[Thenamir]

<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Newly Deceased
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Re: ROHAN DISCUSSION

This sounds intriguing -- I'm in, if you can accept me as one of the people in the group following Grima. How's this for a back story?

Thenamir is a man, as close to 6 feet even as makes no difference, short hair, beard, and moustache all sandy brown, which made him as different amongst the golden-haired Rohan natives as a Beorning in a group of hobbits. He is stocky but sturdily-built, a layer of fat covering a warrior’s body. He carries a family heirloom sword, Aranbold, and a bow, both wielded with passable skill, along with the normal accoutrements of a Rider of Rohan.

Born to a captain and raised in Minas Tirith, a lot was expected of Thenamir as a youth, and he earned his father’s trust and respect thru sheer will and hard practice and work more than inherited talent. He served under Boromir as a sub-captain (sergeant? Whtever the term is) over 20 good men. He fell in love with and married a fair and charming woman whom he had met in one of the outlying villages northeastward.

One year he was assigned to take his men for a rotating 3-month patrol in the outlying areas, and since it was near the wife’s family, he sent her ahead, planning to meet her there. They were expecting their first child in a few months, and this might be the last opportunity to visit her family for some time.

In the early dawn, just before Thenamir’s company arrived in that village, it was attacked by a band of strange-looking dark men, seeming looters but well organized, who overwhelmed the town’s small defenses and the men Thenamir was to relieve. Seeing the confusion from a distance, the enraged Thenamir rushed his men into the fray, charging the city. The dark men, thinking a larger force had arrived, began to panic and flee. Thenamir charged headlong into the throng, heedlessly hacking left and right, desperately trying to gain the place where he knew his beloved would have been staying.

Berganden was a proud bachelor, subcaptain of the men already in Lossarnach. When he saw the attack coming he ordered his small force as best he could at the gates, and ran to warn Linwen, wife of his friend Thenamir, and her family. Berganden was too late – the city wall had been breached and another band had reached them before he -- soon he too was slain, but not without taking over a dozen Easterlings with him.

One especially unfortunate invader picked up Berganden’s cloak and helm thinking them much nicer than what he was already wearing. Unfortunately for both Thenamir and himself, Thenamir came racing around the corner at that moment, slaying every moving thing, in a blind rage after finding his wife dead, not expecting to see the silver-and-sable cloak and helm that his sword had now cleaved one from the other. Thenamir stopped, looking at where the helm and cloak had fallen – near to the already fallen body of his comrade Berganden. In the confusion and heat of the moment, it appeared to Thenamir that he had slain not only a fellow soldier, but one of his best friends. Shamed! Disgraced by the indiscretion of a blind rage!

Heart pounding a grim tempo, Thenamir began to race back to where his men were driving out the last of the fleeing enemies. But there was almost nothing left. Thenamir slumped to his knees and now gave full vent to the sobbing which had been shoved aside in the fighting. His wife was gone, his friend slain by his own hand, as it seemed. For him, there was nothing left. To admit his crime would have meant death – to hide it would mean shame eating away at him for the rest of his life. But there must be a reckoning. He would repay this foul breed, and whoever their master was. And to do that, he must live.

Thenamir picked himself up off the ground and ran, ran for his mount. Sharply seizing the reins he wheeled the horse around, and to the astonishment of his men, galloped away, heedless of their cries. Yes, he would pay – he would win back his lost honor. But he would do it in his own time.

He made his way to Rohan, but only after ceremonially burning his signs of rank and office. The helm he kept, after removing the wings, so that it was unadorned and black as the Dark Lord’s fell heart. He dressed himself as a mercenary, approaching the sentries of Rohan at their border and asking to join their ranks. The sentries were suspicious, but allowed him to speak to their captain.

Thenamir’s well-rehearsed story – that of a mercenary tired of fighting alone and looking for a cause and comrades with whom to defend it -- persuaded the eored chief, but being a leader of men he could in Thenamir’s eyes that there was something left unsaid, something both sad and angry. Still, his instincts told him Thenamir was trustworthy, and he proved himself well in both archery and swordsmanship against some of his men in a mock battle. He allowed Thenamir to join their troop on a temporary basis until Theodred or Erkenbrand could judge him more thoroughly, and determine a more permament placement.

Thus it was that Thenamir came into the ranks of the Rohirrim, and came to be in this place, shadowing these followers of Grima Wormtongue, these dark strange-looking men…


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You may want to edit your backstory so that other players are unaware of it. This is some years before Eomer is old enought to be in charge of anything. Erkenbrand is old enough to be a leader of men in these days.

Because Taradan is a dark haired fellow, of like descent, there must be a bit of a rewrite to my last post to accomodate you.
~Gilthalion

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Done -- Thenamir is now brown-haired, enough to be different from the Riders, but not to be confused with 'Blackie'.

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://www.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00000209>Thenamir </A> at: 8/7/01 10:54:24 am