In an effort to get used to the Internet staring at my writings, I'm going to share Einar's character concept. Would love any input, compliments (all the compliments 
), criticisms, or potential RP between your character and my Vidarak raider.
Einar son of Holgeir, son of Gulbrand, born of Embla beneath the bear-faced shield of Clan Kustaaung, came with a roar into the world and seeks to leave with one on his lips. His childhood was spent at sea as much on land; atop his pa's shoulders, the young boy could see the endless waters that churned white foam from black waves and know just how treacherous Skälmader can be. So he minded the waters, learned from his kinsmen the ways of seafaring, learned the law from his grandmother, the clan’s law-keeper, his mother, and elders.
As the law mandates, Einar undertook the Jür Kaelth. If he was to bear the name of his clan with any respect, he needed to prove his kinsmen could count on him. Einar's task was to scavenge a weapon and kill a bull walrus before the moon filled.
So left in the wilderness, he was, and his people’s hardiness served him well; he crafted a stone war axe, a driftwood bow, and bone-tipped arrows. He searched along the shores for walrus herds for three days before finding a trail, and an injured walrus not far inland. From a safe distance, Einar shot the beast, and split its skull for good measure before beginning to skin it.
Another boy from Clan Kustaaung approached Einar as he gathered fat from the walrus, claiming it as his kill and his completion for his own Jür Kaelth. Einar merely laughed and resumed his work, but the boy brought it before the itiirdak, Einar’s grandmother. Of course, the law-keeper ruled in Einar’s favour, stating that though the first boy, named Stian, injured the beast, it was Einar Holgeirsson who fell it. And thus Einar received his village name, and earned an enemy.
Einar, now a man of the Kustaaung kylen, enjoyed his new status. He joined a raider crew just three years on, and continued his people’s legacy of raiding the settled coasts. His ship captain thought Einar, the quick-witted and quick-footed lad he was, served best as a scout; one who swam ashore ahead of the raiding party, scouted the lands for defenses and loot, before reporting back to the ship. A keen eye and foreword made the successes of Clan Kustaaung that much more worthy of song, and Einar reaped the respect of his kinsmen like it were the drink of the gods.
But his fellow Vidarak, Stian Tygvessen, who had to earn his name on new prey after Einar took his, loathed the ardour Einar received. It came to a head when Clan Kustaaung coordinated their fleet to attack a prolific trade port near the city-state of Bayris. Einar led a scout party ahead of the ships, and pinpointed several defense weaknesses that the raiders could take advantage of in the fight. And they did, heartily, and enjoyed carting off new wares and slaves for the kylen. What was lofted the most, however, was the guard captain’s head, which Stian personally saw to liberating from its body, as the captain and his cannons had been a particular pain in the Vidarak’s collective behind previously.
At the celebration, Einar was lauded for his keen eye that watched the slowness which the port closed at dusk, that timed the guard rotations to know where the blindspot was, and surmised that the guard captain would never order his cannons turned inwards to fire at his people, so the invasion should come from within. To him the credit was given for not just a good fight but a glorious one, which saw their foe slain and their riches heaped upon.
To the proclamation, Stian roared, upset a table, and broke through the crowd to appear seething before Einar. “It is my axe bathed in the Bayrisian b*****d’s blood, and to this gutless, thieving vámr goes the glory?” he spewed, then spat at Einar’s feet. With the men that leapt to both sides, there would have been a brawl, but an elder called for a duel instead; “To settle the grievances unaired for so long, let us take to the battlefield, and see who the gods give glory to.”
The duel saw to Einar’s victory, after he landed a punch just so that his fingernail scraped skin and drew blood. Stian saw the thief once more applauded for winnings he stole, and Stian vowed for it to end.
Later that same evening, when the festivities had died down, Einar made for his family’s home, when a great blow sent him sprawling on the ground. Stian stood above, eyes gleaming murderously, a rock grasped in one hand. “You hold the secrets of the world in your hand, don’t ya?” Stian taunted. “I’ll break them with your fingers.” A shadow loomed closer to Einar, and then his world went white.
Over and over, Stian smashed the rock into Einar’s hand. Blood-chilling screams summoned the tribesmen from their homes. All of Clan Kustaaung came to gape at Stian, son of Tgyve, splattered in the blood of his kin, and the pulpy remains of fingers, muscle, and skin where once was a hand on Einar, son of Holgeir.
The following week was a blur for Einar, as he spent it in and out of delirious pain. He woke once with a finger still attached, then three, then they were blackened and unfeeling, and then the final time, with none at all. Stian had been branded and cast off from Clan Kustaaung’s lands during Einar’s coma, laughing madly through it all. He had gotten what he wanted; the death of Einar’s praise. For without a hand, how could the clansmen count on Einar? Even in the eyes of the law, he was without hope.
Einar railed against his fate. He, a warrior of the Vidarak, a faithful servant of his kylen, was to be sidelined at the age of twenty-one? He, the very one they were singing praises for mere weeks ago, was now unfit to serve aboard a ship, let alone in the battles of the gods? He refused it, fought with the elders about it, argued all the points of Vidar law with the itiirdak, and still he won nothing more than heartache. Einar, son of Holgeir, pride of Clan Kustaaung, was shored.
With all of his options exhausted, Einar thought over the life he was to lead. One of a manual labourer, or a shepherd for the clan’s goats; maybe a weaponsmith’s errand boy he would be. He would be honoured for his years of service, but looked down on for his limitations. His hand would mark him as free from combat, but without purpose outside of it.
And then he had another thought.
Of all the places he had been, of all the people he had seen. So many ended in bloody encounters, with he and his people leaving a scorched earth where once stood guards and villages. Most of those unlucky enough to encounter a Vidarak fell in battle. Why could he not encourage battle on his own? Though he may not do battle with his kin, what stopped him from finding his own glorious death? Even were he to die from starvation in the wilderness, least he would have his dignity to see to his grave.
With the blessing of the elders, Einar set off on his own in a spare boat, headed for everywhere and anywhere. He let the currents take him, minding Skälmader not take him out to sea, and eventually found port and went inland. The days blurred into faint memories of campfires and towns, dirty looks from peasants and bloodied lips from bargoers, faint tingles in a hand there no more and dreams of an axe where it had always been. Einar remembers little of most of these towns, but he remembers clearly the first day he stepped foot in Bayris.
A city carved into from the cliffside, levels upon levels of people packed into homes smaller than Vidarak ships, streets lined with merchants and traders and businessmen of every walk of life. The carts that passed through the gates and the ships pulling into port carried more goods than Einar had ever laid eyes on in all his years of raiding. No wonder the Taskarren pirates targeted Bayrisian ships so much; the city was a world unto itself.
To make it even more impressive, Einar faded into the background in Bayris better than he had in any other settlement he had visited. No wary glances, frightened glances; guards tightened their pommel grips at anyone carrying a weapon, not just the one-armed Vidarak. He stood out as much as the half-elven courtesans and dwarven bourgeois; that is, not at all. It was refreshing to not be the only stranger.
Even with that comfort, a Vidarak on a mission to die was going to attract some attention. His fifth barroom brawl ended in Einar sitting in a jail cell. While he debated breaking out or waiting for his release, a cloaked figure cast a shadow from his cell’s window. A raspy, male voice inquired of the smarts for a man to provoke fights with three separate mercenary crews before the week was through, and Einar merely scoffed, asked how it was his business.
“My business is that of others,” the cloaked man replied. “Textiles, metalworks, lives; all of it is the business of those unseen.”
And that was Einar’s introduction to the Unseen Wolves.
The man, a half-elf named Ilario, bribed the guardsman and had Einar released, then began the tests. If Einar was to be an Unseen Wolf, he could not end up in the drunk tank enough for the guards to recognize him. His tasks were simple; intimidate this business owner into paying the racket, rough up the thief that took what the Wolves wanted, be the muscle for a con job, and do it all quietly. Einar succeeded at it all, even impressed when his former scout training helped out an affiliate when he was off the job.
When the recruitment phase ended, Einar was placed under Ilario’s command and mentorship. From the half-elf, Einar learned of subtlety in fights, of checking for traps and hidden compartments, but most importantly, how to use his opponent’s weaknesses. Where once Einar was a raider with an eye for chinks in the armour, he became a master of exploitation under Ilario’s tutelage. He even gained a new hand, a hook.
Einar’s time with the Unseen Wolves lasted just shy of seven years. Seven years spent bribing guardsmen, stealing artifacts, making backroom deals, and honing the skills of an assassin and thief. But Einar grew dissatisfied with the lack of action; his opponents now were traps as much as people, and very few counted as truly dangerous. Until he met the mage from Ertain.
She was a mark for the Wolves, after her gold flashed too brightly and her assistant bragged of their “priceless artifact” they had in transport. The Wolves wanted that artifact, and sent Einar to retrieve it.
Breaking in went smoothly, as did dispatching the guards. The problem came when the mage was seemingly locked inside the room with the artifact. Einar thought a surprise attack – bursting through the window and getting too close for the mage to cast – would work well. Turns out the mage was more prepared than the Wolves realized.
A ferocious battle between blade and spell broke out. Einar slid past ice patches, dodged fireballs and spikes, and aimed for the mage’s neck when she let loose a blinding light from her palm. When his eyesight focused again, the mage was gone.
Her exit out the window was obvious enough, however, and Einar found himself pursuing the mage through the city rooftops. Once more they danced in battle, her hurried spellcasting erratic as she ran, him enjoying the chase as much as the idea of capturing her. Then she landed a lightning bolt throw just so that it ricocheted into Einar’s hook-hand, and Einar dropped to the ground.
The mage and the artifact got away, and though Einar lived, he was as good as dead for his failure. But he didn’t care; he had found what all these years away from his people had been for. He was going to die by that mage’s hands in the most glorious battle of magic and swords.
With Ilario’s help, Einar escaped Bayris and once more set out on the road. This time his destination was not an unknown, but a fixed point. Northern Ertain; the city of Felarin would bring him the mage, or he would die trying.
Growing up Vidarak has shaped much of how Einar is as a man. He is strong and stubborn, like the unyielding lands of the Coast. He is resourceful and a quick learner, like one must be to survive all that that living as a raider throws at you. He is honourable and mindful of others, as Vidar law commands and the tribe needs.
What being an outsider in every settlement since he left the Coast has taught Einar is that his loyalty is owed to none but himself. If he needs something, there will be no friendly face to give it to him. As long as he is of the Vidarak, he can never be of the world. And that more than sits fine with Einar, as the law and his people is all he cares for. Well, the law, his people, ale, and daggers, that is.
The traits that have defined Einar since his youth – stubbornness and pride – are a double-edged sword; he is a man of great tenacity and resilience, which aided him in surviving an amputation and following lifestyle adaptions, but also is what forced his separation from the only people he can fully rely on. His pride is not such an arrogant thing to think he is without faults, but at his limits, Einar would sooner die than admit he needs help.
For all his lonesome, nomadic tendencies, Einar does truly value teamwork above all. He had to get along with people, lest he be left to starve by the clan. His shipmates needed him to trust them, and vice versa. So Einar is more than willing to work with people, but it must serve his goals. Alliances at this stage in his life, as a man with seemingly everything at stake, Einar treats as pragmatic as-needed affairs. For if the blade at his side would make a better enemy to see him to glory, Einar will choose his gods.
Return to Charadun - Q&A
The Morphing Game
Return to Charadun - Recr
