• Name: (Former) Knight-Witch Merilia
• Age: 300+
• Gender: Female
• Race: Human?
• Appearance [+]

  
  The shortest of the original Iron Rose Knights, and possibly the shortest overall, she seems to have stopped actually getting taller at about the age of 8 and a lofty 4'2. Magic was apparently involved.
• Personality: Despite her lack of emotion, Merilia definitely had--and continues to have--a thing for screwing with people, particularly using magic to play tricks. If nobody else is around, then she's likely to practice the pranks on herself, except for the nasty ones. Those all get directed to people that actually thought to mention, or draw attention to, her height.
  Most often, her activities as part of the knights were of a scholarly nature--aside from providing magical backup, she would catalogue any magic or strange creatures they encountered, research or design any counters needed, and so on--and she was quite happy to do this, as it expanded her own knowledge. Her lack of interest in the propriety of this knowledge didn't endear her to many people outside the knights, or many within it.
  Outside of the context of tricking people, Merilia is never particularly personable and generally keeps to herself. Even then, unless saying something is absolutely necessary, she inevitably communicates non-verbally or in writing. Almost every word the knights ever heard her speak was inevitably the casting of some sort of spell and she was extremely quiet even then.
• Brief Backstory: As a child, Merilia was raised by her Ithillane mother and followed in her family's magical tradition, including a highly circumspect and definitely illegal (to have a child perform) ritual to maximise mana potential. This had the side effect of prematurely limiting her growth, though nobody can claim that the results weren't effective.
  The adult Merilia decided to not live her life out as a peasant farmer that simply happened to have witchcraft, and headed to the Mage Colleges until she found one that would actually accept her despite the informal magical background she came from. It was here that she picked up more dangerous magic and means to protect herself, even teaching classes for years before again getting bored with her sedentary lifestyle. She spent time as a wandering adventurer, before joining various military companies in Thaln, simply because it was a college there that had accepted her in the first place.
  Then the Iron Rose Knights were founded and she volunteered her services as magical support. After Elionne left, Merilia stuck around for just over ten years before bowing out to go exploring again. In the years since, she's sent the knights a letter monthly along with some magical trinket she's found or made, but it's never been clear what she's doing or how she's managed to stay alive this long. With her interest in all forms of magic, someone inevitably proposes necromancy but even when they have the time to spare to try and find her, she's always gone by the time they reach her last sighting.
  That the sightings involve dungeons at the best and ambiguously justified deaths at the worst, it's a mystery that someone wants to answer.
• Equipment: Her wand. It does absolutely nothing on its own, but it can hold a spell to release on command.
• Skills: Out of being a mage, Merilia was one of two artists in the early knights, and a lot of her sketches and paintings have been preserved and kept around over the years, though she tended to depict their battles or the locations they went rather than the knights themselves.
  As a mage, her skill-set is large due to her lifetime of changing positions and she has a firm knowledge of many different areas of magic. With the knights, she actually owned no armour or weapons--she'd temporarily conjure them whenever needed, and usually kept the wand charged with 'summon armour' in case of an unexpected battle. In combat, she had a clear preference for using large-scale air spells to compliment the knights' fighting and force the enemy into unfavourable arrangements, as well as to raise her to a height that she had a good view (and avoid the inevitable death-by-arrows you'd expect). This sometimes extended to actually cutting people with the air itself... or making a vacuum blade for particularly messy deaths.
  She seems to be one of the few mages capable of long-distance teleportation. It would go a long way to explaining why nobody can catch up to her, and also how the letters keep appearing on the captain's desk exactly at midday on the first of the month.

• Name: Gütta Grimslocke [+]

  
  
  
  
• Age: Early to mid-forties
• Gender: Male
• Race: Human
• Appearance: His forehead is too large, his brow too low-hanging like an overripe, hairy fruit. His pale eyes, stricken with stormy madness, are submerged in their sockets where dark bruise-like rings surround them. He's a shorter man on average, and only barely stocky enough in his build to hold his own against most trained opponents.
• Personality:
  
  "The only reason a warrior is alive is to fight, and the only reason a warrior fights is to win."
  ~Miyamoto Musashi
  
  Gütta hides his vulgar past and his contempt for worthless idealism behind a steely mask of stoicism. Rarely speaking and smiling even less,—though ample smirking is inevitable—he keeps his head down, his mouth shut, and his feet quick and obedient. That head, of course, is the first thing he protects in signs of danger, caring little for the welfare of allies in the first heat of war. Although he is not known ever to have deserted, no one who knows him well (of whom few Knights can be counted) would say it seems beneath him.
  
  Being a small man in stature has forced Gütta to adapt accordingly in war: he fights dirty. His signature weapon, the poleaxe, keeps larger opponents at a distance, and through the years he has learned to strike the perfect balance between stupid courage and unseemly cowardice. In battle he will hold well enough against enemy lines, but few people if any will mark him as a particularly heroic or intrepid specimen. His eyes gleam brighter at thoughts of gold and good liquor than of honor, valor, and duty to realms and deities.
  
  These adaptations have translated too into his personality; he is observant, listening more than he speaks and watching more than he confronts. He is quick to chart people and their motivations, but quicker still to avoid rivalries and profitless conflicts.
  
  He respects powers which are immediate; punishment which is swift and severe. Mercy to him is for people brave enough to start their battles but too weak to end them. This above all is why he admires, and serves, the young nobleman with the white hair.
• Brief Backstory: He's tried every dishonorable profession at least once; mudlark, cutpurse, burglar, extortionist, coin-clipper, assassin. Such are the symptoms when desperation infects a man. The scars he carries on his body and in his ego are the proof however that he wasn't made of subtle, sneaky stuffs; one too many floggings soured his appetite for that work. Nay, where he excelled was mercenary work, where he clawed his way through the slapdash ranks by being the smartest, the toughest, and sometimes, startlingly, the most articulated of the bunch.
  
  Only he and the lord themselves know how he came to serve that young boy. Why Gütta respects him, fears him, and even likes him becomes evident soon enough, but when asked for his real raison d'être, Gütta simply says, "He saved me." He acts something like the boy's bodyguard and confidant, although he has too little to teach him to act as a proper mentor or father-figure.
• Equipment: [+]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Skills: Combat (mêlée; armed battle, dueling, and pugilism), drinking, gambling (cards and dice), riding, falconry. He throws knives and practices archery, but only for fun, carrying neither into war. He has a sharp eye for counterfeit coins versus genuine mints. Although he only barely knows how to read, his handwriting is exquisite and he has taken to calligraphy as a hobby. He possesses the skills and tools of a barber, cutting his own hair, shaving his own face, and even performing minor surgeries like lancing boils and excavating shrapnel wounds.
  
  He wants to learn magic, even if only minor spells of convenience (e.g. starting fires more easily) are within his grasp; nevertheless the Arcane eludes him.

• Name: Rhydsar di Lothe [+]

  
• Age: 17
• Gender: Male
• Race: Human
• Appearance: Rhydsar has an athletic build, but the lanky build of a swimmer or runner, as opposed to the bulky build common to warriors. When it comes to weight or stature ergo, he has nothing on other soldiers. Rhydsar's features could be called boyish or feminine still, too. He hasn't grown a beard; nor has the softness in his face yet faded. He has a sharp pointed jaw and, cascading down his back, long white hair. In a word he is handsome, although this is only because his face has been spared the horrors of scars and his body not been forced to adapt to wrestling orcs. Perhaps soon this youthful innocence will fall by the wayside.
• Personality: Rhydsar in his natural state is quiet and reserved, more prone to curl up inside his quarters and read a book than to lead a party in a toast. However he also goes to great pains to make sure that people do not see him in this state. He tries to be polite when it comes to letting his elders speak, but when his turn arrives to speak he steals the crowd and has no purpose other than to steal away with their attention; and perhaps, their admiration.
• Brief Backstory: As the third son of a Marquis the boy would want for nothing and have few arduous responsibilities. If ever someone was privileged, it was this boy.
  
  In his tutelage he easily overtook his brothers. His spare time was spent adventuring around the demesne and reading heroic sagas. In adolescence boredom gave way to troublemaking. After being caught committing a petty crime, the Marquis, Rhydsar's father, decided the boy's punishment would be to tour with him on the coming campaign. Always eager for battle, and extraordinarily proficient at it, the boy soon found that the men took a liking to him. The Marquis, not only seeing his sons potential, but also wanting to keep him safe, decided to bribe Rhydsar's way through a squireship and into knighthood, before sending the boy to the Order of the Iron Rose. The declining Order, the nobleman thought, clearly wouldn't put him in danger. Meanwhile Rhydsar can continue to kill goblins and fight his little bandit wars without risking the health of the March in the process; for he had taken a great liking to leadership and to the chessboards of the battlefield, and the lord would not see this bloodthirst strip the land of its peaceful prosperity.
• Skills: Strategical and Tactical Foresight, Horse Riding, Swordsmanship, Etiquette.
• Equipment [+]

  Armour [+]

  

  
  

  Weapons [+]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  

My Hider [+]

Silfern stands at 5'5 feet, sporting shoulder-length black raven hair and pinkish purple eyes. A small head adorned by childish features sits atop her petite frame.

• Name: Lilianna Belwiss
• Age: 29
• Gender: Female
• Race: Human
• Appearance [+]

  
• Personality: Though not as harsh as she often first appears to be, Lilianna is generally quite cold to most people--polite but closed off and unfortunately prone to coming across as supercilious. As her family and the captain can attest to, she just takes a long time to warm up to anyone and only relaxes in private.
  She also hates anyone that claims a position or privilege solely on the circumstances of their birth or their connections. If you haven't the skills for the role, then you should be stripped of it at the soonest convenience in her opinion--something that sets her at odds with the more traditional members of the knights, though it earns her some prestige amongst more progressive sections of the nobility.
  If there's one thing that Lilianna takes pride in above everything else, it's her swordsmanship: any knight claiming to be better than her has been asked to prove it... and their oldest member's refusal to accept her terms for a fair duel frustrates her to no end.
• Brief Backstory: As the fifth daughter of the Countess Belwiss, Lilianna received a thorough education, including instruction with the sword, but after that was left to make something of her life on her own. The young woman pledged her service directly to the royal family, serving admirably and proving her skills sufficiently to be granted a position as a commander in some minor engagements. It was this experience that gave her the leverage to join the Iron Roses.
  After Phoran Cal's rebellion, there was the obvious need to find those able to train the new Captain--a job that Lilianna, refusing to have some uneducated ditz there with no qualification other than their birth, volunteered for immediately. In the end, was the captain's primary tutor when it came to military matters--aside from a brief leave of absence due to a romance with one of the Danbalion family maids, which got cut short due to her replacement's unexpected death.
  Despite being one of the few knights that are actually married and responsible for raising a daughter, Lilianna has no intention of stepping off the battlefield any time soon. Though she quite likes the captain, she won't rest before the order is reformed--it hardly has a religious mandate nowadays and tradition is no reason that its leader should continue to be chosen for such foolish reasons. Better to select someone that already has the skills needed than train a random girl from scratch.
• Equipment: Lilianna wields two weapons, both of dwarven make and alloy--a much newer, and more ornate, rapier and a dagger with which to parry or (frequently) stab someone more concerned with the more 'obviously' dangerous weapon. So confident is Lilianna in her abilities that she eschews any form of armour when going into battle. She must be doing something right in order to still be alive and pretty much unscathed.
• Skills: As befitting one of those tasked with bringing the new captain's abilities up to a level where she could competently fill the post and avoid a painful death in battle, Lilianna is an exceptionally skilled swordsman. Despite having no abilities beyond her swords and footwork, she is more than able to serve on the field of battle alongside her more heavily armoured comrades. Her awareness of combat seems quite exceptional as well, since arrows don't seem to trouble her.
  The swordsman is also a practised battlefield commander and tactician, having been responsible in part for all the militant aspects of Fanilly's education. Though a large portion of her knowledge comes from history, her posts prior to joining the knights have given her direct experience of command--as did being one of those involved with battle plans when putting down Phoran Cal's rebellion.