About Arklon Coldblood|
Arklon Coldblood
________________________________________________________________________ Description Height: 6'10"
Arklon is a towering figure of taut muscles and battle scars. He appears more orc than human, with dark grey skin and tusks jutting from his lower jaw. One of his brownish-red eyes is covered with an eyepatch. His red dyed hair is bound in a half dozen braids that fall to the middle of his back, though the braids are usually tied together with a leather thong. Arklon keeps himself clean shaven, and even keeps his fingernails and toenails in immaculate condition. He wears the cured hide of a mammoth for armor, and bears a falchion, one of the favored weapons of his people.
Personality Arklon is a man of extremes. At one end he is a tried and true killer dedicated to perfecting his craft and becoming the greatest swordsman ever to have lived. At the other end, he is a talented poet, painter, and speaker. He is willing to fight battles with honeyed words, blistering invective, or bloodied blade. He constantly seeks to perfect himself, in the belief that conflict is the crucible that he can use to achieve that perfection. That conflict can be a friendly competition, a duel to the death, or the mindless chaos of mass combat. Arklon is very proud of his skill at arms, and his art. He will accept reasoned criticism without complaint, but brooks no insults of any kind. While he once served the Ragesian military, his experiences there have left him with a great distrust for authority, especially government authority. He sees the Ragesian government in particular as a corrupt entity of tyranny that protects the cowardly and pathetic, serving as a weapon to destroy those who should rise above and turn its subjects into slaves. He believes people should have the strength of will and strength of arm to rule themselves in an orderly manner, without need of outside interference. Though he is wary of authority, Arklon adheres to a strict set of personal codes. These include: 1. Never do violence to the innocent.
Background Arklon is the product of multiple generations of interbreeding between the hardy Kelaquois northerners and the orcs of Ragesia. Born of two strong peoples, with a family tradition of military service, Arklon knew from childhood that he would serve in Coaltongue's armies. Driven to perfection even from childhood, as soon as the boy could hold a sword he began to practice, wild dreams of being the greatest swordsman ever to live ripening in his mind. Though his father, Jaghar, approved of his son's thirst for strength in battle, Arklon's mother, Brena, fearing the boy would become naught but a mindless killer, directed some of his attention to other pursuits, such as sports, art, and crafts. Seeing this as a challenge to become even greater than his initial dream, Arklon accepted his mother's urging, eventually settling on painting and poetry to be his other pursuits. As soon as he was allowed to enter the military, Arklon did so. Now 15 years old, the young half orc took well to the soldier's life. He proved to be the best of his training squad, as strong as most full orcs, and far smarter and more charismatic than them, albeit somewhat less enduring. Once in the military proper, Arklon quickly gained rank, becoming a corporal in just less than a year, and achieving sergeant in three years. Though it was a time of relative peace, when fighting did break out, Arklon's squad was constantly thrown into the worst situations on the front line. This was much to the young warrior's liking, as he believed that only in the hardest battles would he find the strength needed to be the greatest swordsman ever to have lived. His complete levelheadedness and unflappable courage in battle earned Arklon the epithet 'Coldblood'. All was going well for Arklon, now 20, until the brutal machine known as military politics set upon him. One of Arklon's superiors, a human called Kaltus, feared that the half orc would take his position. Kaltus set Arklon to ready an ambush of what was supposedly an enemy unit disguised as peasants trying to sneak through the front line. The 'enemy warriors' were actually peasants in truth, and Arklon's unit massacred most of them before he realized the reality of the situation. Kaltus claimed that Arklon had acted alone, that his bloodlust gotten the better of him. Arklon was court martialed and would have been found guilty, but he demanded trial by combat. Kaltus, too cowardly to fight Arklon himself, designated one of the best warrior's in the young sergeant's unit, another half orc named Rhagesh, to fight in his stead. Though he had no desire to kill a man that had faithfully served beside him, Arklon fought with all his might, determined not to allow this injustice to pass. Although Rhagesh had seen Arklon's favored technique hundreds of times in both training and battle, he was unprepared to actually face it. Arklon drew his oversized blade and struck with it in one clean motion, mortally wounding his fellow soldier with a deep gash from shoulder to opposite hip. Having won his freedom, Arklon turned his back on a nation that would allow such a thing to pass and call it justice. Killing Rhagesh had changed a hatred for a man, Kaltus, into hatred for the entire system, the entire country. The half orc warrior resigned his commission with the military and left, traveling to the neutral city-state of Gate Pass. His last few years have been spent in Gate Pass, honing his technique, both martial, and artistic. He sells paintings and poems to pay rent for food and a small room while he attends a small swordsman's school, run by an old man named Korban. Korban has set many challenges for the young half orc, the most recent of which is wearing an eye patch and learning to fight without his depth perception. Another of these is an ongoing challenge to learn how to make due with lesser weapons, such as knives, slings, staves and the like. Arklon holds a great deal of respect for the old man, who still consistently beats him two of three sparring matches, even at his advanced age. After his first year in the city, Arklon joined the Resistance, seeking to keep his new home out of the hands of the tyrants of his last home. He still writes letters to his parents in Ragesia, and sends them money from time to time. His dream of being the greatest swordsman ever to have lived still burns in his heart. |
