Iolan Kephla

[Iolan Kephla]

Name: Iolan Kephla
Age: 45
Race: Human

Physical Description: A salt and weather beaten man with a shock of dirty black hair cut short and a patchy beard, Iolan is a lean man of middling height. Nervous and quick, he is missing his right leg at the knee, his ring finger on his left hand and the middle finger on his right. Clad in dirty, much repaired but practical clothes, he has a wooden leg built into a boot and buckled to his belt. When he can, he also walks with a crutch in case of emergencies.

Possessions: A modified Jezzail rifle and ammunition, a kukri (and maintenance knives), a crutch and a backpack holding his other possessions. A practical man, he seldom buys things he does not intend to use or that cannot be fit into or strapped onto his bag or his person. A set of properly crafted wooden teeth. His rifle, rather than having the curved stock usually found on its kind, has a heavier, solid stock that he added, the better to use it as a club in emergencies.

Powers or Strengths:
Marksman: A trained rifleman, he has sharp eyes and is an excellent shot, having honed his skills in countless skirmishes. His marksmanship is his primary combat skill and he pursues it with a fervour that can best be described as unhealthy.

Knife Fighting: Like all of his countrymen, Iolan is trained in the use of the Kukri, which he uses for practically everything.

Hand to hand: Unable and unwilling to retreat when set upon, Iolan relies on belligerence and ferocity when set upon. An experienced fighter, he lacks the polish that comes from proper training but can be undeniably effective against unskilled opponents. A secondary skill, Iolan is wont to test this at any bar he waters at for too long.

Tracker: A former scout and a trained marksman, Iolan is able to navigate efficiently in most types of terrain and rarely loses his sense of direction while conscious.

Weaknesses and Flaws:
Cripple: Having lost his leg to cannon fire during a battle in southern, Tian Xia, Iolan is no longer as fast as he once was. Stubborn and uncomplaining, he hobbles along regardless, but his inability to fully manoeuvre has cost him on many occasions.

Frightening; One legged, scarred, mangled and missing too many teeth, Iolan is far from physically appealing. Few people are comfortable speaking to him, a fact which counts against him in negotiations.

No teeth: While he did pay for a proper set of wooden teeth, he finds it painful to speak and it is often hard to understand what he is saying.

Illiterate: A fighter and traveller from a young age, Iolan was never truly educated, and while by no means stupid, he is unable to read and write.

Alcoholic: A veteran of many fights, Iolan lives in the knowledge that he may die any day in any number of gruesome fashions. As such, he carouses with a will and turns to alcohol to ease the pain of old scars.

Knives of memory: He’s lived through many fights and taken his share of hits. Haunted by the things he’s seen, he suffers from near constant nightmares and rages.

Rage: Stubborn and vicious, Iolan flies into a rage when attacked up close and has a lot of trouble pulling himself back from the brink.

Loner: In addition to being intermittently repulsive, Iolan does not mix well with others. Used to working alone for long periods of time, his social skills, if they can be called that, lack any kind of polish and he unwittingly reinforces his outsider status.

Lonely: Almost paradoxically, Iolan does not wish to be alone and yearns for company. Due to his history, however, he is reluctant to trust and unsure of how to relate to people.

Loyal: Usually a good trait, in a mercenary it is a hindrance. Despite his mistrustful and offensive nature, Iolan is loyal to a fault, refusing to abandon a cause regardless of its justification. This has landed him in hot water on more than one occasion.

Proud: Despite every questionable action he has ever done and his every filthy habit, Iolan is an immensely proud and touchy individual, which he tries to hide by staying silent. Quick to judge and quicker to hold a grudge, he is wont to provoke arguments rather than backing down.

Home: An immensely sore point for him. Iolan misses his home and family greatly but fears returning because of what they will surely think of him.

Doomed: Iolan is convinced that he should have died years ago with his friends. As a result, he seeks out death as a means of reuniting with them honourably. His reckless bravery and ferocity is actually the front of a man who has lost all hope of a normal life.

Weapons: A man of a somewhat battered mindset, Iolan has had his Rifle and his Kukri for many years. If he is separated from them, he becomes quite anxious.


History:
Born in the mountains of south Tian Xia to the Kephla tribe, Iolan was never a child of great ambition. A quiet child, and somewhat awkward, he was bullied by the other children and reacted violently, earning a reputation as a trouble-maker. Stubborn and argumentative, he had neither the care nor patience to become a farmer or a craftsman. Instead, showing a talent for archery, he became a hunter. For a time, he flourished, relishing the opportunity to work alone without the distractions and insults of other people. This ended when he came back from one hunt to be insulted and belittled by a number of drunken boys who had mocked him before. Losing his temper, he lashed out, badly injuring most and killing one. Rather than being executed, he was flogged and sent into exile, his family having pleaded for leniency for him.

Leaving the mountains, he took work where he could, hunting and carrying messages for people, but it never lasted long. Finally, he signed on with a mercenary outfit near Ji. Using skills learned as a hunter, he worked as a scout; examining trails and enemy positions ahead of his comrades. The work was busy, and paid well, but it was brutal and draining. They worked for local magistrates who wished to solve stubborn problems without resorting to official action. Making few friends outside of his fellow scouts, he began to resent the others for hanging back while they were put at risk. Around this time, their work began to grow questionable. Before they had hunted bandits and smugglers, but now they also stalked villages and burned homes. They also began setting up ambushes for locals who were deemed too uncooperative with Imperial Authority. Swapping his bow for an ornate rifle he found stashed in a smuggler’s wagon, he withdrew even further from his fellows.

As they travelled, and the work grew more and more shady, he saw more and more close action, turning to alcohol and games of chance to distract his mind from the violence he saw on a near daily basis. He also began getting into fights with the other men, chastising them for gloating over what he saw as their stealing his credit. This finally ended when their employer, fearful that their work would be revealed, betrayed them to a zealous Imperial commander, who attacked them as they struck a bandit camp. The resulting battle cost him his leg to cannon fire and his friends in an increasingly desperate run to escape. Barely managing to stem the bleeding with a belt around his thigh, he cauterized the wound with a piece of burning wreckage, but was trapped when an offal cart fell atop him. By the time he crawled out the battle was over and the soldiers had moved on. Fashioning a crutch from what he could find, he limped away and eventually made it back to civilization.

Alone once more, he returned to hunting and performing small jobs, but it wasn’t the same. Haunted by the memories of his friends, his drinking worsened, and he began to take any job offered, not caring who he worked for or what was asked. Hunting, murder, maiming, torture; it was all the same to him. Not a man who could work well without orders, he considered joining the military once more but he got into a fight with the recruiter and had to abandon that plan. Still good at finding people, he took work as a bounty hunter as a way of keeping on the right side of the law, but sadly the work was scarce, as officials preferred to use imperial agents rather than freelancers. Rejected, he tried anything he could put his hand to, but all bar killing ended in disaster. It came to a head when, drunk one night near Odgijagi, he killed a magistrate’s son in a bar fight and had to flee for his life.

Signing on with a merchant caravan heading west across the Sooqui Plains, he hoped to lose himself in Eyropa. At Keltaris, he took work as a guard and a courier, using his grizzled appearance to best effect, but still he could not stay on the right side of the law. Returning to bounty hunting, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Eyropans were more accepting of it than his own countrymen. In this manner, he has continued, going where the work is.

[Saruna]

Firstly, apologies this took so long and thank you very much for your patience!

I want a bit more detail on is the rifle. I'm assuming it's one of the earlier versions, but it's always preferable to have these things spelled out.

How does his leg affect his hand to hand skills?

At the rate shit is going I'm not sure when Ysoria will be finished (may at the latest though); if you want to get this guy into rp right away we can come up with a temp job or something to explain why he's away from them, or we can have him with a different group and then have Ysoria's group headhunt him into theirs?

[Brokk]

Well, the idea is that since he's not very fast he has to specialize in economy of motion and be very brutal in a very small space with little room to manoeuvre. Should I add that to description?

The rifle is pretty much that. Long, rifled barrel, large calibre, flintlock mechanism. Muzzle loading and all the usual crap that comes with it. I'm debating giving him a back up weapon but I think the rifle is enough and keeps things interesting.

[Saruna]

Considering you've not been here for very long and interest for fairness, yeahhh, best to keep it simple. I would ask that you focus his abilities to either expertise with his hand to hand or the gun; while it's impressive that he only has one leg, the balancing act is delicate as ever. Or just say that he tires quickly and therefore tries to avoid hand to hand as excessive strain slows him down during combat, which is potentially problematic. That way it could be more of a defensive ability than offensive. Or however you want to work it -- have one be where he focuses his mastery, and the other be the backup.

[Brokk]

The intention would be that the rifle was his primary weapon and he only used hand to hand when set upon or while drunk, but I shall edit it accordingly.

[Saruna]

Approved.