Name: Darrick Grannd
Age 23
Race: Human
Position: Assistant Cartographer
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Skills and Abilities: Darrick has been trained in a mix of scholarly, wilderness survival, and combat skills.
Mapmaking: Darrick has been practicing the art of mapmaking and transcribing since the day he could hold a quill. Equal parts drawing and literacy, when making a good map one must consider distance, elevation, and consistency. Not only must one have good spatial visualization but they must be able to empathise how those viewing will react to what they have presented in order to relay information effectively. This is Darrick’s most exceptional skill, though to him it seems rather unexceptional given his experience with it and his father always being better than him. This skill has a side effect of making quite the sketch artist.
----------------------------------------------------------
Swordplay: Darrick is trained and fairly skilled in swordplay having been trained personally by a skilled knight. He wasn’t a true squire, but he understands all the subtitles of knightly combat from maintenance and equipment of heavy armor to lanceplay. While he was never a fan of how plated armor constricted his movement, he enjoyed practicing swordplay with his mentor. As a result of his enthusiasm and his mentor’s skill at teaching he has become quite capable with a longsword, though he is not famed for his mastery of the weapon.
----------------------------------------------------------
Wilderness Survival: Having spent much of his time out on excursions and surveying missions with his father, Darrick is quite capable of surviving in the wilderness provided he starts with adequate equipment. More of a traveler than a wilderness master, he is the type to travel in the company of a horse and a sturdy pack and would have a hard time living off the land for an over extended period of time. Most of his prowess comes from his ability to read the landscape, when you know how the mountains flow it becomes easy to locate a river before you even see it.
----------------------------------------------------------
Trap Sense: More of an inherited disposition and a skill, Darrick seems to instinctively know when there are traps about. He would likely be hard pressed to actually locate or disarm them, but when it happens it is as through his blood curdles to tell him “this place is dangerous, be wary”.
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Appearance: Darrick is over rather average height, slightly under six feet. He has a muscular build fitting one of regular exercise and practiced swordplay but does not wield a greathammer and is therefore not on bodybuilder status. His face has rather youthful features, being more smooth than chiseled. However, his recently filled in short beard gives him a more mature look than if he were clean shaven. His nose has a slight tilt to it midway down from when he broke it climbing a tree during his childhood. His hair and eyes are both a dark, muddy brown. He keeps the hair on his head short and out of the way. It has a naturally starchiness to it and does not lie flat easily.
Darrick normally wears drab and durable clothing customary to his position. He is a fan of leather or cloth, but he feels comfortable enough often wears a chainmail short sleeve under his cloak, which he favors with a hood. He has the ability and training to don heavier, plate armor but dislikes it’s restricting nature and has little to no actual combat experience in it. He often wears leather gloves rather than not and always has a simple looking longsword in a simple looking sheathe at his hip. He also wears a Misericorde sheathed inside his right boot.
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Personality: Darrick has been a historically cheery fellow when you get to know him him. From his upbringing, he has been a bit isolated from his peers which has gotten him rather used to being alone. Though this has led him to cherish those few friends he has. He much prefers the company of people to sitting alone around a campfire. It may take a while for him to openly initiate conversation with someone who he is not familiar, but he is quick to trust those who take an interest in communicating with him.
Darrick enjoys swordplay greatly, but rather dislikes actual battle. When we trains with people or has friendly sparring matches he enjoys the challenge and competitive nature of the combat. In real life or death battles he has mostly fought against hostile hill people and bandits who were largely untrained in personal combat. He has killed only six, not counting feral beasts. His counting of those he has killed speaks to his belief of the seriousness and finality of life or death combat, something his mentor hammered into him from an early age.
Darrick, like most of his Grannd ancestors has a natural exploitative and inquisitive nature about him. From learning a new subject of seeing a new area, he genuinely enjoys and actively seeks out new experiences without fear of change. He’s not one to feel comfortable in a cushy unsurprising lifestyle and has a natural wonderlust about his personality. That said, this can sometimes manifest as a rushed overconfidence which is so often present in those his age. He sees this in himself, helped by his father and mentor to notice it, and considers it as a flaw. So when he notices himself rushing things he often tries to slow down and take another look at the situation.
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Backstory: The office of Head Cartographer and Surveyor has been one high regard but low nobility in Altranor since the kingdom’s inception. Although customarily passed down by birth, the position is never guaranteed and more than once the family controlling the position has been usurped by a particularly skilled or ambitious individual. Darrick’s father, Jeron, was the third of his line to hold the position.
Jeron’s grandfather was somewhat of an adventurer and wayfarer. He was passionate in creating maps, something that he was also quite skilled at. The man’s predecessors,Jeron included, have continued in the traveler’s method. Favoring exploring and traveling, updating and creating, to transcribing or collaborating other’s works.
Jeron was not close to Darrick's mother. The man was rather solitary when it came to other women. Though the man had desires, he never fell in love with anyone. Neither was he subject to any family marriages. When the mother of his child died in childbirth, the man was just over thirty and did not grieve for long.
Darrick’s early childhood was spent in the capital. Jeron abandoned his travels during the boy’s infancy, soon after the boy could walk and talk the man resumed his travels. Normally his father would spend nearly two thirds of every year out on excursions for his courtly position. In these early years, the Head Cartographer left his son in the care of a knight of low nobility, Eddrick, who was perpetually garrisoned in the capital. The knight had been a friend of Jeron since their early childhood and took good care of the young boy.
----------------------------------------------------------
Eddrick was the fourth son of family that owned a small patch of land just outside the capital. Never destined for lordship, the man was squired early and had spent most of his life in the capital garrison. He was a noble and kind man, skilled in combat, but of little ambition. The highest rank he ever achieved was that of training fresh militia recruits. The man seemed to have a natural empathy which lent itself well to teaching others.
----------------------------------------------------------
Darrick started out as a rather quiet little child. He would spend much of the day working on his penmanship, sketching, and transcription. The exercises were given by his father, and Darrick took them to heart. The boy would work laboriously for just to hear the man’s praise when he returned home from the long excursions. Though over time the boy began to see his father’s praise as more and more shallow. Eventually his interests turned to other pursuits.
Exploration was apparently in his blood. Darrick had lost his passion for the stuffy office work of a mapmaker, he seemed to naturally gravitate toward the position he was likely to inherit. The boy began to go on excursions of his own, now spending most of his days in the streets or forests near the capital. He had always had relatively free reign over his free time. Eddrick could only keep a cursory watch over the boy, inbetwixt his daily duties. Young Darrick walked about the castle freely and innocently. All the while he mapped out the areas in his head and sometimes even on paper.
After a few minor courtly Faux Pas, it became apparent that Darrick would need closer supervision. It was pointed out that the boy was now old enough to easily hold a sword, so Eddrick took the boy under his wing as an unofficial squire. Darrick now spent his days under Eddrick’s supervision, training in the art of swordplay and horseriding. Though he still spent his nights sketching and practicing his necessary scholarly skills.
----------------------------------------------------------
When Darrick grew into middle adolescence, his father began to take the young man with him on most of his trips. Darrick began to learn the more subtle skills of his father’s trade, the ones that made the man stand out enough to be considered Head Cartographer of the kingdom of Altranor. He learned how the land was naturally shaped, how to survive and navigate in the wilderness, and how to read what the landscape had to say. Darrick was also introduced for the first time the lesser known duties of Head Cartographer and Surveyor, locating treasure.
It was a bit of a court secret the Head Cartographer and Surveyor had, since the appointment of Jeron’s grandfather, been given an ulterior objective to just making and updating the kingdom’s maps. The Head Cartographer was also expected to locate ruins, caves, and otherwize hidden places which might hold valuable or magical artifacts.
Not exactly a treasure hunter, the Head Cartographer would make special denotations and relay the locations of these hidden places to the king. The king would then decided to either send an expedition or simply sell the information to interested parties. Treasure hunting and ruin spoiling was a dangerous business and not really suited to the low manpower or solo traveling which the Head Cartographer enjoyed. However, that didn’t stop the Grannd from occasionally poking their nose inside a particularly interesting location and coming out with a pretty trinket or new scar.
And so went Darrick’s life as the now Assistant Cartographer. When he was at the capital he trained with Eddrick and practiced his studies. When his father took him on excursions, he learned from the ageing man the tricks of the family trade. He even began to grow into a closer, friendly relationship with his father after having been estranged from the man for much of his childhood. This life carried on rather smoothly, although he had a short rebellious phase near the end of his adolescence as most young men of that age do.
----------------------------------------------------------
Darrick and his father were both present at the sacking of the capital. The king had suspended their regular duties when foreign troops began to set foot on Altranorean soil. Instead Jeron assisted the king and his generals, giving his insight toward the conditions of the land and other warlike matters which related to his expertise.
When the castle was stormed, Darrick’s father made the decision to stay with the king and guard his liege. The Head Cartrographer he ordered Darrick to attempt and meet of with some of the fleeing royal family and Eddrick. When Jeron handed Darrick the family sword, the father felt as though he knew this would be their last meeting. Darrick felt more optimistic, believing his father and the king would somehow make it out and they would join up later. The young man had never been to war, never truly experienced such a dire situation. As the soldier drove his sword through Jeron’s gut, he wished he had said more to his son before their parting.
When Darrick arrived at the secret passage there was no sign of the fleeing royal family members or Eddrick. He used his memory and knowledge of the castle layout to avoid capture. When he determined the fate of his father and the king, he vowed revenge.
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Notable Possessions:
The Grannd Family Sword “Blinder”: At first glance, Blinder seems like an unremarkable weapon. A simple longsword, the hilt is a flat rectangle the handle wrapped in brown leather, and the pommel no more designed than a small egg shape. Upon closer inspection the quality of the blade is obvious. The edge is smooth and devoid of cracks or nicks. The steel has a soft tarnish and slight surface scratching but no real flaws to speak of. When a trained fighter holds the weapon in their hands will immediately notice an exceptional balance. Those that examine these features would have no doubt that the sword is quite valuable.
However, if they were to run their hand over the blade, they would also notice a slight unnatural warmth to the blade. From this a learned individual can easily deduce that this is no ordinary sword but an enchanted blade. Which sends the value of the weapon from high to exceptional.
Though the specific enhancement is unknown, the knowledge of it’s effects have been passed down through the Grannd family for four generations since the sword was discovered in a far flung ruin by Darrick’s ancestor. The blade was originally housed in a more flamboyant hilt and handle the blade itself was the only part of the sword which had any magical properties and has since been re-hilted.
Beyond its lack of apparent deterioration, the Blade has a strange and useful magical power. It is from this power that the weapon derives it’s name. When wielding the weapon, if one knows of the power and desires to use it the weapon briefly seems to flash with a blinding light to all those but the one holding it. There is no vocal incantation or special action the wielder must take, they must merely wish or desire Blinder to flash and it will.
The flash blinds those who have unobstructed vision of the weapon’s blade and will cause them to be unable to see for roughly a second and a half. Though in a fight that is quite enough time to deliver a deadly blow, especially if your opponent is surprised and blinded.
The wielder needs to use Blinder’s power sparingly, as it can not be used in rapid succession. The general rule is that you will likely only be able to use the power once per fight unless the fight is exceptionally long. This is especially important since the wielder has no queues that the magic of the blade has worked beyond the actions of those around him. One of Darrick’s ancestors once counted how long it took for the blade to recover, it was around five minutes.
----------------------------------------------------------
A Magic Ring: Darrick wears a silvery metal ring which holds some manner of enchantment. When kissed the ring emits the voice of lady singing in a language unknown to the Grannd family. This ring was found by his grandfather and passed to him by his father during his childhood. It has kept him company many nights throughout his life, especially as a young child when his father was far away. The songs length and tone change according to mimic the mood of the one that kissed the ring.
*edit* - Does anyone have formatting advice?