Laduguer

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Prior to the entrance of the - Tilean... Estalian... whatever - umgi recruiter, Vargni had staggered outside past Balgrim and Galadred to relieve himself in a nearby hedge, and quite missed their arrival. The pleasant thing about hating living as much as Vargni did, was that you began to appreciate the little things. Voiding his bowels had become a highlight of his otherwise despondent daily routine of alcoholism, and he strode back towards the inn with something of a spring in his step.

He paused by a trough at the entrance to splash some water on his face and wash the oily sweat from his naked torso. As the waters stilled, he spent an uncomfortable moment looking at his reflection. The reflection of something ruined. Something that couldn't be put back.

Furrowing his brow at this surprisingly bleak thought, he dried his face using his thick beard as a towel and walked back through the threshold of the inn to see a gaggle of the patrons crowding around the umgi recruiter.

"I step outside for not five leaps of a hare and suddenly work crawls out of the woodwork! That's just my bloody luck." said Vargni to no one in particular.

As he navigated his way through the array of tables and stools occupying the tavern, he heard the recruiter speak up:

"If there are any others who wish to sign their name, make yourself known. I shall be here for ten minutes, and not a minute more. Until then, I thuggest you finith your drinks."

Clearing his throat, Vargni pushed his way through the milling crowd of newly contracted mercenaries to the front, as Galadred finished his signature.

"Hold your britches, friend - I'll sign up, and I'll do it for naught but a supply of ale and a good meal a day, as long as you don't mess us about and sell us off to the service of some petty umgi lord wot needs some rats catching."

After he added a series of jagged dwarfen runes to a contract, he caught sight of Galadred standing to his side out the corner of his eye, and turned to give the Elf a brief, hard look.

"You're a bit ugly for an elgi, aren't you? All those scars on your pretty face. I like that."

@Lucian

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

In a dingy corner of the tavern sat Vargni, a slumped and dishevelled mess of flesh and hair that one could have quite easily overlooked as just another odd adventuring trophy dumped away from sight. And indeed this was the case, as Vargni gradually roused from what had been a pleasantly undisturbed slumber. Like a whipping snake, his limbs suddenly lashed into life as he stretched them and lazily rubbed crusted deposits of sleep and snot from his face.

Waking up in the late afternoon was not a particularly unusual experience for Vargni. It wasn't the drinking that did it - he could hold his ale better than most dwarves his age - but rather a sort of sticky lethargy and depression that was gradually webbing him down. It was the lack of work that was doing it, and he hated it. Vargni wished there were trolls eating the local children. He wished there were beastfolk building effigies in the forest. He wished there were goblins burrowing into the sewers. But unfortunately, monster hunting was very much a career of peaks and troughs. The monsters were there, you slayed them, and then they were dead and no one had work for you anymore.

And so, like a man dying of thirst in a desert, Vargni had crawled to The Limping Nag and gone into hibernation, in the desperate hope that something would come along to save him before he couldn't go on any longer. If there was any place where one could find work, it was here.

Opening his bleary eyes, Vargni caught a wiff of potential. A heap of newcomers had arrived, with that sort of bright energy that clings to those seeking death (when one becomes a slayer, one develops something of a cynical attitude towards the word 'adventure'). And a few dawi, at that.

Pushing himself up on his elbows and climbing to his feet, using the dry plastered wall as support, his attention was attracted to the noise of the newly arrived ranger as he addressed the elgi.

"What's this you ave'? I didn't know Übersreik was famous for 'canned elf', they'll ave' to add that to the roadsigns."

Vargni's dry lips curled into a smirk at the ranger's words as he stumbled over, and with a hoarse voice he grumbled:

"Careful now, or he'll wear your ruddy face alongside that house-cat on his shoulder."

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Vargni Varnsson

Username: Laduguer

Character Name: Vargni Varnsson

Race/Species: Dwarf

Gender: Male

Age: 37

Career and Skills:

Vargni is a Slayer with nearly a decade under his belt, rendering him still relatively inexperienced compared to the mighty (if tragic) heros that share his legacy, but nevertheless making him proficient at fighting with twin dwarven hand-axes. Living with his rampant and violent depression has also given him an uncommon sort of mental tenacity, which can often be as good a skill as fighting amongst the many horrors of the Old World.

Weapons: Two hand-axes of dwarven make, named endearingly ‘Zank’ and ‘Varaz’ respectively.

Attire:

Vargni wears a pair of dark linen trousers, heavy leather boots, and normally goes shirtless where weather allows. However, even dwarves cannot survive freezing (and this would not at all be the glorious death he swore), so Vargni also carries with him a heavy yak fur coat which he can fling on and off.

Equipment/Other:

A backpack [containing a bedroll, a bottle of high proof liquor, some bandages, a dried ham hock], lots of cheap jewellery (rings, bracelets, piercings, mostly of iron or brass).

Physical Description:

Vargni has a short cropped mohawk dyed dark orange, stiff and matted with dried fat. Although his hands are worn and calloused, his young body is still in good shape and does not bear the signs of battle and wear boasted by most older dwarves, and particularly most older slayers. His beard is unkempt and spreads from his face down across his breast in a broad bush.

Mental Description/Personality:

Vargni is – at his core – a deeply depressed and violent alcoholic, who seeks to forget his existential fear either in the extreme sensation of battle or at the bottom of a bottle. Nevertheless, ironically, this lifestyle does lend Vargni a certain sense of purpose. In losing everything and ultimately forfeiting his life, he has entered into a career with a definite destiny and a definite function to serve, where – despite feelings of deep inadequacy and failure – he can feel like something of a role model to others that may not have experienced the pain or hardships that he has, or that may be struggling themselves to overcome some inner turmoil.

Therefore, whilst Vargni is a thoroughly unreliable friend and partner, he is nevertheless not altogether antisocial, readily throwing in his thoughts on a particular philosophy or topic of debate, and always eager to listen to the woes of others.

His erratic tendency to seek out danger also lends him a sort of altruistic nature, always keen to put himself in harms way before his companions, which perhaps makes his violent alcoholism more forgivable to those forced to co-exist with him.

Background/History:

Vargni was born into the Grimgrunstok Clan, as the younger scion of the clan’s ruling elder. At the time of Vargni’s birth, the clan inhabited a region in the mountains to the south of the Imperial province of Wissenland. They had purchased a plot in this region two decades ago, working on a reliable tip from an ancient surveying text that had suggested the presence of gold in the area. The clan followed the elders here, and settled the town of Zaraz Goruz.

Unfortunately, after thirty years of toil, the clan had found only coal. Whilst trading this coal produced a respectable income for the clan, in time the mines began to tap out, and as a result so did the coffers of the clan. Several poor financial decisions were made at this point out of desperation; loans taken out to purchase better equipment, promises made to investors of a return on their coin in gold given time. The tale of these sorry happenings does not need to be told. Needless to say, when they had passed, the clan was in dire straits indeed and no longer in possession of Zaraz Goruz.

The clan settled a dwarven shanty town in the highlands of Wissenland, scraping a poor living together. Many left to seek fortune elsewhere, but some remained out of hope or a sense of duty. Amongst those who left was Vargni’s elder brother and the heir to the clan, who perhaps had more good sense than he. Vargni remained, tending to his father who had been taken badly ill. On his deathbed, his father expressed his regrets about the clan’s fate, but bade Vargni to respect family law and go follow his brother, leaving behind their wasted time in Zaraz Goruz. As his dying act, he entrusted to Vargni his most precious clan heirloom – a lord’s crown made of solid gold and encrusted with a number of rare gems – and bade him to pass it on to his brother at the earliest opportunity.

Vargni did not do this. Unwilling to accept failure and angered by the departure of his elder brother, Vargni instead resolved to retake Zaraz Goruz and deliver the remaining members of the clan in Wissenland to a more worthy destiny. In an act of drunken confidence, he sold the crown entrusted to him by his father to pay off his clan’s remaining debt, and planned to use the rest to buy back Zaraz Goruz. Unfortunately, he found Zaraz Goruz now in the hands of another human merchant, who asked triple what they had originally sold it for, a sum far beyond Vargni’s means.

Having squandered his clan’s heirloom, and faced with the prospect of a life starting again from the bottom as a humble miner or labourer in some distant Karak, or as a bootlicking peddler in a human settlement, Vargni fell into a deep depression. He felt overcome with the sense of unfairness that good, hard-working dwarves should be allowed to fall into such a sorry state. What hope was there in a world where such things could happen?
A more weak willed dwarf might have simply jumped into a river at this point. A more rational one might have accepted fate and gotten back to work. Vargni, however, elected to take the third option faced by desperate and ashamed young dwarves. Eight years have passed since that day, and Vargni is still seeking a way to fulfil his Slayer oath.

Warhammer 40k: For the Greater Good! - A Tau Roleplay

Huh. I've never given the Tau much attention, so this would be a new experience. I don't want to juggle too many RPs, but I'm potentially interested.

Warhammer 40k: The Eternal Fight for Freedom - Penal Legion RP (Looking for cannon fodder!)

@Drunken Conquistador@Laduguer@Amaranth@DeadDrop

Okie dokie, I'm going to do a time-jump, because I cannae think of anything else to do, is that alright with everyone (even DeadDrop)?

@Jbcool

Sounds like a sensible move. Long haul warp travel isn't known for being particularly interesting after all (unless you're unlucky).

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Consider me interested chief. A disgraced witch hunter? A slayer? Food for thought.

Warhammer 40k: The Eternal Fight for Freedom - Penal Legion RP (Looking for cannon fodder!)

@jbcool

I think we're all good to continue!

Warhammer 40k: The Eternal Fight for Freedom - Penal Legion RP (Looking for cannon fodder!)

lol im a loser people are waiting on me :((( umm ....

ya i'll see how free i am sat cus im working and exams (cus we had a strike D:::)

we should really get a discord???

also jb runs like 100 warhammers prolly cus we are so lazyyy.

@DeadDrop

Any ETA on the post?

Warhammer 40k: The Eternal Fight for Freedom - Penal Legion RP (Looking for cannon fodder!)

Gate felt the adrenaline flush out of him as the klaxon-voice announced the cessation of combat, as though the shadowy officials running the exercise had pulled some plug from his brain. It was replaced by a weary warm glow in his muscles that was uncomfortably hot and did not make him feel any less anxious.

He did not know for sure how long the exercise had been. He remembered several salient events - the grenade burst, falling, opening fire - and used them to construct a rough mental timeline. Based on this timeline, he reasoned that the whole engagement must have been quite swift indeed. On one hand, he was grateful for how brief the experience had been and prayed that all future combat would play out similarly. On the other, he was deeply disturbed by how quickly he had been overcome by the stress and shock and rendered little better than an animal following Octavia and Tigranes. His quick wits were his best asset, and he couldn't afford to lose them every time he was put into combat.

The doors opening and the entrance of the officers was like a fresh breeze flowing into the room. It represented survival and a definite cessation of hostilities. Whilst he hated these men for so carelessly almost costing him his life, he was nevertheless overjoyed to see them. He tried to collect himself, and pressed together with the rest of the squad.

“... my name is Colonel Harvar of the Cadian Seventy-Fifth. You have all proved yourself today, along with those other squads who competed here before you, and those that shall after. I would be most grateful to speak with the leader – or the person in command - of your squad, are they present?”

'And here we are', thought Gate, 'now the blockhead soldier will elect himsel--'

"Your Excellency, that would be Octavia."

Gate blinked with surprise and let out a quiet dry gasp of laughter, quickly checking himself and returning his composure lest he offend the serious atmosphere.

'I suppose it's not all bad...', thought Gate with a smirk, 'with the mute in command, there'll be no one to bark orders at us'.

Warhammer 40k: The Eternal Fight for Freedom - Penal Legion RP (Looking for cannon fodder!)

Really sorry JB - I don't want to keep throwing out excuses but I just haven't had time yet! Free all day tomorrow so I'll 100% post.