Basic information:
Name: Jorwen, those who know him from his Stormcloak days call him Red-Bear.
Race: Nord
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Birthsign: Warrior
Place of Origin: Used to live in a tailor's shop in Whiterun. Now lives with the mercenaries.
Appearance:
Jorwen stands at a slightly above average 6 feet and 4 inches for a Nord, with limbs thick but not too thick with muscle. He moves very deliberately, with no wasted energy until trouble comes knocking. He keeps his beard at a reasonable length. The ability to do violence is one his fellows have not seen of him yet if they have not served with him along his long career as a fighter, but his quiet demeanor betray his status as a man known to be ready and willing when trouble turns its head. Tall, thick with it, and armed with a great red rug of frowning beard you'll know just how he came to be known as Red-Bear, though you'd never know he's somewhat more coward than hero, and wishes he was more the tailor than the soldier.
Background: Jorwen was born in Whiterun to a father who’d taken up tailoring like his father before him. His mother had died giving birth to him, but his father, Hurren, did not blame him for that. If anything, it made him love him more, being his only son and heir. It was an unremarkable life he led for most of it, trundling along through the years learning how to sew and helping to run the family shop with his father. It was around his tenth birthday that his father had first become sick with a flux, becoming bed-ridden and twig-thin from the sickness, he was quite ignobly being carried to death on a river of his own shit. Many of the townspeople of Whiterun turned up their noses at the sight of Jorwen and the tailor shop because of his father's illness, superstition running rampant in Nordic culture spreading the whispers that if anyone went to Hurren's shop would in turn be passed the illness as if it was a curse. Jorwen did not go unteased whenever he'd show his face on the streets to try to buy something to help ease his father's pain, if only for a few short hours in a painful haze of several more besides.
His skills as a tailor would not, however, come in handy when the legion pressganged him into service and sent him south to the fray, spear and shield in hand with barely a few hairs on his chin yet. Thankfully, being only thirteen meant that he was relegated to the duties of bugler and would mend shirts and armor on the side using what was taught to him by his father in Whiterun. It turned out that being on campaign with the legion may not be so bad after all, leastways, he wouldn't have to use the spear and shield they gave him, being a bugler and a tailor. He honed his skills whenever they'd stop for a rest, but it wasn't until they'd crossed through Pale Pass and into Cyrodiil proper that he'd get a taste of what it is really to be in the legion. On one night, laying down to sleep, he was awoken by a scuffling all around. Next came the shouting and then the screaming, and the sound of metal clashing with metal in a grand melee. He couldn't see a thing as the Dominion's Khajiiti auxiliaries swept through the camp in their raid. Picking up a dropped sword from a man whose shirt he'd thought he once mended on the road, he earned the ire of four Khajiit for simply being on the wrong side. Not to be deterred by such trivial things as the morality of killing thirteen year olds, the Khajiit came at him.
It was a stalwart legionnaire who came to his aid who dispatched of three of his attackers, while the fourth lay wounded. While Jorwen hid, and beyond a doubt had pissed his pants and not been stabbed as he'd found, he sprang out from behind the bushes and stabbed his opponent. Instead of a Khajiit impaled on his blade as he hoped, it was the same legionnaire who'd come to his aid. All the man offered in return was a whimpering 'Oh.' He fell dead and Jorwen was given the credit for killing his four Khajiiti attackers, found with their bodies strewn about him when the commanding Praefect had rallied a defense and pushed back the raid and sent them scurrying back into the night. Deemed too useful in a scrap, they put him in the front rank and threw a sword in his hands. It was in the combat arm of the legions proper that he fought alongside a man named Ulfric Stormcloak, who distinguished himself in service to the Empire alongside his fellow nords from the Northern legions of the Empire.
Through battle after battle, they fought, and many of his friends died along the path. Through blood, he was hardened into the man he is today. The fighter's path took him through countless skirmishes and raids both in the dead of night and in broad daylight, where he learned how to sneak and to fight an enemy that was stronger but more fixed than he was. On one such raid, things went awry. In the panic, the raid was broken and scattered, resulting in their capture. Thankfully, on the second night of their captivity, they managed to cook up a plan between them and he and five others managed to slip their bonds and escape. Things weren't so smooth though, as a sentry was alerted and managed to kill one of his five fellow escapees and wound him by stabbing him in the chest. He counts himself lucky, though, because he escaped with his life with nothing to show for it but a now faded scar and a cough that acts up when he's forced to get too lively in his old age.
Rejoining his unit as a more hardened man, he participated in a two-day battle outside of Anvil. It was back-and-forth, with a night raid almost taking the commannding Legate's life before they captured and killed the intruders. The day after, they managed to catch the Dominion's charge on the center flank before withdrawing and encircling the tired attackers and their inexperienced commander, crushing what they thought was all of the defenders. They marched on, sure in their victory and foolishly sure they were going to liberate Anvil. On the third day of the march, they were caught unaware in a bloody ambush that broke his unit almost completely. Reeling from the defeat, they retreated to the Great Forest to lick their wounds. Not content with sitting and waiting, the dregs that were left of his unit that hadn't deserted went back to mounting night-time raids on Dominion forces, being largely successful in their endeavors and giving Jorwen great experience in guerrilla warfare. This is also around the time that he took up the use of a larger blade as he grew taller and thicker.
Six times, they'd managed to beat back Dominion counter-raids and crush supply caravans before they'd worked up the courage to try bigger targets. They'd studied the guards' patterns, their changes of shift, everything about their schedule. Finally, after three nights and two days of planning, they were ready. They crept through the fortified encampment of Fort Ash, killing the sentries and then slitting the commander's throat and all his staff in their sleep. They left their bodies naked and piled for the crows before setting fire to their supplies and vanishing, leaving the defenders with the memory and all who heard the stories with the fear of them. Alas, war would not last, and the signing of the White-Gold Concordat would come after the battle of the Red Ring. Jorwen would put up his sword and his band would scatter to the four winds, some going to banditry and selling their swords, others doing the same as him and going home.
No longer a soft-bellied, twig-thin boy, he returned home to Whiterun after the war in time to learn of his father’s death. He found a wife in a local farmer's daughter named Halla and settled down with her, fathering a daughter. He took over the family business but it wasn't the booming return to tailoring he wanted. Not only had his father died, but he'd died leaving him with empty coffers and racked up debts as his inheritance. He became angrier by the day as he struggled to recall how to run a business, trying desperately to salvage the situation for the sake of his family, but still not knowing how to go back to being the man he was during peacetime or before any idea of picking up the sword in war was a thing to him. It wasn't easy, but he'd barely kept the store afloat for another month before Ulfric and his host came to Whiterun. He picked up his sword, wanting to get some kind of pay for some kind of work he could do and they welcomed a man with experience like his. With a kiss from his wife and the memory of the shape of his little daughter in his arms they marched west into the Reach and turned away Reachman war parties like great waves breaking on the rocks. Once they came to Markarth and broke open the gates, they surged forth in a great red wave of rape and slaughter. Jorwen watched on with disgust but knew he was here for another kind of thievery. He may have been beyond taking the innocence of their wives and daughters, but he wasn't so above taking their gold and silver.
He told himself that this was it and he'd return home after, but it was a weak promise. He turned away from his path and instead took to raiding the Reachmen for everything they had after he and a few of the men splintered away from the main force. They killed, robbed and burned both hostile and neutral Reachmen communities for nothing but sport and plunder. It was Jorwen's darkest days, indeed. Ones he does not like to remember, but his conscience forces him to dream of on cold nights and punishes with coughing fits now in his old age. Old wounds leeching his strength, the only reward for men like him. The only thing deserved. It was on one week where one of Ulfric's lieutenants caught up with them and managed to turn them back on the path. They marched back to Windhelm and soon enough, Jorwen was wearing Stormcloak blue for a time, spilling Imperial blood as one of Thane Aelfgar’s housecarls, the same uniform he used to wear now one he hunted and killed. In the Civil War, there was no lack of blood for him, as he led the Imperial contingent that set upon him on a merry chase through the frozen countryside and six times beat them back before breaking them wholly in a night-raid, of which he'd had plenty behind him but no longer held the same thrills now that his enemies were what he used to be.
Once Ulfric died of suspicious circumstances and the rebellion had ended he left service with the Stormcloaks and returned to Whiterun to settle down to find Halla had left with his daughter, no longer liking the bitterness of a missing husband and absent father. He stayed in the quiet life for a time. Still, nothing was the same for him despite it all. It was as if he saw strangers wearing the clothes of the people he once knew. Something haunted him through restless nights and stormy days. His conscience doesn’t float as well as some others, but he knows that old horses can’t jump new fences, so when the tax collector came around for the last time and took away the tailor shop from him and left him destitute, he knew only one other thing he was good at. He signed on to the mercenary company and was placed under Ashav, far away from the front, and he counts himself lucky for that at least, for he doesn’t know if he can still stand to lose any more friends or end any more lives. He’d much rather mend some holes in the men’s clothes than use his blade.
Personality: Jorwen is a Nord’s Nord, some say. A straight-edge, loyal to his crew and never looking for trouble. He is a patient man who, despite all appearances and past exploits, would rather everyone be able to go home to their families rather than wade knee-deep in each other’s blood. That said, if trouble starts up, he won’t hesitate to stand shoulder to shoulder with his people. Killer, soldier, comrade, he is a man, and can laugh and talk and smile. He never blames the coward for being one, the Gods know he is in some repsects, he blames them for showing it. So far, the only people who’ve seen him at his lightest took the memory of Jorwen’s smile to the grave, many of them lie in Falkreath’s cemetery and it’s a place he never gets to visit anymore being so far away from Falkreath. Beneath all of this, or perhaps laid over it like a shield, he’s steadfastly loyal to those he fights with, and will make sure the outfit he’s in sticks together when trouble comes around.
Capabilities:
Skills: Expert (Two-Handed Blade, Tailoring)
Apprentice (Marksman, Light Armor, Sneak)
Novice (Acrobatics, Athletics, Hand to Hand)
Physical Weaknesses: A bad sounding cough wreaks havoc on his lungs and often wakes him up from sleep. He’ll say he’s fine, which he is for the most part, but the cough is from a spear wound in his chest that never really healed right. Because of this, he isn’t going to be running any long distances.
Non-physical Weaknesses: A family curse prevents the male members from harnessing magicka due to low levels in comparison to others. It skips a generation and guess where Jorwen falls.
Relations to Other Characters: Complete stranger
Affiliation(s): Former Stormcloak and before that, a loyal legionnaire with service in the Great War. He never bought into the hate for the Dunmer some have taken on, and holds no illusions that men or elves are better than either, seeing atrocities done by both.
Spells (if any): None
Combat Style (or the Lack of): In his prime, Jorwen was a force to be reckoned with and a man who men reckoned was half bear, and who even was rumored to have strangled the bear for the fur he wore as a cape on his old Stormcloak armor. His skills with the two-handed sword were unmatched in his youth, but while he can’t quite keep up with the youngbloods anymore, he still knows the dirty tricks of fighting and has twenty-some years of experience walking the fighter’s path. Being a wielder of a large two-handed blade like his, he is a master of fighting off multiple opponents and used to being a frontline combatant. It doesn’t mean he likes being there, but he’ll do it for the men at his shoulder. It doesn’t hurt also being a seasoned guerrilla fighter with no lack of night-raids and ambushes under his belt, he’s used to stalking through forest and swamp, blending in with the trees around him.
Other Capabilities: Excellent tailor. Really does like tailoring more than fighting, as he grew up heir to the family tailors but had to leave that life behind when the call to arms was heard one fateful day, and for good now that the tax collectors have taken his shop.
Inventory:
Cash: 50 septims to his name, the reward for signing on.
Keys and Lockpicks: The key to his family shop, the key to his chest of tailoring supplies
Clothing and Armor: Clad in deer-skin trousers with wolf skin chausses for a hardier pant, wears a basic dirty blue long-sleeve cloth shirt with yellow trim as well as a fur-lined wool cloak with a hood and fur around the shoulders. While in combat, he dons a padded cloth arming coat with a chainmail shirt and a simple steel helmet with a noseguard and is never seen without his red Phrygian cap.
Weapon and Ammunition: The same two-handed sword, a long single-edged chopping blade, that he carried for years through service both to the Empire and to Ulfric, nicked, pitted and notched with years of hard use. Keeps a useful collection of six knives about his person. One is a big bone-handled chopper almost big enough to be a shortsword, the rest steadily grow smaller from that to a little knife with a blade no longer than a man's finger.
Potion and Arcane Supplies: None
Jewelry and Novelty Items: A leather roll of different sewing tools. Wears his wife's old Fighter's Guild ring on a chain
Books and Documents: A copy of his contract
Food, Drinks, Provisions: A glass flask of Solitude whiskey, a waterskin, ten large strips of cured meat
Bags, Pouches, Packs: A rucksack filled with the above items
Other: Bedroll and blanket
