@RubyYou're doing good, girl. It's us that's dragging. Hope your hand feels better soon <3
A few characters waiting for approval. I'm hoping they give the current plotline a new spin, and if not that, at least add something worth talking about.Name: Coganon (born Cogon)
Age: 18
House/Affilitation: Lowborn
Appearance: Coganon is quite a sight to people that see him for the first time. He looks like a fool, with a goofy expression and mismatched clothes. A bucket has been upturned and placed on his head (which he calls his "helmet"), a burlap sack billows from his shoulders (his "cloak"), and two wooden boards, connected by two pieces of string, lay on his chest and back (his "plate"). He is often seen riding around on a donkey, which he has named Florian, waving around either a cheap, poorly weighted shortsword or a kitchen knife.
Biography: Cogon lived his life in Flea Bottom. It was where he learned his place in life, how the social class system worked, and how little hope there was for him to become renowned. He grew up in a common household, was taught sensible values based on faith, and generally turned out the same way as everyone else.
Due to his short life of tedium, he often spent his hours dreaming about what the upper class life was like. Gallant knights in shining armor fighting for beautiful ladies clothed in silk. Noble lords commanding vast armies in a clash of glorious steel upon steel. Daily feasts, courtly romances, jousts and melees, these thoughts festered in his mind, growing like a tumor from a tiny niggling thought to totally consuming his mind.
Cogon, being fortunate enough to be a lowborn who learned to read, spent every waking hour looking for books. He would sometimes visit the docks, where merchants were bound to have novels to trade between each other, and beg novels of chivalry or eroticism out of them. These books, with their writings matching with the dreams in his head, perhaps sped along the process of which his sanity slowly unraveled.
Quickly, one night he rushed home in an epiphany born from madness. He quickly changed his name from the boring sounding Cogon into the more fancy Coganon, gathered together what little coin and belongings he had, and saddled up his donkey (who before that day was named Rocin). From his home, he sallied forth, eager to try his hand at being a chivalrous knight straight out of the Age of Heroes.
He, in his delusion, saw his humble home of Flea Bottom as a vast domain, which he has been called upon specifically to represent. He operates out of a tavern, which he sees as a castle, and attempts to interject into situations where he deems an innocent is in danger, often turning out to be a misunderstanding. The tavern keeper and most of the attendees think he's some sort of odd jester, with his mock knight costume and repeating terrible cliched chivalry stories, perhaps making a sort of satire about the differences between the ideal knight and the actual ones. A pity Coganon doesn't seem to understand that.Name: Keles
Age: 67
House/Affilitation: merchant organizations in Dorne
Appearance: Keles' skin has been thoroughly browned by his years of sailing under the Dornish sun, and now hangs loose on his bones. When he was fifty, he was annoyed by his balding process, and decided to shave his hair all off to avoid having to talk about it. He walks with a long metal pole he uses as a staff, and has a visible limp in his left leg.
Biography: Keles was no lord. He had a merchant father who did well enough, and a mother who worked cleaning the houses of various rich folk (and according to his childhood enemies, whoring herself out to said rich folk). He competed for the attention of his parents with roughly 4 brothers and sisters, but wasn't nearly as good at it as they were (him being born third), so instead he mingled among the burghers and landed a job managing the accounts of one of them at the age of fourteen. Surprisingly, Keles turned out to be very good at handling money, and the burgher's accounts have never been more efficient. Through merit, he began to rise in the favor of his master, taking on more and more responsibilities and ousting all the other ledger handlers out of a job. His pay rose, but not at the rate he wanted, so one day he decided to steal the ledgers and plant false evidence in his master's office. Keles made off with all the banknotes, and the burgher was found guilty of various murders of a rival organization. He likely died in his cell.
From his newfound wealth, he forged documents stating that he would join his master's trading company and administrate in his name. As it turns out, his master held rather little say in the company, which was actually not that large. Keles was forced into sailing long distances to arrange diplomatic relations and trade networks with the Free Cities and other trading ports in the Stormlands. He picked up a love for the sea and sail, and by the age of twenty one, his tongue was more silver than the water on a sunny day. However, this was still not enough to satiate his growing taste for wealth. So he split off from his trading company and attempted to establish his own business at twenty five.
This turned out to be a mistake. Whatever he could cough up for a good advocate, his former partners could double. He ended up with less money than he had when he joined. He was still quite wealthy, but now his lust for gold was near insatiable, and to see it all being taken away drove him to anger. In his hubris, he bought a small trade ship for sailing, and spent whatever he had on assassins to unleash upon his former compatriots. Upon their deaths, their funds were seized by the Myrish.
He, desperate for cash, took up with a sellsail company operating out of the Stormlands. This wasn't a very good idea either. His pay was incredibly low, and he suspected it was because he was Dornish while his captains were often Stormlanders. In his off time, he travelled back to Dorne to do a bit of individual trading on the side, much like his father did. He even collaborated with his father and one of his brothers.
Keles discovered one upside to working with the Stormland mercenaries in Planky Town. As it turns out, saying "I am a mercenary" was very popular among the women. He fell in love with a woman named Molly, who was actually the youngest daughter of a minor lord. They eloped, and by the age of thirty eight, he had four children by her, three daughters and a son.
A little while later, the Dance of Dragons erupted all across Westeros, and Keles was mobilized by his company. It was very lucrative being a mercenary during that time, and even he had a very large wage hike. However, he didn't like the fighting. The hours were long, the soldiers were rude, and twice he narrowly avoided being seared into charcoal by a dragon. When the conflict was over, he quit the company, stating that he hated wars and anyone who waged them. He returned home to find that his father in law had been conquered, his wife killed, and his children exiled. In his grief, he turned to alcohol and whores. One whore he took quite an interest to, because she reminded him of his late wife. He had three more bastard children by her, a daughter and two sons. He later discovered that she was in fact his eldest daughter, and in his shame he tried covering it up by marrying her and forcing her to change her name.
Eventually, his daughter-wife died of an illness, and Keles shed no tears. He went back to his first love, coin administration and mass trading, going into a partnership with his merchant brother. Together, with him on the accounts and his brother on the sails, they once again flourished, amassing more and more investors bearing gold. This income source lasted a long twenty years, and ended when his brother eventually contracted a plague in Slaver's Bay and died there.
Now, he is an old and mostly jaded man. He bought himself a nice plot of land on the Dornish coast, and as many swan ships as his heart desired. However, none of his children grew up very well adjusted. They were all soft, with no will and less ambition. They all pandered to him, each hoping that he would grant them his wealth and plot upon death. He doesn't wish for any of them to have a single copper, but they just had to be his children. On the other hand, a Yunkish trader had offered him a slave-boy as a show of respect, who had grown into a kind, intelligent man. The now-free man served as Keles' personal assistant, and nothing would make Keles happier than granting it all to his last friend. If only he could.
Name: Ser Richard Stryker
Age: 35
House/Affiliation: The Nights Watch
Appearance:
A tall, broad shouldered man with a weather beaten face and close cropped blonde hair.
Stryker bears a vivid scar across the left side of his face and a once handsome nose that. has been broken in multiple places
In the cold climes of the far North, The Ranger is almost always found clad in sturdy boots, gauntlets, leather breeches and shirt, wool doublet, gambeson, chainmail and thick furs, all black.
A thick leather belt at Richards waist holds his Broadsword, pouch, dagger and hip flask while a pair of spare knives are thrust into his high boots.
Stryker also carries a large, double handed Wildling long axe usually found either slung across his broad back or resting easily over one shoulder.
Biography:
A lowborn Hedge Knight from Storms End who won his Knighthood, horse and armour in a card game, Stryker spent most of his life on the road.
Sleeping in ditches or under hedges and taking work where he could, the impoverished Knight took part in a few skirmishes and Tourneys, preferring the meele to the joust.
At one such Tourney, the wedding of some minor Lordling, upon finding Meele's were not customary at such affairs, Stryker entered the joust and promptly lost his horse and armour when he was unseated by an unknown Knight bearing a snail as his sigil.
Without a horse and armour the Hedge Knight became first a Mercenary then a Bandit, preying on trade caravans as they made their way from the Capitol up the long and dangerous Kings Road.
However it wasn't long before the Gold Cloaks caught up with him, wiped out his band in a small yet bloody skirmish and dragged the disgraced Robber Knight back to Kings Landing in chains.
It was there Stryker was given that simple, age old, choice, The Noose or The Wall.
Upon arriving at The Wall, fervently wondering if he had made the right decision, Stryker's past combat experience and tarnished title carried him through his training and into the ranks of the Rangers.
Richard Stryker has since become a loyal and dedicated member of the Nights Watch, leaving his old life behind to take the black, the Ranger has battled Wildlings many times beyond the wall and earned his place at Castle Black.
In a recent skirmish with a Wildling band almost within the shadow of The Wall itself, Stryker took a deep leg wound and while infection did not take hold, The Maester has forbade him from future Rangings until he is fully healed.
In response to this and Stryker's insistence he is not a cripple and still of use, The Lord Commander has instead decided to send him South, down the long Kings Road to the Capitol in order to seek new 'recruits' for The Wall.
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Just going to put this here for approval... A man never knows his luck until he trys :P
Dealing with a serious illness to a direct family member, and working two jobs, and finishing school, and getting manuscripts to my editor...yeah.
I may have to put this one on pause. =/