Treachery of Men Discussion/Planning Thread

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Linked ~*~ Pio

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NAME: Hunta

AGE: 25

RACE: Human

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: A long curved dagger, good for skinning wild game but acceptable in combat. A short bow of black wood, and a stout spear.

APPEARANCE: Average height but somewhat thick through the chest and shoulders, making him appear to be somewhat shorter than he is. Short black hair crudely cropped above the eyes and at the base of the neck. Dark brown eyes and a swarthy complexion with an unsmiling, serious face. He walks slowly and deliberately, like a bear patrolling its territory.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Hunta is a serious, determined and extraordinarily humourless young man. His dedication to the art of hunting has already made him something of a legend amongst his people, but he is far from popular. He is quick to learn and a careful study of anything that catches his interest, but to the dismay of many a teacher he will walk away from anything that does not appeal to him without hesitation or regret. He is quick to make up his mind on any issue, and can rarely explain why or how he has so decided. Despite the rather grim aspect this gives him to other people, Hunta craves adventure -- not for the hope of glory or reknown, but for the challenge presented by the unknown.

HISTORY: Hunta was born to humble parents in a remote corner of his homeland. His early life was difficult and sparse, but not unhappy, as his father tutored him in the ways of the hunting folk. He was a quick study and by the time he was an adolescent he was already leading hunting parties of his own, many of which included older hunters. His successes in the chase were matched by a gentle and careful relation with his mother from whom he learned the mysteries of herblore and healing which she had mastered.

When his parents died, Hunta left his village and undertook a wandering existence, seeking out new teachers and new game throughout the lands of the East. When he heard of a party of hunters who were proposing a long journey to the south to spend time with their Ulfing cousins he leapt at the chance to accompany them, for he felt it would give him the chance to join them.


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Fordim Hedgethistle's post:


Laylah ran ahead pulsing with the excitement of the hunt, silent in anticipation of the kill. They had tracked the buck for leagues and now it was close. Hunta could smell its spoor himself and hardly needed his companion’s more sensitive nose now, but after her many hours faithful labour he could not deny her. He swept through the low brush with no more sound than the wind, his rapid footfalls little more than the scurrying of small animals through the brush. They came to the edge of a clearing and pulled themselves close to the ground. The buck was standing now, his great brown head with its tall antlers erect and alert.

Their quarry was cunning. He had come to the field to flush out his hunters, to force them into the open where he could see them better and know what he should do. Hunta smiled and stroked Laylah’s thick neck. She acknowledged his hand with a low whimper and turned her head to lick his hand. Her lips were pulled back revealing long teeth, and her short golden coat stood up in a long ridge down her back. “Good girl,” he told her. “That was a good run and a fine pursuit.” Laylah merely returned her gaze to the buck; she knew there was still work to do. They began slowly to track their way around the edge of the clearing, looking for a place where Hunta could loose his bow.

The buck stirred and stamped his hoof, looking at the woods for the predators that he knew lurked within, but he could neither smell nor hear anything. He knew they were still there with the instinct of the hunted, but he was an old and wise in the ways of the forest and kept his head where a younger animal would have panicked and fled. A noise came to his ears which twitched and swivelled the better to hear. Lifting his head he heard the sound of fast approach, and the calls of musical voices in the air. He turned and fled toward the forest, and there came a sudden shaft from the side. Too late he tried to flinch and it buried itself in his flank, bringing agonising pain with every stride. He crashed into the forest wall and ran on into the trees, but the pain mounted with each step and he could feel something wet and hot running down his legs.

Hunta cursed foully the ill fortune of the hunt – and the riders who had so stupidly thundered past the clearing. His wonderment at their appearance and bearing was overcome by his anger. His shot had merely wounded the buck, meaning many more hours of tracking through the woods looking for his prey. The arrow had struck deep and hard and though the buck did not know it yet, it was already dead. But Hunta felt sick at the thought of the great beast wandering in pain and bewilderment, only to be dispatched at the end of struggle with a knife through the throat. It had deserved a cleaner death.

Calling Laylah to him he followed the blood trail back into the forest.


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[piosenniel]

Pass on by -- just leaving this space . . .

[Lalaith]

Linked ~*~ Pio

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Lalaith's character


NAME:Embla

AGE:25

RACE:man

GENDER:female

WEAPONS: Like most women of her people, she carries a knife with a bone handle and carved blade, for household work, skinning animals and, in extremis, for protection. Her real, and very effective, weapons are a baleful glower and a reputation - which she is keen to promote – for having “the eye”.

APPEARANCE: Embla is an Easterling but she is sallow-skinned rather than swarthy, as are most of the Bairka clan. She has dark dank hair which would be beautiful if she ever combed it; green-yellow eyes, heavy brows and a forehead already lined by scowling. Slight and slim but with poor posture, she is much given to clutching her woolen shawl about her. She wears traveling dress - calf-skin britches under a felt skirt and waistcoat, crudely embroidered with wool, and a linen shift underneath. She wears gold earrings and bracelets studded with turquoise, and a ring of some value which she inherited from her mother.

HISTORY: Embla’s problems really began before she was born. Her mother Rind was a high-born member of the Bairka – a small but wealthy trading tribe of Easterlings who settled close by the Borrim. They were lighter-skinned, with straight long hair, and more matriarchal than their neighbours. Marriages among the Bairka were usually arranged with the consent of both partners and bigamy and polygamy was unknown.
Proud and willful, Rind took it into her head to marry a devil-may-care fellow named Hrapp. He proved a drunken and unpleasant rogue, and Rind, disenchanted with her chosen mate, had her little daughter fostered with her own powerful family. But when Embla was thirteen years old, her mother died and the cantankerous father reclaimed his child, quarrelling irrevocably with the Bairka in the process. All Embla’s promising marriage plans were dashed. Eventually, Hrapp agreed, for a modest bride-price, to send Embla off as a second wife to the Borrim envoy Khandr. Embla, unconsulted and unwilling, was furious. Nor were the Borrim very happy with the deal – they had hoped for an advantageous alliance with Bairka rulers and were unaware of the family quarrel. In short, Embla’s marital life began with negative feelings on all sides, and relations between all the three people involved in this ill-advised second marriage are, as this story begins, severely strained.

PERSONALITY/STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES: Embla is a thoughtful, sensitive and observant woman and if life had treated her slightly better she might also have been quite a nice one. But her situation has made her extremely bitter, and she is prone to brood over real and imagined insults. She hates her rival, Briga, and has mixed feelings about her husband Khandr...she does not love him but she perversely dreams of turning his attentions away from Briga, and then having the pleasure of spurning him. She has not yet borne her husband his longed-for son - unsurprising given her cold and empty marriage bed.
While she is too proud to complain openly, Embla finds relief in lugubrious, portentous or ambiguously threatening remarks – the Bairka are considered skilled in foresight and she likes to exploit this to her advantage.

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Lalaith's post

Embla stirred the fire and smiled to herself. It was not a very pleasant smile.
Briga, the senior wife - the hag, as she privately called her - had lit this fire in the hearth, and then told her to tend it. She, proud daughter of the Bairka, had obeyed - but she had her revenge. Small, unimportant victory, but sweet nevertheless.

Open conflict was not her method. After all, Khandr, her husband…she clenched her jaw in anger at this last word, now so empty of any meaning it had carried in her girlish dreams. In those days, she imagined she would wed according to the customs of her people. A hand-fasting with a young man of her own choosing, each cleaving solely to the other. Yes, in open conflict, her “husband”, Khandr would take, as always, the hag’s part.

When her worthless father had sold her into what she regarded as little better than concubinage, she was horrified. But she at least imagined her existence would be soft and pampered - that the ageing husband would dote on his new young bride. Inexplicably, her youth seemed to hold little allure for Khandr. Instead, he clung to the familiar, middle-aged comforts offered by the hag. His infrequent visits to Embla’s tent were due to his longing for a son, not for her nubile charms.

So, when ordered to sit by the hearth, Embla made sure her retort had nothing to do with the task at hand, nothing to which Briga could reasonably object. You will not choke on big words and pig fat, sister wife, she said grinning. The older woman was discomfited, Embla could tell, and puzzled. Was this perhaps a curse or insult among the Bairka? Then Embla gazed deep into the fire, rubbed her ear-lobes, touched the skin beneath her eye and muttered dark and obscure words.
Axe-time, sword-time, shields are sundered,
After the wolf do wild men follow.

Embla knew well that her people had a somewhat mysterious and even oracular reputation among the Borrim. And now this gave her great satisfaction – the older woman looked distinctly alarmed, and left the room hastily. Of course, it did not take much to unsettle or intimidate Briga at this time. None of the Borrim were comfortable in their current surroundings. None except Embla herself. She was used to living in an alien, hostile environment – she had, after all, been doing so since her marriage. In fact, she rather enjoyed observing the discomfiture of the rest of the party - her husband, the hag, and those two doltish hunters - watching them feel as unwelcome, as wary, as ill at ease as she herself had always been since she first arrived among the Borrim.

As for her menacing pronouncements….Embla smirked again. Many of the women in her family did indeed have the sight. She remembered well the gestures of the Bairka sybils, and the kind of words they spoke when their visions came upon them, and she knew how sinister they could be. But she also knew enough about the sight to know that her Eye – if she did possess the gift - was too clouded by hate and anger to reveal any real truths.


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[Child of the 7th Age]

I've added the profile for my character Briga. Click here.

Since she is a minor character, I slightly condensed the profile format. I'll be gland to edit if you see any problems.

Post to follow.