Dude

Sorry

Balto Grim

ooo

Thiefling

Appearence: A perk of being demon born is that time kinda looks at you sideways. It doesn't so much age you as it lets you hit your desired mid 20's to mid 30's and stay there. As a result. Balto looks younger then he is. While a quick glance would make you think him a human of maybe late twenties of age, a closer inspection is gonna throw you for a loop. His skin is mottled with grey, and silver lines seem to runs from his eyes across his face. His eyes are the same silver color and his ears are slightly ribbed nad pointed. Not like an elf, his ears actually splits into three small spikes at the end.

Former Proffesion: Grifter, Conartist, Fence

Skill:

Wordsmith: A quick talking, word spitting bullshit poet from the day he learned the concept of begging. When he talks, he knows just the right cadence and tone of voice to use on you. Never let him speak to you for to long or he will be walking way wearing your clothes.

City knowledge: Balto is not a man of violence. He is a man of desperate flight when others chose to fight. His feet are so accustomed to the cobble of the slums he knows where he is going even in the worst of fogs. He can name a bar for you based on your preference of company, food or drink. He knows where the gangs are the worst, and where the rich goes to slum it.

Personality: Quickwitted and charming, he is a career criminal all the way from the way he used to dress to the way he talks about people. He do not see men and women. He see people as marks and obstacles. He is social to a fault, always with a word of encouragement or sneaky secondguessing. His career as a guard is something of a snag in his confidence to say the least. He knows that if he messes up it is noose for him.And that hinders him from abusing his limited power of office as it were.

History:
Kings Knell has no shortage of demons who were left leaderless after the Demon Sovereign drank blessed wine and died. One of these decided to sire children with a human woman named Aila. Aila then had a son named Balto. As many mothers do when they realize their child is a abomination and an affront to religions everwhere, they try to get rid of them.

Balto Grim is gutter child trough and trough. He was thrown to the curb the second he was old enough to ask his mother ”What's a demon”. He found himself quickly absorbed into one of the many roving bands of orphans and plucky piranha like kids. As is always the way with these things, Baltam grew up to become a scoundrel and a criminal. When your entire moral compass is ”Money gets you bread” you tend to view the world with a different light. In his case, he saw the light of the guard lantern as the enemy approaching nad the smiles of the more fortunate as unbearable smugness.

So he made it his lifes work to rob them of all they owned. But he didn't want to hurt someone. At least not directly. Emotionally, yes, sure. Financially, goes without saying. But not by threat and violence. He would do it trough wit and guile instead. He'd outsmart those smug bastards and rise to the top.

Balto turned out to be very skilled at what he does. It came to him as natural as begging or running errands for mobsters. He said and did whatever came to mind. He improvised whole identies on the fly, talked people out of purse and belt. But with success comes confidence. And with confidence comes ego.

His scams grew bolder, and more extravagant. And then, he failed. He didn't just fail, he tried to scam a noble who was understandbly cross with him as a result. So cross in fact, that he brought the boy infront of the ”holy court”. A body of divine justice who really disliked Thieflings. However, this being his first transgression, he was let go alive. Under one condition. He had to repent. He had to serve the people. He had to become a guard.

Name: Meg

Race: Human

Appearance: She is around 5'3 and weighs about 120 lbs. Her eyes are a grape green. She has a couple of vertical scars on her left cheek, and more scars on her stomach from various injuries. She wears an olive green tunic and darker green trousers that reach about knee length. She usually walks around bare feet.

Age: 27

Former Proffesion: Pick pocket, street rat, petty thief, errand runner

Skill: Meg is actually quite good at navigating through the city, seeing she has lived on the streets her whole life. She is sneaky enough to keep out of important people's eyes, and is something of an eavesdropper as well. She is quite good with children, teaching them and taking care of them as well.

Personality: Meg's personality is rather varied. For the most part, she's a calm and collected sort, friendly on the outside but paranoid on the inside. She won't automatically think the worst of someone, but she won't put it past anyone to be a darker grey on the morality scale. Sometimes she may be blunt and to the point, other times she may sugar coat things. She has a soft spot for those who are less fortunate, and may even be a bit of a mother hen at times.

She is somewhat of a tomboy, using whatever she can in a fight, be it rocks, sand to the eyes, yanking someone's mustache... a dirty fighter, all in all. Yet she still seems to have a girly side to her, admiring the prettier things in life, occasionally cooing over cute things, old people holding hands, believing she will one day find the (not so) perfect man!... that sort of thing.

All in all, her personality wholly depends on who she's around and what mood she may be in at the time.

History: Meg's birth was nothing too epic. Her father was a guard who would often visit a tavern before going home to rest. Her mother was a bar maid at that particular tavern. Now, it wasn't like the relationship was a one night's stand; Meg's parents did in fact love each other. However, in a world like theirs, it wasn't a surprise that her father died during a surprise attack one night. Meg was still to be born at that time. Having fallen into depression, her mother was rather sickly by the time Meg was born, and she only lived about a year after giving birth.

The tavern owner had no time to take care of a baby; he had his own troubles. So, one night he simply left her in an alley away from his establishment, sneaking off before anyone could catch him. The little baby was found by a couple of street rats who decided to 'raise her' the best they could. It was a little like having a living and breathing doll for them. She was old enough to eat, not that she had much of a choice in the matter, seeing there was not much milk around. The trio survived on pieces of bread, old fruit, the occasional stolen milk, and water.

As such, Meg grew up in rather dingy streets, living off what she found, and eventually becoming a pickpocket as well as someone who stole from unattended houses and shops. As a child, she didn't really see what was wrong with it. She was hungry, there was food, no one was eating it. Why couldn't she have any? It made complete sense to her.

Teenager Meg was was a little more morally inclined, having learned the hard way that people didn't really like it when you stole from them. She would now only go after those who seemed rich and pompous. It was during this time when she learned to use a slingshot as well as finding herself a boomerang. She also tended to help out other street rats like herself.

As she grew older, the thievery seemed to have dwindled to only occasionally as Meg started doing odd jobs, making enough money to feed herself an anyone she was currently taking care of. Now older and somewhat more mature, she was looking at the world with much different eyes than she used to as a child or even a teenager. It also made her think of change. She was used to living as she was, it was something she doubted she could change now. But what if she could be something even more?

And from there came the idea of joining the city guard.

Goblin

Appearance: Also has a dagger one his left side and a bag of "fun stuff" (chems, random bits of ores, poisons, a bit of food) on his right. His gear was taken from children and halflings, generally stolen because it's easier than actually fighting them.

Age: 25

Former Profession: Goblin Boom-Mage (Magic's fine, but with chemistry it can be better)

Skill: He good at breaking stuff and better at blowing it up. He seems to have a knack for finding weaknesses in his targets, and always aims for the enemy's weak point in a fight, leading to him having a reputation as a dirty fighter. He learned enough magic from his uncle to control and sense energy, mainly fire, lightning, and raw magical energy, but the only actual spells he can cast are fire and weak lightning spells. He has a decent knowledge of chemistry, mainly explosives, and medicine, mainly poisons.

Personality: He likes causing mayhem. He likes being the one that comes out on top after it even better.

History: He was born into the Tribe "Boarslayers" to an unnammed female, son of the chief's dead son, a goblin by the name of Elf-blood. As the nephew of a mage, the chief's-son Flash, he was taught many things from a young age, things that would confuse the stupider goblins in the tribe. Of the ones that could learn magic, he was the best with magic, save his uncle, and was one of the three that survived the basic magic training. His uncle told them to chose a type of magic to study. He chose fire, one of the others chose poison, and a third, a female that he was convinced his uncle only trained so that she would bear him a son, chose healing. They were sent out to gather things for their craft. He returned with a bag of Dwarven boom powder. The poisoner returned with nightshade and other poisonous plants. The healer returned with medicines she stole from a Druid that lived in the woods nearby.

Flash ordered them to use what they gathered to make their magic better. Boomy blew himself into a wall. The healer cured his burns and concussion. The poisoner created a cloud of poison. The healer couldn't fix that yet. Boomy earned his name, the healer earned the name Fixer, and the stupid poisoner was roasted with a nice sauce.

After he got over what Fixer assumed was food poisoning from eating the under cooked poisoner, he came to the city (which one was it again?) to continue his studies. That was three years ago. There were many fun things to steal and many burnable things for even more fun. For a while he had a nice room off the side of the sewers and would go out and "forage" and have fun with the other goblins in the area from time to time.

Then, about a month ago, one of the guards caught him trying to light a warehouse full of fireworks in a better part of the city (luckily it had rained the night before) and gave him the opportunity to work as a guard or work as a miner. He chose to be guard.

It's fun. He gets to hurt people and gets paid to do it. Too bad they have to break the rules first or this job would be much more fun.

Sorry, sorry, sorry!!!

Race:
Halfling

Appearance:
Kepli is nothing special. Standard Halfling height, albeit a bit skinnier then others of his race. A tattoo covers his right arm
and continues on his hand. It has no meaning other then to look cool. Kepli can often be seen with a pipe in his mouth, puffing on
some of his own made weird substances more often then not.
A tunic, and poncho cover his chest, whilst a studded kilt offers some protection to his legs. He likes to keep at least his toes
exposed and thus wears a form of sandals.
His belt is home to several smaller alchemical instruments, needles, pouches and an ornate dagger.

Age:
32

Former Proffesion:
Drugsmaker, drugsdealer and gambler

Skills:
Alchemy/chemistry:
What started as a way to help the sick and poor in the form of making medicinal brews, quickly turned into something darker. Why
heal them so they never return? Instead, make them hooked on your product and make them return all the time! With some plants and
alchemical substances, Kepli is able to make the finest of drugs, like Ada's Breath, Trimpax and much more.
Sleight of hand:
What better to do with your hard earned cash then to gamble it away? But instead of relying on luck, Kepli took matters into own
hand. A flick of the wrist here, a unnoticeable motion there and voila! Straight Flush!
He only uses this during gambling, not for things like pickpocketing. He might not be the cleanest, but he is not a thief!

Mercantile Mind:
Having to sell your wares in a city this dangerous, one needs a quick mind. What are the best spots to sell? How do I get rid of my
competitors? What kind of person is this? How much is he willing to bend? If you want to stay in the market, it is best you learn
to answer these questions quickly. Luckily Kepli could. With his keen mind and people skills, Kepli can quickly spot a potential
customer and see exactly where most profit can be obtained.

Personality:
At first glance he can be rather eerie, simply observing his surroundings, not saying a word. But given the time, Kepli can turn
into a friendly, outgoing person who would simply love to sell you something! It is uncertain if this Halfling shows true
friendless, or merely plays the act of it.
Kepli isn't shy of trying his own stuff, which can vary his personality quite a bit.

History:
Kepli was born into a life better then most people in the city had. He had a loving mother, a caring
father, a roof above his head, good food everyday. Nothing to complain about really. His childhood was a
simple one, not much different from a normal kids life. It all really changed when Kepli decided to
pursue a career in alchemy, mainly focused on the creation of medicinal brews.

This also went rather well for Kepli. He learned how to make potions rather quickly, and he had a steady
supply of customers. For the city of Kings Knell was never short of sick or hurt people. There was but
one problem with this. Kepli didn't discriminate his customers, and thus he was often brought into
contact with the darker and shadier people. Through dark whispers and manipulation, Keplis vision begin
to change. It was no longer care that drove him in his work, it was money now.

The problem with being as good as Kepli was, was that his customers never returned. Once they were
healed up, they'd pay once and then begon. So Kepli decided to add addicting elements to his medicine so
his customers would keep returning. He continued this practice for a while, changing his recipes more
and more, until they looked nothing like medicines anymore.

His parents had taken note of the difference in behavior of Kepli and the customers his shop attracted.
They confronted him and he confessed. Medicines were long behind him! Drugs were the future. He could
make a person fall asleep in an instant, or keep him going for an entire week. And the best thing about
it was the pay! But his parents were not impressed. They urged Kepli to stop and come home. But Kepli
refused, so his parents send the guard for him.

Kepli manged to escape and fled to the Lower Town, where he continued his practice, albeit in less
fashion. Being surrounded by many other shady figures, it didn't take long for Kepli to get accustomed
to their habits. Gambling, drinking, taking his own drugs. Things that were unthinkable a couple of
years ago, were the most normal thing now.

This was his new lifestyle for a long amount of years. He could have done it till he died, were he not
so unfortunate as to try to cheat with cards whilst he was playing a smarter then regular guardsman.
With little research came his other profession to the light as well. Where a cheat would normally just
need to pay a hefty sum of money, dealing drugs with a bit of a heavier crime. The options were simple.
Spend the rest of his life in prison, or join the guard. Well, that was an easy decision for Kepli...

Character Sheet



Name: Yarik Maugrim

Race: Dwarf

Appearance: With weathered and cracked skin like old fractured stone, Yarik's age is betrayed by more than just his long and silvery beard. He stands at roughly 4'4' and weighs a stout 170 lbs. His eyes are grey and the top of his head is balding, while his teeth are yellowed from prolonged tobacco smoking. Under his clothes, his body is marked with the tattoos of his former street gang, also marking out his former position as an enforcer, as well as being covered in the scars of dozens of skirmishes and fights. His clothes are sodden and muddy messes from prolonged use, his heavy boots and gloves are worn and stained pieces of leather held together by old stitchings, and he's covered by a heavy dark grey hooded cloak that isn't in much better condition. He doesn't have a single piece of jewellery on him.

Age: 62

Former Profession: Smith's apprentice, Hired Muscle, Builder, Gangster Enforcer, Drunkard and Gambler.
Skill:

Criminal Contacts -Having spent the later part of his life as an Enforcer in a now disbanded Dwarven Street Gang, Yarik has several associates and friends in various elements of Kings Knell's underworld, with his seniority bringing him a measure of privilege among some of the older elements.

Basic Tactician -Working as private protection and overseeing Gangster crews separately over the course of several decades has given Yarik a fair bit of knowledge of how to plan and organize people. Though he'd never make commander material in any army, he knows more than most of the wetbacks and prospects who think they can just run into a fight axes and swords gleaming and have everything turn out well.

Iron Will to Physical Pain - Could also be classified as learned stubbornness, the process of taking beatings, dishing them out, as well as taking part and being the subject of various "creative" means the gangs come up with to initiate prospects and deal with rats or debtors has made Yarik exceedingly tough when it comes to dealing with physical pain. He'll suffer enormous injury before giving up what he knows to an enemy.

Personality: When sober, Yarik's mostly an old curmudgeon and does not possess a very friendly or inviting personality. He generally likes to keep to himself and is suspicious/cautious around most strangers, but even around those he knows he's generally considered to be a grumpy old bastard who's either to be respected or feared, but certainly not loved. When drunk or otherwise intoxicated, he generally either becomes nostalgic and depressed, or nostalgic and slightly more jovial depending on the situation he's in.

History: Born like most Dwarves as a descendant of those of stayed behind out of the Miner King's Throng. With his father setting himself up as a blacksmith forging construction materials and military grade of mostly middling qualities to support him and his family. Facing discrimination and eventually gang protection rackets to keep said bigots away, early life for Yarik's family was hard but relatively stable as work was plentiful for a Dwarf of even middling smithing skill in a city that constantly needed tools, weapons, or equipment. Yarik himself started out as his father's apprentice, but found that although he had the ability, he hadn't the patience for the work to become extremely skilled or the tolerance for constantly having to live on a constant treadmill of paying protection rackets. This led to conflict with his parents and other siblings, and eventually with Yarik striking out on his own right before he turned 20, his family subsequently disowning him as well.

Now without clan and with little money, he decided to apply for a position that his garnered strength from beating iron anvils and working bellows might prove useful: hired protection for merchants. With numerous traders working moving goods from the Twinkling Mountains and surrounding territories along the River Knell to King's Knell to sell, they were always looking for muscle to deter trouble and for Dwarves particularly out of the partially misguided belief that Dwarves in the Twinkling Mountains wouldn't try to mess with their own kind. Many would even pay to equip their crews if it meant protecting their cargoes, the only condition being that the muscles signed on for several months of service before getting their pay checks (if they lived long enough, or didn't break any other fine print in the contracts that is). In any case, Yarik fit the bill well enough and signed on as a member of a crew for a goods merchant moving cargo up and down the River Knell.

Work was interesting at first as he left the city and got to see the lands up and down the river, though would eventually become as monotonous as most jobs become, broken up by the occasional skirmish with bandits, thieves, or gangsters trying to steal money or goods off his employer when he otherwise wasn't a short and stout scarecrow. After one round of his contract (7 months!) Yarik got his paycheck of a hundred and forty crowns. Frustrated, but not seeing much of an option towards what he saw as a "decent" job like this, Yarik stuck it out for two more contracts before his employer lost his boat as collateral for debts and subsequently went out of business as a trader. After he and his fellow formerly hired muscles had beaten their last pay checks out of the poor miser, Yarik went his own way again, now back to square one in King's Knell, out of a job with only a little money to his name.

So, Yarik went into another typical profession for Dwarves in the city, as a builder, or more specifically a labourer. He and the crew he was assigned to build and repair several houses, temples, and public structures, but never the palaces. That work was for more professional craftsmen than he and the crews he was with. While working in construction, he ran into familiar faces from his old family's smithy, gangsters. Specifically Dwarven gangsters, since they had among other things, a monopoly over most of these low tier construction crews, not only taking cuts of the workers' meagre pay checks, but also ordering them to sabotage projects they were working on when they felt like screwing clients who wanted to play hardball with money. Yarik, though pissed at having to deal with these same scum again, noticed something very particular about the whole situation: the gangsters never had trouble getting their hands on money, and next to nobody tried to mess with them, not even the increasingly poorly equipped and trained guardsmen in most sectors of the city. It dawned on Yarik that in this city of bigots, thieves, liars, gangsters, mercenaries, and pompous rich folks, it payed to belong to a group that actually had a degree of control over their futures and be their own bosses than to constantly scratch about for scraps. To this end, he approached the nearest Dwarf Street Gang he knew that he didn't consider to be total pricks and treated their members well, the Salt-Packers, based out of a namesake Salt processing warehouse on a particularly dark branch of the river.

Like most gangs, Dwarven gangs were only open to those of their own race, but not everyone could just get in, first the gang had to be "prospecting" for " new and rich material". Then the prospects had to prove themselves capable of actually being valuable and loyal members. In the case of the Salt Packers, initiation was very symbolic. The Prospects first had to beat up an assigned target for the gang til they passed out, get them back to the gang's warehouse, then proceed to chop up the victim into pieces. They would then pack said pieces into salt for preservation and to be sent by couriers to the victim's relations, the heads to be packed in salt as trophies, and disposing of the rest into the river. If they'd done this to the gang's satisfaction, they'd be personally initiated next, with the prospect taking a beating from every member of the crew that was there until they bled, upon which they'd then rub salt into the wounds. If the prospects didn't pass out, whimper, or hit back, then they were in for life as a member and celebrated with a night at one of the locally gang-overseen taverns. Yarik passed through his initiation with distinction, his will to get out of the rut he saw his life becoming worth the pain and macabre work, he was 25 years old.

For the next 30 years, Yarik worked as a made member of the Salt-Packers Dwarven Street Gang. Working protection rackets, carrying out hits, and doing the grunt work for the gang alongside his fellow members, and all the while making decent money almost every day off of suckers who hadn't shown the same will to succeed as he had. His earlier despise for gangsters melted over the years as he lived and worked alongside them, coming to understand how and why they did what they did. Sure some were sick bastards who got off to killing whoever they pleased and acting untouchable (as many actually were on the streets), but at heart they all shared one thing in common: a desire to make the best of the shitty hand dealt to them by fate, and not caring about screwing over others who didn't share the same conviction.

Rising to the rank of Enforcer at the age of 38 due to his increased age and experience, Yarik was put in charge of personally overseeing a section of the gang's territory, and various rackets, as well as its members, associates, and potential prospects that resided within it. This was the life for Yarik, as he was now master of his own tiny domain within the city, and only had a couple bosses whom he could deal with to worry about. He ran his territory and crew with a hard but fair hand in most cases, but carried on the gang's zero tolerance for rats, snitches, and of people who thought they could sneak out of paying what they owed. He amassed a fair fortune by criminal standards over the years and enjoyed the pleasures of life within this city in his prime.

Nothing lasts forever though, and when he was 55, Yarik's world turn on its head as new movements in the criminal underworld took place. Fresh gang wars ignited and the fight for territory was on again as new hot-heads sought to carve their own piece of the pie in King's Knell's criminal enterprises. The Salt-Packers became embroiled with wars with other gangs over territory as well, and lost many members in the process, faster than they could replenish them, and soon their enemies were nearing their old warehouse of a base. Appealing for aid, the boss of the Salt-Packers, Zargruff Holmstein, made a deal with a new up and coming Dwarven gang, the Iron-clad Kings, and their boss Valton "Ironhide" Fergus. The deal being that if the Iron-clad Kings came to the aid of the Salt-Packers, Zargruff would hand the gang over to Valton and work for him as an underboss, uniting their gangs and making Valton and the Kings even more powerful in the ongoing gang war. Valton agreed, saying his crews would come once fighting began. The enemy crews came in force on the warehouse, and the area became a battleground as Dwarf fought Dwarf in brutal street-fighting that mocked the wars of their clans of old. Yarik and his crew along with other fought hard, but were slowly overrun, beaten back to their very gates, they cost their rivals every inch in blood. Using desperate measures, their enemies set fire to the very warehouse they were in, engulfing it and the nearby streets in flame. Tons of Salt-Packers died in the fire along with their enemies, while those that could dived into the river for safety, their boss not among them. City Guard came after the fighting to extinguish the flames with the help of river boats and clean up the mess of looted bodies.

The remnants of the gang found out later that the Iron-clad Kings had arrived and smashed the fleeing gangsters of their enemies, but only after the warehouse was in flames and most of the Salt-Packers were dead. Valton had proved to be a pragmaticist and thought it better to send a message to the rival gangs by eliminating several of his potential rivals and enemies with one stroke, and showing what he thought about the idea of sharing power with leaders of other gangs. All the same, he offered the remaining Salt-Packers homes as Iron-clad Kings, though Yarik and many older members refused, their distaste left unstated but apparent.

Ever since, Yarik has dwindled away what remained of his fortune, drinking away the memories of how his life has gone, and peddling his money away on small pleasures. He still has many friends among criminals, but he has never joined a gang since, none of them are like they once were during his time in his eyes, and he has never been sober or bold enough since to form his own. With gambling debts accumulating his options have grown slim, but unwilling to die yet, he knows of one route to at least temporary salvation for one such as him, oddly enough: a city guardsman.

Name: Krobb

Race: Troll

Appearance:
Krobb is a troll, trolls are big and not overly pretty fellows. Krobb is an unusually good looking troll with his bright blue eyes, flowing blonde mohawk and fair skin (for a troll).
He is about 2,5 metres tall (3 if straightening up) and carry some sort of armour with his pretty guard star.

Age: Ummm, he is kinda young.... for a troll....

Former Proffesion: Before joining the guard Krobb followed the footsteps of his father and worked on becoming a freelancing bridge toll manager. (Extra fee for goats.)

Skills:
VERY robust: Krobb, being a troll is very robust. Troll skin is monstrously thick and resists most acids to most weapon attacks with ease. Krobb is also very very strong, able to lift cows with just a bit of effort.

Troll appetite: Trolls can eat anything, and do. Rocks, wood, meat, that strange bottle (crunchy), you name it. Trolls merrily eat things that would kill other beings without any problems. They can go long periods of time without food, but they will complain.

Thick: It's not just the trolls skin that is thick, his brain is as well. Krobb is a very knowledgeable and intelligent troll, which on average puts him on being more clever than a chair... most of the time.
At times he has shown great cleverness, outwitting smart animals like cows and chickens. This makes him very proud.

Scary: Trolls are not normally city living fellas, in fact they are seen as dangerous monsters by most. While this is true with most trolls, Krobb unlike his brethren is not a monstrous brute.
So while being rather nice, many people fear Krobb, either because of his visage or his massive muscles and weapon.

Personality:
Kind gentle giant, means no harm and enjoys life. Has a really easy time making friends with small birds.

History:
Being such a pretty troll meant he was seen as some sort of abomination among his kin, while not ostracized, he was shunned. Sad and lonely he left the marshy forest of his former home and went to search for a new life.
He brought his nice club and the clothes he had made with his own hands.

He never found any bridges that needed a freelancing toll manager, most were already occupied and the ones that didn't were not very nice bridges, either far too big or too small.
Toll management is important business, and knowing your own skill is as important.

Saddened by the lack of need of his family business, he went on.
He found himself entering some sort of city, he had heard about cities before and this made him very excited. So he entered.
He didn't really understand the need to scream and run away or to poke him with metal tipped sticks that some were doing, but he assumed that was normal for city people. So stressed they were, not able to calm down.

He really enjoyed the market, lots of food which he ate and interesting things, some of which he ate. He didn't understand the need to jump out of sight as soon as they saw him though, and some of the others were actually becoming annoying with the pointy sticks, even though some of them were getting tired.
It was about there a man walked up to Krobb and explained in forest speak that he had broken the law. But Krobb didn't remember breaking anything and was confused.
With great effort the man managed to explain the concept of laws, to some extent, and that Krobb had to follow him to the prison for being a criminal.

Krobb was sad at this point, disappointed that he was a criminal, and that he hadn't managed to make anything better of his life than being a simple criminal. What would his mother think of this?
He spent many days in the cell, tearfully eating the stones from the walls and the metal bar door. With only the single man able to speak to him.
The man told him his name was 'Remik Tollb', a druid. That was brought in when the guard couldn't stop Krobb's "rampage" through the streets. Krobb expressed his feelings for Remik which felt sorry for the poor being and promised to teach Krobb the common language here in exchange of being a good citizen.
Krobb was overjoyed and gladly accepted, and explained he wanted to help people, and make sure there were no people doing bad things.

Krobb lived with Remik for some time after the druid adopted him, and actually inherited his few possessions when he died. This of course saddened Krobb and he vowed to do good within the guard which Remik had managed to arrange a workplace at.
Sure, it was one of the worst districts, but Krobb didn't know that.
As proof he was a member of the prominent city guard, he was given a gold star (made from brass, and not at all the only way the guard could without spending a fortune on cloth show people Krobb was in fact a guard.)

So for the last few years Krobb has assisted the city guard on 11th "Chopping street" (which only at times was misinterpreted.) But was to be transferred to 22nd "Cleaver street".
And of course no one told the Cleaver street guards this fact.

Race: Ysriel was raised by nymphs, an ethereal, all-female race that thrives wherever there is untamed wilderness. She is a half-breed, one of many borne of the nymphs’ common affection for humans, though she is the only half-breed in her flock to stay with her mother after being born. Nymphs are a very social race, and congregate in marshes, rivers, springs, and wherever else water and forest collide. They have no strict hierarchy, though will defer to the eldest nymph for guidance. Infants and nymphs rarely mix; their pregnancies last only a few months, and as soon as the child is born, they pass it along to the father, to be raised among his people. Nymphs are generally peaceful, and will only attack to defend themselves; though woe be to whoever drove them to violence.

Appearance: Something about Ysriel is naturally immaculate; she bleeds, sweats and gets filthy just like any inhabitant of King’s Knell, but all it takes is a dip in any kind of water and her skin is back to being supple and unblemished, her hair untangled and silky. The only sign of her line of work can be found in the rough callus on her hands. She carries herself confidently, and is always ready to offer a warm smile. Not much distinguishes her from a full-blooded human at first glance, and walks with easy grace, though is terrible at navigating cramped streets without bumping into people and things. Her clothing seems to be skillfully woven from vegetation, her only armor is a pair of cheap boots, an old helm, a pocked leather breastplate, and bracers, and she keeps a simple sword at her belt.

Age: 21

Former Profession: Stargazer, animal sweet-talker, flower kisser (self-trained), explorer.

Skills:



Personality: Ysriel is, above all else, curious. The other nymphs cared little for the world beyond their domain, but Ysriel often left the water to wander the forest and cliffs. She adores animals of all kinds, and seems unembarrassed when she fawns over them loudly in public. She is kind to a fault, naive when it comes to the many liars and manipulators of the city, and sees her work as the path on the way to a grand, heroic destiny. She is afraid and distrustful of the undead and demons, and avoids them when she can. When she is with friends, she can be a sharp trickster, dancing away from the ire of the tricked, laughing all the while. She has a natural cleverness, though nothing to yet apply it to.

History: The Starkeeper flock has always kept to the steep cliffs and hidden springs of the Twinkling Mountains, maintaining many of the springs that coalesce into the River Knell. They go ignored by the dwarves, whose lumber and mining operations are easier done further down the mountain, though many an adventurer has braved the snow-dusted peaks to serenade them.

One such adventurer, an older man named Claudius Lysander, set out along the River Knell in search of peace. He’d been a faithful guard of King’s Knell, back when the guard was more respected, but retired in grief after his wife was murdered by a criminal he’d arrested years before. He had no family, nor any children, and opted to leave the city before he became just another lonely, mad peasant.

He sequestered himself in the woods, chopping down only the trees he needed to make a small shed to sleep in. He drank from a spring nearby, gathered herbs and berries, and admired the quiet of his surroundings. Having lived and fought in the city all his life, he hunted rarely, and always used the most of the animal. The Starkeepers watched him as he gathered water from their spring, and a few admired his gentleness and respect for their land and its creatures. Ysrala, the eldest of the flock, watched and admired him the most, and eventually revealed herself to him.

Claudius became quickly enamored with the beautiful nymph. Every day, he sat at the edge of the spring and told stories about King’s Knell; its people, its appearance, and--to Ysrala’s morbid delight--its crime. She seemed to think of him as a kind of legendary hero for hunting down so many evil people, and he saw no harm in failing to correct her. The other nymphs always hid themselves, though listened to his stories with varying degrees of amazement and distaste.

In only two months, Ysrala was pregnant. Claudius was overjoyed, if a little concerned about raising a child on the peak of a mountain. But he dreamt of the perfect family: Ysrala, cradling his child in her arms, smiling at him like rays of the sun.

Then the hobgoblins came.

A violent offshoot tribe that had migrated from the Highlands, the hobgoblins rushed in and set camp like a furry avalanche. It wasn’t long until they found Claudius’ cabin. Ysrala watched, hidden in the trees, as her lover was dragged from his cabin and killed. While the hobgoblins would be driven away by the dwarves eventually, Claudius' death was the harsh result of their visit.

Months later, the nymphs were left with a baby. Some suggested giving it to the dwarves, but Ysrala, spurred on by Claudius’ excitement, decided to keep it. She weaved a floating basket out of cattails and hyacinth, serving as the baby’s crib. Ysrala knew the perfect name then: Ysriel, or “drifting flower” in the old fae tongue.

Little Ysriel spent the first few years of her life swimming. Her first steps beyond the spring were wobbly, but it wasn’t long until she was running out of the spring, running through the forest, clambering over rocks with more energy than the other nymphs could imagine. By the time she was a teenager, she could sprint to the edge of the forest and back without stopping, and explored the Starkeeper domain with fervent wonder.

When she’d mapped every inch of their moon pools, riverbeds and springs, and when the animals of the forest had grown wise to her pranks, she became restless. She was a young woman now, bustling with human wanderlust. She was loyal to the Starkeepers and didn’t dare ask to leave, but in secret, she’d sit by the road up the mountain, watching the occasional caravan pass with longing eyes.

Ysrala saw the change in her daughter easily. She’d told Ysriel all about her late father, including the stories he’d told Ysrala. It was no wonder the girl envied her father’s no-doubt incredible adventures. She would hate to see her go, but she couldn’t hurt her child and force her to stay. Perhaps, Ysrala thought, Ysriel would return someday with stories of her own.

Nearly every nymph had grown to love Ysriel, and offered her gifts for her journey. Pack laden with them, Ysriel waved the Starkeepers goodbye, and set off down the road. She looked out-of-place on the dusty road, drawing stares from other travelers, but miraculously, no one bothered her. She managed to hitch a ride on a kindly trader’s cart the second day, and she regaled him with fae songs and riddles to shorten the long journey to King’s Knell.

Past the gates, she bid farewell to the trader, and blindly set off in search of the nearest guard station. It was getting darker and lonelier the longer she searched, until she left the lower end of King’s Hill, wandered lower and lower into the city, and found herself flanked by two men. She was effortlessly thrown to the ground, her pack ripped away and searched at swordpoint. The men seemed disappointed at their catch: a bundle of flowers, little wood carvings, and other bits of garbage that wouldn’t fetch a pittance. Ysriel, however, seemed like a fine enough catch on her own, and just before they descended upon her, a guard appeared, just like the hero she’d always dreamed about.

The guard fought the two men well enough that they abandoned the pack and ran off. Ysriel, seemingly unfazed by the near-trauma, gathered her things and gushed to the guard all the way to the guard house on 22d Cleaver Street. She insisted that she wished to join the guard, and upon dropping Cladius Lysander’s name, seemed to catch the attention of at least a few guards. In a week’s time, somehow, she carried the proud title of recruit--”fresh meat”, as some guards called it. She trained harder than many of the recruits, who came to the guard either out of desperation or debt. Even so, she was a flimsy fighter, entirely unaccustomed to even holding a weapon.

Ysriel has been in the guard for a few months now, and while she can’t hope to win a fight against a trained criminal, she can fend them off long enough for other guards to come help. Slowly but surely, she is being taught to read and write, and serves as a bright, if still burgeoning, part of the Cleaver Street guard house.