Name:
Grindan
Appearance:
Grindan is a sturdy, towering figure of a man; The result of a lifetime of working the forge of a blacksmith and employing the various tools of his trade as an executioner demanded and rewarded a high degree of raw physical might. A number of scars mark his arms and hands, alongside some long faded but still deep markings that linger upon his back that are distressing to the eye. Never a handsome man to begin with, Grindan's nose has clearly been broken a number of times and a number of his teeth knocked out or poorly removed which has resulted a rather ugly example of the hylian race.
While he shaves his head bald, Grindan's natural hair color is a light brown/chestnut. His eyes are a dull jade.
Gender:
Male
Race:
Hylian
Background:
Grindan was originally born in one of many small villages that dotted the landscape of Hyrule. He was born the son of the village blacksmith Axton and his supportive wife Amber, but despite the efforts of the local healer Amber passed away several days after giving birth due to complications. The slow and painful death of his wife changed Axton for the worst; He had never been the kindest of men and he was well known for being something of a strict taskmaster, but Amber had been able to coax a degree of softness and restraint from her husband that kept him from being too overbearing in regards to his fellow villagers. With the light of his life gone, Axton became harsh and cold to his fellow hyrulians... the most often focus of his attention being his son.
Throughout Grindan's childhood, his father was a distant figure who expected a high standard from him and was difficult to please because of it. When the standard for normal was set to 'great' by default, good was never good enough while poor work was badly punished. While nothing out of the ordinary when he was small, as he grew older Grindan's punishments tended to get more physical in nature once Axton believed his son was old enough to know better and could take those kinds of things. His nose was broken a number of times and the scars on his back remain decades later.
Axton wanted his son to grow up into a strong man that people could depend on when times were tough. To this end, Grindan was trained to follow his father's footsteps as a blacksmith... and how to use some of the weapons that they made in order to defend their home from the odd monster or bandit. The first time that Grindan took a life as part of the village militia, his father took him aside to let him know just how proud he was of him. It was one of the few times in his life that Grindan actually received his father's approval and it would remain one of his most treasured of memories.
Then the war came and ravaged Hyrule. Grindan's village was not spared the horrors of the conflict as it was attacked, pillaged and left a smoking ruin fairly early on, with most of the population slaughtered in the process. Grindan was able to fight his way out, creating a brief opening which allowed a few other lucky villagers to escape from the carnage but to his knowledge they were all that had managed to escape. His home destroyed, his father and few friends dead, Grindan did the only thing he believed he could do under the circumstances; He sort out the other side of the war in order to offer his services. This would put him in the service of the King of Hyrule.
While the King's army could always use another solder, the truth was that Grindan's skill as a blacksmith actually made him more valuable as a smith then as a solder. His combat ability were refined during his free time due to the fact that this was a war and sometimes things happened, but for the most part he was kept away from combat and served in a supportive role. Grindan might have remained solely in the role of a blacksmith... but fate offered him an opportunity to sate his desire for vengeance and blood when a call went out looking for executioners.
While enemy solders were prime candidates for the chopping block, noose or whatever method of death was deemed suitable to be employed, the upswing of banditry and other crimes because of the war resulted in harsher punishments for those crimes and a need for people willing to carry out such harsh punishments in the King's name... and Grindan quickly became one of them. He quickly gained infamy as an executioner due to a few factors. The first was the fact that while most people would attempt to make the execution as quick and painless as possibly out of a sense of humanity, Grindan had no qualms about using more torturous methods of execution and would often ask the powers that be if they wanted the condemned to go out relatively quick and easy or slow and painfully.
The second was his habit of taking the bones of his victims to grind into powder and use as a component in his blacksmithing. His father had taught him how using bone powder mixed with iron tended to make the end result stronger and lighter, through back in those days they had used animal bones. The decision to use the bones of his victims was as much a pragmatic choice to make use of all the resources on hand as it was a decision to make being sent to the executioner a more daunting prospect. These habits did not make him popular, but his new dreadful reputation did lead him to being introduced to another agent of dread that the King employed.
Ganondorf and Grindan got along swimmingly from the moment they met. While the realities of war and their respective duties meant that they didn't spend to much time together, they quickly developed a friendship built on a mutual respect of the power that burned like a dark, twisted flame they could see within each other. It wasn't strange for Ganondorf to request Grindan's presence in his forces, often finding a use for his friend's special breed of controlled, brutal sadism.
After the war, Grindan remained as a servant of the Crown in both his roles as blacksmith and executioner. He was even granted the title of Royal Executioner by the King for his services in the war... but the reward was somewhat lacking. The position was not a noble title and it was made very clear to him that as far as the nobility was concerned, he was little more then a monstrous peasant that performed the thankless task of cleaning up the prisons.
Serving for a number of years and entering his late twenties to mid thirties (he honestly wasn't exactly sure how old he was anymore himself due to the chaos of time), when his old friend Ganondorf quietly picked his thoughts about a change in Hyrule's leadership Grindan was more then happy to support Ganondorf's coup. Not only did he prefer Ganondorf to the King in general (Not that the King was bad, just that he liked Ganondorf better), but Ganondorf's promise that the position of Royal Executioner would become much more important and respected in
his future court then it was currently was more then enough to secure Grindan's loyalty.
Once King Ganondorf secured the crown, Grindan happily got to work in dispensing the justice of the new order of Hyrule, starting by marching on Hyrule Castle Town and serving as Judge, Jury and Executioner in purging it of those deemed loyalists to the former royal family. The fact that it was such a hotbed of dissent against the new regime that in the end it needed to be burned to the ground and left to be infested by redeads after justice had been done and the purge was complete was merely seen as necessary measures.
Royal Executioner Grindan has been kept rather busy by his new master since then... and he couldn't be happier.
Alignment:
Dark
Likes:
Killing
Blacksmithing
Cream filled pastry and baked goods in general
Dislikes:
Weakness (Both physical and emotional)
Spicy food
Self Righteous People/Hypocrites
Skill:
As to be expected from the Royal Executioner, he is really good at killing people in a wide variety of ways.
He is also a damn good blacksmith.
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