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_{[ ♔ ] A P P E A R A N C E}

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_{[ ♔ ] B A C K G R O U N D}

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_{[ ♔ ] T R A I T S O F A V A L O N}

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-Name: Arian Hydd

-Age: 31

-Appearance: Not of an especially great height, but broad shouldered and well-built nonetheless. He carries himself with a certain measure of grace and quiet confidence. Dark hair tied back, clothing plain and bearing little in the way of ornementation – save for a silver medallion he seems to always wear about his neck, upon which is engraved the spiraling shape of an antlered stag in constant motion. His lips seemed creased into a perpetual frown, and any smile he might make tends to end up masked behind a thick beard. Still, he wouldn't generally be termed unhandsome – if perhaps appearing more than a little dour at the outset.

-Gender: Male

Background:

Generally a rather taciturn individual, Arian is the sort who speaks only sparingly of his past – though perhaps a bit of drink and the right questions would loosen his tongue a little. A Welsh warrior hailing from one of the countless little towns buried amidst the sprawling moors and rolling mountains, he learned the art of his craft from the days of his early youth, a childhood spent battling the Saxons in countless skirmishes and engagements. His past has seen all those he once knew and loved passed on to eternity, and whatever the future might hold in store would appear just as bleak. Still, he seems to have found some solace in taking up service with Arthur's knights in Camelot: the cessation of war, one might find, does not always leave a warrior's heart at peace.

-Intro:

Plumes of breath in frozen air; soft crunch of hooves in the grass – and the boy crouches, grey eyes wide as he studies the creature before him. White on white – a monstrous stag of silver-white, sleek coat all but shimmering in the faltering twilight. The boy exhales, rises to his feet even as he stretches a cautious hand forward. Creeping, stretching. One foot, then the next. The stag eyes him cooly now, head tosses in uncertain gesture: wicked tines of branching antlers slice through the air, ears flap and twitch. But the boy presses on. Another step, and then another, until finally they stand a mere pace apart – the boy and the stag – and he reaches his hand forward, lays a finger against the soft velvet of the twitching nose...

(I draw my hands from the stream, splash the cool water against my face. Scrub at the blood and grime. Watch the red blossom take life, go swirling away downstream. I grit my teeth, clench my fists and feel the stubborn pain. Stagger to my feet and eye the clearing; hazy sheen of a midsummer's afternoon, vivid green of the forest's growth right up to the water's edge, and a quiet woodland stream murmuring quietly to itself amidst the droning hum of insects behind. I blink. The -heat-! And the bodies. Strewn here and there. Haphazard – the finality of death bringing a a strange kind of calm to their features. Soon the flies will come, buzzing thick – but... with an exhausted grunt I find myself, too, collapsing against the trunk of a nearby willow, stretching my legs toward the water and tilting my head skyward... thoughts wandering far, far away....

To a time of blood and fire – and I am running, now. Sprinting across the barren moor. That odd feeling of calm before the storm; that uncertain certainty of finding myself observing my own actions rather than participating. Like watching through a dream, from a distance. And then the first of the enemy appear over the crest of the further hill. A great cry goes up. They scream! I am screaming too, I find – screaming even as I tear past their further edge, the dust and heat driving me to a frenzy as we crash against the unprotected flank. Sword and axe alike are moving with a deadly grace – and yet it is not me, I think. No. I am quiet. Serene. The great white stag grazing in the midst of a forested meadow. Flash of light – screams of the dying – and then--

And then I come to myself again. Thoughts still disturbed – like searching for a lost trinket through the depths of a murky pool. Blurry confines of an old and ragged hut; no one there – just me – and the fire's last embers have fallen all to ash and smoke. I claw hands through my eyes, try to rub the smarting blur from my vision. The air... too thick to breath. I feel myself beginning to suffocate.

“A future, you say? Look then to the past!” The words come unbidden to me now, and with a gasp I spring to my feet, throw aside the hide covering to the hut's entrance and step outside. My horse is there, browsing quietly amidst the wildflowers. My axe and sword lean against the wooden wall. I could not say how long I had been asleep. I do not think it mattered. I know only that I am alive, and staggering to my knees I retch, spew some bile to the grass even as I clutch the back of my head; the pain of an iron spike driving into the back of my skull.

But I am alive. I gather my weapons, haul myself into the saddle and steer a course away from the hut. Away from the madness. There is a place, I have been told – a place where a luckless man of my gifts and talents might find himself of use. A place called Camelot. A man at his wit's end will try most anything, or so they say.)

-Traits of Avalon:

∞-The Stag’s Eyes: You possess a keen and heightened awareness of things. In combat, your spatial acuity is above that of an average knights, and you are able to adapt and overcome with ease.

∞-The Sparrow’s Wing: You are fleet of both foot and hand. The innate speed you possess allows you to move faster than an average knight in combat and beyond.

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_{[ ♔ ] A P P E A R A N C E}

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_{[ ♔ ] B A C K G R O U N D}

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_{[ ♔ ] T R A I T S O F A V A L O N}

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-Name: Gruffydd Haern

-Age: 26

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-Gender: Male

-Background:
Not far south of Camelot, betwixt the demesnes of counts and earls and dukes—the illustrious members of the kingdom’s peerage—lies a small, inconsequential plot of land: the demesne of Baron Berthold Haern III. Berthold is an old man, and has been for a long time. His first wife died some two and one half decades before now, after twice as many years, or somewhere thereabouts, of faithful union. She left him three sons, the second bearing his name and the first set to inherit his moderate existence of irrelevancy. Berthold has been content in his life for a long time, but even content hearts, as his was by a young maiden, a woman by the name of Delwen from the eastern feet of the Black Mountains. Taken as he was with her, he decided to marry her.

There was outcry amongst the peerage. Something about “belittling the dignity of station.” But he was old, had an heir of wholly noble birth, and had little land of littler consequence, so everyone decided they had more important things to worry about. So, they were wed. Berthold was, despite his age, able to rise to his station, and Gruffydd was born. And very few people actually cared. None of his brothers saw him as a threat, the youngest being over a decade his senior, and the peerage still had more important things to worry about.

As one might imagine, Berthold didn’t take much of an active role in the raising of his son, being both nobility and old. That is not to say that he was absent from Gruffydd’s life, but he left much of the child-rearing to his servants, and to his wife. And Delwen made for an interesting mother. It was not known beyond a small circle of confidants—which, for the record, did include her husband— but she revered the old gods of Prydain—as, according to her, Britannia was known before the Romans came. As one might expect, she passed this down to her son. He maintained the illusion of Christian faith—this involved much more sneaking around the castle than one might expect—and otherwise had the sort of childhood one might expect for fourth son of an insignificant Baron. No, things did not become interesting for Gruffydd until he neared manhood.

Gruffydd showed a natural aptitude for the art of the blade, and that was what would bring him out of obscurity. That wouldn’t come until much later, of course, but the fact remains that he was something of a prodigy. He entered into the tutelage of his eldest brother, Cane, as a page, and then as a squire. When the time came for him to take his knightly vows, however, his heart lurched. He could not reveal his worship, and to not swear oaths before the Christian God would draw far too much suspicion. To his mind, he had no other choices left to him than to go forward. When the time came to take his knightly oaths, his voice and tongue formed the words of the church, but his heart sung the names of his own gods. Chivalry to Belyr, wisdom to Gwydion, strength to Aeron, and countless others. When he stood his vigil, he would later swear—to his closest confidants—that he saw the good folk dancing in the shadows, just beyond where he could make them out clearly. This emboldened him in his purpose, and so he set out to a Knight among knights, one of the greatest in the land. His ambition lay nowhere beneath the Round Table.

His chance for distinction soon came. A handful of months later, the Saxons descended on Britannia

Berthold was far too old to lead the levy from his demesne, so he sent Cane in his stead. Gruffydd and his other brothers led smaller portions of the force, under Cane’s command. The war was as it was—no man nor woman needs it recounted, for all living know what the Saxon scourge wrought—What needs recounting here is only the Siege of Gains Castle, towards the end of the war. Cane and the men under him, including Gruffydd and his brother Hugh—the third, named Geoffry, having already died over the course of the war—were stationed to a castle near the southern coast, as the Saxons were being pushed back into the sea. They were preparing a grand assault to finish their foe, when the Saxons struck at them fiercely. They made no efforts for a protracted siege—the reasons for this are unclear, but those who care usually point to a lack of supplies for the Saxons to last such a siege.

From dawn to dusk, the Saxons assaulted the castle five times. During the fifth and final attack, a stray arrow sent Hugh toppling from the eastern wall. Gruffydd was soon there to command the soldiers, but in the leaderless confusion, the Saxons had forced an opening and begun to surge up their siege ladders.

The bards would tell you that Gruffydd fought them, man to man, alone. Fifty horrid barbarians, clad in fur and steel, surrounding and strking him like a mass of strength and terror. The bards are fools.

Gruffydd was not alone, and were it not for the men he led, he would have died that day, tand the castle likely would have been lost. He makes a point causing harm to every bard that forgets this; those men bled with him, died for him, and he’ll not have them be forgotten.

The folly of bards aside, the fight was a sight to behold. For three hours, the men of the eastern wall held against the Saxons until, one by one, they cut the ropes of their siege ladders and sent them tumbling to the ground below.

The moon was at zenith when an army led by Sir Gawain arrived, crushing the exhausted Saxons into a rout. There were others, in other places, but these ones would do no more fighting. As has already been made clear, Gruffydd’s legend would be suitably blown out of proportion, but at the time he ust wandered off to bed as soon as the Kight of the Round Table dismissed him.

In recognition for the valor shown by their levy, Berthold’s lands were expanded after the war; a goodly number of lords were killed and left heirless by the war, and so were granted to the aging Baron, making him a Count of some consequence, which shall be inherited by Cane, and the fruits of which shall always be Gruffydd’s to return to and call upon.

-Traits of Avalon:

∞-The Wolf’s Teeth: Gruffydd showed promise as a swordsman from an early age. Having trained under the tutelage of his eldest brother for years, he has grown into one of the kingdom’s most fearsome warriors. While some of the stories about him are plainly absurd, he is still a fearsome foe that anyone would hesitate to face.

∞-The Fox’s Feet: Worshiping gods that your world has denied is not something that can be done in the open. Gruffydd has developed great skill in secreting himself around unseen to and from hidden shrines and rituals. Of course, he wouldn’t be opposed to using those skills for other purposes.

Appearance

Background

Traits of Avalon

Background:



Traits of Avalon:

-Name: Sir Gerold the Dusk Knight

-Age: 27



-Gender: Male

-Background: Gerold was born as the second son in an old and proud, but much diminished house who's lands were located on the eastern coast of England, just above the welsh border. His father was a proud man who was doing his best to keep his now barren lands afloat financially. Although he had many allies at court and among the other lords of the land he would not ask them for any assistance though it is likely they would have given this gladly. He had been a chivalrous and noble knight in his youth and was still an honourable man but taking handouts or charity as he saw it was not something he was willing to do.

Gerold and his older brother were both trained as knights by their father, who took an active role in raising them, partly because he lacked the funds to employ masters who would teach his sons to the level he felt befitted his family but also because he genuinly wished the best for his children and wanted them to be knights like him. While his brother became more interested in the aspect of managing lands and bureaucracy Gerold truly loved the martial pursuits. He learned to use the lance and sword as well as how to lead men on a battlefield. He greatly admired his father and wished to become a great hero like he had been in his youth.

When Gerold turned 12 he was sent by his father to squire with one King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, Sir Bors de Ganis, whose father had been a comrade and ally of Gerold's own. During this time he took part in many battles against the Saxons and came to be recognised as a skilled swordsman as well as a stalwart ally to Sir Bors and his companions.

One winter, while on an extended campaign to rid the eastern coast of Saxons, Gerold fell ill with a fever and was left by Sir Bors in a small castle under the care of the local lord, who was to elderly to join the war party. Sir Bors and his companions took their army onwards to continue driving the Saxons out while Gerold recovered. No long after his strength had returned Irish raiders, who had been taking advantage of the disarray caused by the Saxon invasion, attacked the lord's lands and became raiding and murdering their way inland.

All the lords knights had gone off to fight against the Saxons so there was nobody to lead the local militia against the raiders. Gerold, at this time only 16 years of age, volunteered to lead the militia and drive the Irish back to the sea. He waited until the sun began to set and launched a surprise attack on the raider's camp using the sun which was low in the sky to blind his enemy he managed to scatter their forces as they retreated back to their ships and fled.

The lord praised Gerold on his return and relayed his deeds to Sir Bors who brought Gerold to King Arthur himself to be knighted. Due to his tactics during the battle against the Irish he was dubbed the “Dusk Knight” by his companions and he served the rest of the campaign and many more against the Saxons until finally a peace was reached. He returned to his father's land to help his brother and now elderly father. His father expressed his pride in Gerold's deeds which were by now spreading across the land and granting him some measure of fame. He used this fame to attract lords and knights to his father's lands which in turn brought wealth and allowed his father to make improvements that would allow his house to gain some of the prestige it had lost over the years.

When Sir Lancelot became regent and was tasked with bringing together knights to aid him at court his cousin sir Bors suggested his former squire, Sir Gerold, as a suitable choice. A letter was sent to Sir Gerold who left for court at once.

-Traits of Avalon:

∞-The Wolf’s Teeth: Your swordsmanship is the stuff of legend. An average foe that is at the tip of your blade can expect to taste its fatal bite.

∞-The Lion’s Roar: You exude an air of command, confidence, skill, and righteous purpose. Your enemies are hesitant to engage you upon the battlefield, and they grow anxious at the mere mention of your name.