[CHAR] The Elder Scrolls: Days of Night

NPCs:

• Captain Ravana

  38 year old captain of the Kismet. A transport vessel, usually used to move merchants goods around Tamriel. Occasionally an exploration ship. The Captain and the ship are synonymous with each other - and Ravana has Captained the vessel for fifteen years. Not much is known about the man beyond the mild celebrity that he has. That he is charismatic, easy to work with, adventurous, and an especially talented swordsman.
  
  He wields two Scimitars with ease, despite their size he is acrobatic enough to manage both, and his style of fighting has been compared to dancing - which, coincidentally he also enjoys.
  
  He is a known lothario, and the fact that he has a long-term partner is not widely known. He rests on his reputation to protect himself and is said to be very image conscious, and savvy about it.

[spicykvnt]

Dro’Sintaba

Name: Dro’Sintaba
Race: Khajiit - Cathay-raht
Age: 52
Birthsign: The Shadow
Family Origins: Riverhold, Elsweyr

Appearance:

When stood upright, Dro’Sintaba reaches an unnerving 6’7”. Paired with his strong physique and incredible musculature, he is a sight to behold in his complete glory, and yet the Cathay-raht carries himself in a slouched posture and stoops ever so slightly —as if he is weighed down by something heavy. Despite this, he still manages to move with an impressive and intimidating gait - his stride powerful and confident. His habit of walking in this way has caused him to have been mistaken after dark for a werewolf more times than he would be keen to admit, and his jet-black fur does little to disarm this notion. Upon closer inspection, (if he lets you close enough), one can make out the faint traces of rich charcoal markings amongst the black fur, most prominently across his forehead over the bridge of his nose, under his eyes.

Dro’Sintaba’s eyes are an unusually bright and piercing green, that on a kinder face would be considered breathtakingly beautiful. On him, however, they just burn and simmer slowly with an indomitable intensity. It has been said that he can look right through a person in a single glance, and those who have met his eyes on a dark day can attest to this. In contrast, when engaging in his quieter pursuits - Dro’Sintaba wears a pair of bespoke spectacles that were made for him by a jewel smith and old flame. They fit him perfectly and frame his eyes in such a way that they shrink the menacing aura he carries. Occasionally there is a softness to his eyes - usually when he is relaxed, and especially when he is tired and in need of sleep. Carefree and calm is a mood that comes to him so seldom that when reaching it, his entire physique, (especially his expression) does seem to change.

He is made of solid corded muscle that defies his age and he dresses his body well. The Khajiit is particularly fond of his smart woolen overcoat, in a striking umber shade that is lined across the shoulders with the fur of a black bear. His colour of choice is green, and when not in his coat, he can be found to be wearing loose and light tunics and scarves that cover a spectrum of green hues. There is an air of stylish sophistication to him, a regal quality of masculine confidence. He wears the clothes, they do not wear him.

His voice is a low grumble, a growling and forceful whisper most of the time. In his moments of quietude, he can speak with the inflections that allude to his deep intelligence and wisdom, choosing his words wisely as a philosopher of old might. He can be a soft and purring gentleman when relaxed - but the gravel still remains, constraining the power of an explosive roar that reverberates in his chest when unleashed.

In vulnerable moments, he likes to think he is simply Sintaba. The once ambitious and scholarly Cathay-raht, who was always smiling and proud, gentle and optimistic of his future. An astute eye would observe in the lines of his brow, and the softness of his relaxed gaze that a humble gentility still sits there, and that all has not yet been drained and squeezed from him.

---

Personality:

Quiet, contemplative, kindly. Three simple words that he wished would be the first that would be used to describe him. Instead, he is usually described as menacing and severe. Such descriptors are not entirely false either, as Dro’Sintaba has an enigmatic intensity to his personality that makes him notoriously difficult to get to know, worsened only by his size and appearance. He is the book that is judged by its cover, and he tends to hold most people that he meets at an arm's length. To save them from discovering the weary man that he really is.

The cover is not the book, only the shield.

Dro’Sintaba is not without a degree of charisma, however, and he is not always beholden to his personal demons. Beneath his initial harsh exterior, there is a genuine empathic and natural leader who works tirelessly for others to keep them safe. To those he does let in beyond the walls - they will never know a more loyal friend. Often times he has shelved his dream of returning to his own family in order to save yet another helpless soul. As such, he has lived a very humble life away from his home in Elsweyr, and he possesses very little - despite having the means to afford much of whatever he’d like.

The Cathay-raht tends to hide behind his sharp intelligence and wit, deflecting those that dare to question him by finding their weaknesses and pointing them right back. Friends, colleagues, and foes have thus far all been held in much of the same regard by him. Just temporary acquaintances that will soon become ghosts to his memory when he moves on again.

As much as he clutches to the memories of his wife and their happy marriage, to the idea that he is the perfect husband and family man, he has not been able to resist the temptation of adultery throughout the years. It is something that brings him a deep shame, and he won’t discuss it openly but he has had flings and minor relationships during his marriage and separation from Ko’Ahanna. He is drawn like a moth to a flame to the opposite sex, knowing that they are just as drawn to him. After all, he is an enigma. An exotic adventure to later become a story to tell - dangerous and fearsome but with a mellow side far beyond that of most thugs.

Above all else, he is pragmatic and incredibly intelligent with an exceptional cunning streak that has given him something of a reputation as both a dirty fighter and strategist rolled into one. He is certainly not above using corrupt tactics to win, for he is a man who must win. There are few that know of him that will challenge him to an intellectual debate or even an argument. His intelligence shines when discussing his quieter passions, and his guard drops significantly. He finds a great amount of comfort and joy in music and literature. Dro’Sintaba can hold honest and meaningful conversations for hours about novels he has read, of music he has heard, and of paintings he has seen. It is not entirely unusual for him to be moved to tears by good music, or by characters written on the pages of a book.

---

History

History:

Born simply as Sintaba in 4E161 to poor Khajiit farmers in Riverhold, he was not given the best of starts and his family were hardly affluent amongst the clans. Even so, Sintaba knew even when young that he wanted to provide for his parents and give them a life they could never have achieved for themselves. That mindset alone was a clue to what they would later discover was a rather prodigious intelligence in their son. With a sprinkle of luck, and more importantly, a lot of hard work, they were able to pay for their son to receive a formal education. By formal, of course, meaning they were able to pull enough coin to hire him a private tutor and give him lessons in reading, writing, and spirituality with other members of the community. He was sociable, altruistic, and traditional in his ways - as a Khajiit of Anequina should be. His parents could not have been prouder, or felt any more blessed to have received him as their only son.

Sintaba was certain that he was not destined to be a farmhand, and through his tutelage his confidence only grew and he found he was especially fond of politics, history, and cultural studies. He had managed to build a solid reputation for himself as an affable and confident young Khajiit - with enough charisma to keep those younger than him entertained. He took on work as a tutor to the children of more affluent families in Torval, leaving Riverhold behind him for a new life. It was in Torval that he accepted more tutelage, of sorts, from the Mane. By that, he never met him, but learned much from the way of life that he observed and imagined him having. There may have also been several experiments with Moonsugar. In Torval, Sintaba found himself living a far more spiritual life than he could have imagined possible for himself. He was at peace with himself, and with all that was around him.

It was when he was 26 that Sintaba met the woman who would soon become his wife. Her name was Ko’Ahanna, a talented mage of Torval who specialised in healing. She was graceful,beautiful and from the day that she entered his life, he knew and felt that a space in his heart had been carved out just for her. They courted for some months, and after a year they married. Two years after that, she gave birth to their first child, a son, Kesdar. Raising him was an adventure, no two days were the same - and Sintaba felt yet another hole in his heart fill after his arrival.

After 4 more years, Sintaba’s daughter came along too, Ranja. While Kesdar seemed to have taken after his father, Ranja was the image of her mother and he was surely as in love as he had ever been with anything else. He was completely besotted with Ranja, and applied all of the lessons he learned while raising Kesdar in raising her. Unsurprisingly, he discovered that there were more lessons to learn, and together Dro’Sintaba and Ko’Ahanna made possibly even more mistakes the second time around. Girls were harder.

But it was when Ko’Ahanna was pregnant with their third that everything changed. The Dominion came knocking at their door - and Dro’Sintaba answered. He was a Cathay-raht, and a fearsome looking one at that; he was hardly an inconspicuous individual. In him they saw an opportunity to continue to remain uninvolved in Khajiit affairs by training their own to handle them. And so they whispered into his ear tales of becoming a hero, fighting for the future of Elsweyr and protecting the lives of his children. That was the only string they needed to have tugged at.

What followed was a series of agonising years away from that Sintaba spent away from his family. He was moved around Elsweyr, slowly moulded into a warrior— fighting and violence was never the way in which he had wanted to express himself, but he still felt that he was putting himself to good use. He believed he was doing the right thing, making an impact. He was Sintaba, the lover of music and writer of poetry! He was a romantic, a family man; he was a good husband and doting father. He was not some… enforcer for the Dominion. And yet, that was exactly what he was becoming - strange still, he was beginning to enjoy it...

”This is not forever” he told himself, praying to Alkosh that this would be over soon. This was temporary. This was him giving a service - bringing peace to clans by removing those who brought trouble to the doorsteps of good, honest people. People like his parents. People like his wife. People like him. Soon they would let him be free again to the life that he wanted, he just had to make enough of a difference first. It was just a series of lies he told himself to deny the plain and simple fact he was good at what he was doing.

When it came to learning in combat, Sintaba had the idea that he never wanted to be a man who held a blade and knew how to use one. A sword felt like a commitment, like an item that travelled at your side and spoke volumes about who you were and gave an enemy an immediate glimpse into how you would fight. A sword was predictable and easily countered by a smart enough opponent and Sintaba did not want to commit to a life by the blade. In that regard, he had to be resourceful and teach himself something, and that something was to simply use whatever was available to him. Over the years he has made himself an expert of making a weapon out of anything. A chair leg, a plate, a curtain, a book. In his hands – anything in the room could become an instrument of death. Sometimes, words are simply not enough…

When it finally felt as though he could put it behind him, and there were no excuses left in the barrell, news travelled fast of a man named Ulfric Stormcloak. That he had usurped the throne in Skyrim. Civil War broke out, and Sintaba’s work with the Dominion continued, and this time, he was sent away from Elsweyr as an enforcer with more Khajiit like him, other fearsome warriors who could get the job done. It was during this time that he earned his honourific “Dro”, when they appointed him as their leader. It was a bittersweet feeling.

Dro’Sintaba never went back to Elsewyr when the war ended. There was too much left to do, and by now it had been too long - he had managed to fully convince himself that Ko’Ahanna had remarried for a safer, more comfortable life. His children would have forgotten him. His third child never to have seen his face. He felt like a shadow of himself too, he wasn’t the soft man he had once been. His hands were bloody now… Ko’Ahanna would know that. She’d look into his eyes and see only what was absent - his warm and innocent heart, his honesty and his honour. It was all just another level of denial that placed the blame on someone else, instead of him just admitting that he was Dro’Sintaba now.

Perhaps with the war over, it was time for Dro’Sintaba to do some good instead of the bidding of Mer. It seemed however, that for every good deed he attempted, there were always two bad deeds that followed. So began a life of one set forward and two steps back. He danced on the lines of morality and mocked the concept of good and evil. He became something else entirely, a shadow of his old self. Sometimes, when he catches his reflection, he sees a glimpse of Sintaba. A man who only ever wanted to help people and be the smartest man in the room - but the sullen and permanent image of Dro’Sintaba erases him. The bitter face of a man who turned his back on his family under a false promise, a man who can never go back - for what is there left to return to after seventeen years?

Now, Dro’Sintaba travels to Anvil, and then on to the Imperial City with a companion whom he is escorting as a bodyguard of sorts. An Imperial woman named Ms. Vasellius. Her refusal to reveal her full name is only one of the things that has so far annoyed him about the woman, and yet was part of the allure to the job in the first place…

Biggest Regret: His biggest regret of course was ever leaving Riverhold. If he could do it all again, he wouldn’t answer the knock that brought him to his life of violence, life away from his family. He regrets never meeting his third daughter, and he regrets leaving Kesdar and Ranja behind.

Dro’Sintaba‘s Goal: To return at last after seventeen long years to his family. To finally meet his daughter. To try to make amends with his wife and have something of a normal, quiet life - even if he knows that dream died long ago… Part of him knows this, and yet there is a part of him that simply won’t let go and move on.

---

Skills:

Expert:
One-Handed (Blunt), Hand-to-Hand - Dro’Sintaba marries the ability to handle actual weapons with his brutal and unique hand-to-hand style. He is unpredictable, frequently dirty, and especially dangerous. His mind is sharper than any blade could be, and whether he is holding a string, a teacup, or his trusty club - he will find a way to inflict some level of pain with it.

Adept:
Speech - Many of the practitioners of speechcraft are those who lend a listening ear and offer the exact words to a hurting individual to heal them of their pain, or give them an encouraging boost - not Dro’Sintaba. Surely, he could, if he dug deep enough into himself to find the hopeful and optimistic soul he once was. No, his speech is reserved for powerful acts of intimidation - for the upbraiding of his enemies. Hell, sometimes even a friend. He is a master of interrogation, and very little slips past him. He is not afraid to talk down to anyone.

Sneak - Whoever had decided that a 6’7” Cathay-raht should be so adept at sneaking had a dark sense of humour. Afterall the man does not need anything else to make him any more fearsome, yet years of walking in darkness - both literal and metaphorical have granted him such an ability. To be able to approach others undetected when the need calls for it. His dark fur blends perfectly into shadow and many have only spotted the green lights of his eyes when it was too late...

Novice:
Illusion - This was a skill Dro’Sintaba learned only to boast that he could perform magic. His spells are not exactly exciting, but in his youth got a kick out of performing magic for his parents, at least. Nowadays, Fear becomes the cloak he wears when necessary to incite terror, hopefully to scare someone enough that actual violence need not be used.

Spells: Clairvoyance, Fear, Courage

Equipment:

• A short club, made to be used with one hand - stowed away and out of sight;
• A steel dagger in a leather sheath hidden in his boot;
• Hunting pouch containing two utility knives and a small whetstone. Hidden in an inside pocket of his coat;
• A vial of Restore Health.

Misc. Possessions:

• A pouch of moonsugar in his trouser pocket;
• Bespoke spectacles, carried in the front breast pocket;
• Waterskin, attached to his belt;
• A pouch of dried meats;
• A sealed letter, addressed to Ko’Ahanna, in the breast pocket;
• A journal with a weathered leather cover, behind his hunting pouch.

[Spoopy Scary]

Garil Mavos, the Real GM

" G A R I L M A V O S "

_{"I be just a simple farmhand, sera, though I may sell you my services if that is what you wish."}

══════ C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T ══════ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ═══════ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y ══════ "Garil Mavos" _______________________________________________ 53 | ♂ | Dunmer _______________________________________________ Farmhand, Mercenary, and Impersonator ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Lean and athletic; built for dexterity. ► Skin Color - Ebony, with mild hues of dark blue and ashen grey ► Hair Color - Black, with grey strands. ► Eye Color - Deep red. ► Other - Body is littered with scars from small cuts and labor. ▼ D O S S I E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Birthplace - Presumably Cheydinhal in Cyrodiill. ► Birthsign - The Ritual ► Biggest Regret - Garil would have you believe that it was his inability to seize ripe opportunities and rise above his humble origins, as well as cutting ties with his family. Also the fire, he feels pretty bad about that. ► Garil's Goal - To perform great, honorable deeds that would make his ancestors proud. Maybe make him a little famous. Fame and fortune, really. Maybe not fame. Probably fortune. Power and wisdom? Seeing the world, definitely that. Garil's goals are as protean as the Dunmer himself. ▼ F A V O R E D A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Personality ► Agility ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Speechcraft - Adept ► Acrobatics - Adept ► One-Handed - Adept ► Conjuration - Apprentice ► Stealth - Apprentice ► Athletics - Apprentice ► Smithing - Novice ► Alchemy - Novice ► Pickpocket - Novice ► Hand to Hand - Novice ▼ S P E L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Conjuration - Conjure Dagger, Conjure Sword, Summon Ghost ▼ E Q U I P M E N T ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Weapons - Three knives, though they look to be more for utility than anything else. There's a skinning knife with a gut hook, a filet knife, and a silver cheese knife. ► Armor - Nothing but the clothes on his back. ► Containers - A satchel which hangs from his shoulder and a 32 oz. waterskin. ► Food, Drink, Potions - A cheesecloth pouch filled with two pounds of assorted nuts and seeds, dried fruit, and dense preserved bread. Two large and round bottles with cork stoppers, and are filled with sujamma. ► Miscellaneous - Two small wooden bowls and two small clay bowls. Tightly packed in the satchel are small, folded mats and rugs. Assorted trinkets and mementos from past lives. Strangely enough, a bundle of scrolled documents.

══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════ Garil is as unassuming as a dunmer can get: he dresses modestly with threadbare clothing, he's clean shaven, and he carries himself with such a humble and passive disposition, so obviously trustworthy, that the only thing keeping him from being conspicuously unassuming would be his impressive height -- 6'2". Though his build is somewhat lanky, and not at all like one would would expect a soldier or mercenary from, he is still lean from what he claims to be years of hard farm work. Knicked and scratched by numerous petty scars across his hairless body, too few of them appear to be from life-threatening injuries by blade or creature, either lending credibility to his skills or undermining his integrity. He walks, stands, and sits with a slight hunch, and often rocks his jaw from side to side when in contemplation. He also tends to gesture his hands quite often when talking, and has a distinct tell whenever he's lying, where he cranes his head in as if to invade your personal space and his tone becomes suggestive. Curiously, he's quite acrobatic and has an impeccable sense of balance. He doesn't seem to have much reason to be as adept as he is, and any questioning is answered with a shrug and a blasé, "I like to climb things. I guess I just have good balance." He walks with a peculiar grace and sense of purpose, as if he has a clear destination in his mind's eye, a gait which other dunmer familiar to him have insultingly referred to as monkey-like. You can occasionally catch him looking over his shoulder or staring at other dunmer. Watching Garil swing a blade, on the other hand, he doesn't seem so great at it. There's almost a hesitance or uncertainty as he cuts the air -- no confidence -- but a trained eye can find his perfect grip and footing, and figure out pretty quickly that he probably picked up a couple of lessons. His angular features are somewhat striking. His cheekbones are high and pronounced, almost jutting from his face and combined with the gauntness of his cheeks, this quality being particularly highlighted. His chin is long and comes down to a point. However, he also has a wide jaw, which adds to the strength of his facial features. Almost out of place upon his face are a pair of a thick lips, their shade a darker hue than the rest of his face. He's almost always munching on nuts or seeds, swelling his jowls as they fill with food, rocking his jaw side to side as he chews. His mouth sits beneath a long, hawkish nose that may have once been broken in the past if the vertical crookedness is not just another sharp facial feature on a long list of sharp facial features. His ears, low on the sides of his head, flare out quite a bit like two dishes waiting for signals. His peripheral extremities, his arms and legs, are quite spindly though not without lean muscle; you'd be forgiven for underestimating the strength in his figure due to his light toning, but even so, the dunmer is more agile than he is brutish. His black hair is long and well kept, also undercut, and behind his neck you'll often find residing loose, frizzy hair. He prefers to keep his hair tied back and usually does so in the shape of the bun to keep the hair off his neck and back while he's working. Overall, Garil is a dunmer that seems very conscious of his personal hygiene despite his humility and humble occupation. Of course he has no qualms with getting himself dirty, but with as often as he seems to mock pride and vanity, he seems quite content to preen himself with the beginning and end of every day. That said, he is not so self-conscious either that he'd remove the gray hairs growing on his head. In fact, he seems quite fond of them. He is at least self-aware enough to acknowledge his contradictions and hypocrisies, though it's almost as if he occasionally forgets he holds such values. There aren't many accessories on his person. Little holes sit on his ears where there were once piercings, and as mentioned before, what little clothes he has appears old, weathered, and quite obviously favoring warmer colors such as reds and oranges -- they compliment his eyes, he says. What passes for a shirt is actually more like a red blanket or a shawl, which he wraps around his torso to cover himself during the day in a Nibenese-esque fashion. It's not uncommon to see him using the toga wrap to use as an arm sling after a long and tiring day of work. The pants he wears goes down to his knees and are held up by a leather cord, and his calloused, leather-like feet have not the luxury of proper footwear beyond a pair of sandals, which he occasionally forgoes in favor of the cool sensation of morning dew upon the grass. ═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════ All around a peculiar person, Garil enjoys his privacy and does his best to appear unassuming and inconspicuous. This is best done when minding his own business, which he does successfully for the most part, but he's also irrepressibly curious. While he might do what he can to keep his hands and mind busy, such as sweeping or mopping the deck, overhearing a conversation will pique his interest enough so that he might pay undue attention to whomever he may be eavesdropping on. To others, he could very well just be some random, nosy s'wit, which in turn can -- counter-intuitively -- direct even less attentions towards himself if he can push others away. No one wants to be around somebody who can't mind his own business, and that's the genius of it. If he can convince others he's not worth paying attention to, then it makes his goal of staying inconspicuous even easier. He watches and listens, preferring to have the edge over others, just in case it's better to be safe than sorry. Then there are those who hears what he has to say and become intrigued. This is where his proclivity for gossip gets him in the trouble of being noticed, because despite his desire for solitude and obscurity, he has a conflicting desire for engaging in conversation. After spending much of his time on the road alone, with nothing to do but think, he likes to share his insights with others. He has a hungry mind that enjoys being fed, so sharing his thoughts with like-minded individuals is one of his favorite pastimes. It is one of his more selfish habits as he tends to share very little personal information, electing to dismiss such questions with claims of being a boring dunmer leading an uneventful life. In this regard, he limits his stories to the people he has met and the places he has been; stories about the "others" in his life instead of himself.

Getting to know Garil is not necessarily a bad thing though. He's quite an amiable fellow, if a tad odd in his habits and mannerisms. He has the ability to read people and read them well, a skill he's developed over years of people-watching and questioning. Kindly and well-spoken, he's not at all the judgmental type, as if there was nothing you could say that could startle him and he'd accept you for who you are. If anything, you might pique his curiosity and he'd harry you with more questions without fear of looking dumb or naive. His lack of judgement also shows itself through his liberal approach towards sexuality, thinking very little of the different races and genders of Tamriel intermingling with one another and uses flirtation as a brand of humor regardless of who he is talking to, only reinforcing the stereotype of sexual deviance often foisted upon dunmer. This is an unfair characterization, he feels, since his attitude as a lover is actually rather conservative in the sense that he reserves the action of touch for truly intimate matters. Otherwise, he is content to sit calmly and converse with his loved ones, and it is because of his liberal approach to sex that he doesn't hold it in such a high esteem, as he'd rather sit in candlelit silence and enjoy the calming peace. Much of his personality, in fact, is reflective of the endlessly infuriating duality of the Dunmer mentality. And yet, he is still one of the most amiable of his kind and gets along worse with other Dunmer.

He has a complicated relationship with spirituality however, as he speaks very little of his ancestors and is a critic of both the Reclamations and the Tribunal saints, all while disregarding the Divines as powerless lesser deities. This does not exactly translate into being a logical individual, as he does have his fair share of superstitions. He regards such matters of superstition and spirituality as private affairs, though that hardly seems like a profound statement considering he regards all of his affairs as private. Privacy is his primary value, and the invasion of which is one of the only ways to stoke the even-tempered dark elf's ire. Even then, you'll typically only be met with indignant irritation. He is not the type to explode in rage and anger, and even if the worst of his secrets should come to light, he would merely react to it as one would to any threat of danger -- run. He doesn't consider himself a murderer or dangerous mer, and he only resorts to such matters if there is no other choice. If bandits are intent on killing him, then he'll defend himself, but even in a fight he is more inclined to rely on his mind than his emotions.

Overall, his company is very calm and welcoming even if it is a bit foreign and bizarre, and his very presence promotes learning and curiosity. He frequently refers to himself as a parched, informational sponge, reflecting the fact that although he has no traditional education, he has a very keen mind that is quick to pick up on information and make practical use of it. He's a clever, patient, and resourceful mer if nothing else, and takes insult and injury with a saint's grace. One of his most notable talents is his ability to perform impressions, which might sound quite tame in a world where magic exists -- and it is -- but his keen eye and ear can have his constant people-watching pay off with impressive vocal reconfiguration, enabling him to mimic the sound of someone's voice. Aside from vocal impressions, he also has a knack for physical impersonations as well, and can even copy other people's handwriting once he gets a good look at it. Eventually, this skill of his becomes creepily uncanny.

Garil is notoriously meticulous and methodical, almost to the degree of neuroticism. Part of his nightly rituals, even at the end of particularly long days, is to lay his possessions out before him and to keep track of everything he owns. If there's a list of chores that needs doing, he'll go down the list one by one, even if he is capable of striking multiple things off at once, and sees every task through to the end. On one hand, this reassures his employers that he is not one to shirk responsibility and that he'll complete his duties with no mistakes left behind, but on the other hand, this can annoy everyone else to no end. At his best, Garil can be wise and dutiful, but at his worst, Garil can be secretive and selfish.

_{═══════ B A C K G R O U N D ══════}

Garil's story is a simple one, as he says: a first generation Cyrodilian born in Cheydinhal after his family fled Morrowind following the eruption of Red Mountain. He grew up under kind, yet strict parents that had high expectations of him for living in a land ripe with opportunity and less hostile than the rugged ashlands of Morrowind. Garil calls himself a suitable family disappointment for repeatedly failing to rise above his parent's own humble occupations, whether it was failing to become a warrior or accomplished mage, he instead found himself working other people's land for pay. Sure, he picked up a few tricks, a couple of spells... nothing impressive though. He has no claim to power, status, or to land of his own, and though he has received no formal education of his own -- working hard only to help his family put food on the table and putting down payments on a nice, future Dunmer fusion house for future generations to live in -- he's always had been the wise sort, more keen to listen than to speak, and absurdly well-spoken despite his humble origins. Stories from his parents and stories passed down from their parents always helped to put things into perspective. Then when all else failed, a jaunt over the eastern mountains and into Deshaan, a journey that could last a week or more, he could find the cairns of his ancestors there. Communing with them, albeit a dreaded affair given his lineage of very accomplished and very disappointed mages, invited a wisdom that his parents never would've been able to provide. That is, as soon as they were done admonishing him for never rising above a meager farmhand.

For reasons he chooses not to disclose, he has not visited his ancestors in some time; not since the farm he was working on had burned down. In fact, he seems to address them with some measure of resentment that is almost childish in nature, like refusing to speak to one's parents after a petty injury. Interrogating him on the story seems to turn up no correlation between his resentment of his ancestors and the fire, which in itself was a mysterious circumstance. Anyone who has ever met Garil can attest that he is one of the most orderly and organized people they have ever met, hopelessly methodical and infuriatingly meticulous in how he arranges and categorizes his (few) personal possessions and running down the checklist of his responsibilities. The very idea that the fire was the result of an accident -- an oil lantern left burning or a candle left lit -- is inconceivable as long as Garil was around to tend to the farm's affairs. Everything from harvesting the wheat, repairing the barn or wagon, to defending the grounds from hungry and predatory animals and men alike, he was always a dutiful sort that never would've let anything adverse happen to anyone or anything that was under his care. Perhaps, then, it was done in the dead of night as a form of reprisal against the farm's owners for one reason or another.

Perhaps.

This left Garil without a job, so he began going around working odd jobs for people around Cheydinhal and relying on various paramours. From fixing leaks and scrubbing floors to trudging through sewers and exterminating rats, before long some of the jobs he began to take were beginning to steal low-level contracts from the local Fighter's Guild. After a thug or two from the guild confronted him in an act of intimidation, he backed down and decided it was best for him to start traveling the road. For a few reasons, really -- the farm was no longer tying him down, this was finally an opportunity to see the world and perhaps rise above the fate of a farmhand, and he has gotten pretty good with a blade, he thought. Good enough to encroach on Fighter's Guild territory at least, so he thought, "How hard can mercenary work be?" Besides, it would've done him no good to keep living where his next door neighbors were a band of blooded mercenaries whom he had slighted.

Eventually, after a few years of travel and surviving off of odd jobs or mercenary work -- building up quite a resume of capable bodyguard, exterminator, private investigator, ruin explorer, or all-purpose handyman while peddling his treasures by retail or auction (and accumulating a number of lovers across the continent) -- eventually he found himself in Daggerfall. His many years of travel has accustomed him to violence, be it blood, dramatic action, or change (though unfortunately so and albeit not yet desensitized to such violence), but in doing so has built his proficiency in both swordplay and mental resilience. He has come to the realization that his claim of being a mere farmhand might now be a lie, though he has no intent on changing that. Now worldly, he seeks to go back to familiar territory. He found a post littered with papers, one of which was advertising passage back to Cyrodiil, and here we are!

At least, that's what you're all made to believe.

---

_{"Truth is a fickle creature. I may be no farmhand, but does my harvest not reap life in service of life? Were my services not for sale?"}

---

[Lauder]

Drujha Nagmesh, Master of the Daedra

---

Name: Drujha Nagmesh.
Race: Argonian
Age: 24
Birthsign: The Atronach
Family Origins: Soulrest, the Black Marsh

Appearance:

Standing at approximately 5’5”, Drujha is not the tallest Argonian around and her more frail appearance makes her even less intimidating than most of her kin, even if she tries to carry herself at the tallest she can manage. To many, she still seems youthful, still seeming to be an innocent adolescent and oftentimes being confused as a young student in the magical arts. Her thinner build, does not help very much fitting the build that would be expected of someone who relies on more upon magic than any physical trait, however, it does help with first impressions. It is no doubt that she also takes great pride in maintaining her youthful appearance.

To hide her frailer nature, Drujha sports a heavy cloak, almost as dark as her scales and lined with white fur and adorned with traditional argonian patterns that ends just below her stomach though traveling the full length of her arms. Under the cloak she wears a tattered, dark purple tunic that extends to her knees but is missing the sides, which show the soft scales of the argonian. She wears blackened pants, with various argonian patterns sewn throughout, tucked into old brown boots that seem to be starting to fall apart. Overall, she seems to be a neat and always clean, with the exception of the tattered tunic and the patterned pants she wears beneath her cloak which seems to hardly see the light of day. Her hands are wrapped in linens, bloodied and dirty, almost ruining the appeal of her otherwise clean wardrobe and she never reveals what injury may have caused those bandages to become so bloody, never motioning to replace them while the stink of blood moves away from them.

Moving onto her physical attributes, this argonian has a head full of dark blue plumage that runs down to the base of her skull and goes outwards. While this may make wearing hoods a bit more difficult, they do not take away from her seemingly glowing yellow, reptilian eyes. Drujha’s skin is riddled with various deadric symbols that have either been burned into her skin or carved into her, not a sign of daedric worship but of her commitment to attempt controlling them, however, this does make people assume she worships them. Yet, despite all these symbols of horrid nature, she still moves with a skip in her step as if she were a child bursting with joy and happiness.

---

Personality:

Over time, Drujha has grown to become what many would note as controlling and highly self-absorbed in a world that only she lives in. These claims have rooted in the fact that Drujha seeks control in order to keep others safe, in order to mold a world that she views as perfect in every regard, whether or not that means she has to alienate a few people does not bother her. In that light, it is clear that she has become a tad bit cynical and cold as she believes that nobody will understand, or even support, her vision of a world where the daedra were totally controlled. To many, it seems that her obsession with control borders that edge of sanity and insanity as she attempted to garner further power in her magic. Once, she was very eager and happy to share her ideals, but rejection and argument have tempered her to believe other things and while she does maintain a happy and outgoing appearance, it has been lessened.

She is one who will not expect others to understand her vision, though she does not actively force her ideals down another throat. If one does not agree with her ideals, then she tends to drop the subject altogether and move into other topics of converts. If it was not overtly apparent, it would seem that the only thing she cares about would be her great dream to an almost fanatical degree, but to say it is the only thing she cares about would be wrong. Drujha cares deeply for her argonian roots, caring deeply for the hist that made her who she is and her family that has raised her. Of course, while she does care deeply for her vision, she does know when and where to talk about it, often times away from prying eyes and when in seclusion with her comrades. Drujha, in that regard, comes across as coy and innocent in public, almost having a split personality from her far more cunning and serious side.

It is with that regard that Drujha is brutally cunning and cunningly brutal, often fooling people that she is messing with powers that she does not quite understand. When she is alone with her book, she writes with the face of someone who seems to never have smiled before, becoming so absorbed in her study that whatever veil she seems to hide behind fades into the background as if she were merely a host for some crazed demon. However, this appearance of crazed, maniacal individual can peek out at certain times in public. When she goes to summon something, when she hears words associated with daedra, when she talks to others deeply about her plans of a world with total control over the daedra. Drujha almost becomes insane as she allows this side to take over when it does, finding the sweet release of freedom to be intoxicating and maddening.

This crazed side, while maintaining the happiness and seeming innocence of Drujha, is very eager to do what it must to obtain the knowledge that Drujha so desperately seeks that moral boundaries almost evaporate. The death of people she has not grown attached to, those who would actively move against her plans, those who would have more knowledge of what she desires all become fair game. As such, against these people, she is not afraid to steal nor being afraid of what consequences might befall her as this obsession fueled side would run rampant. What is worse, Drujha knows how best to hide this side, knowing when to cut loose and when to fool others into believing her naivety and innocence.

On a lighter note, due to her studies of daedra, she is very much a fan of literature, finding great pleasure from reading various works of fiction. While, to a minor extent, this liking spreads to other arts, she views literature as more grasping than the others as she finds herself lost in words from time to time. Additionally, Drujha enjoys conversation, whether they be philosophical in nature or just to pass the time, and while her cynical nature may sometimes make others shy away from in depth conversation, she does her best to not let that cynicism actively drive one away. In that aspect, and others, she is a well mannered individual.

With her well mannered self, Drujha is a great guest, and a great host, never interrupting someone when they speak as well as giving them her undivided attention. She will smile, apologize, thank, etc as she has learned that it is with good manners that others are more likely to see you in a better light.

---

History:

Even when Drujha was but a mere hatchling, heard tale of the Oblivion Crisis and how it seemed to have devastated the world over, only to be driven back by the likes of the ‘Hero of Kvatch’ and usher in a newer era of peace. However, Drujha was more enamored with the aspect of the Oblivion Crisis that is often forgotten to the outside world, that the Argonians had managed to invade the daedra and defeat them in their own plane of Oblivion. She remembered that she would always ask her elders to speak of those tales that had been passed down, and when they did not wish to speak, they would give her a book of the event and she would read it. Being born with a strong connection to magic, she felt that perhaps she could live up to and do even more than what her ancestors had done.

By consequence, it was these tales that started the, arguably, unhealthy obsession with the Daedra and how to control them since it had been shown that the Argonians are more than able to invade there likes. Drujha would study and study, leading her to the likes of magic and conjuration as she had read that powerful mages could summon Daedra from their planes and use them against their foes. This prompted her to seek a teacher from a young age, only barely reaching her adolescence before a begrudging mage would finally take her under his wing, teaching her the basics of magic. This teacher was known to some in Cyrodil as Walks-In-Water, and was commonly referred to as such by his peers. It was under Walks-In-Water that this young mind became focused on her goal as he demonstrated that mages could, in fact, summon dremora from other planes of existence.

Her favorite memory would be the time when she first managed to summon something, while it was not daedra or dremora, it had been something. After years of studying, years of practicing spells and other forms of magic, she had summoned a dagger from nothing and Drujha knew that she had to learn more, and so she did. Conjuration was a difficult aspect to learn, but Drujha was determined and eager to learn and practice anything that she needed in order to move forwards. Perhaps she was happier with the show of progress than the actually event, perhaps she was happier being able know that one day she would be able to summon even the daedra in the future. Perhaps, just perhaps, Drujha felt that madness that would later consume her work, blossom into existence.

For a time, she was happy. For a time, Drujha continued her practice in the arts of conjuration under the tutelage of Walks-In-Water. She was about seventeen when the trying times in her family had begun to show itself, as Drujha’s father, always known as a distant man, had left the family to carry out a personal mission to ‘teach the Dunmer a lesson’. Drujha knew of the slaves the Dunmer would take, but she never knew of what her father had meant or even why he wanted to go and stir up trouble with the Dunmer. The ripple of this was felt through the family, pushing her mother to a self-inflicted tragedy and forcing her egg-brothers and sisters away. For a time, Drujha fell into sadness and locked herself away in her room, ignoring the world as she read her books and began to try and piece together the reasons of why her father had left, refusing to believe it as anything to deal with Dunmer.

Until, she began to think that it was herself. Her own eccentricities and her obsessions that she kept confined to herself.

Drujha began to double down on her efforts to find a path to secure the daedra as her own, for if she had them at her command then she could set in path a world where she would be able to control ever small aspect. If she had their power before her father had left then she could have kept him from leaving and then, perhaps, she could keep those she loved together. It was this thought that grew the more crazed side of Drujha, making her mind focus further and further and doing what she must in order to discover what she must do in order to become that powerful.

Then, Walks-In-Water needed to check upon her, entering her home while she was hunched over a book with a dagger in her hand, heated by the glow of a fire. He saw her there, bleeding and carving various daedric symbols into her flesh. To him, he saw a distressed individual, broken by the loss of a majority of her family and he decided to stay and help, bringing the student he had taken under his wing back into reality. Walks-In-Water tended her wounds and spoke with her, telling her that none of what happened was her fault. Eventually, he resumed teaching her, believing her to be pieced back together.

For a few more years, Drujha seemed normal to the outside world, but they knew not what happened in the shadows of her dwellings. The young woman had continued her studies, refining her abilities and using what money she could gather from her parent’s old savings to buy scrolls and tomes in secret from black market dealers. With the skills taught to her by Walks-In-Water, and with him none the wiser, she eventually felt that she had finally gotten the breakthrough that she so desperately desired. In private, Drujha summoned a daedra that she was satisfied with summoning, she had summoned a Clannfear. Sure, it was feral, but it was still more powerful than a useless scamp (which for the most part she ignored for their weakness). However, the noise was loud enough to awake Walks-In-Water, who had allowed her to stay in his residence she could not afford to live on her own given the amount of wealth she wasted trading for daedric books.

He confronted her, attempting to break her out of her ecstasy. When she responded with saying how close she was growing to be able to control the daedra, Walks-In-Water grasped her and began to say how her desire and obsession had consumed her and that she needed to come back to reality. Then, the clannfear defended its master, jumping upon the teacher and ripping him apart. Drujha did not stay to watch the creature slay her teacher, instead running to gather what she could before she fled into the night.

Biggest Regret: Drujha is haunted by the slaying of her master, he had gotten in her way of her dream, but Walks-In-Water had encouraged her to use her powers. She may not be able to forgive him, or herself, but she knew that it was wrong to kill him just for denying to teach her any further when she could have left and sought out another teacher.

Drujha‘s Goal: The current goal of Drujha is to become powerful enough to summon a true daedra, not a feral or weak animal, no elemental, but a deadra far more capable. She seeks to learn to summon a daedra lord.

---

Skills:

Expert:

• Conjuration - Years of study under her former master, Walks-in-Water, had proven that she possess a talent for the art of conjuration.
  Adept:
• Destruction - One of the first areas of magic that she had studied, first learning how to use the forces of flame, frost, and lighting in self-defence. This was refined throughout her life, but not so much the extend of Conjuration.
• One Handed - Travelling Cyrodil can be dangerous to the untrained, luckily the Walks-In-Water, as well as some of her family members, have taught her enough to where she knows what she is doing so that she may travel in peace.
• Enchanting - Another area taught by Walk-in-Water, imbuing objects with magic was difficult for her and thus she could never quite reach the rank of expert.
  Novice:
• Illusion - The last area of magic that Walks-in-Water had taught her, however, she never got far after killing Walks-in-Water.
• Speech - While not the best deceiver, or even speaker for that manner, she has learned how to put someone off through her words so that they do not know what lies beneath her exterior.

Spells:

• Conjure Clannfear
• Conjure Sword
• Conjure Familiar
• Conjure Storm Atronach
• Lightning Cloak
• Clairvoyance

Equipment: An Iron War-Axe, A satchel filled a waterskin and some bread, three notebooks with her findings on daedra and how best to control them, an ink and quill, and exactly thirty septims.
Misc. Possessions: She owns both volumes of the Lusty Argonian Maid

[Dervish]

Lurks-at-Dusk

Race: Argonian
Age: 34
Birthsign: The Thief
Family Origins: Lilmoth, Argonia.

Appearance:

"What shall I wear today? 3,000 thread silkworm robes, or ratty old rags that reeks of something unimaginable?"

Standing at a tall but uncommanding 5’10” (177.8 cm) and weighing in at a fairly lean 182 pounds (82.5 kilos)*, Lurks-at-Dusk possesses a fairly average and unremarkable figure, partially due to the circumstances of his hatching, partially due to his active attempts of being a social chameleon. He purposefully avoids looking too ostentatious to avoid unwanted scrutiny and providing much that would be a memorable feature. He goes out of his way to avoid any expensive looking jewelry, often purposefully buffing out the sheen, avoiding bright tones, and purposefully picking fashions that he observes as being fairly common in the social strata he wishes to emulate. Lurks-at-Dusk has had an extensive wardrobe over the years, and much of it has been left behind as he moves from haunt to haunt. He sees shedding an outfit no different than molting skin; the new layers are stronger and better suited for the next stage.

Likewise, if Lurks chooses to look poor and destitute, he ensures his appearance and scent are not offensive; the only thing people hate more than a beggar is one who reeks and looks like they are contaminated with some sort of pestilence, even though that is something that eludes Argonian physiology. He knows that men and mer and cats alike have instinctual biases, and he purposefully tries to cater to them. As such, he simply plays himself off as a veteran or a worker who is simply down on his luck and could rise up to prosperity with a bit of good windfall. Life is a delicate balance, and going to one extreme or the next would be counter-productive to his aims.

Perhaps Lurks’ most fetching feature are his eyes, a golden pair of orbs nestled into dark-grey sockets of thick, broad scales surrounded by a valley of two thick ridges of his brow and across his cheek, the ends meeting both towards his snout and the pairs of grey-black twin horns protruding out of the back of his scalp. On either side of the back of his powerful reptilian jaw are an additional pair of shortened spikes and another pair of small bony points protruding down from his chin. Perhaps most striking is the blue-black plumage protruding from the top of his head down to the base of his skull, giving Lurks-at-Dusk a corvid-like display of feathers that have the added benefit of breaking up his silhouette in the dark.

His scales, although well-tended to and buffed, are rarely ever polished, and he has a pleasant slate grey tone across most of his body, with lines of sand and clay coloured bands crossing his body like stripes, giving the Argonian the appearance of a twilight shoreline with waves dancing over the shallow sands. It pairs well with his mostly pleasant countenance, unblemished by scars or markings, and a nicely symmetrical face that almost seems unnatural for how balanced both sides of his face are. Although the Argonian might look something fearsome and predatory to those unacquainted with the race, those who are would find his broad chin and long lips that are perpetually upturned naturally to almost give the impression of a very broad and reassuring smile, and his lack of overly long and intimidating spikes much more approachable than others of his kind. After all, large horns and bright colours in nature mean danger, and Lurks-at-Dusk is neither of those things. He’s a comforting, if somewhat forgettable presence. It’s just the way he likes it.

*Accounting for the extra mass an Argonian tail adds to a bipedal frame

________________________________________

Personality:

"I will be whatever you want me to be. You just won't know it."

Lurks-at-Dusk is an individual who has long learned that Argonians are alien to other people across Tamriel. After all, it is hard to read a reptilian face if one is not acquainted to it and smiling is something his physiology simply cannot portray in a conventional sense. As such, Lurks has made himself appear affable as possible, employing exaggerated mannerisms and afflictions of tone to convey himself as he believes others would wish to see him; it makes them easier to swindle that way. Likewise, what is widely a perpetually aloof and neutral expression can convey great disinterest to other parties, making him somewhat of a threat when it comes to gambling and haggling for bargains; he can outwardly express himself contrary to what he actually is feeling at any given time given years of practice. One would think his name would arouse more suspicions, but his often disarming and approachable disposition often erodes mistrust within short order.

Ultimately, Lurks-at-Dusk is driven by greed and a personality tick where he doesn’t steal, burgle, and pickpocket necessarily out of need or infamy, but rather because of the thrill he gets when he takes what he wants and what others cherish. In his own mind, he justifies his actions by generations of slavery and genocide committed by elves against the Argonian people, or unwanted rule by the Empires of Men, but deep down he knows that it brings him a more primitive and instinctual pleasure as opposed to any lofty ideals.

He loves getting away with something that’s outside the rule of law, and he takes great pleasure at the explosive reactions of people whom he had wronged. Someone croaking about a missing family heirloom or spilled ancestral ashes to their neighbours in the market the following morning, or a child crying about a precious stuffed guar that was found torn apart by dogs. It brings Lurks a sense of satisfaction he simply could not have living a life in the straight and narrow. Sometimes he likes to toss treasures or coins into the street to watch the feeding frenzy, either for the sake of entertainment or to empty some more pockets of unsuspecting innocents who made the mistake of trying to compete with the greed of the Argonian thief.

Lurks-at-Dusk feels well-connected to the Hist and he makes sure that he doesn’t target Argonians, unless they’ve particularly crossed him or seem excessively foolish. He does not feel guilt or shame at his actions because he believes that this life is one of many he’s had and will have, so if he perishes due to overreaching ambition, he does not worry; the rivers will take him into another form before too long and he’ll try something different the next life. It’s been quite some time since he’s been back to his swampy homeland, and one of the few things he purchases legitimately are keepsakes and items that remind him of home and his people.

Given the oftentimes temporary nature of building materials in Murkmire, Lurks became very proficient at working with his hands, able to throw together rudimentary, if sturdy, furnishings and structures together with any materials at hand with relative ease and patience. This has enabled him to turn otherwise decrepit structures into relatively comfortable temporary dwellings and bases of operation, and while camping in the wilds, he fares better than most in terms of comfort. One of his few honest ways of earning coin is by carving amulets and bangles in his down time, something that reminds him of happier times at home with his mother.

It has occurred to Lurks-at-Dusk that he could potentially become quite a proficient spy given his antics; indeed, he has overheard a lot of sensitive information that was spoken in confidentiality over the years that he never was quite sure of what to do with, and he has certainly made off with some rather incriminating and interesting documents. However, being shackled to a government is precisely what this Argonian does not want out of life given the oppression his people had suffered at the hands of others over the years, and he knows a spy would never be affluent as he and might be forced to do a job that ran contrary to his own morals, namely that he avoids killing or hurting people if at all possible. He is a crook, not a villain, after all.

Despite his self-centered nature and apparent greed, Lurks also possesses a surprisingly philanthropic side. He often gives coins to beggars, leaves gifts for those he takes a liking to, and when people are in need, he sometimes takes it upon himself to find the object that is needed and deliver it to their doorstep unannounced. After all, he knows what it was like growing up not knowing if his mother and him would be able to make ends meet, and he sees no purpose in denying someone who needs medicine who cannot afford it something simple that could either cure or alleviate their suffering.

Socially, and in particular when Lurks-at-Dusk isn't putting on an act, he is a somewhat awkward individual with a matter-of-fact disposition, often stating his thoughts out loud without too much consideration of how it might be received. He can be surprisingly well natured, behaving without the hidden mischief and malice he brings upon many others. Despite the fact he is always appraising and casing people for potential profit, he tends to be pleasant and polite and willing to lend a hand. He did spend much of his formative years engaging with customers and visitors to his city, after all, so he certainly knows how to engage with strangers in a cordial manner.

Lurks is not particularly well-educated, and there are certainly gaps in his knowledge and experience that he has to work around, and his facades tend to crumble a bit under questioning and overly invasive scrutiny, but that simply is not his field of expertise. The Argonian thief studies from afar and offers just enough to pass casual interaction, making a game out of whatever persona and history he is adhering to that particular day. His work is a game to him, and he certainly is winning.

________________________________________

History:

"My story is whatever gets me in the door quickest. How about it?"

A child of Lilmoth in the Southern coastal region of Murkmire, Lurks-at-Dusk was largely removed from the tribal heritage of the non-city Argonians and spent as much time in their company as foreigners who came to the city as either a stop to destinations unknown or trade, giving the young Argonian a fairly cosmopolitan outlook from a young age. His mother, Collects-Seashells, was a kindly woman with a knack for sales and a skilled jewelry crafter and Lurks learned much of her craft as a hatchling.

Ever since his youth, Lurks had associated money with his mother’s happiness and prosperity, and he cannot recall a time he wasn’t tinkering with things with his hands, whether it was helping patch the stilted hut they called home or helping Collects-Seashells produce items to sell. Times were often rough, with barely enough food and coin to cover expenses, but Lurks always remember his mother being warm and pleasant-spirited, even when dealing with debt collectors and overly forceful customers who sometimes made off with his mother’s wares without paying; it made Lurks’ blood boil. However, he was a patient and observant boy, having been raised to be considerate and polite even if someone deserved to have their face clawed off.

It didn’t mean he didn’t soon find a way to get even with such people.

Even from his youngest years, Lurks-at-Dusk noticed how carelessly some people tied their coin purse on their belts, how easy it would be to cut it loose, how an important piece of parchment stuck just outside of pockets. One evening, living up to his name, he decided to see just how easy it would be. Taking a fishing knife left carelessly at the docks as the sun was beginning to descend beneath the treeline, the young Argonian waited for a drunken foreigner to wander out of one of the many taverns in Lilmoth. As the Imperial man was preoccupied with emptying the contents of his stomach he spent some of his coin on, Lurks cut the purse from the man’s belt and bolted, diving gracefully into the harbour, disappearing beneath the waves before the Imperial or any of the guards could identify him, appearing quietly back through his bedroom window hours later.

It would be the first of many times Lurks-at-Dusk would act in such a manner, and he began to hone his craft in increasingly daring ways, always watching people and observing their behaviours like a crocodile watching prey drinking from the river. Port cities rarely were quiet, and even after dark there were always people out in the streets; these were the ones Lurks made as his marks, succeeding and failing in equal measure at first, but always with an escape plan. Before long, he only knew success and word of a pickpocket began to circulate Lilmoth, and the locals became more vigilant, but they were seldom ever Lurks’ target. It was the ignorant foreigners who carried the coin that glittered, and it made them entirely alluring.

The weeks pressed on, and Lurks’ stayed to different schedules and took irregular times off of his rounds, and never casing the same area twice in a row. He’d had a knack for making himself look like he belonged, sorting fishing line or cages, sweeping walkways, staring wistfully off of bridges, not paying much attention to the world around him. Most nights he picked pockets, but others he had tried his hand at lockpicking, having secured a kit and a manual from one of the merchants who came to Lilmoth who he knew didn’t ask too many questions or pay too close attention. The financial situation of Lurks-at-Dusk and his mother improved considerably, and to her credit, she didn’t ask enough questions.

Perhaps she should have.

It was only a few months before the wrong sort of people started going door to door, and Collects-Seashells was becoming increasingly harassed by enforcers and collectors who grew suspicious of her sudden windfall and change of fortunes. It was only a matter of time before suspicion grew into something decidedly darker, Lurks knew. So one night, after his mother had went to bed, Lurks left a heartfelt letter saying goodbye to his mother and saying he had to leave town to protect her. That night he had stowed away on a vessel leaving port, and it wasn’t long until Lurks-at-Dusk was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. He was born under the sign of the Thief, after all. It would be beneath him not to honour that.

Lurks-at-Dusk descended upon city after city across Tamriel, honing his craft and finding himself amazed at the opulence of the citizens in their great stone cities, and just how careless they were with their belongings. It became something of a game to him; find a decrepit abandoned building or cozy spot in the nearby wilderness, steal a new outfit, and come up with a new name and identity to play while among the unsuspecting populace. Sometimes he was a beggar, other times he acted like a rich merchant or landowner, escaping or entering notice of various social rungs, studying the local guards and mercenaries, and generally blending into the fabric of society he elected to clear of belongings.

He learned how to read shadow marks left by other thieves, and he paid tutors in different techniques he could use to improve his craft; he learned how to throw a bolas and use a sling from a few martial instructors, took some rudimentary alchemy lessons from others, and he learned how to use his body to scale buildings and walls to access certain areas or slip around unnoticed. All of this has culminated in an extremely proficient thief that never stays in one place for long and has reached a point where he rarely wants for anything; he simply takes what he wants and enjoys the thrill of the hunt. Taking someone’s prized silverware set is a lot less gruesome than hunting down some wild game, after all.

Most recently, Lurks-at-Dusk has made himself at home on the Gold Coast, finding the climate agreeable and the easy access to ships and cross-Tamriel trade a lucrative place to ply his skills and the constant influx of unfamiliar faces easy to disappear in.

Biggest Regret: Lurks-at-Dusk has constantly had doubts and regrets about the manner he left his mother; he wish he could have said goodbye, and he knows now she has no way of knowing if he’s safe and he has no way of knowing if his sudden departure protected her in the end. It was his own personal greed and ambition that brought misfortune to their small family, and it eats at him that he brought that upon Collects-Seashells knowing that he cannot stop himself.

Lurks-at-Dusk‘s Goal: Lurks-at-Dusk has two long-term aspirations; first, to steal something invaluable belonging to none other than the Emperor himself… although he still needs to try his hand at infiltrating the castles and palaces of the lords and counts of the lands as a bit of a warm-up for the greatest score of his life.

Second, Lurks wishes to return home wealthy, powerful, and infamous… and out of reach of the rest of Tamriel. Aside from becoming a key figure in Argonia and something of a folk hero, or so he imagines, he sees his personal mission as something of reparations for thousands of years of oppression by foreign empires.
________________________________________

Skills:

"Most people sound and move like a wamasu in heat. No one notices the dovahfly when the former is making a scene. What do you suppose I am, wamasu?"

Expert

Sneak: The combination of his naturally dark colouring and foliage-like plumage and years of lurking in the shadows, Lurks-in-Darkness basically is a shadow after dark, and his commitment to blending in society during the day has made him more of a part of the scenery than a person most can recall.

Pickpocket: One he started, Lurks never stopped plucking pockets, cutting his teeth on drunks in the dead of night to working up to brushing past people on the street without them noticing his hand slip into their pockets in broad daylight. He knows when to pick his targets, and as such, he rarely ever gets caught.

Adept:

Marksman, Throwing: Although not as proficient at this as he would like, Lurks has nevertheless practices extensively and received training with his bolas and sling to be a fairly accurate shot with both, being able to trip or ensnare an alerted guard or to knock out a lamp with a well-placed stone from afar.

Lock Picking: A hobby picked up near the end of his years in Lilmoth, Lurks-at-Dusk has had quite a bit of practical experience at this, although more complicated locks still give him trouble. However, most people have inexpensive or common locks that give him plenty of practice and access to their belongings.

Crafting, Woodworking: Growing up in a swampy, humid climate with largely wood and vines that wear down over time, plus helping his mother craft jewelry as a youth has given Lurks-at-Dusk quite a bit of knowledge and talent with carpentry and making trinkets.

Novice:

Acrobatics: Although hardly one to be able to walk on his hands or tightropes, Lurks-at-Dusk is a very good climber and chances are if he can grab onto something, he can get on top of it. This is one of those skills that came through practice and experience, as well as a few friendly lessons from a tutor.

Equipment:

"Never bring what you can afford to lose. But if you do, thank you for your generous donation, beeko."

6x rope and stone bolas

A leather rock sling

An assortment of lockpicks, tucked away in folds on his leather armour

Leather armour, blue and brown in colour to blend into urban environments. The hard bracers and gloves are a stony shade similar to the waves in his scales, partially out of personal vanity and preference, partially so it is easier to see his hands work in the dark of night.

A lightweight backpack with dividers and filled with cloth to add cushioning and muffle the sound of pilfered goods moving around. It has quick-detach buckles.

A utility belt with multiple pouches and pockets, often carrying muffle and stamina potions, as well as a healing potion or two in worst case scenarios.

Smoke bombs: A simple collection of fertilizer, sugar, and firesalt starters, Lurks prepares these in cheap pots to aid in the event he needs to make a getaway.

Boot dagger: A back-up weapon he keeps strapped to his boot when in leathers that can be used as an absolute line of defense, or for work that may require a cutting edge.

Misc. Possessions:

An assortment of utility knives: Everything from cutting up a fish for dinner to cutting rope to carving wood.

A traveling rucksack: Lurks’ entire life goes in here, including camping and cooking supplies and a change of clothing.
Fire starting kit

A leather-bound notebook: Other than the piles of ill-gotten goods Lurks is in possession of at any given time, this is the most incriminating thing in his possession. It’s where his observations and plans are jotted down before he springs into action.
A haj mota wood pendant

An assortment of stolen valuables and coin

[POOHEAD189]

Bare-Fisted Monk

Name: Beren "Dragonfist" Charathon
Race: Imperial
Age: 22
Birthsign:
Family Origins: Small Community near Leyawiin in the Blackwood

Appearance: Beren's most noticable features are his dark, chocolate eyes and tan skin. He has long legs and powerful arms, standing an inch shy of six feet in height, with a lean but muscled physique. Broad shouldered and trim, he cuts a statuesque figure. His face is youthful, giving him a look of someone a few years his junior. With kind eyes that hold an inner energy to them, he seems both gentle and dangerous at the same time. His scars, most noticeably the scar on his left cheek and the large one along his abdomen, give him a bit of a rugged look. He wears a crimson vest with brown, loose fitting trousers, his vest over a dark brown undershirt with a navy sash belt tucked around his waist. His boots are travel fit, and he wears a silver necklace of Akatosh underneath his clothes that his father gave him.

Beren moves in an easy manner when in the presence of friends or in public, though he leaps like a hunting cat and can sprint powerfully when he needs to. However, generally, he has a very nonchalant way about him. Beren has a self confidence that few could match and it shows in his stride. Though the self confidence quickly dissolves when it comes to any sort of flirtation. Not only is he unused to it, but he also has painful memories as well. Both work in concert to make him a complete dork when he has the wits about him to realize someone is interested in him. Despite this, he has a heroic disposition and a near sadistic enjoyment about of combat. Ever since he was young, he knew, or at least believed, that he had the heart of an adventurer. But now that he has the physique, he enjoys using it. However, he also has a gentleness to his heart, and he sometimes moves almost too slowly if he's holding something he even perceives as delicate, so he doesn't hurt it. He never forgets what he left home for, to fight for people who could not fight for themselves.

---

Personality: Beren has a kind heart and an infectious smile. Many adventurers have learned through their journeys that he is a fast friend and a fearsome enemy. One does not need to be vulnerable to be nice, he learned long ago. He has a quick wit and sharp mind, but sometimes he is too stubborn to use it. Beren loves animals, and tends to help the under dog or people who are ridiculed (he used to be one). He thinks deeply and feels deeply, but has a dry wit and a fine sense of humor. He gained it young, getting much of it from his parents, particularly his father. However he also learned a lesson by himself, that if you don't laugh at the world's grim nature, you'll cry, and it takes much for him to cry. Though when he does, he does in earnest.

Despite his youth, he has an old soul, and he enjoys reading and learning of new cultures when not busy with other, more physical activities. Many find him easy going, but underneath his casual demeanor is a man who will do what it takes to keep to his personal code of honor. Perhaps he is too young, or he hasn't seen enough of the world to be as open minded as some. But he grew up being different from much of his peers, and he sees his strangeness as his strength. He doesn't drink alcohol for instance, though as fun loving as he often is, no one generally sees it coming.

Probably one of his greatest strengths, which is also likely his greatest weakness, is his restlessness. He still has youth and he knows it, and he wants to travel the world and do what he can while he can.

---

History: Beren was born in a cottage within a small community in the Blackwood. His father was the priest of the temple of Akatosh in Leyawiin, and his mother, while a stay at home woman, was looked to for making decisions in their small community. Patrols of Argonian scouts protecting their traders kept the small community safe as well, by proxy. From an early age, Beren was fascinated with the world around him, and as soon as he was able he began to explore the Blackwood. Close to home, of course, but gradually his range widened.

He would often meet and make friends with the Argonian scouts, and he always enjoyed hearing word of Blackmarsh from the traders, picking up Jel over years of hearing it, acclimating to the tongue. The Lizardfolk taught him a bit how to shoot, though he only gained some measure of skill. Being an introvert when he was young, he never quite got along with the children in Leywiin when he visited. He was a scrawny, quiet boy more used to the forest than big town dinners and get-togethers. Instead, other than a few close friends at home, he spent most of his time with his dogs, as well as much of the night having his nose in different books he bartered from the traders.

When he hit puberty, he mother decided he ply a trade. He wished to be an explorer, going on adventures as mercenaries and heroes did. He had a firm sense of right and wrong and wanted to be the one to help people out of plights. But of course his mother liked him risking his neck not at all, and instead he chose blacksmith. His outdoor activities did not halt, however. He still ranged far, learning axemanship and how to use a staff from his father, to defend himself. Though these skills were overshadowed eventually. It was a day he would never forget when he met the hermit "Sees-All," an elderly, blind Argonian who had a small hut not eight miles north of the small community Beren lived in.

Beren's knowledge of Jel impressed the hermit, and after some convincing, and a free bedpost Beren had made for the hermit, the Argonian agreed to teach Beren the bare-fisted style of fighting the hermit practiced. It was 3 years of training, Beren returning every few days to receive another lesson. His dogs accompanied him often, enjoying their home away from home whenever he went. However, the lessons halted, when Beren awoke one morning and worked a shift at the smithy to meet a beautiful Breton girl named Sarah, who needed his expertise making a pot she was looking to give to her mother when she returned home to Highrock.

To make a long story short, the two grew quite fond of one another over the next two fortnights. Sarah and her uncle stayed in Leywiin while they awaited her father to come back from the Imperial city. When it was time for them to go, Beren desperately wanted to go with her back to Highrock, but it wasn't simply his responsibility to his craft that kept him at his home. It was wishing not to disappoint his mother, who wished him to grow into his trade and become a journeyman.

It was 2 months later when he learned the ship that had borne Sarah had been attacked by Corsairs off hammerfell, and she had been killed along with her uncle and father. Her death devastated Beren, and a very short time later, his oldest dog passed away as well. He felt as if his world was crumbling around him, and one night he told his parents he didn't wish to remain here. He wanted to go out and see the world. To explore and aid people like in the stories.

He left his home nearly 2 years ago, visiting Hammerfell first and managing (by the skin of his teeth) to defeat a Necromancer that had been harrying trade routes on the road from Skaven to Highrock. The dark magician had been killing merchants and travelers with his 'pets' and used thier corpses to create more. Beren was commissioned by one of the smaller princes to find the reasoning for the disappearances, and why each carriage was abandoned of even corpses. He used his skills at tracking he learned from the Argonian scouts to follow the footsteps into the hills, catching the necromancer by surprise and destroying a few zombies before engaging the sorcerer himself. Their battle was vicious but short lived, Beren gaining a few new scorch marks from the spells of fire, and another scar when the lightning bolt from the necromancer struck the rock where Beren had been moments before, stone falling atop his arm to cut it. But before long, his axe found the sorcerer's chest and ended his life. Despite his fear, he felt more accomplished than he ever had in his life. He had been utterly disgusted by the mad man. He knew the longing of bringing back those who had died, but this man not only killed the travelers, he had done it to pursue the vilest of ends. He hated to admit it, but he was glad he ended the wretches life.

He found he was quite good at adventuring, joining up with a small group of other like-minded individuals and keeping the roads clean of other bandits for a few months until he had accumulated a small fortune in bounties and claimed treasures. After that, he made his way to Daggerfall to help Sarah's widowed mother, making sure she was alright where she was with her family, and himself making peace with Sarah's death.

After 16 months away from his home, he decided he wished to go back to Cyrodiil. Perhaps not to go home immediately, but he wished to be closer, and he had only been to the Imperial City once before on a mission with his father. He boarded the Kismet, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Biggest Regret: He should have been on that ship to protect Sarah and her family. He should have noticed his elderly dog growing weaker. Perhaps if he had done one, either, both...he could have saved one of them.

Beren's Goal(s):

• Adventure. Beren longs for the thrill of battle and the wonder of exploration, and most importantly, aiding those who cannot help themselves.
• Redemption. He wishes to rid himself of the guilt of lost loved ones.
• Heart. Secretly, Beren wishes to find true love and get married, though he will never admit it. His chosen life is a bit too dangerous for him to be the dating type.

---

Skills:

Expert:

• Unarmed

Adept:

• Smithing
• Light Armor
• Athletics

Novice:

• Acrobatics
• Marksman
• Blunt

Equipment:

• Quarterstaff
• Akatosh Necklace
• Lore Tomes on Talos, Akatosh, and Ysgramor
• Rucksack with a water skin and some jerky, and most importantly, a fair sum of gold.

Misc. Possessions:

[Hank]

Aurora Brightwind

Name: Aurora Brightwind.
Race: Nord.
Age: 36.
Birthsign: The Steed.
Family Origins: Whiterun, Skyrim.

Appearance: Like most Nords, Aurora is naturally tall and strong-framed when compared to the other women of Tamriel. She stands 6’1” (182cm) tall, weighs 155lbs (70kg) and her broad shoulders, wide hips and washboard stomach are typical of her race. Aurora moves like a woman fully in control of her body and has a fit physique to go with it, sporting lean musculature that speaks of a life mostly spent on the road or on the fields. Her feminine attributes are prominent but not ridiculously so, which suits her just fine; the more physical and adventurous parts of her lifestyle would be much harder if they were. The tan of her skin betrays her long absence from Skyrim and its seemingly never-ending winters and her many days in the sun have brought out freckles on her face that go well with the natural blush on her cheeks.

Her long-lashed, almond-shaped eyes are a bright shade of amber and that compliments her white-golden hair nicely, which is definitely her most striking feature. She prefers to wear it long, braided to one side to keep it out of her face while leaving most of her wavy curls to cascade down her shoulders. Said face is marked by the strength of her jawline and the stark cut of her cheekbones, but made soft by the warmth of her gaze and the mirth that almost perpetually curls her lips, which are full and inviting and topped with a cupid’s bow. She has a scar over her right eye but it doesn’t detract much from her appearance, having faded a little with age.

She speaks clearly and eloquently, though a distinctly Nordic lilt remains in the cadence of her rich, husky voice, and she is vulnerable to fits of haste when enthusiasm grips her -- something she tries, and mostly fails, to masque beneath a veneer of imperturbable professionalism. Aurora means business and feels like she deserves to be taken seriously, something that is unfortunately in short supply for women in her line of work. To aid in that endeavour she has adapted Imperial mannerisms and speech as best she can; her posture is more reminiscent of a lady at the court than the Nord cowgirl she used to be, and her vocabulary has increased in size immensely since her arrival in the Imperial City. Her focus is sharp and almost obsessive; the flipside of her curious gaze and quick mind is that she can often be found sitting perfectly still, entirely engrossed in some creative or intellectual effort, for hours on end.

Being a traveler and adventurer, most of Aurora’s wardrobe is forced to be practical, all-weather and all-terrain equipment. Her most common outfit is a sturdy, form-fitting leather ensemble beneath a cloak or a long coat, usually white, tan or black, with a colorful sash wrapped around her waist for a dash of style. Where casual and formal wear is concerned, Aurora has abandoned the clothes she wore as a young adult at her family’s farm (simple tunics and dresses woven from sturdy fabrics) and has instead copied the Imperial style that is so prevalent in Cyrodiil’s capital, up to and including a few proper evening gowns. Sometimes she feels like the only Nord in the world that has done so, but she’s made an effort to give it a personal touch. Many of her clothes are as white as the snow banks of her homeland and that sets her apart.

---

Personality: Aurora is, above all else, curious about the world and driven to carve out her own place in it. She is defined by her work and her hobbies, which are diverse and manifold, and has little time for anything resembling a steady social life. She travels all over Tamriel to discover and procure intriguing antiques, artifacts and pieces of art for the wealthy collectors of the Imperial City, many of whom she can count among her clientele. She is an accomplished equestrian and a duelist of some renown, never one to back down from a challenge in either sport, and her paintings -- both portraits and still lifes -- are a nice secondary source of income. And if that wasn’t enough, Aurora plays the lute and sings well enough to have it pay for her meal at the wayside inn while traveling. The only constant is that all of these skills are prominent and valued in Imperial society and therein lies the truth of the matter: Aurora is perpetually running away from her previous life as a farmer’s daughter on the wide tundra of Skyrim.

She fights not to become like her brothers and sister, who died as Stormcloaks in the Civil War and never rose above their stations before their untimely death for a pointless cause. Aurora has thrown herself headfirst into an entirely different kind of life. A cosmopolitan, worldly existence, that sees her visiting all cultures and far corners of Tamriel in her quest to develop and elevate herself, and to prove herself as someone worthy of a place in the high society of the continent’s most dominant culture. She hides her background and her lowborn status behind her modest fortune and goes to great lengths to not only appear cultured and refined, but to become cultured and refined.

While she has many, many associates and maintains a good reputation from Alinor to Necrom, Aurora has very few people she can truly count as friends and has left a string of failed relationships in her wake. She tries to compensate for that by bearing gifts, cheer and stories whenever she visits the people she cares about, but those brief moments of camaraderie are no substitute for the ironclad bonds others forge with their friends and families. Work inevitably calls before long, or Aurora retreats into the tranquility of her solitary hobbies for days on end to recharge and digest what has happened in her exhaustingly dynamic and, frankly, interesting life. This is both a source of regret and a point of pride. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her faith in the Divines -- Eight when asked, Nine in private -- is an anchor and a source of comfort to her. Aurora often prays to ask for guidance or reassurance and visits the Temple of the One every time she returns home to speak to the priest about her deepest fears and regrets. She desires to believe that she is on a path that the gods would be pleased with and maintains a strong moral compass. Being in her good graces, one can expect small acts of kindness with regularity and rely on her for support, both spiritual and practical… assuming she isn’t on the other side of the world on another expedition. While assertive and dauntless in the face of danger (you can take the Nord out of Skyrim, but not Skyrim out of the Nord), Aurora has a gentle soul and would rather die than ever be considered cruel. She is closely in touch with her own emotions, relying on them for her creative pursuits, and is also often strongly affected by the emotions of those around her. One of the most important skills she has learned has therefore not been her ability with the blade, nor her aptitude for sorcery; it is the inner strength and balance to stay true to herself and her ideals that she values most. Even in the face of anger, sorrow and grief, Aurora believes in the ultimate benevolence of people and the machinations of the divine; she remains an admirer and pursuer of truth and beauty in all things.

---

History: Born in Skyrim on the tundra near Whiterun to a farmer, Halfdar, and his wife, Freyja, Aurora was named for the celestial phenomenon that brilliantly dominated the skies on the night of her birth. Aurora was the fourth child in what appeared to be an ever-growing family, having three older brothers and later gaining two younger sisters during her childhood. The days were long and carefree and frequently spent roaming around with her siblings -- though with admittedly strict instructions not to wander too far, “or the wolves will get you”. Once old enough, they were all expected to help out on the farm, which grew from a small field with a single farmhouse into a respectable estate. Trade with Whiterun was profitable and a series of generous summers and soft winters saw the family’s fortunes soar. At least, that’s what it looked like to Aurora, but the truth was that the farm simply became a bigger farm and they moved from poverty into nothing more than simple comfort.

Even at this age, Aurora wanted to be just as tough and strong as her older brothers, and Halfdar humored her. She spent at least two hours on horseback every day from the moment she was old enough to ride, helping her father herd the cattle, and fought just as hard as her brothers did with their wooden swords in their sparring sessions. Freyja, on the other hand, was a bard trained at the College in Solitude in -- what seemed like -- another life and many long, star-studded evenings were spent singing and learning to play the lute around the campfire. Captivated by the stories and legends contained within that the songs conveyed, Aurora always felt the tug of something greater, some existence beyond their farm, but was unable to formulate that into future prospects. One of Whiterun’s elders Named her Brightwind for her great enthusiasm for life and her habit of rushing this way and that, eternally restless. It made no difference in the end and she had already resigned herself to following in her parents’ footsteps as a young adult when their lives were turned upside down. The Civil War broke out, and dragons returned to Skyrim.

Aurora, who always had a mind for bigger things, was more preoccupied with the horrifying tales and sightings of the giant winged lizards than the petty conflict between the Empire and some upstart named Ulfric Stormcloak. Her siblings, however, weren’t. The family was split down the middle. Rolf, Maren, Helga, Aurora herself and her parents were either on the side of the Empire or ambivalent about the whole thing, whereas, Aenar, Gromm and Runa sided with the Stormcloaks -- and how. The family dispute turned into a bitter feud in a matter of days following High King Torygg’s death and the two brothers departed with their sister for Windhelm, fiercely determined to see Skyrim free from the Empire and its laws. The family was devastated. Aurora took it especially hard and when Rolf began spewing talk of taking up arms for the Empire himself, she burst into tears. She had longed for ‘something greater’ her whole life and now it had arrived and threatened to pit her beloved siblings against each other in a war that she didn’t even see the need for. Unwilling to see this grave tragedy play out any further, Aurora gathered her belongings, saddled her horse, wrote a tearful note and departed in the dead of night with little more than a direction: south.

She managed to cross the border to Cyrodiil while evading the fighting armies and swooping dragons. Freyja, who had been around the Empire once or twice before settling down with Halfdar, had told Aurora of the wonders of the Imperial City and the young woman headed there, for lack of a better idea. Her singing voice and lute were sufficient to provide her with enough septims to survive all the way down to the capital. What with the war and all, the roads were fraught with peril and Aurora had her first brush with danger when the caravan she tagged along with was beset upon by bandits. The way she fearlessly threw her lute at the nearest bandit earned her the amused approval of the victorious caravan guards and Aurora discovered, to her own surprise, that she had found the whole encounter rather invigorating.

Once in the capital, Aurora took up residence in the impoverished Waterfront, lacking the funds for anything within the grandiose and awe-inspiring city walls, and spent her mornings traipsing about the massive city with the coin in her purse that she earned from playing in the inns and taverns the night before. Her feet brought her to a remarkable store, Exotic Wares and Antiques, which contained a collection of items that did far more to spark Aurora’s imagination than the establishment’s name did. Its proprietor, an older Redguard man by name of Azar, silently observed as the wide-eyed Nord girl perused the Khajiiti sandstone sculptures, Dunmeri bone-masks and Akaviri weaponry that were among his wares, for more than an hour. Once it was obvious to him that the blonde woman had an insatiable thirst for it he approached her and struck up a conversation, which Aurora eagerly engaged in. It was one of the first times an Imperial citizen had deigned to speak with her and she latched onto the opportunity immediately. Azar asked about this and that and the smalltalk slowly made its way to Aurora; who she was, where she came from, what she could do. Once she revealed that she owned a horse and was a good rider, Azar’s interest was validated and he smiled a brilliant row of white teeth against the darkness of his skin. He offered her a job. Initially surprised but quickly ecstatic, Aurora accepted.

Men like Azar were always looking for hopeless transients without prospects to act as their couriers and Aurora quickly found herself on horseback with a packet of important documents, headed for Anvil to pick up a package from a ship that was soon to arrive. Having already traveled from Skyrim to the Imperial City by herself, Aurora knew how to stay out of trouble and safely made her way to Anvil and back again. The bag of gold that awaited her return, handed over once Azar had extracted a promise of discretion from Aurora, astonished her. Months continued like this, with the Nord girl traveling increasingly longer distances to collect packages meant for Azar. Eventually he even saw fit to send her out with an even bigger bag of gold to procure items that weren’t already his. She never figured out how Azar was so well-informed and he was frustratingly tight-lipped whenever she asked him about the details of his operation.

Her frustration grew as Aurora realized that Azar appeared to have no interest in teaching her anything about the trade or making more out of her than a courier. Every farmhand could become a farmer, if they showed the aptitude and the interest, but Aurora wasn’t getting anywhere. She also found it difficult to complain, because he had taken a chance on her and given her a job while he was under no obligation to do either of those things, but the young woman knew she was capable of bigger and better things. She wanted a profession, not just a job. Aurora never failed to return to him with the packages in her possession in a timely manner, not even when she showed up with a bandage over her right eye after another encounter with bandits. She had armed herself with a simple iron sword by then and all of the sparring sessions with her brothers had not turned out to be for naught. Additionally, dealing with customs officers and city guards all over the province -- and beyond -- had seen Aurora develop her talent for speech and she’d talked her way out of a hefty fine or, even worse, a prison sentence several times while carrying illegal goods like Dwemer artifacts across borders.

A year had passed by the time Aurora finally managed to gather the courage to speak to Azar about this, fueled by her growing dissatisfaction. He listened impassively to her (well-rehearsed) pitch about why she deserved to be more than just a courier and what her qualifications were, and said no. Aurora began to protest but he silenced her with a glare before explaining that he did not see the qualities of a protegé in her, and that she was just a wayward country girl taking her first steps into the wide world. Upset and humiliated, Aurora almost quit on the spot, but she needed the money and retreated back home before her emotions got the better of her. She cried, and after she was done crying she did what she’d always done when times were tough: she prayed. A kindly priest by the name of Julius at the Temple of the One talked to her and she opened up to him about feeling like her life was inadequate and her fears that Azar was just taking advantage of her desperation. Julius was wise and kind and he advised her to be patient and keep up hope. Good things come to those who wait, after all. But if things did not improve in time, he warned, Aurora would do well to keep her options open.

She returned to work the next morning and didn’t speak a word of yesterday’s confrontation and neither did Azar. Aurora kept Julius’ thoughts in mind, however, and a month and two trips to western Morrowind later she got impatient and announced that she had been offered another job and was strongly considering accepting the offer. It was a bluff. There was no other job, but the ambition and excitement that the Imperial City had instilled in her was now in the driver’s seat. Azar frowned, sighed and, begrudgingly, relented. He knew what Aurora was after and had come to realize he didn’t want to lose an intelligent and reliable employee after all.

The taciturn Redguard took her under his wing and began to properly train her as his protege, which Aurora took to enthusiastically. Meanwhile, she sent letters back home sporadically to briefly detail her adventures and reassure her parents that she was still alive -- but she never sent them an address. She was not ready to hear what had happened to her siblings, especially once it became clear that the Imperial Legion and the Dragonborn had violently put an end to the Stormcloak Rebellion.

One day, Azar revealed that he had been a treasure hunter when he wore a younger man’s clothes and regaled her with stories from his exploits. Aurora found this hard to believe, coming from what seemed to be a quiet and bookish man, and was astonished when Azar laid her out within seconds after he challenged her to a duel -- and even more so when his left arm crackled with static. He was a mage, a spellsword, and he explained that his connections were based on a network of loyal associates that were either friends or people who simply owed him favours from his days as a capable warrior-sorcerer. Aurora remained in his employ as a courier, of course, but whenever she was in the Imperial City he would teach her everything he knew about swordplay, magic and the best places in Tamriel to find rare artifacts -- and the dangers within. Now that he had opened up, Aurora forgot all about the bitterness and frustration she’d felt at his earlier behavior, drawn as she was to the stories he had to tell and the way his eyes lit up when he did so.

In the end, he truly taught her everything he knew, for they became lovers.

Years passed like this until Azar declared her training complete and resolutely ordained that Aurora was now ready to step into the world as a treasure hunter in her own right. He gave her the names of his associates and sent word to all of them that Aurora was authorized to act in his stead, and with a stern glare essentially told her to get out there and prove her mettle. Their affair was over in an instant. It was a shocking experience for the Nord, who had come to believe that the older Redguard loved her in more ways than just the physical. The only other example she had of a relationship were her parents and their marriage. The fact that Azar turned out to be nothing like that was an unsettling surprise at first, and she was hurt, caught in the unfortunate trap of wondering what she did wrong and why he didn’t love her. Once again, Julius the priest was able to provide insight and reassurance -- though he certainly did not approve of Azar’s behavior -- that helped put her mind at ease. “It’s not you,” Julius had said with a warm smile, “it’s him.”

Aurora came to accept that Azar was an infallible pragmatist who had simply decided that the usefulness of that part of their arrangement had come to an end. Anything to keep her chained to the Imperial City would have simply held her back, especially an old man like him. Her pain and confusion morphed into silent gratitude, for she knew he would have never accepted any expression of it, and she made her first forays into Tamriel as a full partner of the ‘Exotic Wares and Antiques treasure acquisition branch’, as she liked to call it, with an unburdened soul.

Her work took her even further now, from the bone-white walls of the mausoleum of Necrom in eastern Morrowind in search of an ebony heirloom of an extinct dynasty to the seaswept cliffs of Daggerfall in order to retrieve a set of silverware that had belonged to a Septim emperor. She delved into a Dwemer citadel with a hired team of mercenaries to bring back a dynamo core, a special request from a scholar at the Arcane University, and accidentally started a forest fire in northern Valenwood while defending herself from the spriggans guarding a shipwreck, mysteriously emerged from beneath the roots of the Bosmeri homeland’s ever-shifting trees. Aurora challenged all the best swordsmen she found to a duel or two and fought the ones that accepted (and the ones that scoffed at her twice as hard), made time to participate in the equestrian races that Cyrodiil’s elite obsessed over and kept up her skills as a musician and a bard while on the road. Back home, in her modest, but increasingly well-furnished, apartment in the City, Aurora discovered the meditative properties of painting and reading, and collected a string of disappointed lovers and failed relationships. The woman appeared to be married to her work and her hobbies and invariably made too little time for her partners. Every angry breakup hurt her and the ones that simply disappeared hurt her even more, but as much as she tried to make more time and devote herself to her partners, Aurora couldn’t resist the call of the road, the canvas and the lute. The frequency of her relationships dwindled and she reached the point where she would preemptively break things off with the men she was dating, knowing full well that she was merely sparing them the disappointment later -- becoming the very thing that upset her about Azar before. The gifts she came bearing and the stories she had to tell made her quite popular with the neighbourhood children, however, and her regular visits to the Temple gave her a steadfast friend through faith and confession. Azar remained where he always was, running the store and connecting Aurora to clients with special requests, in spite of the silver that now dominated his hair.

Upon Julius’ suggestion, Aurora finally informed her family of her whereabouts in one of her letters. It had been years by then and he thought it was time that she learned what had happened to her family. Aurora received a thick reply, almost the size of a short novel, that started -- inevitably -- with how much her parents had missed her and had worried about her. Then came the story. Aenar, Gromm and Runa were all dead. Rolf had stayed home in the end and now ran the farm while Halfdar and Freyja enjoyed retirement. Her oldest brother had found a wife, in fact, and Aurora discovered to her surprise that she was an aunt. The letter was deeply bittersweet and when she was finished, she found herself weeping silently for the loss of her brothers and sister… and for herself, for the life she had lost-- nay, walked away from. Time hadn’t stood still for her family while she had been living her adventures and she had missed everything. The funerals, the wedding, the births of her nieces and nephews. Suddenly and acutely homesick, Aurora dropped everything she was doing and returned north the way she came: on horseback.

She came bearing gifts, of course, and after the initial and tearful reunion, amazed her family with the finest wines, fabrics and jewelry that Cyrodiil had to offer. Once the initial excitement had died down and Aurora found herself sitting around the campfire with her family like the days of yore, she felt like a stranger in her own home -- and, for the first time, in her own skin. Who was she, a promiscuous hireling, compared to these godly people? She laughed and smiled at her brother's wife and children with pain in her heart. Aurora no longer knew what to feel about the woman she'd become. But, that said… the dirt upon the floorboards, the smell of the pigs and the cattle outside… she also found it hard to imagine that she once lived like this. The farm had hardly grown from what she remembered; hell, it seemed much smaller and filthier. Rolf confided in her that business hadn't been great and a few harsh winters in a row had been bad for the land. Unsure whether to feel pity or sympathy, Aurora offered to help them out with septims but Rolf refused, grateful for the offer but steadfast in his conviction that they weren't a charity case.

Aurora was supposed to stay for a month but cut her visit short after a week. She made up an excuse about urgent business, apologised profusely and traveled back south as fast as her horse could carry her. Entering her apartment in the Imperial City, she breathed a sigh of relief -- and found it wanting. The thought that she had been running from caught up to her and she realized that she had abandoned her family in their greatest time of need. She hadn't even bothered to visit the graves of her Stormcloak siblings in Falkreath. Here she was, surrounded by opulence and unimaginable wealth in the City, while her family still lived in the same rural squalor as before, surrounded by nothing but reminders of the tragedy that had befallen them. What gave Aurora the right to simply walk away? How was that the right thing to do?

Her visits to the Temple became more frequent and Julius did his best to provide wisdom and support, but the question remained a troubling thought in the back of Aurora's mind, rearing its head at night to plague her with nightmares in which her dead siblings came back to haunt her in the darkness of her home. With even more feverish dedication than before, Aurora threw herself into her work and her hobbies and even refrained from relationships entirely, despite the loneliness she was occasionally forced to squash alone in bed at night.

She learned how to keep a straight face when ridiculed or treated in a demeaning manner, something she experienced all too often as she found her way in a world and an industry dominated mostly by men, and her growing confidence prevented her from taking things personally and feeling wounded when they inevitably happened. They were learning moments, she decided. Not for her, mind you, but for the men that looked down on her and underestimated her because of it, and she grew to delight quietly in their stunned or disgruntled faces whenever she outplayed them. Aurora’s skills as a warrior also continued to increase, learning as she did from both her victories and defeats. A poignant reminder of her mortality lies in the not-so-distant past; armed mercenaries that accompanied her into an Ayleid ruin had to save her from death at the hands of the bandits that had made the place their home. “Never send a woman to do a man’s job,” one of them had grumbled, and that served as inspiration for Aurora to redouble her efforts. She’d prove them wrong, she resolved, until nobody could doubt her ever again.

A successful venture in the west now sees her return to Cyrodiil by boat, with only her loyal steed and belongings for company, though that is about to change...

Biggest Regret: Fleeing her home to avoid the tragedy that the Civil War thrust upon her family, leaving them to deal with it without her help while she became an accomplished cosmopolitan without a care in the world.

Aurora‘s Goal: Vindicate her life choices by obtaining a divine artifact, be it Daedric or otherwise, and cement her place in history as someone important and capable, in spite of her gender or background.

---

Skills:
Expert:

• One-Handed: One of Aurora’s most favorite hobbies and prized skills is the art of swordplay, fueled by her Nordic love of competition being awakened by the sophisticated fencing duels she observed in the Imperial City. Years of practice and an incessant drive to enthusiastically challenge every blade-wielder she meets to a sparring match have honed her skills considerably and she is proud to count herself among one of the best swordswomen she knows. Her style is quite conservative, preferring to let her opponent show their hand and reveal the inevitable weaknesses in their style for her to exploit, but the finishing touch of her moonstone saber always has something cheeky about it.

Adept:

• Speech: Her line of work has seen Aurora learn all the skills necessary for a merchant and a procurer of rare goods, like haggling, smooth-talking and market manipulation. She is good at estimating the price of a unique artifact or piece of art correctly in one area and selling it for a markup elsewhere, acquiring services at a discount and coaxing a client into compensating her more generously than they might otherwise have done. She’ll never be as deceptive as an actor or as commanding as a general, but she doesn’t have to be. Another one of her hobbies is singing; she does so quite beautifully, accompanied by her own gentle strumming on the lute. An evening performance at the inn makes for a nice source of pocket money when she’s out on the road.
• Destruction: Aurora was surprisingly perceptive in her grasp of spellcraft for a Nord and took to it enthusiastically once she arrived in the Imperial City. The raw power of Destruction magic appealed to her and she developed her abilities in that School almost more for the sake of showing off than for any practical reasons. That said, a handful of encounters with bandits, Draugr and Dwemer animunculi have taught her that quick gouts of flame or bolts of lightning are quite effective at dispatching minor enemies, or at creating enough of a distraction for her sword to finish the job in a frantic melee. That is a lesson she hasn’t forgotten.
• Alteration: The ability to manipulate one’s environment is quite useful in Aurora’s line of work and she uses Alteration in concert with her other abilities to restore the artifacts that are her primary source of income. It also comes in handy when delving into the darkest places of the world in search of treasure, or in a pinch to bolster her defenses and to fight dirty, like literally throwing sand in someone’s eyes with telekinesis.

Novice:

• Alchemy: Her knowledge of alchemy is lacking when it comes to traditional potions or poisons. Aurora mostly uses this to create useful substances like blade oil, lock grease and silver polish and she uses alchemy together with Alteration to restore art and artifacts before selling them to the highest bidder.
• Athletics: While you won’t find Aurora marching in full kit for days on end, she is an experienced traveler and doesn’t tire easily. More importantly, however, Aurora can ride on horseback for lengthy periods of time, which is her preferred method of getting around.
• Restoration: Healing spells are a useful addition to any traveler’s arsenal. Far from a professional healer, Aurora can at least be counted on to mend minor injuries, restore some fatigue to a weary soul or simply cure the soreness of a bum after a full day in the saddle.

Spells: Fireball, Chain Lightning, Frost Cloak, Healing, Telekinesis, Ironflesh, Waterbreathing.

Equipment:

• Aurora's weapon is an elegant moonstone saber forged by the hands of the Altmer in the days when Alinor was still called Summerset. The grip is long enough for it to be wielded in two hands to enhance the strength of an attack, but Aurora specialises in wielding it in one hand, leaving the other free to cast spells. The crossguard is decorated with gold filigree and precious gemstones, but more important and practical is the enchantment on the blade: it burns red-hot and sets fire to anything it strikes.
• She also carries a steel dagger as a backup weapon in case of an emergency.
• Horse tack, a saddle and saddlebags.
• While not technically equipment, its absence is also worth mentioning. Aurora wears no armor and relies on her skill and Ironflesh spell to protect her from harm.

Misc. Possessions:

• Chief amongst her possessions is her companion, Charlemagne, a magnificent stallion of Skyrim stock. Hardy, loyal and even-tempered, Aurora's horse is as much a friend to her as anyone else is and she rides him wherever she goes. His coat is mottled gray with white spots.
• Maps of Tamriel and documents detailing the names and stations of her associates. She has copies at home, of course.
• Multiple sets of clothing, all well-made and fashionable.
• A bottle of Cyrodiilic brandy.
• Food supplies to last her a week. Charlemagne can eat grass.
• A pouch with 155 septims.
• A mortar and pestle, an alembic and alchemy supplies for her work. Nothing immediately useful for a healing potion or anything of that sort, however.
• Two soul gems filled with common souls.
• Keys to her home, safe and the Exotic Wares and Antiques store in the Imperial City.

[Peik]

Eno Indarys

Name: Eno Indarys, the Rogue Finger
Race: Dunmer
Age: 40
Birthsign: The Serpent
Family Origins: Necrom, Morrowind

Appearance:

---

Standing at an average 5’8’’, at first glance Eno does not make a striking impression. With most of his body hidden underneath baggy robes, and his head clean shaven, he would likely be assumed to be a monk, which, while true, would be a gross understatement. On a closer look, one can realize that despite a strong jaw, an aquiline nose with wide nostrils, and an awfully prominent brow ridge, Eno’s face has been purposefully shaped to be inconspicuous; even the haughty, arrogant look on his face acts as not much more than a distraction for his ritually clipped ears, unnaturally colored eyes, and discolored skin. He is pale for a Dunmer, so off-color that he could pass as a (sickly) man in a passing glance, and his eyes are a cloudy blue, rather than the natural red of his race. There are merely two holes where his ears should be, with barely visible tattoos covering the scar lines. Yet the oddities only start here.

When unclothed, with his disproportionately broad shoulders, long, thick arms, and large, yet graceful, almost feminine hands, Eno sports a build that would not be out of place amongst the most skilled swimmers of Tamriel, or an anatomist’s wettest dreams. His back is well defined, corded with multiple, visible ridges of muscles, and the triangular, flat shape of his torso only lends to size it up further. While he looks less muscular from the front, thanks to a thin layer of fat covering his abs, the shape of his muscles and firmness of his skin still make it obvious that he is in peak physical shape. Were someone to spot him in the nude, they would quickly notice that Eno’s body is entirely absent of physical hair; his arms, legs, eyebrows, and even his crotch are free of even the loneliest tuft. However, thanks to him covering most of his lower torso, arms and lower legs in enchanted bandages, just how unblemished his body is stays unseen to even those who get intimate with him.

Although Eno likes not attracting undue attention, he still considers himself part of the New Temple, and thus has to make himself known, even if only to ‘those in the know’, and dresses so. The hem and sleeves of his robes have a thread of gold embroidered through them, signifying purity and affluence, while a large ritual dagger is stuffed through the sash wrapped around his waist, standing right above his groin with the sheath pointing down, signifying virility, power and prudence. While he claims he wears the white cowl wrapped around his head to signify clearness of mind, this is a lie; it is actually a multipurpose garment, enchanted as to keep magick intrusions into his mind, while also acting as a hood for colder climates, a towel for warmer ones, and, when necessary, a form of concealment for his lack of ears.

Just as he keeps his ‘true personality’ hidden underneath falsifying layers, Eno keeps his vital assets disguised the same way. He wears a chainmail vest underneath his robes, but this piece of protection doubles as a ruse, given that his robes are enchanted as to not yield to blades. He visibly wears many paper charms wrapped around his clothes, yet these are in fact simple disguises compared to the enchanted bandages that cover many portions of his body. The lines around his ears seem like scar tissue, yet they are in fact Daedric charms tattooed to amplify his hearing. He claims his eyes are discolored because of cataracts, yet in fact, they have been injected with an alchemical substance to make him able to see in the dark, like the Khajiit, albeit the permanence of the effect has led to him avoiding bright lights whenever possible, and a trademark squint.

---

Personality: Outwardly, Eno is stereotypical – in typical Dunmer fashion, he’s callous, constantly unimpressed with, and equally dismissive of, others, their concerns, and their customs. While not proud of being Dunmer (for there is nothing to be proud of being superior by birth), he still knows that his race is also a reason for him being above others, and often views other races with pity, a pity which can pave way to slight and (still dismissive) admiration if he ever comes across someone who is capable, but isn’t Dunmer. In fashion typical to Eno, all of this is true, yet also a façade. Eno is not merely dismissive of other races; he is equally dismissive of Dunmer and their accomplishments, and simply shows it in a different fashion. He knows that one of the best ways to know someone is to frustrate them, and hides behind the classic Dunmer stereotypes to get to that point as quickly as possible, after which he rates his subjects.

In truth, Eno is a Mer of contradictions. He views the world as a ladder to climb, and himself as a representation of a force, the Ego, that is making its way to the top. Thanks to this outlook, he is able to harbor two seemingly contradictory feelings towards a subject at the same time, via viewing them through Ego-as-is, and Ego-as-him. Eno can hate and love equally, be most wary of the ones he trusts the most, and lie and believe in his own lies very convincingly. Yet, being aware of the pattern, he often creates false principles for himself as to confuse the idiots who may be close to understanding him. This seemingly impenetrable whirlpool of opinions is not without its flaws, however. Despite one of his core tenets being ‘to be an Agent of Discord’, Eno is a creature of order, and finds it hard to find in himself a lively, individual personality, that can exist outside of his definition of rituals and obligations. Because of this, he constantly categorizes even the most trivial actions and hobbies to self-legitimize them, and seeks to keep himself busy whenever possible because of his dislike of stray thought.

Ironically, his most ‘unique’ quirks seem to be a product of the very same obligations that limits his approach of sociality. He has a fixation with odd numbers, because he thinks they are pure, and prefers to make sure that his belongings stay pure through getting rid of amounts that make them even, often through charity, which is a convenient way of gaining good graces, while also being for him a declaration of superiority. He is an awfully competitive person, but surprisingly, despite the lengths he is willing to go just to ‘win’, he does not bear personal grudges towards those who defeat him, and often stays cordial with those that have bested him – although given his obligation to never concede defeat, he often reignites the conflict when the moment seems opportune (i.e. when he is most likely to win). While he is aware of social norms, they are not an integral part of his character. When busy, he can forget them completely, and be unable to comprehend the reasons laying behind any adverse reaction to his actions.

Despite his detached nature, Eno understands how social creatures work, and has found ways to appeal to them and gain their good graces. Being a proficient dream reader, he offers them to those he finds vulnerable to personal interaction and suggestion. However, he never gives his subjects the true interpretations, instead giving them ones more convenient for himself. A constant judge of character, and most constantly a judge of his own character, Eno is a keen observer of people, and so, knows how to present himself as needed, how to walk and act with certain demeanors when necessary and can impersonate various stereotypes with mathematical precision. When amongst a group of people, he decides on, and hides, a stereotype underneath the outer ‘classic Dunmer’ personality for them to discover over prolonged contact. When necessary he changes the stereotype as befits his needs.

While almost completely a creature of logic, Eno has certain traits that he has earned by circumstance, and some that he has not been able to find any logical explanation for. No matter what, Eno is obsessed with hygiene, most importantly smells, and will seek to clean himself whenever necessary. He despises having a smell, even good ones, and often categorizes people on their odor, and can recognize people by smell alone. He also finds himself prone to episodes of solemn sadness whenever he is not keeping himself ‘busy’, and thus, despises idleness. Thanks to the ritual clipping of his ears, and the charms tattooed on to give him ‘Secret Hearing’, Eno is better at hearing things that are not directed to him, but worse at hearing things directed at him. Thus, he can sometimes unwittingly leave an absent-minded impression. One thing that Eno is prodigal at is physical action, and he finds a strange serenity in his mind whenever he has to rely on muscle memory rather than his smarts. With very strong muscle memory, he’s good at repeating his own exact movements, at the cost of looking uncannily robotic.

---

History: As with most living creatures, Eno’s story begins with his parents. His mother Felara, and his father Daryn, were both artists; Daryn a poet, making a living off writing dirges for the constant funerary processions that gave Necrom its name, whereas Felara was a musician, who composed the poetry written by her husband into songs. However, well into their middle ages, they had been dealing with certain problems of an artistic nature – namely, a crippling lack of inspiration. For the two, who weren’t very financially minded, and were also incredibly passionate about their life’s work, the situation was worse than a death sentence, and that led them to seeking a cure; faith, in their case. Eno would never learn of his parents’ former life as wealthy burghers – for him, just like his parents, family was found somewhere else, and that family was in the Temple.

Felara and Daryn’s relative fame and strong donations to the Temple had already attracted all sorts of positive attention to them in the hierarchy; that their child was born under the sign of the Serpent was lauded as further proof of their righteousness of faith, and there was no objection by anyone when the Temple offered to take their child in amongst their cadre of Fingers. The Fingers were a group of monks of special position within the Temple, raised from birth to replace the old Ordinators of House Indoril. Thus, reborn as a Littlefinger, Eno was baptized in Waxwater to cleanse him of all impurities, a procedure which left him bereft of all body hair and gave his skin its faded color, and marked him as one of the Fingers permanently. As a child, Eno was noted for his very result-oriented demeanor and excellence in sports and handicraft, although, according to his overseer, he was horrible at meditation, and not well liked by his peers.

Eventually, towards the end of his strict education, it was decided that, given his piety, strong adherence to the obligations of the Reclamations, and physical prowess, he would best perform his duties to the Temple as a Longfinger – an inquisitor of the Temple. Eno found this most appropriate, and in fact earned a name for himself as one of the more prominent and capable Longfingers. So seriously he took his occupation, that he would go on to have his ears removed, and his eyes injected with an alchemical Nighteye solution; the first not only allowed him to use prosthetic ears and disguise himself as a man when necessary, but also the ritual cauterizing was done in such a way that enhanced his eavesdropping capabilities via enchanted lettering. While some of his higher ups found his self-modifications unsightly, Eno’s devotion to being a force of the Temple was generally met with praise. It was no surprise when he was ordered to be amongst the Longfingers sent to silence a curious rumor of heresy in Blacklight, the local Fingers having failed.

Disguised as a Breton antique collector, Eno quickly came into contact with the source; a bunch of elderly Dunmer priests, offering him an original copy of the 36 Lessons of Vivec, untouched by the Thumbs of the Temple. He arrested them for the crimes of Possession of Prohibited Artifacts and Intent to Sell Prohibited Artifacts, although curiously, never turned the book in for archival. Having always had sympathy for Saint Vivec, thanks to his proficiency with the spear (Eno’s weapon of choice) and his association with Mephala, he decided to sate his curiosity; while its contents were not a shocking revelation, thanks to how regarding the impulsiveness and fickleness of the Daedra constituted an important part of their worship, it did lead him to rethink his place in the hierarchy. Throughout his life, he’d been a servant to greater powers, with no regard to himself, his Ego. He’d been wasting his life to serve the powers that be; yet the forces that he thought he’d been worshipping were forces of change, forces of Ego, not order. His faith in the Padomaic triumphed over his faith in the Temple, and so, Eno decided to serve his faith better. He would reach Heaven by Violence.

Eno started by disappearing. He falsely reported that he had found an unauthorized cult of Namira but was at risk of compromising himself, and then promptly fell off the grid, expecting his superiors to put two and two together and write him off as deceased. Leaving for Skyrim, at first Eno found himself unsure on what to do; having lived according to ritual throughout his life, he realized he did not know how to lead a life for himself. He found an answer to that quickly, by setting down his own obligations and rituals. This line of thinking would eventually evolve and make him view others’ behavior in the same vein (although obviously of a lesser sort, since theirs was one without higher purpose), and, combined with the education on Daedra he’d received in the Temple, lead to a new occupation; an interpreter of dreams. While the oddly dressed Dunmer was not well received amongst the Nords, he found the minds of the Dunmer refugees in the land very malleable; his disguise as a monk only helped create an even better disposition. He began by interpreting for workers, maids, people who were bereft of their ancestors’ loftier, prouder lives. Their rumors snuck into the minds of their employers, however, and soon enough, Eno was interpreting dreams for Nords of the wealthier classes.

His gig did not go on for very long, however, and he was discovered to be having an affair with the wife and the children of a rather influential court figure in Whiterun. Skipping town with his profits, and a young lad he’d convinced to become his manservant, he fled to Jehanna. There, he led a simpler life, preying on the constantly bickering middle class by pretending to be a writer of charms. Having learned his lesson in Whiterun, he quickly changed occupations before anyone could find out that he was a fraud, and moved to Wayrest, serving as a martial arts instructor, teaching young nobles the way of the Spear. Introducing young men and women to the art of piercing, he earned some renown fairly quick under the name of Indar Serano; although the renown came with a fair amount of infamy, which led to all his property being confiscated and him wanted when he accidentally crushed the windpipe of the Court Wizard’s son during a training session. He fled south, to Hammerfell, taking up the even simpler trade of wood carving. Carving idols, spear shafts, and love spears for those in need, he found the work satisfying, but dulling in the long term for his goal. He had to seek Violence for Heaven, and so, he began searching for great tumult. A search that led him to a ship named Kismet.

---

Biggest Regret: Consciously, leaving the Temple. Eno believes that it has set him back where it could lead to him gaining even more power and influence, and respects this fault for teaching him the lessons of starting over. Subconsciously, however, he's not as above it all as he seems; it's hidden away even from him, but Eno bears resentment for the lack of vision he had as a youth, his past contentment with the positions he was given, and the enthusiasm with which he followed orders. Nothing but a glorified tool for somebody else's purpose.

Eno's Goal: A self-declared pursuer of 'Royalty', Eno claims to have great, world-shaping goals (as vague as they are) – but for that, he has to become strong enough to get to survive that stage. Eno views his body as no more than a vessel that needs to be prepared for the stormy paths he has set in mind, and as such, his current goal is to perfect his being against any sort of harm that he may come across on his journey, be it physical, mental or magical. Having received some amount of permanent body modifications in his earlier days, he may end up looking for similar options to further his prowess and progress.

---

Skills:

Expert:
Spear

Adept:
Speech
Sneak
Hand-to-Hand

Novice:
Athletics
Acrobatics
Illusion

Spells:

Calm, Courage, Fear, Fury

Equipment:

-Often hailing Eno’s arrival from afar is an umbrella carried on a long, dark pole by his spear bearer, Llaran. In truth, this bell is a cover for the thin ebony tip of his spear, the blade meticulously forged from a piece of evidence from an old smuggling case, a piece that Eno kept for himself.

-Pointing down Eno’s waist is a large scabbard, in which is holstered a steel dagger meant for ritual use, with a wavy blade and a conical hilt that ends in two round halves. While useful in a pinch, Eno prefers to keep it solely as a piece of attire, and in truth, has little idea on how to use it, except as a shorter spear.

-Eno likes to show himself as vulnerable, but in truth keeps himself ready for action. He pretends to try to cover the chainmail vest that he wears under his robes, yet these robes, a memento from his days in Whiterun, have been cut from an enchanted cloth that makes it as tough as buff leather when struck.

-A white cowl is usually wrapped around Eno’s head, seemingly to further signify his disguise as a monk. It is actually back from his days in the Temple, a shirt that has been cut to act as a headwrap. It was for wandering priests, enchanted as to resist illusion and temptation; still works the same as a cowl.

-As part of his initiation into the Longfingers, Eno’s limbs were covered with a set of bandages that bear prearranged Daedric lettering, a form of enchanting meant to ease and strengthen his muscles. Oddly, they seem to be so porous that nothing sticks to them; allowing Eno to wear them without care like skin.

Misc. Possessions:

Eno is almost always followed by his manservant, healer and spear bearer, Llaran. A young, lithe lad quite fascinated and enamored with Eno, he’s been with him through thick and thin and carries most of the provisions and comforts required to make long journeys for the both of them.

Information on Llaran

Llaran Maryon, aged 19, is formally Eno Indarys’ spear bearer and apprentice. In practice, however, his duties go little further than being his pack mule, masseuse and bed companion. Having entered Eno’s service in Windhelm, almost at the start of his journey, Llaran admits that Eno is not a gentle master; yet, given his past as a lowly servant in an East Empire Company supplier’s household, he believes that his time spent with the former Longfinger is a more fulfilling and enjoyable one.

An attractive, athletic lad with soft, gentle features despite his laborious past, he is quick to make friends with people, although that may just be his naivety. While he wishes to learn more of the spear arts and magic, as of now he practically has zero experience. Eno believes that he doesn’t have the ‘warrior nature’ to be worth actual teaching, and if someone were to get to know Llaran, they’d probably agree with Eno.

On journeys, aside from Eno’s ‘umbrella’, Llaran carries a large canvas cloth and two sturdy boxes made of lacquered wood, one holding nine potions of health restoration and cure poison, some muscle relaxant lotions, an ample amount of candlewax and three different colors of skin dyes – pale, weathered and tanned, respectively.

In the other box are three packs, one holding a dependable amount of cured meats and rice balls, the other holding clothes, perfume and soap for himself, while Eno’s pack holds spare clothes of both genders, soap, some makeup supplies, a small amount of wigs, and three pairs of ears made of hardened wax; one pair is shaped like a human’s ears, while the other two pairs are shaped like an elf’s ears.

Llaran carries a small knife, a pair of scissors, a piece of flint and a mortar and pestle on his person. While the mortar and pestle may be of use to someone who knows alchemy, Llaran does not know alchemy, and uses it solely for culinary purposes.

On his person, Eno carries a very small carving knife, that he uses to carve idols in his spare time, as well as carrying a satchel of coffee beans that he likes to chew on before going to sleep.

[mickilennial]

_{[ m o o d m u s i c ]}

Yse

_{“I buy and sell adventure at a high price.”}

_______________________________________________ Yseline Lelles _______________________________________________________________ 29 | ♀ | Breton _______________________________________________________________ Merchant | Adventurer | Spellsword _______________________________________________________________ [+] ▼ B A S I C S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Height - 5'6" ► Weight - 125 lbs ► Build - Athletic ► Hair Colour - Red ► Eye Colour - Hazel ► Origin - Anvil, Cyrodiil ► Sign - The Lord - [+] ▼ A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Alchemy - Adept ► Alteration Magic - Adept ► Athletics - Novice ► Enchanting - Novice ► Lockpicking - Adept ► One-Handed - Adept ► Sneak - Novice ► Speech - Adept - [+] ▼ I N V E N T O R Y ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Armor - Simple clothes with hard leather adjustments, weighs her down a little but if her magic isn't working, she's glad she has armor of any kind. ► Weapons - Nothing too fancy. A well-kept steel arming sword of imperial design and two daggers, one silver and one steel. ► Coinpurse - A simple cloth coinpurse holding enough coins to amount to sixty-five septims. ► Misc. Items - A waterskin and light backpack appear most present. Items within include a herb pouch, trail rations, a mortar & pestle, one handful of lockpicks, and a journal that contains unorganized stories, phrases, recipes, drawings, and things that catch the author's eye. ▼ S P E L L B O O K ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Detect Life ► Ironflesh ► Magelight ► Telekinesis ► Transmute ► Waterbreathing -

D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E Where does one begin with Yseline Lelles? A young woman of her late twenties. Born under the sign known as The Lord. Cyrodiilic Breton. Anvil native, though she hasn’t seen Anvil in many years. This would be her first voyage back since she begrudgingly started representing the family business in the frozen north. Physically describing Yseline is quite simple. She is a young Breton woman with long, frayed red hair and a warmer complexion due to her years of constant travel and brokerage. She stands a little taller over other Breton women, standing at a height that is a few inches past the general approximation of racial standards. Long past her childhood where she was afford fine gifts and finer prospects, Yseline has taken to her lifestyle as a traveler quite well. Her hair is tied into a loose, rough tail-knot, and her eyes of auburn have not faded into gray-browns quite yet. Her figure is athletic from a lean diet and the constant wear-and-tear of traveling beaten roads and weathered galleys. When it comes to attire, Yseline isn’t one to paint a target on the back on her head. Excess jewelry, expensive finery, and other such things gather too much attention. Her equipment is paired with simple clothes, leather, and northern furs to stave off the cold, northern winds. This is not to say she isn’t flexible. She knows which cities afford certain fashions and what fashions get you places. Meeting with a Thalmor merchant in rags will not get you a good deal, for example. The only thing signifying some particular value is an amulet she has grown fond of and a family signet ring she keeps tucked away for business transactions.

---_{P E R S O N A L I T Y}

Yseline Lelles has always been a wayfarer, a survivalist with a heart full of adventure and wants. Whilst growing up on the shores of Anvil, she has looked to sky for answers since she was old enough to walk.

After all, Anvil was not a very interesting place. Oftentimes she would find herself traveling to Daggerfall, Taneth, Leyawiin, and the Imperial City. Her father had kept her close to his chest, like a treasure hunter holding onto a flawless diamond. Perhaps it was these ventures that inspired Yseline to explore beyond her reach, seeking to never settle for life in dreary Anvil; or maybe it was her father’s incessant need to keep eyes on her like a hawk, fearful that he’d lose her like he lost her mother. Whichever the case may be, Yseline became a woman forged by interest of opportunity and interest of the unknown. She garnered a few physical and psychological scars on the way, but as far as the normal person can tell, Yseline appears as undamaged as an adolescent child.

This is, however, far from the truth.

Yseline in all of her goodness, curiosity, and adventurousness has done and seen things that have shaped her soul. This is not to say her moral centre or optimistic worldview is a façade, but rather that in the last five-or-so years she has had doubts about herself and of what she’s capable of withstanding. The red-haired Breton’s greatest flaw is not her unending belief in goodness, but rather her harshness on herself and her choices in life. In the past, there had been times where she never believed she was capable of anything but understanding, forgiveness, and kindness. But after she did some… questionable decisions she has found herself coaxing nightmares, extreme anxiety, and a lacking of spiritual focus. She has looked to questionable sources for answers, sought out faith-healing of her soul, and generally found herself tipping on the edge of denial and repression. The end result of this repression, anxiety, and self-criticism is a woman who believes everyone is inherently good except for maybe herself. Her philosophy is clearly inconsistent due to her guilt, but she’s still here and she has a purpose to keep moving forward.

Even if going forward in her current state has her flirting with alcoholism, fantasy, and deflective sarcasm, in the end, it appears that a proper coping mechanism is a hard thing to sell to Lelles’ Quality Merchandise.

---_{H I S T O R Y}

For as long as Yseline Lelles can remember, she has known the city of Anvil like the back of her hand. For the majority of her childhood, it was her home and the place where she learned the majority of her life lessons for better or worse.

Yseline’s father, Ambnean Lelles, is the owner of the mercantile establishment known as Lelles’ Quality Merchandise. The business enterprise itself is an old and proven one dating back since the Oblivion Crisis struck Cyrodiil over two-hundred years ago. By the time Yseline’s generation came to Anvil, the business had expanded and turned it into one of the most, if not the most, prominent mercantile businesses in Western Cyrodiil. This afforded Ambnean and his wife, Safila, the boon of a large family that would come to include six children with Yseline as the youngest. Though, when Yseline was only four years old, Safila was killed while visiting her family in Bravil.

The aftermath of her mother’s untimely death was not kind to the traders of Bravil. Yseline’s father immediately withdrew all trade from Bravil out of spite and looked upon as skooma as a item that had no economical or moral value on the free market. His stance on skooma and the city of Bravil would have long-lasting consequences that have been unspoken of for the entirety of Yseline’s childhood. Though, that’s not to say there weren’t other more challenging issues throughout Yseline’s childhood. Yseline, as the only daughter of her parent’s union, lacked any sort of conventional female role model in her life and her father had grown to be quite paranoid and obsessive to the point where he had become increasingly more protective and authoritative, often lauding over Yseline like she was his property to be hoarded and kept from the sight of thieves and charlatans. This would wane with time, though her father would always treat her like she was made of glass.

Growing up without guidance from her mother was a challenge for Yseline, especially considering the fact that her father trusted few enough people to help guide and educate her. Her interest in sorcery and hero-adventurers troubled him, but confining her to his estate in Anvil only afforded so much and he was not surprised stories captivated her imagination. It would be these stories that influenced Yseline’s ideals of faith, dignity, honor, and kindness. They were only heightened when one of her brothers, Mebein, returned from a journey in Bruma with sword in hand. Mebein, the middle child of the family, had decided he wanted nothing to do with the family business and decided to help the people of Cyrodiil solve their problems. This would be the first of many visits where Mebein would excite Yseline’s imagination with stories of protecting caravans, dueling bandits, and hunting for treasure. His exploits as well as the guidance of her other brothers would come to be hallmarks of how Yseline saw the world and the people in it. Lacking a world with her mother seemed far less significant when she had five brothers to guide her in times of confusion.

Though, not all of her brothers had good habits to teach Yseline.

Whilst Mebein was the adventurer, Noran was the charlatan and instigator. For Yaric and Yseline, the two youngest, Noran was the one person to show the limits of their father’s patience. When Yseline complained about her father locking her in her room, it was Noran who gave her a lockpick and taught her how to use it. When Yseline lamented about her lack of freedom, he was the one who encouraged her to create her own. This encouragement of behavior created a constant battle between Yseline and her father and eventually she realized how far her father would go to make a point. After she was caught breaking out of her room the response was as extreme as her father could create. Before Yseline knew it she was on the first voyage from Anvil to Rivenspire, a place where Ambnean’s cousin, Agrane Lelles, could keep an eye on her.

Surprisingly enough, the life she was sentenced to in Rivenspire was not as terrible as she thought it would be. Agrane, as stern and condescending as he was, actually seemed more concerned about Yseline to stay out of trouble rather than loom over her like a dragon and its hoard. Seeing she had interest in magic, Agrane offered investment in her studies as long as she remained obedient. One thing led to another and she found herself a student in one of Rivenspire’s many magical institutions—a place where she could learn alchemy, magic, and finally understand who she wanted to be, or at the very least give her the chance to try to. While she bemoaned being separated from Yaric, the youngest of her brothers and one she was closest with due to their close proximity of age, there was a silver lining in that she could finally stop being treated like a caged bird for the first time in her life.

Yseline’s magical tutelage bore success, though not overnight. As luck would have it, the young Breton had the interest for magic but lacked the same intellect of her peers. Testing at the bottom of the class for several years in a row didn’t make Yseline happy and the mockery that came with it was exhausting to deal with, though Yseline never saw it more as playful teasing of her peers. She kept trying and exerted the necessary effort, studying twice as hard as anyone else to try to put recipes to memory—writing them down in a way only she really understood. As a result, her notes often were messy, disjointed, and unruly; but they were also successful. While lacking prodigal talent or innate memory, somehow by the time Yseline was nearing her nineteenth year she grasped potioncrafting and alteration magic to a respectable level. She was no expert, but she had achieved something she had longed for: identity and respect of her friends at the school.

Several weeks later, after contemplating another year of study in Rivenspire, she received a letter; a letter that immediately caused her to suspend her place in Rivenspire and rush to the nearest harbor to return to Anvil as soon as she possibly could.

The reason for this, of course, was a familial urgency.

A gathering was requested of the immediate Lelles family, a gathering of celebration and mourning. A funeral. The letter was vague, so Yseline could not know the context of who had died. She feared the worst for her father who at this point in his life was brittle and battling a lifetime of stress and grief. This fear would not be realized however, as when the nineteen-year-old arrived in Anvil some time later she discovered it was not her father Ambnean who had died, but her brother Mebein. The brother who had inspired her imagination as a girl with stories of sorcery and adventure. Mebein, the bandit-hunter. Cut short in the prime of his life. A tragedy Yseline was not certain she knew how to comprehend at first, but as she would eventually learn, life in Tamriel tends to rarely make sense.

It was at the celebration of Mebein’s life that Yseline learned that the family was in a strange place in her absence. Noran was serving time in the Imperial Prison for trying to steal something that belonged to someone important, Yaric had convinced their father to start a branch of the family business in Skyrim, Georan had devoted his life to the divines, and Belenric was practically ready to take over the family’s responsibilities. With Mebein dead, it seemed there was a lot to take in. Yseline was saddened by the revelation of Mebein’s death, but at the same time she knew that Mebein would want her to be happy—to remember that he died as he wanted to live and that the most important thing in life was to stay positive. It was such remembrance that Yseline felt inspired to follow in his shadow yet follow it mindfully.

It has been ten years since that day. Yseline has changed, though ultimately she is still the same optimistic, morally upright girl she was. Life as an adventurer and part-time merchant has treated her well, though some say the divines have blessed her with more luck than she has ever deserved. In the last few months she has taken to visiting her brother, Yaric, who resides in Solitude operating the business he started a few months after Mebein’s death. However, on one afternoon, it appears the ill fortune of the men in the Lelles family has struck again. Yaric has disappeared without mention—an uncharacteristic trait of his. Upon asking around Yaric’s group of friends in Solitude and investigating as she had done in the past with other cases, she discovered that a man matching his description left for “Cyrodiil”. It’s strange, things don’t exactly add up, but Yseline doesn’t want to lose another brother if she can help it.

It’s time to return to Anvil.

---_{R E G R E T}

Yseline is not an evil person. She believes that everyone on Tamriel is inherently good and that circumstances have twisted them into being not-good. Everyone can be redeemed.

This belief got herself and a few associates of hers captured by a group of cannibals in The Reach. She’s not completely sure, how she got from point-a to point-b, but it happened. Her bad reading of the situation led to people who had families, friends, and hopes to effectively die. The worst part of it all was when Yseline picked the lock of the cell entrapping herself and others, she found herself in a situation where she had to choose: her life or theirs. She didn’t just abandon them, she used them as a distraction. This action has been weighing on her since it happened, creating a dark spot on her soul. She now constantly doubts her goodness and wonders how she could be redeemed when there is something inside her that is selfish and cruel.

The young breton woman sometimes stirs awake from her nightmares and wonders if she should’ve sacrificed herself to let everyone go free. She wonders what it would be like if she just jumped off the edge of Haafingar—how long it’d take for her to stop remembering. That is Yseline Lelles's greatest regret.

---_{G O A L}

Ultimately, Yseline’s goal is to find her brother, Yaric.

Most tell the red-haired woman that her beloved sibling is probably dead. However, Yseline doesn’t deal in cynicism or pessimism. As an optimist, she believes that Yaric is alive-and-well, just that he doesn’t want to be found. Why he doesn’t want to be found is a large question that Yseline has yet to find the answer for, but its out there, or so she hopes. Her most recent clues, or assortment of clues, suggests she follow the trail from Solitude to Anvil.

But why would Yaric return to their childhood home without mention or note? Something's fishy...

-

---

-A Template by Load Wraith

[Amaranth]

Frygga

---

Name: Frygga Fears-None
Race: Nord
Age: 30
Birthsign: The Warrior
Family Origins: Ivarstead, Whiterun Hold

Appearance: Frygga is of average height for a Nord around 6 feet even, give or take, with unkempt dark auburn hair that she keeps shaved on the sides and tied behind her head to prevent it from interfering with her grim work. Though tall, she is not lanky, with a well-built chest and iron thews on her arms and legs from a lifetime spent doing physical work, bloody or otherwise. Her skin is pale and scarred where a thousand beasts or men have tried to spill her guts. She looks less than half a woman, fit to be a wife, and looks over half as much a wolf, half-feral and insatiable. Her icy-blue eyes are sullen and her looks predatory. She probably would not be considered attractive by anyone except Hircine himself or maybe a wolf or bear, semi-feral as she is. This matters little to Frygga as she eschews the typical trappings of beauty such as makeup and jewelry (aside from, perhaps, the occasional bone taken as a trophy and worn in the ear or around the neck). She does not totally shun affection or kindness however, but merely shows it with the same openness and lack of shame that suits one unaccustomed to polite society or its norms. She doles it out when and to whom she sees fit and not a moment earlier or later.

Despite her openness with affection she has not experienced a meaningful emotional relationship before, her previous encounters have all been purely physical- ways for two beings to work out the feelings of mortality and being before they face death the next day.

She moves with an easy lupine gait that speaks volumes about the type of person she is and the work she engages in. It's the tread of someone who is hunted and hunting. Confident but careful and wary, with a coiled strength that comes before a leap onto the neck of prey.

Of some note is that due to her upbringing and lifestyle she never learned to read or write, but can count. Mercenaries have to count their gold somehow.

Her voice matches her physical appearance. It is harsh and grating, easy to be heard over the din of battle, the thick Nordic accent of someone who does not spend much time in civilisation, interacting with finer folk of better breeding. This is not to say her words are always harsh or hostile, just that the voice who speaks them is. Whether the words themselves are coloured by the voice that speaks them is up to the listener to decide.

---

Personality: Wild and fearless, with a seemingly insatiable thirst for combat, Frygga appears on the surface to be the prototypical Nord warrior. But, much like the Nords themselves, Frygga is a study in contrasts. Her usually chaotic and strident nature in combat or in public is tied with a stoic and rather phlegmatic demeanour in other situations, even in battle on occasions (though this is rare). Her untamed nature that seemingly marries two opposite temperaments reflects a surprising depth to her that not many see (or live to see).

In truth, her dual nature unsettles some, even among her fellow Nords. Most see warriors as grim and stoic, or unpredictable and savage, not both. Beneath her shroud of iron-hard will and raucous barbarism does lie the typical Nord. She revels in drinking and the swapping of stories, she is proud of her scars, each one showing a battle she walked away from, something that cannot be said of those she has faced down. She respects strength and straightforwardness and is suspicious of those who lack it. Despite her foibles, she works surprisingly well in a group and has learned how to keep her personal problems with others from interfering. Lone bandits or highwaymen never make it too far.

The Civil War left its scars on Frygga, much like it left scars on Skyrim. While she was never a devout Stormcloak and in truth only with them for a few months she is still fairly suspicious of the Empire and Imperial intent, especially regarding Skyrim. Though she isn't particularly proud of the fact she was a Stormcloak, she doesn't really hide it either and will openly admit to it if questioned. Out of necessity she has no problems with any other races due to her work as a bandit first and then a sellsword. She has fought side by side proudly with almost every race in Tamriel at this point.

She shows little interest in the gods, claiming, "The gods have never been with me before, why should I be with them?" and is deeply suspicious of anything she considers 'supernatural' (having to do with the undead) after a barrow near Ivarstead thought haunted by a ghost was exposed as a fraud. Additionally, she doesn't consider draugr to be 'supernatural', instead considering them to be perfectly natural. Her rejection of the gods, however unsettling for her companions, does not extend to the natural spirits that most Nords consider one and the same with the Divines. Though many notice this strange contradiction, few have the courage to argue the point with her. The return of the Dragons in her youth also contributed significantly to her distrust of the Divines, though she couldn't have told you that at the time. To her they served as a sign that the gods had given up on Nirn and had sent Alduin to clean up the mess.

She has encountered few daedra in her time but find them unsettling and would rather avoid them and their worshippers. Daedric powers in general she is suspicious and fearful of, viewing them along the same lines as the Divines.

---

History: Born to a poor family that worked the mill in Ivarstead, Frygga picked up the axe from a young age and did what most do until they are of age to seek their own destiny. She worked under the firm but loving yoke of her parents, helping to earn a meager living working the mill. Her father had served the Hold as a guard for many years and told his young daughter of bandit raids, troll hunts, monster attacks and all sorts of adventures he had and had witnessed. These stories inspired his daughter, the young Frygga, and drove her to seek her fortunes on her 18th nameday, shortly after the dragons had returned and destroyed Helgen.

To a young Frygga, the Empire seemed weak and, swept up by promises of glory and a free Skyrim, she made the trek to Windhelm to join the Stormcloaks. If you asked her now, she would tell you she doesn't know if she ever really believed in their cause, their ideals, if they could even win. She was young and hungry for battle and glory. It didn't matter who she was fighting and why. No more than it matters now with the Stormcloaks all dead or scattered to the four winds.

What did matter was her first battle...

They had been camped out for weeks on a snowy drift that overlooked a road the Imperials used to move supplies between various outposts. But for weeks they had not seen another soul come down this particular road, only snow and rain. The men were getting antsy and the weather turning bad. Their officer decided they would ambush the next caravan that came by and call the expedition a failure. Perhaps their scouting reports had been bad. None of that mattered to Frygga. She just wanted to taste battle for the first time. Finally, a few days later, at dusk, they heard them. The telltale clank of wagons and clacking of horseshoes on a cobblestone road. The Stormcloaks roused from their camp and geared for battle, axes were sharpened and warpaint applied. The wait was agonizing. It seemingly took hours for the slow caravan to reach their prepared site. When they did, horns were sounded and men began wailing warcries and setting upon the supposedly hapless Imperial caravansary. But when the covered wagons were stopped armed men poured out of them, not supplies. The Imperials formed ranks to hold off the ambush and the Stormcloaks crashed into the wall of steel like a wave hitting breakers. The first wave of rebels were neatly put down, but the second devolved into a brutal melee, one that the less-disciplined and less battle-tested Stormcloaks were losing. This is where the iron anvil of war smote Frygga's heart with a blow that turned her youthful courage into lifelong shame. Men were dying all around her, and for what? This clearly was no supply caravan, maybe it was a counter-ambush. The Imperials having starved out the Stormcloak would-be ambushers only to lure them into their own trap. Maybe supplies never were moved down this road, maybe only troops had ever crossed this pass. But what would dying here achieve? Would the gods welcome her into Sovngarde for dying in a pointless battle such as this? No one would ever know they even died here save for the Imperials, and why would they put in a good word with Shor when it was the Stormcloaks who had attempted the underhanded ambush in the first place? Perhaps her rationalisations had a point, or perhaps they were just excuses to allow her brain to accept fleeing as an option. Who could know? Frygga abandoned her comrades to their death, taking only her shame and her life with her as he took off into the woods.

For a time she joined a group of bandits, after all, how could she tarnish honor that did not exist? The life of a bandit was hard, especially in wartime. Both factions' tolerances for banditry having dropped to almost zero, getting caught meant certain death. So they survived off of picking on adventurers or smaller patrols of Imperials or Stormcloaks, depending on who controlled the area, but it was a meagre existence and one that only really ended one way. So after a few years Frygga set out on her own, not to Cyrodiil but to High Rock to seek her fortune and honor as a sellsword among the constantly squabbling duchies and minor nobles. Her luck was better among the Bretons; Nobles loved to have a tall and fearsome Nord to guard them and intimidate their enemies. Most of her pay was squandered on drinking and travelling from one place to another, contracts changing as frequently as the seasons. She was hired to root out bandits, many of whom were just fellow mercenaries driven to desperation by septim-pinching nobles. Sometimes she was hired to slay bears or wolves or harpies or any other variety of monsters and it is for this reason she became known (ironically) as Fears-None. Very rarely was she hired to slay nobles themselves though little could stop her if she was set upon the task. A few times she has returned to Skyrim and stayed for a while taking contracts in her home province before returning to the more profitable petty wars of High Rock.

The long years of banditry and mercenary work has made her a hard woman and recently she has grown tired of slaying would-be wizards or blueblooded nobles for an identical blueblood to replace them and decided she would seek work in the south, in Cyrodiil. Honest work perhaps, more monster slaying or caravan guarding. She can feel in her breast that some of her old sense of pride has returned and that redemption might be closer than she knows.

Biggest Regret: Nords are often said to 'not to be judged on how they lived, but how they died' and in Frygga's case, the opposite is true. Frygga harshly judges herself on the way she lived when she should have died. Her first battle as a full grown woman was an ambush on a supposedly ill-prepared enemy. The enemy rallied and Frygga's group was soon overpowered and the battle turned into a slaughter. What good would her death be here? What purpose would it serve? The icy talons of logic, of self-preservation, of practicality, of cowardice crept into her chest and dug deep into her heart. She abandoned her fellows and abandoned her fate, and fled. Since that day, her shame, her self-loathing, her desire to prove her courage has fueled her reckless rage. Her inner demons of practicality and circumspection causing her tight-lipped stoicism to clash with her desire to see the brand of cowardice scorched from her soul.

Frygga‘s Goal: Frygga predictably wishes to prove to all, but most of all to herself, that she is no coward. Despite ostensibly proving it a thousand times over as a bandit and a sellsword, she feels as though her mettle has not been truly tested since her first battle and is searching for a task that will truly prove once and for all that she is worthy. She wishes her death to have meaning and not be in some frozen field or in the middle of a forest for no purpose. She wishes to show that she is selfless and willing to die for the right cause.

---

Skills:

Expert:
Blunt/Axe/whatever you want to call it- Frygga is an expert with hafted weapons, specifically axes, from a lifetime of practice. Her skill with an axe isn't limited to mere melee combat either, over the years she has also learned to throw them with precision.

Adept:
Marksman- Though she has hunted both men, mer and beasts with a bow and arrow, her true talents come out when paired with a hand axe.
Hand to Hand- Wrestling and brawling is a favoured pastime among people of her ilk
Athletics- Time spent in battle and travelling has given her high stamina.
Spear- A basic weapon found almost everywhere and with plenty of uses, from hunting to combat. Though Frygga typically uses a axe-like glaive instead of a regular spear, she is adept with most long-handled weapons.

Novice:
Armourer- Any warrior worth their fire salts has learned to patch basic rips and tears in clothing and armour.

Equipment:

• Fur and Leather armour
• 2x Iron War Axes
• Iron Halberd
• Emergency survival rations of dried and salted meats cut into small squares (enough for a few days only)
• Drinking horn

Misc. Possessions:
Frygga typically carries a few Blue Mountain Flowers that she crushes with the handle of a war axe for use as warpaint. She also hangs on to, but doesn't wear a broken bear pendant. Clearly a reminder of her weakness, her failure, and her shame.
-Whetstone
-Swatches of leather for use in patching holes in her armour.
-Sewing Kit

[Greenie]

S'Kandar

Race: Khajiit
Age: 28
Birthsign: The Lover
Family Origins: Rimmen, Elsweyr

Appearance: Standing at 5'9 and weighing near 180 lbs, S'Kandar has a muscular figure, his body strong due to the lifestyle he has chosen to pursue. A Cathay Khajiit, he stands tall on both feet with a mer/man like body. The colour of his fur could be compared to the snowy skies of Skyrim, white and light grey mixing in with darker grey stripes that blend seamlessly with his light fur. Countless scars litter his body from various battles he has found himself in, as well as quite a few tavern brawls, the most obvious of which is a scar that travels from the middle of his forehead and down his right cheek.

Aside from this slight disfiguring, his face is quite charming. Sporting a strong jaw and broad muzzle, he portrays a cool confidence even if he may be feeling otherwise. For the most part his face is free from stripes or markings save for a couple of spots below his black lined grey eyes, and a few black stripes above said eyes. The latter melds into his smaller grey ears, both of which are pierced with two silver earrings in each. His light grey hair is shorn on the sides but kept longer on top, which he then braids and ties off at the end.

As for his clothes, S’Kandar enjoys dressing for mobility. On a casual day where he is simply relaxing, he will wear loose shirts or tunics along with comfortable trousers and a pair of sturdy yet well worn boots. When he is out and about hunting, however, he is much more cautious of his attire, donning a mixture of furs and leather armour. Refusing to wear a cloak unless it’s extremely cold and snowy, he does keep a scarf wrapped around his neck and shoulders beneath the armour, though whether it's actually there for warmth or sentimental feelings is something S’Kandar does not care to discuss.

Unlike Men or Mer races, his mood doesn't necessarily show all on his face. When he is excited, for example, his pupils will widen and there may be a twitch to his tail, ears standing upright and tall. On the other hand, when saddened or upset, his ears will fall sideways against his head and his tail will be quite still. A person simply has to be observant to see how S'Kandar is feeling, even if his words and otherwise strong posture may say otherwise.

It's very rare that S'Kandar is brought to the point of extreme anger, but when he is, it can be seen by even the dimwittiest of person. Ears flat against his skull, his eyes will narrow into slits, mouth pulled back as he bares his teeth in a snarl, tail lashing out behind him- the term 'beast race' would be quite apt at these moments.

Personality: From the outset, S'Kandar is a man who seems to imbue warmth and charm. As a traveler his entire life, he had learned that people are more given to persuasion when treated with friendliness and respect, and so he inculcated that in his being until it became second nature to him. Almost always sporting a smile and keeping his tone casual, knowing when to add in a little charm and flattery to get the results he wishes- some would call this cunning and crafty, but S'Kandar truly enjoyed being able to make people smile when they were around him, and to have them leave completely satisfied once they left with whatever they purchased. Even if he hasn't been in the trading business for years, the same formula works for him.

That being said, he carries an invisible weight upon his shoulders and a burden in his heart. The tragedies he had faced in his life left their marks, and his feelings at leaving his siblings by themselves as well as causing his teacher's demise has caused him to constantly shoulder guilt, and this comes into play many times throughout his life. For the most part, he finds it hard to turn away from somebody in need and will try to help them out. He has a very strict code of not leaving anyone behind when working with others, and he can be quite passionate about these sentiments if someone were to argue otherwise. While he normally tries to keep his cool, abandoning people in need or ridiculing them is something that will upset him and cause his temper to rise.

Like most people are familiar with, S'Kandar has the usual khajiiti habit of referring to himself in third person. For a brief period in his life when he left his siblings, he had attempted to try and change this habit and tried to speak more like those around him, afraid of being seen as the odd one out. However, seeing it was much too ingrained in him as well as Afshan telling him it was silly to change something that needn't be an issue, the Khajiit decided to let it go. In fact, he now sees his way of speech as honouring his parents and his heritage in general. He is proud to be a Khajiit and sees his traveling and keeping the world safe as a way to show more close minded folk that Khajiit are not all the sneaky thieves they assume them to be.

In general, S’Kandar is people’s person and enjoys spending time socializing, conversing and sharing experiences, listening to their stories and tales from their past. Though he likes to talk, a lot of this time is also spent watching and listening to people, studying their tells and what makes them tick. That is, until he is distracted by a pretty face. Once upon a time S’Kandar’s weakness had been drinking, but as he tries to control the amount of alcohol he consumes, he found the fairer sex can be quite a pleasant distraction that does not amount to waking up with a hangover. Yet despite these many interactions, the Khajiit has not been able to make any long term friends or any sort of romantic relationship. Any time he finds himself growing close to a person, he reminds himself of his past failures and forces himself to step back. At these times, S’Kandar ends up secluding himself, and this occasionally causes slip ups where he may drink a little too much, leading to bouts of self loathing and need for temporary seclusion.

As such, the only witness to his different moods is his faithful companion, Jashi. S’Kandar treats her more like a friend than a pet and is quite protective of her, to the point that he will personally stay outside in the rain with his canine friend rather than inside without her. He knows people may find this odd or even obsessive, but he is unable to tolerate seeing her in any distress that could have been averted.

In the end, S’Kandar is a troubled man who would love nothing more than to hide the pain inside him and instead make sure the rest of the world needs not suffer as he did.

---

History: Though S’Kandar was born in Rimmen, Elsweyr, he does not actually recall much about his place of birth. Having been born into the Baandari clan, his parents were vagabond traders who spent their lives on the roads with their caravan, buying and trading goods as they travelled through Tamriel. S’Kandar was the first of three siblings, a younger brother and sister, both of who were born in Cyrodiil. His childhood was as normal as any wayfarer’s could be- he was exposed to many different people, creatures, climates and weathers from a young age, and the thought of settling down in one place seemed odd to him even as a child. How could he, when there was just so much to see?

It was at age sixteen when tragedy struck. S’Kandar and his family had been through High Rock once before and after a long and fruitful voyage through Hammerfell, with many many wares to sell, they had decided to try their luck once more with the Breton folk. For the most part the journey passed quite smoothly and most lucrative. Being attacked by a group of vampires had been the least of their expectations. His parents fell quickly after attempting to defend the rest of the caravan, and it was only sheer that a group of hunters came upon their location and killed their attackers. S’Kandar and his siblings suffered only some scratches and bruises, but those little grievances were nothing compared to the grief of losing their parents.

The group of hunters were ready to leave but one kind hearted huntress, a young Redguard woman named Afshan, felt rather empathetic towards the young Khajiit siblings and balked at the idea of leaving them by themselves. Despite the protests from her companions, she refused to go anywhere unless the three came along so that she could at least leave them somewhere safe and sound. After a couple of days travel, they reached the Wayrest, where S'Kandar and his siblings were to stay at an orphanage. However, the young Khajiit did not wish to stay stagnant- he had seen Afshan fight against the vampires and he wanted to learn as well. Part of the reason was some sense of revenge he wished to deliver on rotten beings who ruined innocent people's lives, but the other reason was because he truly wanted to become stronger. Afshan was hesitant at first, but remembering that she too had begun her life in adventurous much the same way, she decided to give the Khajiit boy a chance.

He was a quick learner, taking to both the sword and the bow, though he preferred archery to swordsmanship. S’Kandar found himself enjoying the hunting life- he was already used to travelling, gathering provisions and staying up to watch out for intruders late at night, but this was something new and thrilling, and it was enough to quell his grief over his parents as well as the guilt of leaving his siblings, though he knew they were taken care of. Charming ladies he met across Tamriel and experimenting with skooma as well as alcohol further alleviated any remaining feelings that may have hindered. Afshan was not too pleased with this development in her student and was rather strict about making sure he did not consume any intoxicants when they were on a mission.

S’Kandar in turn respected her, though that respect developed into romantic feelings that he tried to keep contained to himself. One night, however, after drinking a little too much, the Khajiit approached his teacher and confessed his love for her. Unwilling to give him any reply when he was in such a state, Afshan left the building, leaving S’Kandar to take her silence as rejection, thereafter drinking himself into a stupor. It was only after he woke up in the morning that he realized Afshan had left for the mission on her own. Suffering from a hangover, he managed to follow after her, hoping to catch her before she could reach the location on their agenda: a coven of witches and hagravens. Alas, he was too late- by the time he reached, she had already passed away from her wounds after killing off their marks.

This was probably the darkest period in S’Kandar’s life, worse than even when his caravan had been ambushed, as in his opinion he had been responsible for this folly. With no aim or purpose in mind, the Khajiit spent many months wandering through the mountains of Skyrim, killing what he needed to survive and nothing more. There were many times he wished to simply end his life, but he found himself too much of a coward- he wanted to live, but he didn’t know for what.

The balm of his soul came in an unusual fashion. As he was searching for his next meal, S’Kandar came across a dying wolf and her pup. It seemed she had gotten caught in a trap and had been unable to free herself. After mercifully ending her life, he found himself unable to simply walk away while knowing the pup would not be able to survive on its own. In a way, it reminded him of himself and Afshan, and how she had refused to leave him and his siblings behind.

Naming the young cub Jashi after a word in Ta'agra, S'Kandar treated her as if she was not simply a pet, but as if she were a member of his family. While he was still looking for a greater purpose to his life, he could now live day by day and simply care for his little companion, feeling satisfaction and happiness that someone was benifitting from his presence. Every wag of her tail and lick to his face caused a little of the grief he carried to lighten, even if it was just for a moment. He found himself overly protective of his wolf friend, making sure no harm came to her. In the same way, Jashi looked up to S'Kandar with utmost devotion, following him eagerly wherever he went. Though she was generally mild in temperament, she saw him as the 'Alpha' of their pack and in turn was protective of him as well. Alert and vigilant, she grew into a trustworthy companion who not only helped keep watch for intruders, but aided him against sour sorts.

Jashi

No longer alone and with a partner who not only held her own but brightened his perspective on life once again, S'Kandar once more took on the helm of a hunter who sought to help protect the people of Tamriel.

Biggest Regret: S'Kandar cannot forgive himself for not keeping his feelings in check and confessing to his teacher, thereafter getting drunk, and subsequently not being there to help Afshan in her time of need against the coven of witches that eventually lead to her death.

S'Kandar's Goal: To redeem himself is probably the number one priority and reason to strive on S'Kandar's mind and in his heart. He wishes to become a hero, a saviour, somebody who can be relied on- no longer the man who failed his teacher.

---

Skills:
Expert

• Archery - By dedicated practice and honing his archery, along with his naturally good eyesight to pinpoint targets, S’Kandar has grown incredibly proficient with his bow, rarely missing a target.

Adept

• Sneak - Naturally a light stepping fellow, S’Kandar has furthered this skill out of necessity so that the targets he is after won't immediately hear him approaching.
• One hand (Sword) - Though melee combat isn't his preferred way of hunting his enemies and targets, S'Kandar knew full well that there would be times when he wouldn't be able to rely on his bow. Not one who liked to learn something in an ad hoc fashion, he took great pains in learning how to wield a sword and is quite proficient in using it on someone.

Novice

• Provisioning - From a young age, S'Kandar had learned to hunt and gather food for himself and his family as well as a keen sense of where to find fresh water. For the most part, he is confident he can help keep his companions happy and fed.
• Athletics - S'Kandar's active lifestyle has made him quite strong physically. He can walk long distances for hours as is the norm for any Baandari, and his arms and back are used to lifting and carrying heavy objects. The various climates he has lived in has made him rather adaptable to trying weather patterns.

Equipment:

• A short bow and quiver with 10 arrows
• A sheathed short sword to the left of waist
• A sheathed dagger to the right
• A couple of health potions in a pouch tied at his belt
• A mix of leather and fur armour

Misc. Possessions:

• A backpack stuffed with an extra pair of clothing, a small thin blanket, spices to cook with, some dried meats, and a small pouch of moon sugar.
• A water skin filled with water
• A water skin filled with ale
• A money pouch tied discreetly under his belt, containing 20 septims
• A red scarf he keeps loosely wrapped around his neck
• A bracelet made of blue painted beads, a keepsake from his sister when he had left with Afshan.

[Scrub Mage]

Dances-In-Milk

"Xaexriuukk, Dances-In-Milk"

_{"My potions are fit for a beast, let alone a man."}

══════ C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T ══════ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ ═══════ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y ══════ "Xaexriuukk, Dances-In-Milk" _______________________________________________ 73 | ♂ | Argonian _______________________________________________ Tribal Alchemist, Former Wandering Healer, Scholar ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Old and Hunched, Years of Brewing ► Skin Color - Pale Teal ► Jewelry Material - Gold ► Eye Color - Amber ► Other - Legs are burned and bestial. ▼ D O S S I E R ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Birthplace - Hatched in Murkmire, to the Kota-Vimleel tribe. ► Birthsign - The Atronach ► Biggest Regret - Lending aid to a predator in disguise. ► Xaexriuukk's Goal - Compile an accurate bestiary on all vampiric strains, drawn from firsthand account and rooted firmly in fact. ▼ F A V O R E D A T T R I B U T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Intelligence ► Willpower ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Alchemy - Expert ► Enchanting - Adept ► Security - Adept ► Smithing - Adept ► Stealth - Adept ► Archery - Novice ▼ S P E L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► None ▼ E Q U I P M E N T ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Weapons - One shortbow, five arrows ► Armor - Faded blue clothes. ► Containers - Two satchel bags, one for ingredients and one for alchemy equipment. ► Food, Drink, Potions - A variety of meats (diced for easy snacking), a jug of milk, two potions of healing, one potion of invisibility, simple poison. ► Ingredients - Columbine Root Pulp, Gingko Leaf, Ginseng, Nightshade. ► Miscellaneous - Alembic, Calcinator, Mortar and Pestle, Retort

══════ A P P E A R A N C E ══════ Were Xaexriuukk a younger Argonian, with straight legs, he would stand at an impressive seven feet. But he is not a young Argonian, and his legs are not straight. His legs are bestial, and he is not meant to wear boots. Most pants are uncomfortable for him, unless tailored properly. Currently, he wears a loincloth, though it looks a bit more impressive than one would expect. The scales are ruined and charred, and his back hunches over as if he is always leaning over an alchemist's table. His claws are unkempt and look half-dead, and the way he quickly steps is reminiscent of hot coals walking over hot coals. When he is on the move, his steps are almost zig-zag, as if he is trying to keep himself balanced with his two satchel bags acting as a strange counter-weight. His satchel bags are old, having been patched multiple times, and constructed from dreugh hide leather, and his clothes are an oddly regal blue fabric with red sleeves, which after countless years of alchemical wear-and-tear, are still a stunningly beautiful (albeit faded) shade. They are riddled with potion stains, and smell faintly of salts. While his face generally holds a distasteful look, his pale teal skin is complemented by golden jewelry, undoubtedly made deep in Black Marsh. His crest is worn and thin, and his lower jaw is oddly aggressive. The jewelry which adorns his crest is, upon close inspection, dutifully engraved with delicate depictions of flowers of all sorts. His face is short, and his snout ridges look durable. His lower jaw is streaked with a once-bright-now-dull midnight blue, and if one looks close, past the aged dullifying of colors, it is plain that his neck was once speckled with the same color, now closer to a grey. ═══════ P E R S O N A L I T Y ══════ Xaexriuukk is an old Saxhleel, but to say that he’s learned from experience is almost a mistake. The Saxhleel is stubborn, jaded, and very self-centered, and just about his only positive qualities are that he is grumpily helpful, and that he is not arrogant. In an odd contrast, he prefers most people call him by his Cyrodillic name, Dances-In-Milk. Xaexriuukk has learned many things in life, but what he learns does not extend to social graces. His mind is more honed for learning and creation than it is for small talk and ethics. He has burned many bridges in the past thanks to his bluntness and unwillingness to entertain what he perceives as wasteful stupidity, and he plans to keep burning bridges out of spite. Conversation wise, Xaexriuukk is prone to using as few words as possible, focused on brevity and efficient communication of important ideas. While not exactly a traditionalist, Xaexriuukk is fiercely stuck in his ways, and despite decades of living away from Argonia, he still behaves in an oddly tribal manner. He does not tolerate intrusions on his territory, he leaves empty alchemical flasks in places as warning, and he is an ardent Sithis worshipper. This is to say nothing of his reflexive violence, and his general attitude of “they got what was coming for them”. Having spent most of his life in Black Marsh, Xaexriuukk has witnessed his fair share of egg-brethren die at the hands of one another, and when he left the Marshes he witnessed Men and Mer alike purchase poisons to kill one another. If they are egg-brethren, they will be reborn amidst the roots. If they are not, then they got what was coming for them. He has a particular disdain for Dunmer, for reasons obvious to anyone who knows even an inkling of his people's history.

Xaexriuukk is very self-centered, but that doesn’t mean he’s selfish. Rather, he’s preoccupied with his own goals and thoughts. When he is part of a team, he values his teammates almost like tools, though tools which are less likable than his own. But he knows he couldn’t fight most battles by himself, and so he happily tolerates supplying the side he’s on with means to survive.

The Saxhleel alchemist is also rather modest. Humble would be a stretch, but Xaexriuukk tends to think that most people know the basics. This means that he's not arrogant about his work, but explains it as he would to equals - which often leads to him growing irritated when he does have to explain basic concepts, though less for identifying it as stupidity, and more for it costing a chunk of time (but, it's not a waste).

While his disposition tends to be dour and sour, Xaexriuukk is oddly helpful. He can give you the recipe, the location of the ingredients, and the current moon phase, but he won't brew you a potion that he doesn't already have prepared. Of course, his disposition when helping tends to be hurried, irritable, and carried with the assumption that you know what you're doing. In short: Xaexriuukk will help you help yourself, just don't expect him to be happy about it.

In addition to his generally cold disposition, Xaexriuukk prefers to keep people at a length, and he hates when people mispronounce his name. As a result of both things, he prefers people to call him by his Cyrodillic name, Dances-In-Milk. It is not a name he likes, which helps him to keep people at spear’s length, and it is easier to pronounce for Men and Mer than Xaexriuukk. On the rare occasion he grows to like someone, he tries to teach them how to manage a Saxhleel name.

Of note about his demeanor that one would not expect at first, Xaexriuukk is rather fearless. He is bold, but cautious. He doesn't charge headlong into dangerous situations, he takes time to consult his research and plan. He is quick to adapt and change his plans when they no longer suit his needs, and he is able to remain levelheaded in most situations. Paradoxically, he is plagued by a lingering paranoia, driving him to be suspicious of strangers and new areas.

At the root of it all is a sense of world-weariness that has sat with Xaexriuukk his entire life. When he decided to leave Argonia, this world-weariness became an intense irritability that bleeds out to nearly every aspect of who Xaexriuukk is.

_{═══════ B A C K G R O U N D ══════}

It licked the sap and became Xaexriuukk, and the others celebrated with names of their own.

Xaexriuukk's egg-brothers reeked of blood, and he brewed to the best of his abilities. He had heard their mouths drip with accounts of an engagement with Tum-Taleel, but he was taught to mistrust the words of the dying and dead. He poured a potion of healing down one of their throats, one too weak to drink on his own, and watched as the potion sent him into a quiet slumber lasting three days. And then six. And then forever. When his hands were washed, his teacher told him that sometimes these things happen. Xaexriuukk swore that these things would never happen again. Xaexriuukk was young, but older still, when these things happened again. More Tum-Taleel, and less villages. They would never stop happening, but each time he swore that it never would again. When it happened for the sixth time, he considered learning healing magic. When even a basic incantation left him feeling drained, he knew this was not the path. He turned again to alchemy, and with his resolve firmly stead he never strayed again.

There is a single act of help that changed the way Xaexriuukk viewed the world, remembered vividly all these years later. It was years after Xaexriuukk had began wandering when he went to aid, and hopefully cure of her disease, a sickly Miredancer. Apparently her sickness was contagious, but he was certain he could develop a cure if only he saw the symptoms up close. He examined her and began his brew, and when he was hunched over his arrangement - still aligning the calcinator to the proper positioning, with a basic brew bubbling in the retort already - she assaulted him. In the ensuing struggle she nearly bit him, but with some quick thinking on his part he managed to turn the boiling retort into a primitive fireball, and it exploded twice. It was only by the grace of The Atronach did he survive, and even then, grace only went halfway. The first blast left him unharmed, the second burned quite a bit of his body.

The locals helped him into a bath, one which he demanded have any milk available added to it. He flailed as the milk helped to ease some of the more potent alchemical burns, some of the natural magical qualities helping to neutralize some of the worse effects of the imported Imp Gall he had used. While he still retained usage of his legs, they were marred with lingering burns that he never sought help for, and Dances-In-Milk became suspicious, unwilling to help others near as much as he used to. Had he never gone to help in the first place, he might still be the joyous healer he was well on the way to becoming.

By the time Xaexriuukk departed from Argonia, all traces of who he was had faded into his current demeanor, and he mourned as Dances-In-Milk.

Bitterness overtook him and it became his most potent ingredient in his poisons. Brews meant for sickness and death earned him more coin than the ones meant for healing, and each coin was put toward paper he would need to begin his work proper. Aiming to rewrite the Tamrielic understanding of vampirism from the ground up, condeming books such as Immortal Blood as too vague to have been helpful, Dances-In-Milk knew that solid, undeniable truth must be dragged into the light, kicking and screaming as it did.

Dances-In-Milk worked as a researcher for a time, isolating himself in a tower as he studied alchemy once again. This time he focused less on traditional poisons of the Black-Tongues, and more on mastery of his skill. He learned what every ingredient he could get his claws on did, and how to best turn it into a weapon or a shield. He learned how to properly coat blades, how to coat arrows. He learned how to best grind his ingredients, and he learned the best places to get water which wouldn't muck anything up. He became an expert, and was later commissioned by sellswords in Daggerfall to brew them all manner of things.

When a trusted source tipped him off to vampiric lore to be learned in Skingrad, Dances-In-Milk booked the first boat to Anvil he found, finally ready to put pen to paper and drag vampires out into the daylight kicking and screaming.

[Jorick]

Lywend Jeseve

Name: Lywend Jeseve
Race: Breton
Age: 33
Birthsign: The Lover
Family Origins: Shornhelm in High Rock

Appearance:

Image

Image created by sun kai on Artstation.

From a distance, Lywend is nothing impressive to look at and is easily lost in a crowd. He's of normal height for a Breton, he's neither remarkably thin nor obviously overweight, his build would best be described as average, and his dark hair and beard are nothing special. His usual choice of clothing and gear somewhat mitigates his plain appearance: trousers and a long tunic of usually dark or earthy colors, well-worn boots, a blue cloak, a longsword at his left hip, a bow and quiver hanging from his back, and a staff topped by a pink crystal that is never far from his hand. However, there is one feature that clearly stands out to most who get close to Lywend: his eyes. Some would charitably describe them as the eyes of someone wise beyond their years, but the truth is that they are the eyes of a man haunted by his past.

Many people assume Lywend to be much older than he truly is, both because of his eyes and due to some of his odd mannerisms. His actions and responses tend to be just enough on the slow side to make folks think he's being overly cautious or deliberate, like an old man who is nursing so many lingering ailments of age that every movement comes only after bracing for the aches to come. Whenever he's sitting still for any length of time, Lywend more often than not closes his eyes and seems to take the opportunity for a nap, even among strangers and questionable company. He has a rather grandfatherly air about him, despite having no children at all and far too few wrinkles for the title, and more than one traveling companion has taken to calling him 'grandfather' or 'old man' even after learning his true age.

---

Personality: If one were to describe Lywend's general personality in a single word, 'remorseful' would be the best fit. He was once a friendly and almost gregarious man, and in his youth he was considered odd for being very open with strangers and willing to speak about damn near anything, but those who knew him a decade ago would struggle to recognize him now. Even those who have known him for mere minutes can tell that something weighs heavily on him. He isn't especially talkative nowadays, and he often falls into brooding silences, but the careful way he avoids speaking of his past in any detail is the most telling hint of all. Sometimes there's a tinge of anger amongst the sadness, but that usually only comes out when people press him on his past or he's had a bit too much to drink. That anger most often takes the form of severity and imperiousness, hard and sharp words rather than loud words or physical violence, but luckily for him the majority of people write it off as a reasonable response to nosy bastards or Lywend simply being an angry drunk.

Fortunately for those around him, Lywend is not entirely a sad and sullen fellow. When focusing on the problems of others, he comes out of that regretful shell and shows a keen interest in helping others. He's empathetic, gentle, and offers assistance and wisdom wherever he can. While his talents in Restoration magic could fetch a high price, Lywend is content to take merely whatever is offered for his services, and he heals the poor just as readily as the wealthy. Even when he's not specifically helping others, he makes an effort to have a smile and a friendly word or two for anyone who crosses his path, be they beggar or bandit. He has seemingly infinite patience for strange and terrible people, so long as they are not actively seeking to harm him and don't push certain buttons that might rouse him to anger. Lywend also tends to be willing to listen to anyone about anything, generally with his comments coming in the form of nuggets of sage wisdom or advice, and that tends to be the behavior that most often gets people calling him things like 'old man' despite his age.

Those who are highly skilled in reading people can see through the facade, to some degree at least. In both his moods of sorrow and sympathy, almost everything is tightly controlled in some way; only the general politeness and friendly greetings seem to come with the natural smoothness born of long habit. Lywend's behavior always seems to be highly calculated, and practiced enough to fool most people into thinking them to be genuine emotions. People with uncanny levels of insight might see that spite and anger burn hot at the core of these layered falsehoods, but they almost never come close enough to the surface to be glimpsed by most people who cross his path. When those emotions do surface, the imperious and commanding nature of his anger make him seem more an iron-fisted tyrant than a traveling healer until he calms down, which usually happens with the disconcerting speed of a candle being snuffed out rather than the long cooling down time most people require.

---

History: Lywend Jeseve learned magic in his younger years from some of the brilliant mages of High Rock, but he was not content to stay put. At twenty years old, he set out with a group of eager young men and women from his city of birth to find glory and wealth as adventurers, with his job mainly being to keep the others alive with his Restoration magic. They called themselves the Shornhelm Soldiers, and they earned a mildly favorable reputation in the western region of Cyrodiil for their successfully fulfilled contracts to take care of beasts and bandits plaguing the area. That was enough to get them a job from a wealthy Nord merchant in Bruma: rescue his daughter from Daedric cultists who had spirited her away in the night.

That job went very poorly, but in the end it was a pyrrhic victory. Lywend and the single other survivor of the original nine Shornhelm Soldiers carried the merchant's daughter, Birie, safely back to Bruma. While Lywend stayed and nursed her back to health, his remaining companion called it quits on the adventurer's life and went home. Over time, the healer and merchant's daughter developed a relationship, and after the better part of a year spent together while Birie recovered from both physical and mental wounds the pair ran off together in the night to avoid the displeasure of her father.

They only had two years together after leaving Bruma. Birie had some skill with a bow, and so Lywend continued his adventuring life with her at his side, sometimes just the two of them and sometimes joining up with other adventurers when it suited them. That happy life of excitement came to a screeching halt in an unremarkable cave in eastern Hammerfell. The pair had dealt with some ornery beasts, but in the end Birie was left lifeless and bloody in Lywends arms with wounds far beyond his ability to mend.

In the seven years since her death, Lywend has journeyed across Tamriel seeking any magic or miracle that might bring Birie back to life, doing whatever it takes to survive and gain knowledge that might aid him in his quest.

Biggest Regret: Lywend blames himself for Birie's death. If only he'd been better prepared, if only he'd been a better student of the magical arts, she would still be with him. That failure haunts his every moment, both waking and asleep.

Lywend's Goal: Lywend's sole purpose in life now is to find some way to bring Birie back. Not as some mindless corpse, which would be fairly easy, but as a living and breathing woman.

---

Skills:
Expert: Conjuration - Lywend learned much of Conjuration magic from the mages of High Rock, but practical applications and further study have hone his skills considerably.
Adept: Restoration - As with Conjuration, a mix of education, practical use, and independent study.
One-Handed - Taught by his former companions of the Shornhelm Soldiers and used regularly in his adventuring life.
Speech - A natural talent improved by frequent use.
Novice: Alchemy - Learned mainly from books and a little practice, used to supplement his Restoration skills.
Sneak - A simple necessity for an adventurer, learned by trial and error more than anything else.
Archery - Taught to him by Birie, kept in practice more for sentimental reasons than practical reasons.

Spells:

• Dread Zombie (Expert) - Reanimate a corpse into a powerful undead servant.
• Conjure Storm Atronach (Expert) - Summon a Storm Atronach.
• Soul Trap (Apprentice) - Capture a soul to be stored in a soul gem.
• Bound Sword (Novice) - Conjure a magic sword.
• Heal Other (Adept) - Heal other people.
• Close Wounds (Adept) - Heal oneself.
• Greater Ward (Adept) - Surround oneself with a protective shield.

Equipment:

• Staff of Firebolts, looted from a bandit in his early adventuring days.
• Hunting bow and quiver with 16 arrows
• Longsword
• Dagger
• Enchanted amulet (magicka regen), received as a reward from Birie's father for rescuing her.
• 2 potions of Cure Disease (made by Lywend)
• 1 potion of Invisibility (~10 seconds) that also damages magicka (made by Lywend)

Misc. Possessions:

• Standard traveler's gear: a large pack, some clothes, bedroll, waterskin, rations, fire starting kit, and some rope.
• Four soul gems, one filled with a common soul and three empty.
• Mortar and pestle.
• Three books, two filled with writing and one about halfway full.
• A few quills and two bottles of ink.
• Birie's skull and a black soul gem containing Birie's soul, both kept in a cloth bundle tied off with string and securely kept at the bottom of his bag.
• Coin pouch with 28 septims.

[LadyTabris]

Sigri Fire-Caller

---

Art will be here

---

▷ Age: 28
▷ Race: Nord
▷ Birthsign: the Steed
▷ Family Origins: The rural area surrounding Windhelm

---

Sigri is built like a typical Nord woman: sturdy and tall. She stands at 5'11, the shortest of all her siblings. Her build is muscular, especially in her upper body. Her shoulders are broad and her arms strong from years of working a mill and practicing as an archer. Sigri moves fluidly, rarely making an unintentional movement and always aware of her footing from many times spent in rough terrain. This is often reversed in man-made settings, like city streets or tavern floors, where she feels disconnected from her sense of balance just slightly enough that after a couple of drinks, she could be found tripping over chairs in a crowded room. She is most at home with a forest floor or footpath beneath her. Her rough upbringing also left her littered in light scars, though none are so grotesque as to draw attention, many are sprinkled across her fair skin, especially on her arms and legs -- relics from the wilderness rather than battle, as far as can tell.

While too muscled to be considered a conventionally attractive woman, her face has soft features. Her warm, brown, almond-shaped eyes are kind and inviting combined with her round cheeks. Her face looks like that of an even younger woman -- Sigri could have been confused for a child if one judged her by face alone. Her hair adds to the impression. Her brown locks are messy and hardly brushed, though clean, and her natural waves often take over her looks. Her hair is just long enough to tuck behind her ears while hunting or working, but kept too short for proper braiding, which Sigri was never any good at. Even when practicing on her younger sisters, her mother's teachings in that regard never got through to her. She often tucks and un-tucks her hair when uncertain, or pushes it back before beginning a task that requires focus.

Sigri leans towards practical clothing. She doesn’t think about her appearance, but instead prefers to ensure that her clothes don’t get in the way of whatever she’s doing. Often, this means she wears simple travelling clothes, with thick fur or leather for protection. In hotter climates, she would prefer to recklessly forego thicker armour than overheat. She favours browns, and her clothes are often old and worn. Coming from a poor family, Sigri is more accustomed to wearing hand-me-downs and repairing or reusing fabric than buying new.

She had perhaps never worn clothing nicer than a simple dress on special occasions, and was never fond of it, even then. Anything that impedes her movement is bad and a waste of time, she thinks, and it's the same with people who do. As quickly as she would shed fancy clothing or uncomfortable shoes, Sigri would barrel right to the point in conversation. Similarly, she won't hesitate to rip or damage her clothing, despite them being a resource in a way -- something she would usually value -- as the clothes are impeding work. Sigri doesn't hesitate when given a task, and her footing shows it. At any given time, Sigri is ready on her feet; she can rarely be seen leaning, nor sitting or sleeping in a way which can't be quickly stood up from.

The heat is her worst enemy. Coming from an area with such a short summer season, the heat of Hammerfell was nightmarish in comparison. She rapidly strips off layers of clothing when even remotely warm, preferring anything as an alternative to heat. Sigri isn’t very modest, and usually dresses in whatever way is most comfortable or practical at the given time — and she understands nothing about sunburn.

---

Sigri’s rural nordic upbringing shows itself in her mannerisms, and her enjoyment of feasting and drinking. She’s small-town to her core - large cities and travel are filled with wonder for her, since until age 27, she had never left Skyrim, nor been to a city except Windhelm. She is fiercely loyal to friends and family, even if she isn’t with them because of her self-exile.

She typically comes off as jovial, and enthusiastic. Sigri buries her troubles deep. She loves talking about her family, but avoids any mention of her troubles with them as if they would burn her. Like she did when at the College of Winterhold, she makes friends quickly. She engages with others happily, but she rarely develops close relationships. After her experience with her husband, she doesn’t believe in romance. Sigri has never been in love, and doubts her ability to.

Sigri gets along best with others who are commoners, and those who are loud. People who are too refined rub her the wrong way, as she often does them. She holds no ill-will for those who are on the quiet and inconspicuous side, but rather they often find her prodding and joking more irritable, or dislike the attention it attracts.

The Nord feels most at home in the outdoors. She loves hunting, and sharing hunting stories. She feels most alive and most herself when stalking prey, without a building in sight. She also relishes the chance for a good ride on horseback, or a swim. Swimming is one advantage she believes to come out of warm weather. Back home, the water was often freezing for most of the year.

Sigri lacks refine, and femininity. She disdains “softness” and always wants to be recognized as strong and capable. Though she doesn’t realize it, Sigri has always been a caretaker; she always looked after her younger sisters, and later her son. She cares greatly for children, and animals, and likes to help where she is able to make a difference. She often believes her presence is detrimental, so her fashion of helping may appear to be avoiding - like in Jory’s case.

---

Sigri was born to a large family in rural Skyrim. Her parents owned a farm in the area outside of Windhelm - too far for casual visits, but close enough for the occasional business trip with her father. Hafgar and Alga, her parents, had four other living children when Sigri was growing up. The eldest two, her brothers Kari and Eric, were respectively two and three years older than her. Her sisters, Valensa, Sinda, and Ivana, were younger by over 7 years. During the gap, the family suffered a series of miscarriages and infant deaths. Alga held on tightly to all her children because of this, but Sigri, as the youngest during these events, was cherished by her in particular. She was a doting mother to the extreme, always hovering and worrying about Sigri’s scrapes and bruises.

However, Sigri was always a rebellious child. Her mother took her under her wing, teaching her to keep care of the farm household. Helping the rest of her family with the fields was full time work during the growing season, and during the winter months her mother would teach her to care for the household. Though Sigri loved the time spent with her mother, she hated being cooped up. At every opportunity, Sigri would follow her older brothers out to hunt in the winter months, and occasionally during the summer. The neighboring households were mill households, two of which were quite nearby. Frequently, the others in their age group would join in with them and a parent or another for these trips. The community was close-knit.

The seasons were hard on the farm. Sigri never shied away from the difficult work involved, often doing both tasks for her mother inside as well as helping with the more physically extorting outdoor tasks. Despite the work, the harvests were lean and times weren’t easy, especially considering the short growing season. Still, the memories are of a fond childhood.

Things changed when Sigri was about 15. Ulfric Stormcloak changed it; the Civil War broke out. There was a dramatic shift in tone in her life. Her friends spoke more about joining the army than hunting, and the usual concern her mother held in her eyes had turned to a pure fear.

It didn’t take long for her brothers to depart for Windhelm, their friends in tow. Sigri had been the youngest, too young for war, her mother insisted. After the tears pooled in Alga’s eyes, Sigri didn’t mention the idea again.With Kari and Eric gone, and her sisters too young for heavy lifting, the workload was far heavier, leaving Sigri with little time for pleasure — or thinking.

It felt like an extended business trip. At times, her elder brothers, and often their father, would travel so Windhelm for a few nights. It wasn’t until the soldiers arrived home at the end that reality set in. Eric came first, the neighbor friends in tow, but the group was shattered. Only about two thirds of those who left returned.

When her father spotted Eric at the end of their property, Sigri and the rest of her family came running. As they stood at the door, the family could tell one thing: the second figure with him was female. Sigri’s mother reached down and clutched her hand tightly as they came closer. Eric stopped in front of them, and as they met eyes, he shook his head. Kari didn’t made it. Alga let go of Sigri’s hand and rushed to her son, clutching him and sobbing, as Sigri stood numbly in the door.

The woman who returned with her brother was his fiancé, another soldier who was done with war. The community held a funeral for the lost - there had been several others who didn’t return - and then a wedding, a month later.

As the time went on, Sigri waited eagerly for the return of the normalcy she had as a child, of hunting trips and play fighting, of archery practice and family time around the hearth. It never came back. Things because stable, and normal, yet her brother and the others her age weren’t the same. They were somber, haunted, and none interested in the return to old times Sigri desperately desired. With each day, she wished she’d left for war — perhaps if she had been there, Kari would still be around. Perhaps her lost friends would be. Perhaps at least she would understand why things were this way, now. Why everyone seemed older, and she like a child.

The attempt at returning to the way things were lasted only a few years. Just as her brother and his wife expected their first child, Sigri couldn’t stand the loneliness she felt around her own home any longer. She set out to follow the only other opportunity she’d had as a child: magecraft.

When Sigri was 5, she earned her name, Fire-Caller, by accidentally setting a bale of hay on fire. Fire, in particular, seemed to come naturally to her, in a way unlike the rest of her family. They said it came from her grandmother, a mage who had trained at the college, but settled down with her grandfather on the farm later. So, seeking a way to be anything but stuck and isolated in her own life, she left for the College of Winterhold.

Her endeavors at the college lasted 3 years. She became an apprentice, excelling in destruction magic rapidly. She had little talent for much else, as others told her. Sigri had no trouble making acquaintances, yet she found herself missing the comfortable close relationship she used to have with her family. Some relationships came naturally, though she had some conflict with those who were higher-class. In some cases, perhaps they did think they were better than her, but Sigri didn't exactly give them time to show their intentions before making her judgements. No matter how hard she tried at the College, she couldn’t escape her regret for leaving her family behind, a second time after staying behind from war, and eventually made the trek back to her farm.

On the day she returned, her mother greeted her with tears in her eyes and they embraced. She had a new niece and nephew to meet, and her sisters were suddenly grown-up. It felt like everyone had moved on without her, but they were welcoming. Her family even threw a welcome party. They invited all the neighbors. Her childhood friends were adults now, with families of their own. A young man who she’d never liked, someone also stayed home from war since he was just barely younger than her, showed up with flowers in hand. As he stood in front of her, sharing kind words about how he had missed her in front of everyone, she couldn’t decline his flowers. As children, she hadn't liked how soft he was. He never wrestled with her like the others, and he didn't enjoy the blood involved with hunting. However, he appeared to have grown into a strong man, who contributed to his family's mill business well.

His name was Ingvar. As the year went on, Sigri dove back into work with her family, and on the evenings, Ingvar would show up and visit. He often sat with Sigri and her family, doting on Sigri in particular. He was a romantic, but he didn’t make her heart flutter. Each time they went for a walk or a ride, she couldn't help but feel that she humored him. Each time he arrived, her mother’s eyes filled with joy at the prospect of her first daughter starting a family, but Sigri couldn't find the same joy within herself. Ingvar was a kind man, and even if he did anger her, he was always kind in resolving contentions. Whenever she tried to bring herself to turn down his attentions, he would happen to show how he doted on her niece and nephew, found common ground with her family, and she couldn't find it in herself to turn him away, both because of his kindness and effort, and the hope in her mother's eyes.

Though she always felt distance with him, as he was quite different from her, she liked him, and appreciated a lot of the gestures he made with her and her family. Still, when he proposed, with her family around the fire, and said he loved her, she knew she didn’t love him. In her heart, she felt a twinge of guilt as she returned his words of affection. Looking at the expression of hope on his face, and the tears of joy in her mother's eyes behind him, she again couldn't let them down.

They married a few months later, and Sigri moved into the neighboring mill. His family was smaller, yet more successful financially. The house was nicer, though the work was still difficult, and Sigri threw herself into learning the new business immediately. As always, Sigri used hard work to fill her days.

Ingvar's family had suffered losses from the war as well; in particular, the loss of Ingvar’s older brother left a hole in that family. After settling into the mill, her life felt stale, like she simply listed from day to day. The things she enjoyed, hunting in particular, lost their appeal, though she still occasionally went on hunting trips with her brother, the time for those things was more limited, as mill work would continue through the winter.

Things changed when she became pregnant. Her in-laws were delighted. She didn’t know how to feel, at first. Her mother’s miscarriages and stillborns certainly came to mind. She smiled, and went through the motions of expressing her joy, yet she didn’t feel the emotion at first, nor the fear. As the months went on, she began to feel something for the first time in ages. When she final gave birth to a little boy, she loved that child, more than anything she had ever loved in her life.

They named him after Ingvar’s brother, Jory. It was a nickname, but they gave it to their child as a full name, at Sigri’s request. She knew her mother in law was completely destroyed by Jory’s death, and she wanted her child to be his own person. She hoped her in-laws would be helpful, yet in her heart, she just wanted privacy with her son. By the time the child was born, Sigri and her family had their own small house on the property, separate from the main one. For four years, they lived there in a semblance of happiness. In watching Ingvar be a loving father to their child, Sigri warmed up to him more, and she made an extra effort to make him happy. She tried her best, during this time, to be an ideal wife, and even found herself hoping for a second child. Sigri was more like her own mother than she wanted to be: overbearing. But Jory was everything she loved, and she held on too tightly.

When Jory was 4, Ingvar fell sick. Jory went to stay with his grandparents, across the yard, so he wouldn’t catch it, and Sigri cared for him, for several weeks on end. The doting wife in Sigri faded as she spent less time with her son, and she became more aggravated at the differences between herself and her husband, without Jory there to soften her up. Ingvar thought he was on his deathbed at times, and Sigri though there was a chance, too, but he did begin to make his recovery. As Sigri cared for him, they began fighting - Ingvar knew she’d never loved him, but he had loved her from childhood. For days, they began tensely bringing up all the fights they had never had in the years they spent together, dredging up every old issue. The fight, the only one they'd ever had, was fierce and the cruel words Sigri tossed at him were things she would regret forever. During the fight, the hearth fire grew higher until it poured out of the fireplace. It was unintentional, but caught in the moment, she allowed it to continue, not cutting it off where she should have, nor fetching water early enough. Neither the house, nor Ingvar, were saved.

In the end, Sigri and Jory stood hand and hand, looking at the house as it burned.

Afterwards, her in-laws held her as they grieved. Ingvar was too weak to walk, and of course, once the fire was so high. It was late -- they must have been sleeping -- how could she have carried him out? Sigri refused to speak of the specifics of that night, and they never pressed her, believing her to be grieving terribly, though Sigri herself wasn't sure what emotion her tears were coming from. Perhaps the look on her son's face, when he realized his father wasn't going to be well again.

Sigri couldn’t bear to stay on the farm after his death. As she departed, confusing her late husband’s parents and Jory both, she set out about a new existence. She began by hunting again, travelling by wilderness at every opportunity, and journeying into Skyrim’s cities to sell her leftover meat.

Eventually, her skill with a bow grew into mercenary work. She couldn’t face what she had become, travelling gradually further and further from Skyrim, until she found herself in Hammerfell, for only her second job. Once it was finished, Sigri was left with doubts. As natural as brawling and shooting felt to her, she was far more accustomed to her targets being animals than people, and it’s with these doubts that she boards the Kismet.

---

Sigri’s biggest regret is twofold. Firstly, she regrets her feelings surrounding her husband’s death, and feels immense guilt that she could never love him. Secondly, and most importantly, she regrets abandoning her family — first because she didn’t fight with her brothers in the Civil War, and again when she let her son down by depriving him of his parents.

---

Sigri is very much adrift. With the loss of the life she was used to, Sigri has no goal in mind. She is very much running away instead of towards. Deep in her heart, her strongest desire is to be with her son, but she believes she will only do worse by him, and doesn't deserve to be his mother. Therefore, her biggest desire is to prove to herself that somehow, she is a good person, and deserves to return and be a parent to Jory.

---

Expert
▷Archery: having learned to hunt from a young age, Sigri is a masterful marksman with a bow, with a good eye for her prey’s vulnerable points

Adept
▷Destruction: during her time at the College of Winterhold, Sigri honed her abilities wit destruction magic.
▷Athletics: Sigri has lived in rough conditions, doing hard labour for most of her life. She has spent a lot of time trekking in the wilderness, and is used to difficult terrain in particular from her hunting trips - it would be rare to see her trip.
▷Stealth: years of hunting has made it easy for Sigri to remain unseen and unheard, especially in an outdoors setting, where she can use nature’s sounds and foliage to her advantage.

Novice
▷Hand-to-Hand: growing up with as many siblings and friends as she did, Sigri is no stranger to the odd brawl. Sparring with her brothers has accustomed her to fighting in a pinch.
▷Restoration: during her time at the College of Winterhold, Sigri put some training into healing magic, even though her main focus was on destruction — she always wanted to be helpful for more than that.

---

▷Fireball
▷Flame Clock
▷Ice Storm
▷Fire Rune
▷Healing Hands
▷Healing

---

▷ A sturdy hunting bow, well worn and well maintained. Though not of the highest quality, Sigri knows exactly how to aim with it for the most precise shot.
▷ Travelling clothes, with some pieces of sturdy leather armour to go overtop.
▷ An iron dagger, simple and practical, more for everyday use than killing, and often used to skin animals.
▷ A necklace with a bear’s tooth on it, a hunting trophy.
▷ A torn piece of cloth which she wears around one wrist.
▷ A pouch with 75 coins, the pay from the job she just completed.
▷ Her travelling backpack, complete with water skin and some camping supplies for her usual wilderness lifestyle. A few days’ dried meat rations and some bread.
▷ A flask filled with miscellaneous liquor.

[Fetzen]

Ercanoriel

Ercanoriel

Name: Ercanoriel
Race: Altmer
Age: 45
Birthsign: The Lady
Family origins: Alinor (formerly known as the Sumerset Isles)



Appearance: Ercanoriel presents himself with an albedo close to 1 on his skin as if his body has never experienced the sun, his hair represents a purity of whiteness that even the elder can only seldomly hope for or be afraid of. There is as little of this golden hue his kind usually is so fond of as there is color in his eyes, yet he obviously is perfectly alive and of flesh and blood. The latter can be seen flowing beneath his skin im moments of great strain or anger, but even then the inability of his body to produce skin pigments is the dominating factor. Ercanoriel is a natural albino as it occurs only very rarely and it appears he doesn't want to apply any mundane stopgap like warpaint or tattoos to this.

The distinct jawline, the smoothness and purity of his skin and the density with which his head is populated by hairs following the flow of gravity well beyond his shoulders all hide the fact that, though only by a man's and not by an Altmer's standard, he's anything but juvenile anymore. His eyebrows are fully existent, but things like a white-to-white contrast simply cannot be produced so they can hardly be seen from further away. His head puts as much emphasis on vertical elongation in preference of width as does his slender nose, so his pointy and sturdy ears add a very noticeable silhouette of their own along with the extra feature of preventing hair spills into his face. He would grow a white beard, but as long as the circumstances allow for it he keeps his face clean cut.

Altmer are a race standing high quite literally and at 6'11" Ercanoriel is not a humble being. There have been years in his life during which he has tried to dilute his frustration with cheap beverages that only brought headaches and fat on his waistline, but there is no such thing to be seen around him right now. In fact one can see that he is used to wearing and dealing with the heavy stuff: Shoulders that not only seem broad because his neck is not thick, thighs and calves way too powerful for someone who'd rely on magic and ruggedized arms and hands. One probably doesn't want to carry Ercanoriel just in case of what of his elvish speed and dexterity still remain should unexpectedly become completely disabled.



Personality: Ercanoriel's behavior can basically be divided into three different layers stacked on top of each other:

The lowest layer is how he was born, the natural attitude that everybody has and that can only be bent, but never really eliminated. On this layer he is a curious, open-minded person with a generally bright outlook on life. One has to dare something in order to reach something, or, as one would put it in modern, stylish words: No risk, no fun. As such it sometimes can be necessary to try and throttle him down if he feels... well... over-enthusiastic. The thought of natural death is even more of a remote thing for him, maybe simply because it still is so far away for someone of his kind and age. It can be a little startling for other people if they don't immediately recognize that mer, Altmer in particular, live a lot longer. His nature is a rather jovial one, one that knows the meaning of friendship and comradeship in general. Ercanoriel is quite, but not excessively intelligent and can find joy in solving problems, but he can also become very frustrated.

The middle layer has been constructed by how he was raised. A not so obvious but still discoverable thing is that he lacks quite a bit of the degree of education that could be expected from an Altmer. He knows manners and how to behave like a sociable man and has also been equipped with a fair amount common knowledge, but simply never had a good reason to learn that much about the history of his own kind. Also his magical expertise is shockingly lousy for an Altmer, not only practically but also theoretically even though he is far from being too old to change this. His circumstances simply did not allow for a high amount of magical training to take place so what he currently has is mostly based on talent. On the good side of things he was never intoxicated with what many people dislike about Altmers: This high degree of proudness, self-glorification and, put more straightforwardly, arrogance. He lacks those aspects, sometimes even to the point that he noticeably hesitates to clearly point out his opinion and stand behind it with full force. For a major part of his life it counted less then the average after all.

The top layer is his active control that can override many of the underlying aspects in preference of something he makes up just in time. This layer is prone to miss or to make blunders and his case it's also particularly thick.

Ercanoriel is quite aware of the fact that many people have confused him with being living snow elf in the past, something that -- for the lack of real living falmers capable of contradicting him whereever he is -- puts him into the rather unique situation of being capable to define them, their attitude and their habits towards those other people. It is a dubious power he doesn't allow himself to touch unless telling the truth about his albinism really and absolutely is not an option he could get away with halfway unharmed. He has seen the crippled, wicked and miserable beings the falmer are now and feels pity for this extinct kind of mer. However he's also tired of telling the entirity of his story in its truth as quite a considerable fraction of everyday people either lacks the knowledge necessary to fully understand it, is an Altmer him or herself or could just start to make a mock of him and his weird look. People can be silly and his tolerance for more often than not bad jokes about his incredibly pale skin has dropped near to zero up to the point where he'll start to rant in a lecturing manner.

Ercanoriel doesn't stand behind Aldmeri ideals. For him they are a burden, even something that he deems to be in urgent need of reform. The presence of his own people in so many parts of Tamriel doesn't make him happy, but he sees it more as a danger. He'd even be willing to change things a little if he had anything to say on the large scale of politics. But how much of this can he tell about openly without endangering himself ? His confidence in revealing these thoughts depends on where he is and whom he's speaking to, so the answers given by him can vary greatly.



History: If Ercanoriel had been born among the naturally pale Nords his albinism would likely have been a mild annoyance. If he had joined the living in the regions of Vvardenfell or Hammerfell he might have been regarded, maybe despised as an aberration along with having problems with the sun. Existence would have been similarly special in the remaining core regions of the empire, but being 'gifted' with this otherweise pretty harmless defect in the middle of the Altmer society can be pretty much equivalent to reactor meltdown. Whether claims that the Altmer would dispose of many of their own children if they don't fit their idea of 'racial purity' are the truth or just propaganda created by those who dislike them is up to debate, but there is no way to deny that their will to preserve the appearance of their ancestors is particularly strong. In other words: Ercanoriel's parents knew instantly that they had given birth to a not-yet-walking, but all the more screaming and hungry disaster.

While momentarily agreeing upon hiding the birth of their son the best they could, the relationship between Ercanoriel's parents ultimately did not survive the struggle that broke out between them after that: His father was a not entirely unimportant participant in the business of internal politics and as such his entire income and social status was highly dependent upon his reputation. In his mind losing it was simply unaffordable, but still he wanted Ercanoriel to live. The solution he came up with was the idea of putting him up for adoption somewhere else in the world. They had enough money, they had a whole Aldmeri alliance between Alinor, Elsweyr and Valenvald to search for potential candidates that would take care of their child far away while they could state towards their Altmer friends that there was no more danger of Ercanoriel's bloodline feeding back into the core of the Altmer population. His mother however expressed her desire to move the entire three-person household away from the island in order to maintain direct control -- after all there was the white gold concordate making becoming an inhabitant of another part of Tamriel and finding work for Altmers easier than before.

Ultimately they decided to part ways in a peaceful manner. Ercanoriel's father stayed back on Alinor while his mother moved with their son to Valenwald. Much to Ercanoriel's fortune all of this happened in a very early stage of his development when his mind was not yet able to grasp the full extent of what was going on. While his present day ego is perfectly aware of those events, the fact that he could only see his father on seldom and very discrete occasions did not have that much of an impact on his development. The young Ercanoriel just never knew what a father's presence meant: For him the word 'father' is defined much more on the cognitive level and seeing the physical incorporation of it was quite a bit more like seeing a very close relative.

Still there was no lack of problems: Ercanoriel's skin could be protected from sunlight by the dense forest of Valenvald, but being called a 'Falmer twerp' by those who wanted to refer to both it and the often attributed arrogance of an Altmer at the same time became a bit uncomfortable. Only having a substandard number of friends becoming a loner was partly unavoidable. Also Ercanoriel found himself in a dilemma situation: As an Altmer he had a great theoretical affinity to magic, but practically the resources available to teach him how to use his full potential were severely limited without returning to Alinor. On the other hand there was no way he could ever hope to keep up with a Bosmer's talent for stealth and agility in general. He was a ship thrown onto land that was supposed to grow several legs and start crawling away from the sea that would never return. And why ? Because of a bit of color, or rather the general attitude of many of his own people that the lack thereof could hardly be tolerated.

The ship wouldn't grow legs for years to follow... Instead it gently slipped into the murky, acid pond that was a mixture of cheap beer and self-hatred. Valenvald wasn't Skyrim, but it still had enough taverns for him to stop listening to the calming words of his mother and to simply let go of himself. He devolved into an even more lously representative of the prould Altmer, grew a stomach and adopted a shabby appearance and attitude in general. That was until the very organization showed up that had just run out of Stormcloaks to punish and of Blades to execute: the Thalmor.

It was a perfectly routine patrol with no particular goal except for checking if everything was alright, but once they entered the main hall and spotted the drunk and (in their eyes) misbehaving albino who was too tall and pointy-eared to be anything else than an Altmer he had their attention. Asked to get out for some 'questioning' he resisted in a flamboyant move -- a little too flamboyant for the Thalmor agents. Ercanoriel's memory cuts off the moment he saw other patrons joining the developing brawl, probably making things worse not only for themselves. It restarts with a very bad headache, in a rolling cage.

The ship had sunk and hit the seafloor, hard. In retrospect however coming so dangerously close the furnace at the bottom of the destillation tower that society felt like only helped to propel his subsequent ascent to heights not reached before. Humble heights, but still...

Elcanoriel was being transported away from Valenvald and well into the cold and every-snowy climate of Skyrim. He never found out why the Thalmor had made the decision to do this, but the truth was a mixture of bureaucracy, management and a cunning decision: Due to the sun never reaching that high up in the North the Nords are a rather pale kind of people themselves, so disposing of an Albino there would be less of a shame for the Altmer nation. After all Elcanoriel had committed a crime far too petty to be punished with a death sentence, so he was banned from Alinor and forbidden to marry any of his own kind. Both things couldn't have hurt him any less than they did. At this point of time the thought of doing any of those two things would never have crossed Ercanoriel's mind. As an added bonus now it was at least official, something that could be looked up in the records so they'd already know him or so he at least hoped. He had not told any of his parents names and after decades of living in Valenvald the Thalmor also failed to find the link between him and his true origins.

Still he had to stay in prison for a while. The other inmates he ended up with in an anonymous cellar were a bunch of adventurers that had specialized in making their living by going from place to place and scavenging dwemer ruins for everything that looked like it could be sold to somebody. They always traveled together, so when it was found out that one of them was a follower of Talos they all had been put into arrest in order to watch the man's execution. Ercanoriel left prison together with the adventurers and some of them were curious about this pale mer. He could not truly fight yet, but that could be changed. These damn dwemer constructs often were a little resiliant to magic anyway, so why not go full melee ? The overall stature was good for that and they could use a guy who could trample on those pesky dwemer worker spiders... And on the transition from one ruin to the other there'd be ample time to train him. Ercanoriel could see the unique opportunity: He'd finally excel at something instead of being regarded as substandard, unsuitable or whatever other damn reason people could come up with, even if the circle of people he could compare himself against would be a quite small and ragtag one.

It is safe to say that he has gained the vast majority of his current fighting proficiency thanks to those people. Also seeing the famous dwemer homes from inside himself was a bit of an eye-opening experience. While he started to lose his self-hatred when first successes started to roll in his disliking for his own kind only increased. The dwemer had never been afraid of crossing thresholds, good and bad ones alike. So how were Altmer supposed to develop further if what they seemed to be best at apparently was conserving what had already been existing hundreds of years ago ? Also, to be quite honest, magic seemed to have a quite potent counterpart in technology. Too bad that those truly creating it have vanished.

Ercanoriel still is a member of this adventurer's group, but he currently is on a bit of an hiatus that isn't meant to last very long. The means of transportation for this little vacation happens to be the Kismet.



Biggest regret: It had been his father's own decision to see him only very seldomly, also he has not played that much of a role in his life. But what about his mother ? Since the Thalmor had never found out about this family bond and Ercanoriel had ended up in Skyrim she, up to this point, probably doesn't know why he never returned home. Ercanoriel knows that and he also knows that, on the bottom line, he's the culprit and this time his appearance is not an excuse.



Ercanoriel's Goal(s): Luckily Altmer live a lot longer then men, so there's still plenty of time to fix his regret, even if he can't prevent it from ever happening in the first place. However maybe even stronger than this is his hidden desire to kick the asses of a certain kind of people at least metaphorically: his own. If those dwemer were able to map the skies, to make holographic projections, to create walking, almost living machines that work up to this day couldn't there be something left undiscovered that could fix a certain cosmetic issue ? Or at least hide it so profoundly that he can go back to Alinor and laugh at all those bootlickers as they fail to see his true nature anymore. Some other fancy thing that he could use to turn the table and have some fun instead of being the sport himself would also be good though, though not the best.



Expert skill: Two-handed
Up to the point when Ercanoriel joined the adventurer's group he had had no very particular reason to learn any combat skill that works in a lethal manner. Punishing any of those who had insulted, annoyed or outright discriminated him in the past with death would have helped to lessen his inner pain, but also put himself into the grave very fast. Facing the rough environment of dwemer ruins however he had to learn something, anything, fast. Magic would not have done particularly good against dwemer constructs. Mer normally are fast and agile, but Altmer are not that good in that respect due to their height and Ercanoriel happens to be quite a giant. So he tried out a style that would not require him to present any of those feats, a style that would exchange agility for range and dexterity for the power of power. He has developed a quite massive lot of strength that can compensate for other deficiencies in his method that are rather obvious for others, especially martial artists.


Adept skills:

• Archery: A result of his prolonged stay in Valenvald. He has tried it, but never mastered it so far. It is an alternative skill in Ercanoriel's repertoire that he can use in case someone happens to have a bow and arrows around. He doesn't burden himself with these normally.
• Illusion: A natural choice for someone who has a strong desire to hide something about himself, but unfortunately permanently changing one's skin color is not part of the art, at least as far as it has been accessible to him outside of Alinor.
• Destruction: As much as he could learn it in Valenvald, primarily based on natural talent due to his Altmer origins.

Novice skills:

• Blacksmithing
• Restoration
• Alteration

Spells:

• Illusion: Muffle, Rally
• Destruction: Chain Lightning, Flame Cloak, Firebolt
• Restoration: Healing
• Alteration: Candlelight

Equipment:

• Two-handed steel axe
• Steel plate armor (full set)
• Set of 'civil' clothes. Not the cleanest, quite a little worn out but definitely preferrable to walking around in armor all day long. For what it's worth mentioning he is very fond of a thick, black cloak with a hood that is purely meant to protect his skin from as much sunlight as possible as he naturally gets sunburnt extremely easily. Function is more important than looking like some sort of monk.
• Food and water for two days -- one can never now how good a ship's cook is in advance, right ?
• Misc: A few septims that might get him over another four days or so after the ship's arrival at its destination and of course a rucksack where he can carry all the loose stuff around.