Physically Roland is of average height with a slender build, however his slight frame boasts a wiry strength that's surprised many a larger man who expected him to be an easy conquest. His fingers are long and slender, equally adept at jimmying locks, picking pockets, or curling into fists.

He wears his dark hair long, just past his shoulders, using leather thongs to tie his tresses back at the nape to keep them out of his eyes. His face is narrow and sharply angled, too severe in countenance to be considered handsome, though striking in its own way. His eyes are easily his most notable features, being an uncommon ice blue in colour, lending a fierce intensity to his gaze that many find discomforting.

Roland "Knife-speaks" Axis

24

Human

Conscript

Roland’s personality is somewhat at odds with his criminal past. While he looks little more than a violent delinquent, he is actually a deep-thinking man, one who finds himself constantly wrestling with the morality of his own actions.

He still remembers the stories his mother used to tell him, the ones about noble heroes resplendent in shining armour, doing great deeds and saving princesses. He’s grown up to realize that those stories were nothing more than the fantasies of a woman who was trapped in a desperate situation, but that can’t stop him wishing that he could be a little more like the heroes of those tales, to be a man she could have been proud of. Life’s not like that though, and he’s a realist, not an idealist. He’ll do what it takes for him to survive, even if that means somebody else doesn’t get too. That’s just the way things are. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s got to like it.

He can be charming and personable to those around him, even complete strangers, but has been known to fall into bouts of intense brooding, and during these periods he can be cold, even hostile, to those he loves best in the world.

He prefers to solve his problems without violence, but life has taught him that a man who isn’t willing to fight for those things that are his isn’t going to keep those things for very long, and as such he is ready to resort to brute force when he’s forced to.

Roland was born in the Ilyan city of Holden, the only child of Garett and Cecilia Axis. His mother was a fragile and yet uncommonly graceful woman who served as a laundress to a prestigious merchant family. She worked hard, and dreamed of raising herself and her family up from their humble beginnings to something better. Unfortunately, the Gods conspired against her to make her aspirations unattainable, throwing obstacle after calamity at her, each one conspiring to push her face further down into the gutter. Chief amongst these misfortunes was her husband, a small-minded drunk who worked as a dock worker during the day, and a leg breaker for a local gangster through the night. Every penny he made ended up being squandered, either on poor bets, cheap liquor, or cheaper women, and invariable he’d end up taking his wives earnings too. Of course, he quickly wasted those monies too.

To supplement their meagre incomes Garett sent his young son to ‘apprentice’ under an old work colleague of his, Hemsey Geance, better known in Holden’s criminal Underworld ‘The Ratcatcher’. Geance was once a talented pickpocket, but after having his fingers broken by a rival he was forced to retire. However, nobody pays a pension to a retired sneak-thief, and so he began to train the street orphans and unwanted waifs of the city in the fine art of larceny, taking a large cut of each child’s takings as his ‘mentorship fee’, and keeping them all in line through a mixture of violence, cunning, and emotional blackmail. Roland became one of Geance’s ‘Rats’, and that small portion of his spoils that he didn’t pass onto the Ratcatcher was taken home to give to his father.

Cecilia hated the path that her husband had set Roland down, but she’d ever been a meek woman, and never quite mustered up the courage to disagree with Garett. Instead she worked as hard as she could to bolster Roland’s moral education, trying to teach him the differences between right and wrong, encouraging him to go to the local church run Sunday school, and filling his head with stories featuring great heroes of the past. Roland enjoyed the tales, but never quite grasped the lessons his mother was trying to impart to him, not at the time. His father thought it was all a waste of time, thinking that there was no use filling the boys head with nonsense when life would beat it out of him in due course, but as long as it didn’t affect him he was happy to let his wife continue the ‘lost cause’.

Things continued that way until Roland was fourteen years old. One day, after finishing work for the Ratcatcher, he returned home to find his mother dead, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle and her body cool, while of his father there was no sign at all. There was no explanation for the scene, no broken furniture or signs of struggle. Despite all the years of taking her for granted and the scorn he heaped upon her, Garett had never so much as raised a hand against his wife in the past, and while the town watchmen who were eventually called to investigate the scene could find no evidence of violence the fact that Roland’s father had apparently fled the scene was too much to ignore. They began a man hunt for Garett, but never found him. Reports would eventually come in that he had booked passage upon a ship that was sailing from the docks earlier that day, but it was too late to stop him.

Roland’s mother was dead and his father was gone. He was on his own.

Roland ran before the authorities made any plans for him. He didn’t know where and at the time he didn’t know why. It was an animal reaction, a young boy fleeing a situation that he wasn’t equipped to deal with. Truth be told the watch probably could have stopped him, or at least found him, if they’d wanted. But what did they care about him? Just one more orphan on the streets of Harndon. ‘Let him disappear,’ they thought, ‘less work for us to do’.

When he eventually stopped running he realised he couldn’t go home. No, not just couldn’t, but wouldn’t. It was a tainted place for him now. He had no other family, and no one he could turn to. So, he did the only thing he could think to do. He returned to the Ratcatcher and went to work. Geance was only too happy at this turn of events. Roland was a good earner, a hard worker and a damn fine thief. One of the best he’d ever trained. The money fairly flowed in after Roland lost his home, as there was no real reason for him to stop working, other than the occasional breaks to eat and sleep. In fact, it would have been accurate to say that the job became Roland’s whole life, but as the time he spent separating hard working people from their coin grew, so too did his passion for the craft. His grafts became ever more elaborate, more sophisticated, and Geance watched on in something akin to awe as, in two short years, his student became a better thief than he ever was in his prime. It came as no surprise to the old pickpocket when he heard that Roland had captured the attention of Theron Kingmaker.

Theron Kingmaker. So named because everyone knew he was the real power in Holden, whether the politicians and nobility wanted to admit it or not. Theron had come out of nowhere about fifteen years prior and through the use of bloody violence, crooked deals and underhand tactics, he had forced the disparate gangs and criminal families of the city into something almost resembling a sophisticated hierarchy, featuring himself sitting pretty at the top of the lot. Ever since it had been said that he had the power to turn paupers into kings, and kings into corpse. Not quite true, but it went a long way to illustrating the fear and respect people held for him. The Kingmaker virtually owned Holden, but he was no longer a young man, and his mind had started to turn to such nebulous things as ‘legacies’. He wanted to ensure that when he was gone that control of his city would go to someone worthy of it. Unfortunately, he had no sons or daughters of his own, no family of any sort, and what friends he did have had all been buried on his way to the top. He began a search to find a candidate to pass his power to, but no one suitable presented themselves. No one, that was, until Roland began making waves.

Stories of the young man’s exploits had begun to filter through the taverns and whorehouses of Holden, and when Theron heard them he brought the young man in for a meet. For his part Roland had heard of the infamous Kingmaker, after all, who that ran in his circles hadn’t. The young thief figured that he’d crossed the wrong man somewhere in the course of one of his heists, and now Theon was going to snuff him out. Terrified he was going to die, he still endeavoured to go out like a man, refusing to show Theron the respect he was due, refusing to show just how terrified he was. It worked in Roland’s favour though, as his iron necked tough guy act went someway to impressing Theron, who decided then and there that he’d found the heir he’d been looking for.

There was still tests to pass and hoops to jump through of course, but Theron was certain that Roland would pass them all, and pass them he did.

Trains Roland for years.

Rolands father comes back. Roland kills him in public, but Theron uses his influence to protect his protégé from the law.

New up and come, Caleb Losthill, challenges Therons control of the city. Has some friends in high places, and makes himself a thorn in the Kingmakers side. He tries to kill Roland to weaken Theron. Attack happens at an upscale whore house that Roland was collecting protection money from. In the ensuing conflict the whorehouse catches fire and several notable upper class men are killed. Caleb pins the blame for the blaze on Roland, and many want him to pay. This time Theron cannot as easily sweep the troubles away, but he does managae to mitigate the punishment from hanging too imprisonment, with intentions of breaking his protégé out.

Before he does Caleb uses his own inside man to murder Roland in prison. However the inside man can’t finish the deed, and instead knocks Roland unconscious and signs him up as a conscript for the Expeditionary forces. By the time Roland comes too he’s already sailing, and as he’s now technically part of the army he can’t get home. He endevours to survive and return home to Holden to settle the score with Caleb.