Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Birthday: 492 AV, Fall 19
Birthplace: Ravok
Thalrick is not a short man, but he is not
overly tall, either. Standing at six foot, he is an average height for a man of his age. His arms are toned but slim, as are his legs. The copious amounts of time spent hauling nets, raising masts, moving barrels and fighting pirates on the Suvan Sea has given him a strong, yet ragged physique. His lean, muscular figure is riddled with scars, some long, others short, some visible, others faded. The lack of dull moments in his life have all left him with stories to tell, from the three pink cuts beneath his right ear to the seventeen lashes that mark his back. Every scar serves as a remnant of time, serving to remind him of better . . . and worse, times in his life.
His eyes are dark as earth, his nose thin and round. His brows are thick and curved, and some would even say they're
too thick, often left wild from lack of care and grooming. His teeth are both white and yellow, yet somehow straight, and his smile is regarded as a toothy one. His chin is very prominent, with a small indent, and his jawline is strong, casting a shadow down the most part of his neck. Thalrick's lips are plump, the lightest shade of pink, with a notable scar that runs down the left side of them; a friendly reminder he should watch who he trusts. He is never seen without stubble across the lower half of his face, a thick black shade that almost serves as a shadow of its own. Recently he has taken to growing it longer, letting it form a grisly jungle of black and brown that hangs well below his jawline.
The hair atop his head is a similar jungle, a matted mix of black and blonde. His lack of grooming has turned it into a thick tangle, as some hairs entwine themselves into dreadlocks that hang past his shoulders. Streaks of blonde run rampant, created from the vast amount of time he spends beneath the blazing sun, and for the years he spent among the saltwater. He cannot recall the last time he had it fashioned and cut, for years abroad have left him lacking in the department of care. Still, for all the scars and the tangles of hair, Thalrick is a handsome man; capable of swooning the opposite sex.
PersonaThalrick has always been a man who stays optimistic, always clinging on to hope. He has done it all his life, and will continue doing it until his life is ended. He is a man who is as fast with words as he is with weapons, teeming with wit in a world where men draw swords and conclusions before they consider reason. He does not despise violence, but nor does he actively seek it. If Thalrick can avoid the swinging of swords by swinging his tongue, then he is bound to do so. Conflict is something he saw too much of in past years, and something he tries to see less of as he grows older. Still, that does not mean he is willing to fight for his life, if the situation calls for it. Thalrick has fought all his life to keep it, and will riddle a man with holes without hesitation if that man stands between he and his beating heart.
Freedom is a word that he refers to all too often. Freedom, and vengeance. Vengeance against all those that have wronged him in his past; namely, his father. He could not recall what he looked like if he saw him, but Thalrick is bent on putting an end to the vile man who helped create him. All his life Thalrick saw himself bend the knee to the causes of other men. Jon, the slaver, who spent his days stealing horses and cattle. Garrion, the outlaw, who Thalrick fought and nearly died for, all because of the outlaws own personal vendetta against the Syliran Knights. Yarlen Greyhorn, self-proclaimed pirate lord, who used Thalrick and the rest of his crew to help bolster his own status amongst the pirates of the Suvan. He has always served beneath another, bent to the will of men that consider themselves
leaders. But no more. Thalrick strives to serve himself and only himself, unless a reason arises that he should aid another. He sees himself as a free man; beyond the dictations of others.
While his exterior is rough and hardened, a testimony to his years in slavery and as a pawn at sea; there is a gentler, kinder side to Thalrick. A side not seen by many (especially slavers, who he is quicker to draw a sword on than introduce himself). To those he trusts, he is loyal and kind, and would rather die than see them harmed. To women he is always a gentleman, courteous and friendly, whether he wishes to bed them or not. For in every woman he sees fragmented images of mother, the only person he ever truly loved. To harm a woman before him is equivalent to diving into the Suvan Sea with feet bound by chains, expecting not to drown. Thalrick has grown into a man who makes people earn his respect and trust. He believes there are too many in the world who betray trust. Too many who twist and bend peoples perspective of them for their own personal gain. He is hesitant to trust most, but once his trust and respect are gained he is as loyal as a slave is to his master. While Thalrick is a man of freedom and honor, it is vengeance that truly drives him on his journey. A burning flame of vengeance crackles inside him, and will not die until his father has.
Character HistoryThalrick was born into the world a son; just like every other man. He had a father and a mother, yet their faces always appear distorted whenever he tries to remember them. He remembers his mothers breast in his mouth, and the sweet sound of her voice when she sung to him while he slept. He remembers that she loved him, and he loved her. She was always around, to care for him like a mother should. She bragged about him in front of all her friends, when they would gather, and they would poke him and hold him and make him cry because their noses were bent and their eyes were so wide and scary. His mother had raised him the best she could, devoting five years of his life to helping him walk, and talk, and be as any child should; free. And she would have devoted many more, had his father not killed her over money debts.
The last Thalrick remembers of his mother were her screams as his father hit her, and the sounds of her gasps as he strangled her to death right before his eyes. Thalrick was born with his mothers eyes but his fathers face, his fathers hair and his fathers nose. He despised that. As his mothers lifeless body tumbled over the table, he remembered his father telling him ''it will all be okay, son'', before lifting him up and taking him to a place that was the exact opposite of okay. A Ravok slavers den, one that was as dark and musty as it was secretive and illegal. His father had been in debt to one of the slavers, who wanted 'equal payment' for the mizas he had lent him. And so, Thalrick lost the title of son, and gained the title of equal debt. All within a single night he had lost his mother, his best friend, and gained a new friend in the form of an iron cudgel and a pair of chains.
He spent three months within that den, serving the slaver his wines and his oats and his salted pork. Four others worked alongside him, and any new slaves that came were ushered off elsewhere. Thalrick often tried to overhear the slaver converse between his peers, and more often was he caught and beat for it. After three months the slaver, who he now knew to be called ''Rhao Xi Xysi'', suspected that the Ebonstryfe had heard of his location; and would be upon them within the hour. He sent his slaves with one of his trusted comrades, who turned out to be not so trustworthy after all. Rhao's supposed friend took them out of Ravok completely, on a smugglers boat he had hired. It turned out that the same man had been the one who reported Rhao to the Ebonstryfe, in hopes he would turn over his
product.
As they first boarded the smugglers boat, Thalrick remembered thinking he was free, that this man would be his salvation. But as it landed ashore, his hope turned to ashes in his mouth. Four brute, bearded men covered in leather and furs took them from the inn by the docks, and each of them were sold to a different one. His new master had been called Jon, and he had claimed himself a son of Rhysol, and a herald of his ways. Jon beat Thalrick more often than Rhao had, and his fist was much bigger and stronger, often leaving the boy with bruises and cuts, most of which scarred in some way or another. Jon was no high born, but nor was he a bottom feeder; he spent his days stealing horses and cattle and selling them to the rich. Thalrick was forced to help him distract the owner, while Jon rode off on their horse to some discreet location to make a sale. The owners never liked that, and Thalrick was beaten by them, too. One lady even went so far as to draw a knife on him, but his small legs were too fast for her thick ones and he escaped her easily.
At age thirteen, after seven and a half years under the employ of Jon, he felt hot rays of hope burn his face once more. His master had taken to Sunberth to sell a recently acquired destrier, when he was come across by a band of men who considered themselves pirates. When Jon told them his name, they claimed he had stolen the cattle of a good and honest woman only a month a go. Jon told them he had not, but they killed him all the same. Thalrick's chained hands indicated he was nothing but a puppet to Jon, so they spared his life and removed his chains with a key they found in the burly man's sack.
''I'm Vann, and this is Growler, on account o' the way he always growls when he fights.'' He recalled them saying as they freed him. Thalrick had heard him growl when his scimitar slashed apart Jon's fat, bearded throat. The two so-called pirates took Thalrick and the horse back to a farm leagues away from Sunberth, and gave a slim woman the horse as a token of their good faith. Mother Betha, they called her, for she had always been kind to the crew of
The Widower whenever they took to land. That was their pirate ship, they told him, and he could see it if he went with them. Thalrick had never seen a proper ship before, and if he had he could not remember it. He had nowhere else to be, and he was lost. Instinct told him to join them on their journey back to their ship.
They backtracked to Sunberth, and when they arrived at the Sunberth docks, Thalrick had been awestruck.
The Widower had made its way into Baroque Bay under the guise of a merchant vessel, carrying all types of salts and herbs and wheat. Thalrick was introduced to the crew, each of them weathered from the sun. There was Big Paul, and Vann and Growler, two twins named Uric and Garth, a Myrian named Tasha, and the captain, self-proclaimed pirate lord Yarlen Grayhorn. There were others, but he never came to know their names, Yarlen invited Thalrick to join his ranks, as they had been dwindling. He offered solitude in the form of his ship, a bed not made of grass, and freedom that a person could not find on land; or in chains. It was all too sweet for Thalrick, a thirteen year old with a slender grasp on what a pirate even was.
He was given his own weapon, a jagged iron dagger, and his own set of clothes; a worse-for-wear cream tunic, a pair of dark brown cloth breeches and some shin-high leather boots. It was ill-fitting at first, but still better than the sack Jon had given him. He grew into it all anyway, and eventually it all just felt like his own skin. The ship and its crew set sail a month after he had joined it, and at first the sea had been his enemy and worst nightmare. He was not used to the way the ocean swayed about, rocking the ship about it like it weighed only a pound. Still, he grew used to it just as he had his clothes, and his hands. He had not used them for so long, they had been clasped together by iron for eight years. . .
It was the Myrian, Tasha, who taught him to use his dagger. She spoke basic common, and more often than not he found himself learning her tongue. She could say basic words like ''dodge'' and ''duck'', but the rest of it was lost on her. When they were not swinging at each other atop the deck, she was teaching him her language through whatever means that she could. He learned Myrian to a basic extent, but found that their training required little words and more action. Before long, he found his passion for swordplay, and she admired his footwork. He could never beat Tasha through strength and skill alone, and found the only way to put his dagger at her throat (which made him victor of their spar) was to outwork her in his movements. Thalrick often found himself using the environment as weapons, taking advantage of them to find a way at the Myrians neck. She both admired and shunned him for it, as she believed his agility to be dishonorable in combat. Captain Yarlen just told him she was a Myrian, a savage, and those were her beliefs. She had supposedly only joined the crew through the promise of glory and bloodshed.
And bloodshed there was. Only a month after mastering his techniques in combat, Thalrick found himself and the crew victim to the attack of a rival ship. They were rammed and boarded, by men who looked as fearsome and savage as Tasha. Using his gift of agility, Thalrick sent more than a dozen of them overboard, to drown or be eaten by the children of the ocean. He killed only one, when he was tangled in the ropes that climbed to the mast and had no alternative. He remembered the man falling back with his dagger lodged in his throat, pleading for help as he sunk to his knees and died. Vann untangled him when the fight was done, and the enemy was defeated.
He had killed his first man at fifteen, and Thalrick did not know how to properly feel about it. It had felt good, and it had made him feel powerful. But at the same time, he had not known the man, nor ever saw him before. Yet, the killing intent was there, the man
wanted Thalrick dead, he saw it in his eyes. It was a thought that would always irk him, but something he would do plenty more times in the years that followed. Before long,
The Widower became a feared name upon the Suvan Sea, by both merchant vessels and pirate ships. They spent a copious amount of time raiding merchant vessels in the Northern part of the Suvan Sea, and docking and replenishing supplies in the Southern part.
After several battles had been won, few dared challenge them in fear of losing. Vann and Thalrick grew close as friends, spending most of their days aboard beside each other. By nineteen, Thalrick truly felt apart of the crew, and Yarlen saw him as a great asset in both combat and working the decks. He would occasionally bring him into his quarter to discuss navigation, and plan where they would sail to next. However, the uprising of his vessel also brought the uprising of Yarlen's own ego. By the time Thalrick was twenty years of age, Yarlen had become obsessed with power, violent and corrupt through the fear he ensued. He began raiding and pillaging any ship he found, whether they were a fisherman or a merchant. At first the crew were fine with it, but soon grew to realize that Yarlen was driving himself insane with the thought of more glory and spoils.
Tasha had been the only who did not speak against it, for she too dreamed of glory and plunder. Still, Yarlen grew to distrust her, fearing she would overthrow him for power. He sent her into the ocean with her hands and feet bound; so that she may not swim her way from the bottom. After that, the crew knew it was too late for Yarlen Greyhorn. Some continued to follow him, which made things difficult the night of the planned coup d'état. Vann had been the one assigned to kill Yarlen as he slept, and so Vann had snuck into his cabin alone. He never returned, for Yarlen had been awaiting him, and put his sword through Vann's chest. Thalrick entered to find his best friend lying in a pool of his own blood, and in a frenzy, killed Yarlen, poking fifteen holes in his chest and stomach. Vann, with the last strength he could muster, handed down his fathers rapier,
Swiftclaw, to Thalrick. He told Thalrick to find freedom, and he swore he would.
Thalrick remembered little of the battle on deck that ensued after he left Yarlens cabin, only that he had woken up in a tavern by a dock a week later; the same tavern he had once been sold into slavery at, fifteen years earlier. He remembered the smell of the food, and the shoddy old pier covered in nets full of dead fish.
''Where am I, what happened to the ship?'' He asked as he awoke, hair and face drenched in sweat. He must have been sick, or tossing in his sleep.
''You're at The Fishermans Friend. Is it that
Widower ship you're talkin' about? They say it was set alight by its own crew, and they fought amongst the flames, dancin' with their swords while the mast burned so bright it could be seen for miles across the Suvan Sea. . . One of them were yellin' about freedom and that, they say. Yarlen Greyhorn, that self-proclaimed lord of the pirates, his body washed up aside yours, so me and me pa buried him out in the yard. Him and some other fellow, gaunt o' face with long copper hair and a hole in his heart. We nearly buried you too, 'til you started coughing and wheezin'. But we dug some holes and buried them side by side, though I doubt they'd appreciate it. Pirates like to live and die at sea, pa says. I guess it to be true. I wonder what happened aboard that ship, some say it was a coup, but I'd be lying if I wasn't curious.'' Said a woman who had been tending to his belongings beside him. She had large breasts and a round stomach that pushed at her navy blue dress, short auburn hair and a face full of freckles. A pretty woman, but a clueless one.
It all seemed to go through one ear and out the other, aside from the information that she had buried Vann beside the very man who had slain him.
Vann. . . rest in peace, my friend. I will live free, as was our dream. I'll be free for the both of us, me and your memory. . .And so he would.
![[Note by Nemesis]](./images/note.png "[Note by Nemesis]")
Thalrick Levelle 
by Thalrick on February 26th, 2015, 6:47 am 
