Name: Gundhram Arvel
Race: Human
Faction: His Majesty’s Vanguard
Age: 34 years
Description: Gundhram stands at a modest 5’10”, a lean and less densely muscled specimen of the knightly class. His jawline is sharp, his face angular and elongated, with two dull but extraordinarily light blue eyes in his skull. His hair is dark brown, kept in form and short, but slightly messy. He keeps a patch of light stubble most of the time, shaving only once a week, or even less frequently than that. His general attire is garments of linen and dyed wools. Generally, he wears a pair of fine yellowed trousers, a shirt of dark red, and a cowl or cloak of black satin and silk. In battle, he wears full plate of medium craft, and a distinctive steel sallet helmet with face-mask.
Personality: Gundhram is all-around a cold and callous individual at face value. A knight and commander who is cold, calculating, and generally unquestioning to his superiors, he fights with all the ferocity of a cornered lion and the tact of a bird of prey. His wit is not amazingly sharp, and he is quiet and reserved in a public setting. His opinion rarely matters unless it concerns the lives of his men, and even then sacrifices must be made.
"Class": Knight & Captain, His Majesty’s Vanguard
Motivation: A troubled, insecure, and callous man as he is, he seeks only the approval of his father and the glory of the Kingdom of Tricaelia. He is loyal to his sovereign and the heir sovereign foremost, and his own house, the Arvel, third. Even if distanced from his house due to his own insecurities and distastes, he maintains their honor, and it is what motivates him.
History: Gundhram was born thirty-four years ago in the hills near to Curant, upon the corpses of a thousand dwarves, as anyone born there had been. His father was a Baron, a ruler of lands eastwardly of Curant, a man who went to war against Shrikanti and was a party in the takings of Yabella and Laralel. His father, damaged by the war, came back to live freely and liberally, often drinking and consorting with the ladies of his court.
Though Baron Arvel had few children, Gundhram was the only one assuredly not a bastard. With a true heir, Baron Arvel began a conservative lifestyle and became cold and callous at the prospects of it all. He raised Gundhram as a lackey and a vessel for all his anger and regret. While the bastards and half-siblings he had lived carefree, paid no attention by Baron Arvel, Gundhram was crushed and suffocated by his father’s ideas of grandeur, and as Baron Arvel became older, Gundhram was pressed into the path of knighthood at the age of eight.
Sent off to the Royal Mustering Grounds in Akarath, Gundhram became a Page, a child knight-in-training. He was rigorously drilled by the Vanguard’s best, broken and turned into a soldier of, by, and for the king. And in the King, young at the time, he saw what his father was not, a man of strength and conviction. The sovereign as his guide, he excelled in taking charge of his group during exercises, and was appointed squadron senior once a Squire.
Knightship came soon after, and a reshaped Gundhram was granted a Royal commission due to his noble background and leadership prowess. A lieutenant of men-at-arms, he entered service with the Vanguard in his twenty-second year. The rest is simple history. Dissent was crushed, small-scale rebellions and insurgencies turned back, with Gundhram in the dead middle. Now a Captain within the Vanguard, he leads his hundreds for glory of King.
Strengths: Gundhram’s most prevalent strengths show in projecting security in battle to fill his own void of insecurities. He, like his father, is cold and callous, but he is not uncaring or stupid. He thinks with a focus on tactics, on how to win the battle. How the war will eventually be won is not his domain, but he will continue to devise the best ways to defeat the enemy whilst conserving the lives of his men, all the while executing the King’s will in every single engagement.
Weaknesses: Despite his exterior, his very insecurities are what weakens him. He feels as if he was not born to be a noble, acting more a career soldier than a proper knight, acting without complete chivalry, with the goal to simply win or die. Because of this he rarely meshes with other nobility, preferring the company of his own men, which reflects upon him in most unfavorable light. On the more practical end, Gundhram is an ill user of bows and javelins, hardly, if ever, hitting his target, especially if it were moving. It is unknown whether it’s a matter of ill sight at range or simple bad luck.
