[CHAR] Warhammer Fantasy: The Hammer of Witches - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world

[BiffleChump]

Username: Bifflechump.

Character Name: Jan van Boschterp.

Race/Species: Human.

Gender: Boy (but insists on being seen as a “man”).

Age: 18.

Career (former) Student. Skills: painting, poetry, rhetoric, fencing, accounting, law, pistols, disguises.

Weapons: Rapier, parrying dagger, repeater pistol, six reserve daggers hidden in his clothing.

Attire: Broad-brim hat decorated with a blue and yellow feather, a blue coat, black hoses (and a pair of white trousers in reserve), gloves, tall and excessively polished boots.
A ragged jacket is used for disguises, along with a pair of worn boots.

Equipment/Other: painting colours, a journal, a pack of gunpowder and obsessively hoarded jerky, a set of cosmetics for use in disguises.

Physical Description: tall, slim, and somewhat lanky. A narrow bloodless face with a somewhat beaky nose, light blue eyes and shoulder-length curly blond hair.

Mental Description/Personality: Artistic, ambitious and outwardly rather merry. Being raised with good manners makes him used to knowing what polite society expects of him, though he inwardly rankles at it. He is somewhat unstable, easily bored, and given to extremes. He is fond of indulging in the good things in life. He is troubled by strange dreams, but has not entrusted them to anyone.

Background/History: Jan van Boschterp is a callow youth of much ambition and a smidgeon of wit, but little foresight.
He was born in Marienburg, the least of many siblings, to a minor family of bureaucrats in service to the great merchant houses of the city.

His early years were concerned with learning the manners and culture of a well-off middle class, and while he was not directly abused, he was rather often overlooked in favour of his older siblings, and he was haunted – for a time – by strange and dark visions.
When Jan came of age, he was sent to the Empire to study in the great University of Nuln. Now that he has (mostly successfully) graduated, he is expected to return to serve his family’s interests, but he chose otherwise. He finds the old life with his family much too stifling, and could not envision himself to a calm and settled life – at least not until he has increased with earthly fame and possession a hundredfold and left a legacy to proud of.

His plan is to find excitement and adventure, composing paintings and poetic epics when possible, and use his university-granted power over the spoken word to justify his actions to the authorities - when he has to.

He is schooled in rhetoric and law (all the better to exploit loopholes in laws), and has some skill in fencing, painting, and composing poetry. He has just enough skill at riding to stay in the saddle as long his horse does not hasten beyond a steady trot.
Recently, his strange visions have returned. He has not been able to decode any rhyme or reason from them, but they worry him, and they have grown in intensity over the past year. Some of these dreams are pleasant, but most are not.

Jan is not even sure himself of whether he could call himself a romantic. He has some ambitions and believes on some level that fortune favours the bold and that only by great deeds can one aspire to heroism - though his motivations are less than “heroic”, at least according to standards of more well-adjusted people.

[Andreyich]

Username: @Andreyich

Character Name: Hans von Lipvig

Race/Species: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Career (if any) and Skills: Dueling entailing shooting and fencing, horse riding and general equestrian skills, full literacy and numeracy, noble bearing and etiquette.

Weapons:
Heirloom Blade: A fine thing, much engravings and decoration cover this weapons that is both on border of ornamental toy and fine masterwork weapon.

Dagger: Similar to the former, it is a beautiful and clearly expensive thing that works as both a weapon and a tool.

Repeater Pistol: While still a new and gimmicky design, having five full pistols shots reloaded as quickly as a normal pistol is no trivial thing.

Attire:
Hans will dress himself in neat and fashionable, but not too (that is, in his opinion) ostentatious clothing with much emphasis on personal comfort.

Equipment/Other: He will with himself have a mechanical pocket watch, a compass, a map of the region, stationery, and a significant amount of coin. He has a quite excellent white charger with partial barding, as well as a breastplate and riding gear of his own.

Physical Description: About 179 centimetres in height Hans is the typical image of a so called dashing cavalier. Perhaps destined to be a Knight himself given training, he is athletic if not quite soldier material with a moderate build and frame. He has wheat blond hair carefully groomed upon his head with the slightest of sideburns. Hans does not have any distinct facial features save for a general "boyish" look, albeit this is explicable by a rather slight age.

Mental Description/Personality: The young man has not had much time to properly develop a personality. What little time he has spent on this earth he has more or less gotten what he wanted when he wanted unless this somehow annoyed a family member. He never gave much thought to the Sigmarite faith he was born into, until he realized so recently the amount of hate it could bring upon a man. He still does not care much for it, but its certainly brought him a much more sober vision of the world. Now a largely mercantile but still vaguely innocent mind guides him across the world.

Background/History:
Born to lower nobility in Middenland, the von Lipvigs were of the comparatively small Sigmarite minority in the province. The predominantly Ulrich worshipping population always saw them with skepticism and suspicion, almost as though they were foreigners within their own homes.

Still, there was little hatred money could overcome and thus a lavish life awaited the lad. His father wanted more maturity in his son before educating his son on properly managing the manor and instead just taught him the foppish business one could get at any time like dancing in a ball, riding in a horse with your nose held high or artfully swinging a sword to impress the peasants.

Yet it wasn't to be. Poor crop yields and few merchants arriving meant that the people of the region had empty stomachs, and they right away turned to those they always held at least some contempt for. Driven off family land with his sister and father killed Hans fled with his mother. Yet Ulrichan family was cautious of giving them refuge, and what gold the family could pack in carriages would run out eventually.

Fearful, confused and frustrated Hans took whatever weapons he could get hold of and in the night rode off from the home of the distant family friends they stayed with in the Reikland. Now alone on the road he searches for where fate will take him.

[Oak7ree]

Username: Oak7ree

Character Name: Henrik Karl Adler Ritter von Altdorf

Race/Species: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 24

Career (if any) and Skills: Henrik served in a light cavalry company raised from Reikland until recently he was relieved from the army. He has good riding and sword-playing skills. Though there are better and faster swordsmen in the world, Henrik can hold his own. Henrik has learned the basics of surviving in the wilds, though there's a lot to learn. Henrik can be a bit rough around the edges in noble company and dislikes lying and dishonesty.

Weapons: A steel bastard sword, a flintlock pistol, a shield and a foot-long steel woodsman’s knife

Attire: Four plain cotton shirts and pants, a green woolen shirt and cap, a black beret, a travelling cloak and a chainmail and a leather jacket

Equipment/Other

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.):

Henrik is a young and wiry man with several years of officer training and campaigning under his belt. His face is a bit square and plain, and he has black hair and deep blue eyes. Henrik's body is marked with a load of scars, and his nose is bent, thanks to a nose injury suffered as a young man. Henrik's hair is cut short on the sides, and he has a stubble most of the time, as he is trying to grow a beard.

Mental Description/Personality:

Formerly a man of positive outlooks and attitude, Henrik has become more dark, grim and thoughtful person and a more cautious leader after the loss of his company. He lost most of his comrades and friends and carries some survivor's guilt over their deaths. Henrik might appear as a man of few words, but he weighs them all. A perceptive and bright young man. A skilled tactician and swordsman, Henrik knows how to give orders and receive them. He also knows how to use flintlock pistols. Never a very religious person, Henrik still carries an amulet of Sigmar, a miniature warhammer in a metal chain, around his neck as a childhood habit.

Background/History:

Henrik is a former imperial cavalry officer, who has changed his career path into an adventurer and a mercenary, seeking to avenge his company's destruction and redeem his failures. Henrik was born into a wealthy bourgeoisie family in Altdorf and had ambitions in his childhood to become a famous general, but thanks to his common birth and family line, he was barred from entering higher ranks than Captain. Henrik entered the army at the age of sixteen.

In his youth Henrik was tutored to become a cavalry officer of the Empire's army. He was taught how to effectively command a company-sized force, and excelled at it, granting him praise from his superiors. He eventually was granted a company of light cavalry to act as a harassing and scouting element for a larger army. He was also given a knighthood and the title "Ritter von Altdorf" - the Knight from Altdorf.

Few months before going to Ubersreik, Henrik's company was massacred and utterly destroyed by a Greenskin horde in the World's Edge Mountains, as an Imperial army was marching near the mountains. Henrik barely survived and tried to reach the army before the horde could swarm it. He failed, as he was half-starved and very sick from his wounds, and the army suffered massive casualties thanks to a successful ambush. Henrik was reprimanded and court-martialed, and later relieved from duty, as imperial officials wanted to have a scapegoat for a defeat. His father pulled a couple strings for him, and he wasn’t jailed, but he was barred from serving in the military again.

[BangoSkank]

Username:
BangoSkank

Character Name:
Udo Wanderfoot

Race/Species:
Halfling

Gender:
Male

Age:
38

Career:
Udo worked as a Bounty Hunter throughout the Empire after a brief spell as a Fieldwarden in a small frontier Halfling town and many years working as an unofficial "Bounty" Hunter.

Skills:
Udo speaks Common, Halfling, and Reikspiel.
He is knowledgeable about the geneaology and heraldry of the Empire.
He is skilled in Outdoor Survival, Cooking, Perception, Gossip, Search, Shadowing, Silently Moving, Following Trails, the Specialist Weapon Groups Slings and Entangling, Strike to Stun, Strike Mighty Blow, and has unusually good Night Vision.

Weapons:
A small flanged mace, a well crafted shank, a sling and crafted projectiles, a bola, a net

Attire:
Plain cotton shirts, vests, and pants, each in different colors. A thicker brown adventuring vest. A green parka. A clean more presentable town outfit bundled up and black shoes to match. A beautiful amulet of Sigmar.

Equipment/Other:
Several thick sketchbooks and pens, a very small tent, a small pot to cook in and a small bowl to eat from

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.):
Udo is 38 years old, 90 lbs, and 3'7". With thick brown hair generally combed back and parted, sharp green eyes, a bulbous nose, and no beard on his face save for well groomed muttonchops, he is in every way physically an unremarkable Halfling. He no longer looks like a Halfling in his childhood but he appears to have lived a fairly comfortable life. The only thing that might betray his less than peaceful life is his ragged left ear, a souvenir of that fateful night.

Mental Description/Personality:
Udo presents himself as a loud gregarious man when it suits him and adopts a quieter more proper personality when the time calls for it. He is very friendly and very quick witted, he uses these two things and his slight stature to ingratiate himself with people who may prove informative. Though in town he often appears quite happy go lucky he is in fact quite cunning. His personality is in short divided, he is quite kind and friendly with his friends and indeed with many strangers until and unless he needs to be decidedly less friendly.

Background/History:
A few years into Udo's work as a Fieldwarden his town was beset upon by a blood thirsty band of cultists. Though he fought alongside his fellow Fieldwardens he was quickly clubbed hard over the head with a small shield and left for dead. Upon awakening he saw that after overcoming the others the cultists had been much less kind to the rest of his people. They had been gathered, slaughtered, and butchered. With nothing left Udo spent many years hunting them down and his personal attachment to this pursuit taught him precisely how to do exactly that, hunt and catch a man.

Udo perfected his bounty hunting skills hunting down the cultists who had destroyed his small town in his youth. The journey took him many years longer than it might have if he were a little larger, a little stronger, a little more intimidating, a little better suited to simply carving up the monsters as they so deserved. Udo had spent his youth celebrating a happy carefree life loving his small body and his peaceful people and ended up spending many after his youth cursing it all. Seeking his revenge and seeing it escape him time and time again.

That loss formed a great divide in his life, a time before and a time after, and nearly all of his memories now are from the time after. Many years spent in pursuit in it's many forms. Mingling with the common folk to learn about small time criminals, popular taverns, the travelings and trevails of the underclass. They had even taught him how to cook good nourishing food with nothing but what he could gather in the wilds. Mingling with the upper class to learn the geneaology and heraldry of the realm and to sharpen up his Reikspiel. He gradually became better at it all as he moved from cultist to cultist.

When his hunt was finished and the last cultist found Udo reached out to an old fat friend to celebrate the day. An old well-celebrated chef who had taught Udo how to cook and with whom Udo had shared many a long trip. He had a small cottage amid the mountain and along the river just West of Eilhart. Together they made a rare specialty which stood right on that border between Royal Extravagance and Commoner Ingenuity. Wild Boar Meat, Chicken Broth (prepared the night before), Fresh Cracked Black Pepper, Olive Oil, Butter (generous), Garlic, Bay Leaves, Caraway Seeds, Carrots, Celery, Reik Sprouts, Mushrooms, Parsley, and a happy helping of Potatoes. Cooked up all together, low and slow, and stirred at regular intervals to prevent uneven cooking. Pour it generously into bowls for the Commoners, arrange it artfully on a plate with a reasonable amount of broth drizzled atop for the Upper Class. Garnish it with Madman's Cap to bring the final cultist to rest.

The fat man carried a generous pot out to a small table on a prepared outcrop there. Years ago they had swept it clear of debris and trimmed back the weeds and brush that grew there for the wedding of the fat man's niece. She was a beautiful if stupid thing though the ceremony had gone off without a hitch and brought her a better life than she could ever had had with such a simple (if accomplished) parentage. The fat man poured a bowl for each of them, having learned from Udo the joy of messily slurping up the broth when the meal was finished, then hurried back to fetch some good wine while Udo put the final touches on their bowls. They ate together and spoke about the years that had come and passed and then with a full stomach and a clear conscious, after that fat man had fallen into an unnatural slumber, Udo lifted his mace and brought it down on the fat man's head until there was little left but mush and powder from the crushed rock he rested on. Udo then finished his bowl quickly, packed the bowl up, and returned to the fat man's cottage to pick up a more recognizable memento, and walked into his new life.

With his vengeance finally achieved he felt a burden lifted off his shoulders, but with it went the purpose that had driven him for so long. With no specific goal but a rather effective set of skills he decided, before that fine meal had even really begun to digest, that he would continue to hunt men. He would turn those lessons he had learned and relationships he had formed toward hunting men for the Empire rather than for his own satisfaction. Money proved to be a suitable substitute for revenge, if not for home.

[Jb]

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