Age: 25
Race: Augury
Gender/Pronouns: Male, him/his
Appearance: Scrapbeak is a mostly plain-looking augury, slightly above average in height (3ā9) and weight, and of a fair build for someone in his line of work, though hard to tell thanks to his small stature and coating of feathers. His most prominent feature, and key to his namesake, is the small scrap of metal adorning his beak, covering a split he acquired in his youth. The right side of his face is also quite scar-heavy, though those were collected during his early years as a mercenary. His left leg, in its absence, has been replaced with a crude wooden prosthetic, though auguriesā natural sense of balance allows it that level of crudeness.
Attire: Both in and out of combat, Scrapbeak is dressed in a drab scarf, an olive green cloak with belt straps, a beige padded vest, a dark tan gambeson, and a chainmail tunic underneath all of that. Heās certainly not one to bother with maintaining a pleasant appearance, or spend any coin on better wear.
Outward Personality: Scrapbeak has become a rather reserved, mild-mannered, somewhat somber fellow as heās aged. Once he was more eccentric and ambitious, but those feelings have long since left his person. He is always focused on the task at hand, preferring to see jobs and assignments done quickly and without any hassle.
Bonds: A looming sense of guilt and a desire to pay back old self-inflicted debts both spur Scrapbeak to continue doing what he does.
Goal: Scrapbeak wishes to pay back his home rookery for their wasted efforts in acquiring a Tear for him, in the amount of a millionās worth of coin.
Character Flaws: Scrapbeak feels he is ābrokenā in many aspects. He is physically unable to utilize magic to any proper extent, thus he is broken in that regard. Heās received numerous injuries throughout his life that have scarred him, and in some cases, impaired his capability as a mercenary. All of this, with the addition of over a decade on the road, has bared down on Scrapbeak to an extent, and he often finds himself clouded with thoughts of self-doubt, the inability to pay his debts, and being seen as a failure in the eyes of his people.
Backstory: Scrapbeak, born Karnak Karapet, hails from the Karapet rookery near the eastern coast of Nepharie, close to the border of Jikari. His childhood was a rather āexcitingā one, in the words of some of his fellow auguries. He enjoyed descending the rookery and exploring the surrounding expanse, often traveling to the coast and scouring the shore for childish interpretations of buried treasure, most times receiving some new injury in the process - the most prominent of which was when heād fallen from a small cliff and split his beak open on a rock. But none of those injuries ever stopped him from going out the next day.
When he was six, Karnak discovered an unmarked shipping crate that had washed ashore, most likely originating from a pirate vessel from the Southern Isles, and pried it open to discover little but a small collection of old metal utensils, plates, and other forms of scrap in rather poor condition. Somehow, he became enamored with the hoard, spending days polishing off all the rust he could, and at some point, deciding to patch his cracked beak up with a small sheet of iron and some resin. The rest of the rookery took to calling him Khiao-Parr, or āMetal-Beakā in the common tongue.
Karnakās fascination with metal found its way to adorning small, inanimate kisha with utensils and scrap, which some of the neighboring younglings mocked him for, but a handful of the elders considered it a spark of creativity. Encouragements to become a soulcrafter filled his mind, and along with ambitions of one day building a grand, towering kiy-kisha of both bone and metal, he endeavored to be the one that the rookery would bequeath an immensely prized Tear to. Karnak entered as an apprentice to the rookeryās resident soulcrafter, showing much dedication and promise.
When the time came, Karapetās one available Tear, purchased for a hundred thousand Monas - a millionās worth of coin, having taken many years to accrue - was presented before the apprentices, and Karnak was the one chosen to partake of it. But after all was concluded, a heart-rending fact was discovered - Karnak could not fully feel the Tearās power within him. He tried, he focused as intently as he could, he searched for the Pulse, but he couldnāt even do so much as bend a blade of grass. Every excuse came up - perhaps the Tear was a fake, perhaps he was simply a late bloomer, but as time passed, the conclusion became unanimous. Karnak was, at the core of his being, flawed. The precious Tear that the people of Karapet had worked so much for had been utterly wasted on a nak-karta - a magically stunted augury.
Karnak quickly became the subject of ire and ridicule within Karapet. Very few sympathized with him, and all the rest simply hated looking at him, being reminded of all the wealth that had effectively vanished into thin air. Furthermore, there would be no one to properly take the soulcrafterās place should he pass away, and the rookery would crumble without anyone to interpret the will of Khiar-koff, and keep the tribe in his good graces. All of this worry and uncertainty surrounded Karnak, crushing his normally happy demeanor, and eventually, he just couldnāt bear any of it anymore.
So he left.
Karnak, no longer feeling welcome, left his rookery behind, and traveled into the heartlands of Nepharie. In the years that followed, he found himself taking up oddjobs and low-risk mercenary work. While not so at the start of his self-inflicted exile, he later came to feel an overwhelming sense of remorse for what circumstances had inflicted on him and his people. One hundred thousand monas, a millionās worth in coinsā¦ he felt it was only right to somehow pay it all back, however many years it might take.
Karnak became a full-time mercenary, gradually improving his abilities as such, and slowly saving up considerable amounts of coin, spending none of it for himself save on essentials. Every few years, he traveled back to Karapet, giving a sum of ten thousand monas to his people at a time, leaving soon after to return to work. As the years passed, most of the harsh feelings towards Karnak faded, yet he never let up from his task. Every coin would be paid back, no matter how long and how much work it took. The soulcrafter, slowly succumbing to old age, watched with regret as with every visit, the memory of the ambitious, high-spirited augury heād called an apprentice became more and more distant, replaced with such a sad, broken, transient thing.
It has since been over a decade. Karnak has paid 30,000 monas back to his tribe, out of the goal of 100,000. The soulcrafter of Karapet is still alive, but no one believes it will be long before he dies. Karnak has become a well-traveled mercenary, earning the nickname āScrapbeakā from those heās worked with, for a very apparent reason. He has visited several magical consuls to see if something could be done about his condition, but no good ever came of it. At some point, he attempted to travel to Kara Kapa, a major rookery based in the hostile land of Stellona, in order to request that they send one of their own soulcrafters back to Karapet to take over, should the current one pass away. Attempting to make the trip alone cost Scrapbeak his leg, by way of one of Roboreās many bizarre and oversized forms of plant life that heād run afoul of. Damaged and discouraged, Scrapbeak retreated to safer lands, and has not attempted the trip again since.
In an attempt to expedite his acquisition of wealth, as he fears that Karapetās soulcrafterās death continues to loom, Scrapbeak has taken up arms with the Iron Pride mercenary company, hoping to come into more lucrative contracts and opportunities. He has so far been with the company for about two weeks.
Skills: Scrapbeak wouldnāt win any mercenary competitions with unmatched skills or prowess in combat. But he has put himself through many, many arduous tasks over the years that have tempered his capabilities, even under major amounts of pressure. Heās a fine shot with his crossbow, and heās certainly no slouch with his hatchet. And of course, being an augury gives him some degree of stealthiness that larger beings might lack, knowledgeable of ambush tactics and hiding spots out in the wilds. Whatās more, Scrapbeak is something of a jury rigger, as a result of many years spent fiddling with his equipment, his crossbow, his leg, and so on. He is by no means a master of the tinkerās art, but he believes he can improve.
Magic: Scrapbeak is incapable of utilizing magic in any regard, much to his chagrin.
Weaponry: Scrapbeak carries a crossbow that he has taken exceptional care of over the years. He is also equipped with a small steel hatchet that, while unassuming, can make a fair cut. While an augury might be expected to carry weapons bearing their tribeās mark, Scrapbeak has long stopped feeling like he belonged to one - and thus, he has gone without the traditional weapons of his people.
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