Name
Tylan Hall
Gender
Male
Race
Human
Profession in the Castle
Hunter. As a navigator who knows stealth like a brother, Tylan could be considered a veteran smuggler in the castle, who steals out into the night, and returns only when he has chests of vied for commodities and the sharp salty scent of sea spray on his skin and in his hair.
Gang
Unaffiliated
Description
Tall, thin, and reedy, Tylan is extremely light – both on his feet and in terms of weight – with a mop of brown, unruly curls crowning his head. He is agile, with sinewy muscles and unadvertised strength. His eyes are a silver-green, flecked with blue, very much like the hue of the oceans he has cast his gaze over for years thus far.
Personality
Tylan is not always what he seems. He can appear mischievous, bordering on childish. His behaviour is not malevolent, but rather chaotic. Energetic, he comes across as high-spirited with his laughter and smirks. However, Tylan is just as likely to be chuckling at a joke, as he is to be scanning his companion for chinks in the armour, opportune for a dagger in the back. Innately dark-humoured, Tylan is – in reality – discerning and brooding, but does not oft give the impression of being anything other than immature.
Untrusting, and skittish around the strange, Tylan does not lend his loyalty easily, and will erect a fortress of suspicion around himself that takes twice as long to dismantle as it does to build. Similarly, Tylan is not to be trusted wholeheartedly. He will avoid base treacheries where possible, but should push come to shove, his survival will still take precedence over all else. This trait might make him selfish, and a craven, but it preserves him. His juvenility is for the most part deliberate and exaggerated, a constant dramatic performance. Tylan is no fool, but acting as one has given him the occasional advantage, that he plays to the fullest. Behind the japes and façade, Tylan is intelligent, cunning, and prone to the occasional moment of sobriety and generosity.
History
Tylan is a baseborn lad, son to a whore. Bastards aren’t few and far between, but the shame they bear upon their names like a cross above their hearts can be potent enough to follow them through their lives. The brothel his mother resided in was located just to the side of the harbour that was his birthplace, and Tylan’s earliest memory as a tyke was of him dodging around merchants’ stalls and crates of fish. He remembers toddling up a damp wooden plank, feeling it rocking beneath his feet, only to be plucked up by the armpits. The well-meaning sailor didn’t want to contend with barely-whelped stowaways, but Tylan needed only to flash a precocious smile for the sailor’s resolve to dissolve. Few ships at the harbour could close themselves to a young boy with harmless flashing eyes since. Tylan feels most at home onboard any deck, and learnt that day to beguile and charm to attain his whims.
His mother has long since passed, but Tylan found unlikely kin among the sea-bound. They entertain his company when they stop at port; bring him trinkets, and bawdy raucous stories of battle, trade, and women from far-away lands. When he was eleven he sailed for the first time on a maiden voyage. Though the journey was to a neighbouring port, and no further, it thrilled Tylan to no end. The rock and lull of the boat, the icy spray of the sea: he loved it all, and spent the next five years learning from the most lucrative of traders, pirates and smugglers how to man a ship, learning the ropes with deft hands.
Soon, he joined their ranks, as young as a stowaway, and was just as often steering the ships as he was cleaning their decks, until the pirates all agreed he was old enough when he reached his thirteenth name day to be called a man. Tylan quickly became recognised on the seas as a boy pirate with no peach fuzz to speak of, and merchants on raided galleys who first saw him often laughed, until they gurgled on their blood when their throats were deftly slit, or punctured by his spear. Like the band of smugglers he sailed with, Tylan knew no compunction or mercy, only the joy of loot and bounty after a successful raid. As he grew holder, they became more frequent, until Tylan all but forgot the bitter taste of a failed ambush.
Combat Proficiency
Knife-Handling (Master) – From deftly sawing through fisherman’s rope, to cleanly slitting a throat, Tylan knows intimately how to arm himself with daggers and knives. He isn’t half-bad at throwing them either, and his aim is something to boast of.
Spearing (Expert) – Lighter than swords, but with a greater reach, the spear is no stranger to Tylan, who has found the weapon practical on both land and sea. Tylan has speared fish-bellies for dinner before when he tired of maritime provisions and rations, and has fended off his share of incensed merchants in the markets with the nearest object – often a long skinny stick, abandoned by passing visitors. He knows how to flick his wrist just right to land a blow that thwacks against his opponent’s side, and how to drive the butt of the spear into another’s ribs and steal his air. He can also twirl a spear expertly behind his back, but that particular skill is reserved for cocky show-offs.
Archery (Intermediate) – Tylan did not spend much time on land, but half of it was devoted to learning archery from a kindly traveller who frequented the ports once a full moon. He favours his blades, but the utility of a bow and arrow is not lost upon him. Even now, he retains a bowman’s skills.
Combat Flaws – Suited for nimbleness and haste, Tylan does not have the strength to wield or swing a sword for long. Shove a longsword into his hands and he is like to bleed before the fifth cut. Wounds sustained in battle will also take their toll on Tylan, whose health is admittedly not the strongest, which is why his defensive stance surpasses his offensive.
Magical Abilities
NA
Skills
Sailing (Master) – Tylan is most at home aboard a ship’s deck. He has sailed the far seas, knows of many a shipman’s tale, and can don a sailor’s tongue when it befits the situation. His stomach is iron-cast as well when he rides the waters, and seasickness does not plague him. He can scale a ship-mast as well as a squirrel shimmies up a tree, and is easily mistaken for a monkey when he leaps from the ropes and riggings of a ship. Challenge him on a deck and he will likely toss you overboard.
Equipment
Rows of daggers lined like teeth in sheaths on a belt that hangs lopsided on his waist. He is no highborn lady, but that belt is the finest stitch-work Tylan has ever produced, and to take it away from him would incur his wrath like no other. Tylan also greatly favours the spear he keeps with him often. It is almost as long as he is tall, and when placed butt to the floor reaches past his shoulder. With a narrow varnished wooden shaft and a metal head Tylan finds soothing to sharpen and oil, the spear can be commonly found strapped to his back, slanted at an angle so as to prevent it from getting entangled between his knees.
Other
