Torgrim
12-22-07, 12:02 AM
Name: Torgrim Ingvarssen
Age: Twenty-one
Race: Giantkin
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 7’0”
Weight: 300 lbs
Occupation: Raider, laborer, fletcher, sailor, slave
A Note on Giantkin: Small bands of peoples have been noted to sometimes venture into the northern reaches of Salvar from farther north – perhaps even from the unthinkable climes of Berevar. Very rarely these bands raid small farming or trapping communities, but when they do, that which they make off with most often is women. The problem is not so persistent as to warrant interest from the government of Salvar: it is little more than a nuisance.
These peoples are often called “giantkin,” if only because the name by which they are known to one another is difficult to say for someone accustomed to Tradespeak and Salvic. They are named such because – by their own admission – the blood of giants mingles with the blood of men in their veins. They live short, harsh lives, and despite their vast creative energy and rich culture have never made an effort to build a lasting civilization to call their own. Most are said to live along the coast of Berevar, living in small villages. When these villages reach a critical mass of no more than fifty men, a raiding party forms. The able-bodied men of the village join raiding parties or heroic teams that venture into the dens of giants and other dangerous beasts. The women and children likewise split away, either forming villages with surviving raiders or joining other small camps.
The giantkin are a rough, warlike people, who value might and glorious death in battle above all other things. They have, however, cultivated a deep and impressive philosophy and are peerless survivors, soldiers, poets, and sailors. They are a proud and vigorous people, with boundless willpower and insight.
Though it is difficult to say how many of them actually roam Berevar, it is more than likely that they’re soon to be extinct.
Personality: Like most of his race, Torgrim is grim and intense, but capable of great mirth. From a very young age he, like every other child of his village, was taught the importance of stillness – he is apt to be composed and watchful. Among his cohorts he would be the very picture of jovial brotherhood, oblivious to the face of adversity, but he is alone in a strange world of smaller people and with a heavy burden to bear. He is not unfriendly, but nor is he especially gregarious. He is proud to the point of arrogance, and though he is markedly intelligent it is a fact he keeps carefully to himself. He fears little but to die ignominiously, and his desires are otherwise simple: to win, to take, to die well, and to leave a legend and a small horde of children in his wake.
Appearance: Torgrim has large, deep green eyes, reminiscent of twilit tropical waters the likes of which they’ve never been laid upon. His hair is blonde, but more the color of sand than gold and it reaches his shoulders, and slightly beyond, in wavy locks. His countenance betrays his youth in such a way to suggest its softness won’t fade in time, but thankfully a strong jaw and low, broad brow grant him an appropriately masculine physiognomy. He is attractive but has a severe, almost sinister look – there is little doubt, just in looking at him, that he is a fighting man.
He is immensely tall, but nothing in his height suggests deformity. From a distance he might be thought to be a smaller man for his wide, deceptively stout build. He is a creature of broad and imposing shoulders, thick-limbed with prodigious muscle and his chest is wide and deep. His neck is notable for being large, with cords that stand out against the flesh. His is a formidable cut: heavy at the shoulders, tight at the stomach, and thick again at the legs. Quite the opposite from unnaturally tall humans, Torgrim’s legs are not proportionally long to his torso – indeed, much of his height comes from the length of his upper body.
As he enters the scene at Scara Brae, the giantkin is clean-shaven and dressed simply. The finest thing he owns are his pants, being leather and specially cut for his build though of late they have grown tight about the thighs and calves. He wears a shirt of rough green cloth, certainly not designed for one of his build. It is too tight around the shoulders and so long that it ends midway down his thighs and is loose beyond the ribs, and the sleeves are short and barely accommodate his upper arms. Thankfully a fine pair of boots has, like his pants, survived Torgrim’s slavery – they are likewise leather and rimmed in fur, but grow tattered with age and much use. He has a thin, frayed leather belt around his waist, with an iron-bladed knife hidden between it and the small of his back, all beneath the too-long shirt.
Torgrim carries himself well despite his years of recent hardship. Though one can sense his exhaustion and compromised health – perhaps a vague twinge of his complexion or a peculiar catch in his gait – never will the thought come that he is weak. Certainly not at his best, but formidable even so.
History:
Rare as it may be, it is not unheard of for a hero among giantkin to bring a number of villages together in an attempt to form something a little more permanent. Having enjoyed great success in raiding and trading and conquest, and having slain many giants and other beasts of the frozen earth, Ingvar Einarssen gathered around him a very large and capable crew. Drunk and rich from their success, Ingvar’s crew set about building a mighty hall in honor of their leader, where they might revel and store their riches. A small village grew up around the hall, and those nearby that did not move of their own volition were soon taken in forcibly. In this way, Ingvar dubbed himself king, and ruled over his lands responsibly, as far as giantkin go.
As is the wont of kings, Ingvar took a wife (or three, according to some) and went about producing an heir, and his subjects followed his suit. Thus, a boy was born under auspicious conditions and of good stock, and Ingvar named him in honor of a god in order to gain favor. This boy was Torgrim.
Torgrim grew well and without incident, learning the ways of his people – to hunt, to fight with axe and blade and without, to build, to care for weapons and armor, to sail and assist in the construction of ships, to fletch arrows, and to think. At thirteen he was permitted to serve aboard his father’s ship, at fifteen he earned his father’s name in his first raid upon orcish tribe land. Later that year he defended his home with great distinction when the orcs retaliated, earning a seat in the mead hall not far from his father’s right hand. At sixteen he was put forward to marry the daughter of a neighboring king, and when one of his brothers disputed this, Torgrim killed him in ritual combat. The girl died of a sickness a month after.
This greatly aggravated Ingvar, who felt himself slighted when his neighbor did not offer the hand of a second daughter. Torgrim was put at the head of a very small raiding party and, with his father’s blessing, plundered the neighboring village-kingdom, taking women and riches and burning the rest. For this, Torgrim earned his first sword, but it was to be his last victory among his people.
While Torgrim was returning with his spoils, Ingvar took a second raiding party into the den of a tribe of giants. Though successful, Ingvar’s party took heavy losses and returned late in the warm season. The following winter was harsh, and brought with it a retaliatory attack by the giants, who took many provisions before being driven off. Many died before the spring came. Ingvar felt his favor with the gods was slipping, and declared a great raid was to take place. Knowing such a raid usually meant the end of a village or kingdom, and wishing to combat this eventuality, Ingvar left Torgrim in charge of a handful of men and tasked them with the governing and defense of all he owned.
Hardly a week after Ingvar departed for his ships the giants returned, this time proving more determined to crush all opposition. The mead hall held for three nights before one wall was driven in and the roof collapsed, leaving less than twenty survivors. Torgrim left his warriors to continue the fight and rode to the shore in the hopes of signaling his father and returning with a capable force, before they set out to sea.
Torgrim found the remains of his father’s ships smashed upon the rocks, and the bodies of his men similarly broken. A storm had struck from the sea on the first night they set out, the gods’ final betrayal, and Ingvar had been taken to the deeps before his final raid. Torgrim’s return to his home was as bitter: the meager fighting force he’d left was dead to a man, and there was nothing left with which to rebuild. Alone and shamed by his two-fold failures – to defend his home and to die alongside his brethren – the last of Ingvar’s sons disbanded what was left of the village. Hardly seventeen, Torgrim at last inherited his father’s seat in the mead hall, and there sat and looked out over his shattered kingdom through a missing wall. He watched as the last of the women and children disappeared on the horizon before rising and setting out himself.
He went south and west, until the weather grew warmer and the creatures smaller. He killed for his food and slept with a rock as his pillow and the sky as his blanket until the small people of the southlands began to offer him work, which he did for softer lodgings and stranger foods. This went on only a short time before, particularly seized by grief, he fatefully decided to drink himself into a stupor while in a small, nameless coastal town.
Torgrim awoke on a ship halfway out to sea with a nasty headache, shackled to a bench. An ore was soon laid across his lap and though he could not understand the tongue of his tiny foreign slavers, the whip was an adequate lingua franca. Life as a galley slave is hard, harder even than life among the giantkin. Each day more than forty slaves fought for scraps of food and though Torgrim always earned himself a sizable portion, it was never enough. It seemed he would die a dishonorable death by starvation, in chains, with no hope of going with a blade in hand, until – at last – the galley docked at Scara Brae.
Here the captain of the galley was faced with a dilemma. He had no means of supporting an entire crew of slaves for another run, and supporting them at all limited what he could transport. So, ever the businessman, this captain ordered his slaves unceremoniously released. Torgrim was roused late in the night and told to get off the ship (and well away from the docks, lest the locals complain), and off he went, but not before swiping what he could in the chaos.
And so the sun rises on Torgrim’s first day as a free man in over four years, finding him alone and half-starved in a cramped alleyway, with little more than the clothes on his back, many leagues from his home in a land of small people with strange habits.
Skills, Attributes, and Abilities:
Giantkin: As a man with the blood of giants in his recent family history, Torgrim enjoys certain features beyond that of normal men. He is naturally larger than a pure-blooded human, which affords him great strength and endurance. He fatigues very slowly and can weather a fair bit of damage before succumbing, and is capable of surviving environmental extremes of cold or heat. A giantkin can derive nourishment from things that would be normally inedible to normal human beings.
Torgrim is resistant to many poisons and infections that are fatal to human beings, and all but immune to most diseases suffered by the sentient races of Althanas. It is possible that the diseases of giants and their ilk are more likely to be dangerous to giantkin.
Like giants, giantkin are blessed with acute senses of smell and hearing - their chances of detecting something by use of these senses are twice that of a typical human being.
Strength: Though weakened by four years of harsh slavery and near-starvation, Torgrim is still as strong as a normal man should be for his height and weight. Assumingly he’ll grow stronger as his condition improves.
Speed: Torgrim’s reaction time is impressive, and he is faster than one would expect for someone of his size and weight: he can easily match a normal human man of average fitness in a footrace.
Intelligence: Torgrim is sharp. He’s a stubborn survivor and staying one step ahead of orcs and giants on the battlefield and scheming brothers in the mead hall requires one to be observant and wise – and that’s before being taught the art of trade by an expert in the field. Giantkin are as likely to sell what they plunder as they are to horde it.
Torgrim isn’t likely to miss much of what is going on around him, and catches on to new things twice as fast as anybody else. It should be noted that he speaks Tradespeak fluently, having picked it up from the slavers aboard his galley, as well as small bits of Dwarven and Elvish only from listening to trade negotiations. He also speaks very broken and simple Orcish, which is taught for trading goods and slaves with orcish tribes.
Combat: Torgrim has been trained in unarmed combat, and in the use of axes, swords, and spears. He has observed the use of longbows - weapons reserved for a few elite and specially trained warriors among the giantkin - but has never touched one.
He is average in unarmed combat, as use of those skills was required to fight for food aboard the slave galley. He is below average in the use of hand-axes and swords: it has been years since he practiced these skills, and lacking basic biological needs like food and shelter makes mustering complex skills difficult. It has been longer still since he touched a spear, and he has never used a bow, making his skill in those areas bad indeed, though he knows enough not to hurt himself or look foolish.
A Raiding Mentality: Fighting to essentially steal requires a different mindset from fighting for conquest. First and most importantly, one wishes to strike swiftly and fearsomely and be done with the fight before long, so that the profits exceed losses.
Torgrim, despite his size, is capable of moving silent and undetected – a skill taught to his people from a young age, first to hide from possible invaders and later to enter a place unseen and unheard to gain the best vantage point to attack from without warning. Torgrim’s method of fighting hinges upon fierce speed, brutal shows of strength, and intimidation – all coming suddenly when least expected. His skill at going unnoticed and unheard is just slightly above average: though it is hard to concentrate on such things when hungry and tired, it was such a large part of his life that it comes natural to him.
Survival: Torgrim knows enough to survive in harsh wildernesses, the colder the better, and at sea. He’s also a very good builder, but only when told what he’s building – he’s no architect.
Equipment:
Clothes: The clothes on his back are old. They would barely serve to keep a normal man warm, it’s lucky that giantkin tend to like the chill. His pants or boots might protect against the cut of a dull blade, but otherwise he’s completely without armor.
A knife: Torgrim filched an iron-bladed knife from a sailor aboard the galley on his way off. The blade is still sharp, if chipped at the sharp end and a bit rusty. It seems best suited to sawing through ropes, but it’ll make a decent sort of weapon in a pinch.
A few coins: Also filched, a small cloth pouch of coins. Probably recent pay, and that makes Torgrim chuckle.
Age: Twenty-one
Race: Giantkin
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 7’0”
Weight: 300 lbs
Occupation: Raider, laborer, fletcher, sailor, slave
A Note on Giantkin: Small bands of peoples have been noted to sometimes venture into the northern reaches of Salvar from farther north – perhaps even from the unthinkable climes of Berevar. Very rarely these bands raid small farming or trapping communities, but when they do, that which they make off with most often is women. The problem is not so persistent as to warrant interest from the government of Salvar: it is little more than a nuisance.
These peoples are often called “giantkin,” if only because the name by which they are known to one another is difficult to say for someone accustomed to Tradespeak and Salvic. They are named such because – by their own admission – the blood of giants mingles with the blood of men in their veins. They live short, harsh lives, and despite their vast creative energy and rich culture have never made an effort to build a lasting civilization to call their own. Most are said to live along the coast of Berevar, living in small villages. When these villages reach a critical mass of no more than fifty men, a raiding party forms. The able-bodied men of the village join raiding parties or heroic teams that venture into the dens of giants and other dangerous beasts. The women and children likewise split away, either forming villages with surviving raiders or joining other small camps.
The giantkin are a rough, warlike people, who value might and glorious death in battle above all other things. They have, however, cultivated a deep and impressive philosophy and are peerless survivors, soldiers, poets, and sailors. They are a proud and vigorous people, with boundless willpower and insight.
Though it is difficult to say how many of them actually roam Berevar, it is more than likely that they’re soon to be extinct.
Personality: Like most of his race, Torgrim is grim and intense, but capable of great mirth. From a very young age he, like every other child of his village, was taught the importance of stillness – he is apt to be composed and watchful. Among his cohorts he would be the very picture of jovial brotherhood, oblivious to the face of adversity, but he is alone in a strange world of smaller people and with a heavy burden to bear. He is not unfriendly, but nor is he especially gregarious. He is proud to the point of arrogance, and though he is markedly intelligent it is a fact he keeps carefully to himself. He fears little but to die ignominiously, and his desires are otherwise simple: to win, to take, to die well, and to leave a legend and a small horde of children in his wake.
Appearance: Torgrim has large, deep green eyes, reminiscent of twilit tropical waters the likes of which they’ve never been laid upon. His hair is blonde, but more the color of sand than gold and it reaches his shoulders, and slightly beyond, in wavy locks. His countenance betrays his youth in such a way to suggest its softness won’t fade in time, but thankfully a strong jaw and low, broad brow grant him an appropriately masculine physiognomy. He is attractive but has a severe, almost sinister look – there is little doubt, just in looking at him, that he is a fighting man.
He is immensely tall, but nothing in his height suggests deformity. From a distance he might be thought to be a smaller man for his wide, deceptively stout build. He is a creature of broad and imposing shoulders, thick-limbed with prodigious muscle and his chest is wide and deep. His neck is notable for being large, with cords that stand out against the flesh. His is a formidable cut: heavy at the shoulders, tight at the stomach, and thick again at the legs. Quite the opposite from unnaturally tall humans, Torgrim’s legs are not proportionally long to his torso – indeed, much of his height comes from the length of his upper body.
As he enters the scene at Scara Brae, the giantkin is clean-shaven and dressed simply. The finest thing he owns are his pants, being leather and specially cut for his build though of late they have grown tight about the thighs and calves. He wears a shirt of rough green cloth, certainly not designed for one of his build. It is too tight around the shoulders and so long that it ends midway down his thighs and is loose beyond the ribs, and the sleeves are short and barely accommodate his upper arms. Thankfully a fine pair of boots has, like his pants, survived Torgrim’s slavery – they are likewise leather and rimmed in fur, but grow tattered with age and much use. He has a thin, frayed leather belt around his waist, with an iron-bladed knife hidden between it and the small of his back, all beneath the too-long shirt.
Torgrim carries himself well despite his years of recent hardship. Though one can sense his exhaustion and compromised health – perhaps a vague twinge of his complexion or a peculiar catch in his gait – never will the thought come that he is weak. Certainly not at his best, but formidable even so.
History:
Rare as it may be, it is not unheard of for a hero among giantkin to bring a number of villages together in an attempt to form something a little more permanent. Having enjoyed great success in raiding and trading and conquest, and having slain many giants and other beasts of the frozen earth, Ingvar Einarssen gathered around him a very large and capable crew. Drunk and rich from their success, Ingvar’s crew set about building a mighty hall in honor of their leader, where they might revel and store their riches. A small village grew up around the hall, and those nearby that did not move of their own volition were soon taken in forcibly. In this way, Ingvar dubbed himself king, and ruled over his lands responsibly, as far as giantkin go.
As is the wont of kings, Ingvar took a wife (or three, according to some) and went about producing an heir, and his subjects followed his suit. Thus, a boy was born under auspicious conditions and of good stock, and Ingvar named him in honor of a god in order to gain favor. This boy was Torgrim.
Torgrim grew well and without incident, learning the ways of his people – to hunt, to fight with axe and blade and without, to build, to care for weapons and armor, to sail and assist in the construction of ships, to fletch arrows, and to think. At thirteen he was permitted to serve aboard his father’s ship, at fifteen he earned his father’s name in his first raid upon orcish tribe land. Later that year he defended his home with great distinction when the orcs retaliated, earning a seat in the mead hall not far from his father’s right hand. At sixteen he was put forward to marry the daughter of a neighboring king, and when one of his brothers disputed this, Torgrim killed him in ritual combat. The girl died of a sickness a month after.
This greatly aggravated Ingvar, who felt himself slighted when his neighbor did not offer the hand of a second daughter. Torgrim was put at the head of a very small raiding party and, with his father’s blessing, plundered the neighboring village-kingdom, taking women and riches and burning the rest. For this, Torgrim earned his first sword, but it was to be his last victory among his people.
While Torgrim was returning with his spoils, Ingvar took a second raiding party into the den of a tribe of giants. Though successful, Ingvar’s party took heavy losses and returned late in the warm season. The following winter was harsh, and brought with it a retaliatory attack by the giants, who took many provisions before being driven off. Many died before the spring came. Ingvar felt his favor with the gods was slipping, and declared a great raid was to take place. Knowing such a raid usually meant the end of a village or kingdom, and wishing to combat this eventuality, Ingvar left Torgrim in charge of a handful of men and tasked them with the governing and defense of all he owned.
Hardly a week after Ingvar departed for his ships the giants returned, this time proving more determined to crush all opposition. The mead hall held for three nights before one wall was driven in and the roof collapsed, leaving less than twenty survivors. Torgrim left his warriors to continue the fight and rode to the shore in the hopes of signaling his father and returning with a capable force, before they set out to sea.
Torgrim found the remains of his father’s ships smashed upon the rocks, and the bodies of his men similarly broken. A storm had struck from the sea on the first night they set out, the gods’ final betrayal, and Ingvar had been taken to the deeps before his final raid. Torgrim’s return to his home was as bitter: the meager fighting force he’d left was dead to a man, and there was nothing left with which to rebuild. Alone and shamed by his two-fold failures – to defend his home and to die alongside his brethren – the last of Ingvar’s sons disbanded what was left of the village. Hardly seventeen, Torgrim at last inherited his father’s seat in the mead hall, and there sat and looked out over his shattered kingdom through a missing wall. He watched as the last of the women and children disappeared on the horizon before rising and setting out himself.
He went south and west, until the weather grew warmer and the creatures smaller. He killed for his food and slept with a rock as his pillow and the sky as his blanket until the small people of the southlands began to offer him work, which he did for softer lodgings and stranger foods. This went on only a short time before, particularly seized by grief, he fatefully decided to drink himself into a stupor while in a small, nameless coastal town.
Torgrim awoke on a ship halfway out to sea with a nasty headache, shackled to a bench. An ore was soon laid across his lap and though he could not understand the tongue of his tiny foreign slavers, the whip was an adequate lingua franca. Life as a galley slave is hard, harder even than life among the giantkin. Each day more than forty slaves fought for scraps of food and though Torgrim always earned himself a sizable portion, it was never enough. It seemed he would die a dishonorable death by starvation, in chains, with no hope of going with a blade in hand, until – at last – the galley docked at Scara Brae.
Here the captain of the galley was faced with a dilemma. He had no means of supporting an entire crew of slaves for another run, and supporting them at all limited what he could transport. So, ever the businessman, this captain ordered his slaves unceremoniously released. Torgrim was roused late in the night and told to get off the ship (and well away from the docks, lest the locals complain), and off he went, but not before swiping what he could in the chaos.
And so the sun rises on Torgrim’s first day as a free man in over four years, finding him alone and half-starved in a cramped alleyway, with little more than the clothes on his back, many leagues from his home in a land of small people with strange habits.
Skills, Attributes, and Abilities:
Giantkin: As a man with the blood of giants in his recent family history, Torgrim enjoys certain features beyond that of normal men. He is naturally larger than a pure-blooded human, which affords him great strength and endurance. He fatigues very slowly and can weather a fair bit of damage before succumbing, and is capable of surviving environmental extremes of cold or heat. A giantkin can derive nourishment from things that would be normally inedible to normal human beings.
Torgrim is resistant to many poisons and infections that are fatal to human beings, and all but immune to most diseases suffered by the sentient races of Althanas. It is possible that the diseases of giants and their ilk are more likely to be dangerous to giantkin.
Like giants, giantkin are blessed with acute senses of smell and hearing - their chances of detecting something by use of these senses are twice that of a typical human being.
Strength: Though weakened by four years of harsh slavery and near-starvation, Torgrim is still as strong as a normal man should be for his height and weight. Assumingly he’ll grow stronger as his condition improves.
Speed: Torgrim’s reaction time is impressive, and he is faster than one would expect for someone of his size and weight: he can easily match a normal human man of average fitness in a footrace.
Intelligence: Torgrim is sharp. He’s a stubborn survivor and staying one step ahead of orcs and giants on the battlefield and scheming brothers in the mead hall requires one to be observant and wise – and that’s before being taught the art of trade by an expert in the field. Giantkin are as likely to sell what they plunder as they are to horde it.
Torgrim isn’t likely to miss much of what is going on around him, and catches on to new things twice as fast as anybody else. It should be noted that he speaks Tradespeak fluently, having picked it up from the slavers aboard his galley, as well as small bits of Dwarven and Elvish only from listening to trade negotiations. He also speaks very broken and simple Orcish, which is taught for trading goods and slaves with orcish tribes.
Combat: Torgrim has been trained in unarmed combat, and in the use of axes, swords, and spears. He has observed the use of longbows - weapons reserved for a few elite and specially trained warriors among the giantkin - but has never touched one.
He is average in unarmed combat, as use of those skills was required to fight for food aboard the slave galley. He is below average in the use of hand-axes and swords: it has been years since he practiced these skills, and lacking basic biological needs like food and shelter makes mustering complex skills difficult. It has been longer still since he touched a spear, and he has never used a bow, making his skill in those areas bad indeed, though he knows enough not to hurt himself or look foolish.
A Raiding Mentality: Fighting to essentially steal requires a different mindset from fighting for conquest. First and most importantly, one wishes to strike swiftly and fearsomely and be done with the fight before long, so that the profits exceed losses.
Torgrim, despite his size, is capable of moving silent and undetected – a skill taught to his people from a young age, first to hide from possible invaders and later to enter a place unseen and unheard to gain the best vantage point to attack from without warning. Torgrim’s method of fighting hinges upon fierce speed, brutal shows of strength, and intimidation – all coming suddenly when least expected. His skill at going unnoticed and unheard is just slightly above average: though it is hard to concentrate on such things when hungry and tired, it was such a large part of his life that it comes natural to him.
Survival: Torgrim knows enough to survive in harsh wildernesses, the colder the better, and at sea. He’s also a very good builder, but only when told what he’s building – he’s no architect.
Equipment:
Clothes: The clothes on his back are old. They would barely serve to keep a normal man warm, it’s lucky that giantkin tend to like the chill. His pants or boots might protect against the cut of a dull blade, but otherwise he’s completely without armor.
A knife: Torgrim filched an iron-bladed knife from a sailor aboard the galley on his way off. The blade is still sharp, if chipped at the sharp end and a bit rusty. It seems best suited to sawing through ropes, but it’ll make a decent sort of weapon in a pinch.
A few coins: Also filched, a small cloth pouch of coins. Probably recent pay, and that makes Torgrim chuckle.