Occupation: Catcher of rats (That would be Head of the Rat Catchers Guild for her sins)
Status: What you can't see, can still hurt you.
1. Your character is being announced at the Royal Ball by the most pompous, enthusiastic and long-winded Master of Ceremonies in recorded history. What do they declaim?
Ysmay Osmond, Rat-catchers Guild.
2. Give a 6-word backstory and/or history for your character, prior to their entering play - it is needed for the character bio on the back cover of this season's DVD.
Rat-catcher seeks life without angry mobs.
Possibly they should have tried a different city...
3. However improbable it may seem, your character just won a boasting competition. What was their winning boast?
I'm so popular (rolls eyes) that I got to turn down at least three invitations to the Johnite Spring Ball, the most prestigious event of the year.
4. Your character loses a hand irrevocably, and is given the opportunity to have something grafted on to replace it. What do they pick?
Something clawlike.
5. What one impossible thing would you most like to have, be, or be able to do, in order to better physrep your character?
Be better at climbing trees.
6. Your character is asked by their immediate superior which one thing they would choose to save from their dwelling, were it on fire. Sensing that a flippant answer is not called for, how do they instead answer?
My camping gear, seeing as if that happens I then lack a home.
7. Your character was abducted by Nightmares (or local equivalent) on the way out of the Arms, and wakes up in a sack (just as armed as they left the pub). What do they have in their pockets, and what one further thing do they wish they had also picked up from home this morning?
Sword, dagger and possibly copies of the past two weeks gossips. Flint and steel are incredibly useful things to have, for both general survival and burning down the buildings of whoever presumed to try to kidnap me. Unfortunately I always fall out of the habit of carrying them within a city.
8. Your character's life is flashing before their eyes. Describe briefly any two of the following: Leaving their childhood home. Losing their first love. The first time they killed. The first time they lost a comrade. Another occasion on which they nearly died. A time they lowered their standards. A time they abandoned hope. Something that terrified them.
The winter was a particularly hard one, the snow and ice still holding it tight in their grip well into the second month of the year. All the villagers and their livestock were lean, as was the local wildlife. With hunger gnawing a hole in its stomach one of the lynxes that occasionally frequented the valley had finally grown bold enough to venture into the village. The first time it had snatched one of her father's chickens, the next one of the blacksmith's. The brewer claimed he'd put out it's eye with the kitchen knife when it had come into his house lured by the smell of butchered sheep but few who took account his tendency to drink his own ale believed him.
Then that morning it had taken a toddler.
The village priest, a recent arrival from the south, filled with the fervor of Humact took this a sign to begin preaching loudly in the square. To be eaten by animals was for the body of the dead to be desecrated and the soul to be lost to eternal torment. The berieved mother's sobs added punctuation to his fire filled pronouncement.
So noon found Ysmay sliding down an icy hillside following the trail in the fresh snow punctuated by the occasional dark red and drying stains, pausing only to curse Humact and his strictures with increasingly impious terms.
Eventually in a sheltered hollow beneath an old and twisted tree she discovered the mangled body of the child and a lynx greedily chewing the flesh from its leg. A few moments later the cat lay twitching on the ground, writhing around the crossbow bolt that transfixed it. A hefty blow with her knife finished the job. Now stilled the lynx seemed to shrink down to a small skeletal half starved creature, nowhere near as ferocious as the description given by the dead toddler's hysterical mother, and not nearly strong enough to carry off a seven month old infant.
That was when the second lynx dropped out of the tree above her with its claws out.
Ysmay was never quite sure how much she loved him in the first place. The village just expected them to marry, seeing as there were very few other options for either of them. He has been attentive, giving her flowers and complements, including her in his hopeful discussions of plans for the future, aswell as being strong and good looking and so she hadn't had much to complain about in the destiny that had been written out for her. Indeed she could close her eyes and listen to his deep voice and easily convince herself she was in love.
Of course after the time she'd limped down off the mountainside in the midst of winter with half her face and body torn to shreds he'd cooled and turned his attentions to her slightly younger cousin. By May and the time the scratches had healed into scars, she was the one sitting on the edge of the field as he danced to bring in spring with someone else.
She hadn't intended to leave home. It was a cold winter and raiders from the north were also feeling it's bite. Some god was smiling on the village and the it was the one down the next valley that took the hit. No god was smiling on them though. Rather than the usual Caledonia raids, ablaze in warpaint and patterned clothing, who mostly only terrorised, drove away livestock and stole all that could be carried; it was the leather masked devils, madmen who slaughtered everyone who didn't flee before them. The few survivors limped into her village the morning after and the priest sent a runner over two more passes down the the Lords castle
Robert Fairfax, being a better Lord than most, sent a posse of his guard with a tracker to see if it was possible to enact vengeance on the murderers of those under his protection. They then passed through the village, in worn chain and with grim faces, and firmly requested someone who knew the surrounding wilderness well accompany them. So Ysmay found herself riding out with them an hour later.
If she hadn't been wearing the armour under her clothes then the first mace blow to her back would have likely finished the fight. As it was it just cracked several of her ribs. Stumbling in pain she just avoided the next blow before making the desperate decision to dive within his reach. Her head collided hard with his and he fell to the ground with her on top of him, the mace trapped between them both. He clawed at her trying to dislodge her as she scrabbled for the dagger on her belt. The conflict ended as he twisted her off him before throwing himself on top of her... and on top of the knife she'd just unsheathed.
Eventually she managed to tip the heavy weight of the dying man off her and drag the dagger out from between his ribs. The wound made a sucking noise as she removed the blade and the blood, no longer impeded by the weapon, flowed out in earnest on to the cobbles. The man made one last gurgling sound, as if trying to say something, before choking on his own blood and dying.
She limped off steadily, still fueled by adrenaline and a desire to be a long way away. The shaking came later.
The spirits do eventually release her, merely for blackness to claim her instead.
Two bodies laid out side by side, Cal drenched in the blood of his enemies as well as his own, Rowan's still face pale and bloodless. The souls are gone, hopefully to somewhere peaceful. There is nothing else that can be done, no vengeance when the killers are already dead, no honeyed lies of glory or anything that can change the simple facts of loss.
It never gets any easier
Clearly they can run. But can they hide?
9. Your character wakes up in a Militia cell with no clear memories of their last few hours. Given time to think it over, why will they conclude they are there?
It'll be politics.... again. Dear sweet Bast and Morvanna how badly wrong has everything gone this time?
10. Your character was obliged to leave town. As they fled, they left messages with a trusted friend. Most of them dealt with religious and social obligations, and put in place provision for their return (or otherwise) - but they found time for one quick personal note. Who is it to, and roughly what does it say?
Blake - I'd ask you to stay out of trouble but then that's never going to happen is it? Just make sure when you find the next set of disasters that you survive them.
11. What do you look like? / What are you wearing and why
Most people don't tend to look past the scars I acquired courtesy of a lynx when I was young. I wear long sleeves over most of them but the ones on my face can't really be avoided. Behind that I'm brown eyed and brown haired, short enough to not be a particularly good runner and too tall to get into as many small spaces as I'd like to. I wear as much armour as I can get away with short of slowing myself down. Why? Because by the time you notice an arrow flying at you or someone attempting to mug you it's too late to go back home and put it on.
12. Where do you live?
I have a small flat in the docks area that I moved into when I first arrived in the city. Some day I'll move somewhere nicer. Probably in that mythical week when I'm not horrifically busy that never seems to occur. It's a cramped mess inside with camping gear stored in heap in a corner and mechanical traps in various stages of repair and construction in almost every spare space.
The only semblance of order is that the poisons are stored very far away from anything that looks like food.
13. How do you support yourself / your dependents?
Where there's people there's food. And where there's food they'll be rats and someone or something has to deal with them. In many cases that's me. I feed stray cats occasionally but seeing as I keep dropping out of the city for a week at a time they'd better not start to depend on me.
14. Why on earth do you come to the Wessex Arms on a Friday night?
Initially because pubs are a great place to find your feet in a new location, catch the local gossip and work out the inner mechanisms of the city. Now it's because my pack tend to be there as well and I'm not leaving them in a pub that dangerous by themselves.'
15. Who do you normally hang out with and why?
My pack. Why? Because they're pack. That means they fall into the select group of people I like and trust compared to everyone else I've met who I either don't like, don't trust or both. They're also generally amusing to be around.
16. Anyone you avoid? why?
Not particularly. I have no intention of going on any kind of expedition with any of those balance priests again, nor those Drow if either of them ever show up again, but that's simply learning from experience. I avoid certain situations with certain peoples as else I might be required to kill them.
I'm fairly sure that I can name someone who is avoiding me. Clearly they haven't learnt that avoiding things you don't like never makes them go away.