Thar Shaddin

Name: Cahan

Age: 33

Race: Human

Height: 6'5

Weight: 255

Physical Description: Cahan is tall, wide shoulders with a muscular build. He has long dark hair and a thin beard that covers his face and chin. His features are very rough and his skin thick. His voice is very deep and although he is not of noble blood, his speech is proper and strong. He is also very smart and understands politics and the art of warfare. His attired is of rich cloths, well tailored and armor clad.

Strengths: Cahan spent much of his youth as a bare knuckle fighter and is very good at brawling. He is also very skilled at smithing as he started to learn at age 20. He has strong leadership skills and is very persuasive, which makes it easy to rally people to his cause.

Weakness: He is not very good with weapons nor does he have any magical powers or items. He doesn't have very strong armor and the plates are only covering his shoulders, chest, wrist, and shins. After years of bare knuckle fights, his hands are worn and fingers swollen from broken bones, something that he is reminded of each winter. His right knee is injured and keeps him from moving very fast or running. He prefer to do business with humans only, although he will associate with non humans if the need arises.

Possessions:

A small leather bag that he keeps coins and valuable items he comes across in his travels. A steal-chained necklace that he wears around his neck with a crest on it. He also carries a second leather bag (slightly larger than the first) in which he has a pair of lucky tongues. He has a home on the outskirts of Shim and a blacksmith shop in the Business district.

Short history: Cahan is a fiery and impetuous and a bold man, but he lacks the cool head of a strategist. He is a rogue by nature, spending much of his time on the road and carries very little on his person.

He was born and raised in the northern lands, where tyrants were a thing of the past and the people ruled their own lives. He had been told many times as a child of the old ways when powerful men ruled the people with an iron fist and democracy was a term spoken by fools who wished to be black-bagged and carried off into the night never to be seen again. Life was simply and he spent it in the company of his father (the best weapons smith in the north) his mother (a merchant of jewelry) and his younger sister who helped their mother in the shop.

At the age of 25 a band of cut-throats, humans and dwarfs alike; came into their small village and attempted to take it over. With no guards or armed forces to protect the village, they marched in and began taking what they wanted and doing what ever they pleased. They forced Cahan's father to make for them armor and weapons and forced the village to feed and shelter them for free. Cahan, along with a dozen other able-bodied men stood against the band of thugs and were defeated. Most of the men died and the ones that lived were forced to leave the village.

Life was hard on the road and Cahan had no place to call home. He did odd jobs from time to time to earn coin. After spending five years on the road, he happened upon the city of Marn, a place far away from his former home and decided to stay. It would be unlikely that anyone there would know of him or his shame. He bought himself a small home just outside of Shim and set up shop in the Business district doing smithing work for coin where he has been for the past three years. Life began to take on a new meaning as Cahan began his new life in Marn. He met a local blacksmith by the name of Joran Vondan, and after sharing secrets of the trade and other things, they became friends. Life was simple, but Cahan wanted more. Then he met a woman by the name of Keeva. A thief by trade and someone who was into blackmarket deals. After taking part in blackmarket deals, and trafficking stolen weapons he met up with a man known simply by Three. Three was his connection to the Paragon, and once he joined the rebel group he worked hard to raise himself toward a position of power.

K, I'd like to see his ability to be persuasive/communicate well in his strengths, and it seems that he has a knack for leadership as well. I'd also like to see more effective weaknesses; something that offsets his skill at hurting people. What is it about women that makes him weak? Is he more gullible to a pretty face?

Ah, as you're working on your app and updating it please do take care to watch out for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and tricksy homonyms. A few isn't anything to fret over but a good number of them caught my eye as I was reading through. It distracts from your content, or else I wouldn't bring it up.

Let's see, given the feel/history pattern of pal tahrenor I'd say that for the northmen it wouldn't be so much a functioning government as a series of powerful despots that had them down. Perhaps there was a war in the past that splintered their nation into tribes who settled down in villages. Likely they'd have minor figures of respect in the community, either men who'd performed a feat worthy of respect or elders.

Also I'd change the predjudice to include all nonhumans, as I think you told me in chat that he doesn't particularly care for any of them. You could likely include that in weaknesses as well, as his unwillingness to interact with nonhumans if given a choice would affect his travels and opportunities.

Alrighty, so what has brought him to Marn? Was he passing through on the way to Tian Xia or Eyropa? Was he looking for something in particular?

A thought struck me, too -- if he has been living in Marn for awhile (and he'll need to), it's likely he'd have a steady income, a place to live (either one he owns or is renting, it's up to you), either a shop for him to earn coin or a spot in the industrial district. We don't really keep track of possessions, it's more or less just what it makes sense for your character to have.

Okay. So how long do you want him to have been living in Marn? Why does he wind up staying in Marn?

Okay,I think I covered everything now, but if not I can add more. Depending how the revolt goes he may not stay in Marn much after that is over. Depends...

I'd like to see more weaknesses to balance out his strengths. As of now he is charismatic, very skilled at bare knuckle and with a sword, and understands strategy and politics. There is not a whole lot of magic in the world, so not having magical powers or items doesn't really balance out his proficiency with weapons. His hands are painful/swollen but still useable. The business thing does balance out the fact that he seems to be well off.

Does he currently have a home/shop in Marn? Where at?

It still seems to me that a global belief of magic being outlawed would put him at odds with the Paragon. Given Marn's situation, I'm not sure why he'd be drawn to fight in Marn and not in, say, one of the cities in Eyropa (especially perhaps the ones near the border and further away from the Empire's power).

What is going on in Marn right now is not public enough for rumors to leave the city. The government is only just starting to react to the publications and angry undercurrent. It'd be more likely I think that he hear about the oppressive state of the government and maybe go in to poke around. Given how dangerous it is to be anti-government in Marn, it would take time to learn much of anything, especially for a stranger. So to be involved with the Paragon in a capacity any more than the lowly errand boy he'd need to spend a few years with them proving that he wasn't a spy.

Shim is the small farm-centered town outside of Marn by a few hours. It's very not likely he'd find out more about anything in there. His highest chance of finding out information would be to befriend/help someone involved with Paragon or having knowledge of it and going from there.

The sequence of events/motivations in the history feels disjointed. How would he hear about his sister up in the north while he was in Marn? Do his people come down to trade? How long has he currently been living in Marn?

After all that is worked out we'll figure out his current place within the Paragon's structure, as well as who he knows.

That might work a bit better. I think it at least gives him more room to grow.

I know this is taking a long time, but it's not on you. Getting a new character thoroughly involved in an ongoing plot when you're new to the setting means, well, a lot of stumbling around until we find something that works. In addition to that I'm anal about this sort of thing because I want you to have an ironclad history so that no matter what gets brought up during rp you're not caught flat footed. So! We'll get through this. Don't give up hope.

Sweet, that makes things a lot simpler. Now we get to figure out who he knows and such so we can build his connections. Okay, so it's probable he knows Breda's master Joram. Kori Stronghammer set up a smithing shop in Shim about a few weeks ago in game time. Kori is currently in prison, and his thread is a bit backed up but that needs expediting so he can get back into play.

The Ale Star is a tavern whose proprieter and patrons tend to be anti government. There's also an unnamed tavern where clandestine meetings are held. As it's undeveloped perhaps we could fit Ulfric in there somewhere with a small group of men.

What do you want Ulfric to be doing within the rebellion/Paragon? He could do all sorts of things, from making weapons for them to conscripting recruits, to threatening minor officials/businesspeople over onto their side, to smuggling through his shop, to helping to distribute the Paragon (a dangerous task -- being caught with the paper is not good). . .the list goes on.

I can see Ulfric visiting the taverns where he could meet some of the people and make friends of sorts with anti-government people. since it's unnamed and undeveloped, does that mean that it's rarely used or not at all?

I'd like to see Ulfric build himself up in the ranks with the rebels. He could start out by making them weapons in his shop and smuggling items in and out. From there he could do other jobs like conscripting recruits and so forth. He's a pretty big guy so I could see him threatening people from the other side.

Oh! I forgot. Please also include his home/shop in his possessions. You don't have to go into minute details, but possessions include large things he owns (or rents), not just what is on his person.

Updated

One last thing before approval:

Victorious over Ulfric and his men, the thugs did what they wanted. With the threat of Ulfric and others like him destroyed life in the village became a true terror. Life was hard on the road and Ulfric had no place to call home

You skip from life being a terror in the village to suddenly life being hard on the road. Put in what finally drove him out of the village (and how he managed it) for the sake of continuity and clarity.

Everything else looks good.

Up dated

Approved.

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