" 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"
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53 | ♂ | Dunmer
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Farmhand, Mercenary, and Impersonator
▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S
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► 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
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► 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?"
