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A Man Rather Fond of Birds (Leopold Level Five)
Quote:
My name is Leopold Winchester. I am, at last sober count, over four thousand years old. I cannot give you a more specific number because for much either of that time I was dead, sleeping, or as in recent centuries, smashed. It is appropriate for me to say that I have my reasons for my behaviour. In short, the world became inhospitable for someone like me. It became unwelcoming to the Gods of Old and in our absence, the world became a cruel, barbaric, and war-torn nightmare.
Everything changed the day a few rag-tag would-be heroes took the fight to the cavern of the necromancer Xem’Zund. Centuries of war, Tap, trap, and testimony by the Forgotten Ones undone by their deeds. Hope rekindled in Berevar’s cold wastes. One dead monster does not free a people, however. It was only when Denebriel was fell from her withered throne it that the Old Gods began to wake. War was first. Then Hatred. Then the rest along with them.
My own tale of awakening occurred much earlier, thanks to love’s ability to bind people to promises they seldom want to keep. I gave up much of my power before the fall of my people and the shattering of Berevar. Now winter is its faith, and its people, shattered and unguided tribes need gods once more, I can feel that power returning. The wind sounds like a choir. The creatures of the air my enemy. Summer’s kiss my weakness, and Salvar an eternal reminder of just how feeble humans can truly become. I have found myself its saviour, as irony hates me.
Rebuilding empires in the wake of my own private misgivings has helped me to come to terms with the three great tragedies of my life. In recent years, my wife’s mental health has become less than stable. The loss of her friend and the collapse of the theatre troupe took its toll. She damned near burnt the castle of Eiskalt from the face of the planet in her rage, but grief subsumed her and now her time spent rebuilding bridges in Scara Brae. The second, my first wife, walks the earth once more and I cannot see through her deceptions. Her vengeance will one day come, and it will be swift and brutal, as I deserve.
The third is my recent resurrection. It is difficult to run a business when everyone of your clients thinks you are dead. I have given the role of public liaison to Jeren Sylvers, but as he is a schizophrenic sword possessing a man a little too white collar for my liking, I am not sure what future we have. Do not get me wrong, I trust the man with my lives and I would bend over backwards to ensure his continued presence in my company is as rewarding and beneficial as it has been since the day he waltzed brazen into my office and got me drunk so hard I could not refuse him the job.
As you can imagine, these are troubling times. All I can do is piece together what I can in the ruins of the empires falling around me and try, as hard as I can, to guide the people of Berevar through one last dark winter. Perhaps, if the giants return to the surface, and the orcs united under a common banner, we may yet get to call it a kingdom of influence again. Perhaps, if I can raise the rest of the old gods in their humble forms, free of rage and madness, the Ice Henge can be occupied by gods wise and just, and not fickle entities no better in principle than the Thayne that dwell there now.
Alias: The Raven
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 140lbs
Eye Colour: Black
Hair Colour: Black
Religion: Old Faith
Alignment: Lawful Good
Occupation: Merchant
Intelligence: Above Average
Literacy: Above Average
History: If you were to ask Leopold Winchester of Scara Brae what his greatest accomplishments were, you would find him short of the words required to describe them modestly. From an early age, his head for numbers, haggling and trade earned him a foothold in the mercantile on goings of Corone’s capital city, Radasanth. Though gifted with a small measure of wealth as the last descendent of the Winchester family, he did not squander it like the rest of the dubious noble houses. Instead, he turned it to opportunities he could not pass up; investment, re-sale and property. By twenty-four, he had turned his family’s dwindling coffers into four estates. Two were lost at age twenty-six to the first outbreak of the civil war, and the remaining two sold upon his parent’s death on the eve of his twenty seventh-birth day.
Suddenly free from the stagnant underbelly of Corone, Leopold cut his wealth from the skeleton of Radasanth and retired early to Scara Brae. There, he found a friendlier climate, and put his considerable expertise and understanding of Althanas’s volatile trade market to good use. He invested in membership to the Merchant Circle, one of the many guilds of the considerable Guilds-man Ring. He very soon became a master, one of each guild’s ruling council, second in power and influence within that industry to the Guild’s Van. That power allowed him to establish the Winchester name and heraldry in the noble circle of Scara Brae, and he debuted as a bachelor aged twenty-nine.
The morning after his investiture, whilst sat in a small polite bar on the north side of Scara Brae. He was wearing his usual golden threaded waistcoat, over coat, hat and tails and smoking a cigar in a pensive mood at the end of a long night of celebration. He caught sight of a young red headed woman, resplendent in the morning sun and wearing an equally radiant crimson dress. The leather lattice work down the front and the heavy basket of goods tucked neatly under a strong arm placed her as a young debutante of one of the more to do households. Leopold had studied the women of the city long enough to know the wheat from the chaff.
His heart skipped a beat. He stubbed out his cigar and ran out with a wheeze into the morning sun. His tall, lanky form was pallid and sickly in the morning light, his cheeks drained of life, colour after a few too many cut-crystal decanters of port, whiskey, and quite possibly gin; he could not remember. Despite his dishevelled appearance, he ran after the woman, expecting to catch her gently on the arm and ask at the very least her name. By the time he turned a corner and came out onto the building site of Market Square, her basket, buxom cleavage and lofty and joyful laugh were absent from the city streets.
Leopold was understandably heartbroken. Love was something he had never experienced, too busy as he was ensconced in his monetary world and the languishing existence of a noblemen with too many responsibilities. What he did not know then, was that he had just laid eyes on his soon to be wife. Fate denied their meeting for a full turn of the moon before they crossed paths at a noble sway in the upmarket district of Mrs Rochester’s residential district. Ever since their first fateful meeting, when she had been equally enamoured by his chiselled young looks, smart dress and equally smart tongue, Ruby has pledged herself through thick and thin, and even death to be dutiful and loving to Leopold.
In the last five years, as his wife has come and gone and he has suffered heartache in her long absence, their love has only grown stronger. However, his business has suffered and his money drained by the resurgence of conflict in Corone, at the Queen’s unruly behest, Leopold has doubled his efforts to ensure the Winchester legacy remains a strong, powerful possession to leave a name for itself through the history of Scara Brae. Though somewhat more portly and considerably more wise in understanding his wife’s trials and tribulations, he is too stubborn, and too secretive with the full extent of his business dealings, legal and otherwise to lay low whilst the world steals from his velveteen pockets.
A bullet in the gut is a horribly undignified way for a man to die. The fact it happened in the pursuit of justice made the ordeal even more intolerable. Leopold Winchester, as consequence, has become a sullen, sulking individual. It is a sure-fire way to knock a man’s confidence, taking everything from him with a simple, almost innocent thrust. Since his adventure in Radasanth, and the successful capture of the murderer Monserrat, Leopold has remained below the radar.
People are still talking about his refugee work in Knife’s Edge, his business’ success in Underwood, and his recent endeavour to break the very fabric of reality in the wilds of Berevar. Whilst the social and economic elite of Scara Brae are all abuzz about the Man with the Waistcoat, the man that used to be he sits in a drunken fog, brooding about having to start again.
Trying to tell people he is the very same Mr Winchester they conversed with a few weeks ago, when you look ten stone lighter, and like a beleaguered soldier, is anything but easy. Mrs Winchester insists a simple explanation will do away with all his worries, but Leopold is anything but reassured. Magic is inherently not to be trusted, especially in Scara Brae, where edicts prohibit its practice in the streets. There is, thus, only one path for the merchant. He must leave Scara Brae, for the time being, and work his business to greater prosperity from behind the scenes...provided it does not involve giants again.
Personality: Kind, subtle, and eternally optimistic, Leopold is an endearing counterpart to Ruby’s ball busting. He splits his personality between work and home, instantly able to fall into and out of homely demeanour and mercantile stoicism. He is controlling, confident, and friendly. Though clandestine needs rule his life, he is honest beyond all reproach. That does not mean he does not have a deceptive streak.
His logical mind can inhibit emotion outside of his marriage. This can make him a difficult person to get to know. He is relatively down to earth for a noble. His history with his family and their fall from grace has severed his ego from his purse, allowing him to rise as a hard working merchant making it in life through skill and guts, as opposed to birthright. He is also a filthy rotten drunk, though better for it.
Skills:
Sharpshooting: Leopold has unnerving accuracy with flintlock pistols and a freakish knowledge of the weapons he uses. He can shoot with expert accuracy, should he find himself handling a gun.
Logistics: Leopold’s ability to perceive shape, distance, and time in relation to spaces is adept. He can handle figures, quantities, and dimensions with adept skill, and tackle complex logistical problems.
Calculation: Leopold is an adept haggler, who possesses adept knowledge of the trade rules and regulations of Corone, Scara Brae, and Fallien. His connections allow him access to the black market.
Cartography: Leopold has acquired considerable experience of the geography of places his ships and wagons travel. He has expert knowledge of Scara Brae, Alerar, and Corone’s, and can plot detailed courses through those regions.
Subterfuge: Leopold can utilise charisma and disguises to conceal his identity with adept skill. Though no master spy, it allows him to trade where he cannot, or travel openly through hostile territory.
Dragoon: Once a cavalry soldier, and always a brawler, Leopold has adept skill when fighting with his spear, and/or his sabre/staff in combination. He can defend himself, and use his drunken courage to do things only idiots do.
Abilities:
Raven Call: Leopold can conjure a raven of shadow equal to the size of his fist. It strikes with concussive, silent force. It strikes at X2 strength and X3 in dusk/night. Useable thrice per post, up to three times per thread.
The Aerie: Leopold can conjure and exile items into a space he calls the Aerie. It has no physical properties or presence. It cannot be or accessed by anyone except Leopold. He cannot store perishable, magical, or living items in the vault.
Old God: Leopold is immeasurably old, born of Berevar’s hopes and dreams. He does not age physically. When he succumbs, he reincarnates, and he is 75% resistant to magic that is directly from The Tap.
Inventory: Leopold has a large merchant empire, and as such has access to common household items and trinkets. This includes a schooner that acts as The Winchester Rose Trading Company flagship, called the Contra.
Isabella: Leopold possesses a flintlock pistol. It has fallen into disrepair since Leopold inherited it, though it can fire, oft it is simply more than a self-defence gunpowder stick. It costs 25 gold per shot.
Davina: A single-edged, black shafted steel spear enchanted to inflict double damage against beings with natural wings. The masterwork spearhead detaches as a cavalry sabre and Leopold forged it beneath Salvar’s cruel moonlight aeons ago.
Jaqueline: A simple, flintlock-hunting rifle with scope. Due to its unwieldy nature, it is impractical for use in Citadel/battle threads. It has a practical range of 1100ft, and can penetrate steel at 300 feet with ease.
Aerie Contents: Candles, Sextant, World Map, Sea Charts, Account, Ledgers, Quill & Ink, Assorted Work Clothes; Gold Threaded Waistcoat, Three Piece Suits, Cobbled Top Hat, and Silver Tipped Walking Cane, Woollen Blankets, and Wedding Ring. Cutlery, Gold Leaf Stem Wine Glass, Several Large Cushions, Ruby's Spare Clothes, Assorted Small Foreign Change, Il'Jhain Outsider Pass, Alerar Merchant Signet Ring, Guild Membership Scroll, Travel Documents for Corone, Cooking Pots & Pans, Liquor Cabinet Contents, Sovereign Ring.
