, but she went to follow in his footsteps, to find him and help him explore the wilderness to the west. After all, they were always the perfect team.

Rhys set off with a large backpack, going along the road to the North, the same way his brother had before.

Motivation
Though he knows that it is far-fetched, Rhys is on a search for answers. He wants to know what happened to his brother, and doesn’t want to believe that he could be dead. Even if he is, Rhys wants to have the adventure that his brother always dreamed of in his stead.

Equipment
Rhys wears simple clothing, acquired from his brother and various vendors in the beginning of his journey. He wears a green tunic, brown pants, and brown boots. He has a light-weight cloak with a hood, to stop the wind and rain as well, though it has been patched in a few places. Rhys has a small bundle of colorings for skin and hair, something he purchased when he came across his first larger city, to help decide if he wanted to have certain features in this new identity. He keeps lock-picking tools, a set that his brother had left behind when he left home. He has a knife in his boot, as well as another on his waist, which is more often used for cutting rope and sticks for traps than it is for self-defense.

Traits
Skittish
Sprinter
Hardy
Woodsman
Burglar
Trapper
Basic Weapons
Theatric (proficient with disguises)