Glories of Myrmidion
02-22-12, 05:59 PM
Name: Jehan Leitdorf
Pseudonym: -
Titles: -
Age: 27
Race: Human
Hair Color: Golden Blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 193cm (6'4")
Weight: 91kg (202lb)
Details
Occupation: First Knight, Berzerker, Champion
Personality: Jehan's personality can be summed up in a simple phrase: friend to his brothers, grim to his foes. On one hand, he is known amongst his fellows as a easy-going and compassionate man, caring for the knights under his command as if they were true family. On the other, his enemies and those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong end of his lance regard him as a merciless and ruthless butcher, a cold-hearted killer without heart or soul.
The combination of the two make him the perfect champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle. The position is one that his father, High Templar Gunther Leitdorf, has long groomed him for; as a result, he wears his aura of command as a natural extension of his skin. Honest to the point of brutality, somehow Jehan remains somebody that can't quite be disliked, no matter how harsh his words seem. His bastard birth has made him particularly sympathetic to others in the same predicament, as well as partly explaining his strong attachment to anybody that can be considered his family.
Appearance: A big and powerfully built man, Jehan is not one to blend in to a crowd. Broad of shoulder and strong of arm, his muscular legs brace like tree trunks; even his neck is almost as thick as his face is wide. He is not particularly handsome: one too many clubs to his helm means that his features are broad and coarse, his face square and flat. But there is an open honesty to his expression that some find appealing. His hair is closely cropped, almost golden in hue, while his eyes are a light blue-green oft seen glimmering in the depths of sturdy metal.
Jehan almost always can be found in his armour, if not the quality barbute, full plate, and mail hauberk worn by the Knight Templars of the Golden Eagle, then at the very least cuirass, greaves, and vambraces. On the very rare occasion that he isn't obviously in armour, he is either asleep in a location known and proven to be safe, or wearing his surcoat over the top.
Jehan's voice is a bass rumble echoing from the depths of his massive chest.
Belongings
Weapons:
A pair of knight's lances, one light and one heavy, both of ash with steel heads. The light lance is approximately two metres long and three centimetres in diameter, suitable for use as a couched shock weapon or in an overhand or underhand grip as a thrusting spear. The heavy lance is approximately three metres long and four centimetres in diameter, usable only when couched. Both are painted black, and stream the pennant of the Golden Eagle from their tips.
A knight's longsword, one-and-a-half metres of straight double-edged steel tapering to a thrusting point. The edge of the weapon is not finely ground, meaning it bludgeons rather than cuts, but the core is strong enough to pierce through mail and even weakly-forged plate. Its guard is ornately decorated in an eagle-wing motif, and parrying flanges protrude halfway along the blade to prevent other weapons from sliding down. Too large to be carried in a sheath, it is generally slung over Jehan's shoulders like a polearm.
A nondescript steel dirk, thirty centimetre blade mounted on an oaken hilt and tucked into a scabbard at Jehan's belt. Doesn't see much use beyond carving his meat.
Armour and Clothing:
A suit of full plate armour made from well-tempered fluted steel, the finest and best that can be crafted in the smithies of Olbina. Consists of barbute, gorget, pauldrons, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, cuirass (back and breastplate) with fauld and tassets and culet, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons. Also included in the set is mail hauberk and skirt to be worn underneath. The complete suit weighs around twenty kilograms, well distributed over the body, and though Jehan is not going to be performing any advanced acrobatics in it, he still remains highly agile, able to move freely, jump, and run as necessary.
A pair of silk shirts and trousers, final insurance against lucky arrowheads.
A simple sleeveless surcoat of black satin, bearing the arms of the Golden Eagle.
Accessories:
A small leather pouch worn on the belt, carrying coin.
Horses:
Aeton ('Swift as an eagle'), black stallion. A powerfully built destrier, easily worth as much as the rest of Jehan's equipment combined. Young and impulsive, he is a true warhorse; together, he and Jehan are nigh unstoppable on a battlefield.
Abastor ('Deprived of the light of day'), black gelding. A swift and strong courser, preferred as for riding, hunting, and hard lengthy battles. Quiet, calm, and easy to handle, he responds instinctively and without hesitation to Jehan's spurs.
Epona ('Goddess of horses'), chestnut mare. An old sumpter horse, used for carrying spare equipment and baggage. Jehan is quite fond of her gentle temperament and easy nature.
Skills and Abilities
First Knight: From a very young age, Jehan has trained to be a knight. It is his devotion, his calling, the one and only path from which he has never even thought of straying. His earliest memories are of swinging wooden swords and falling off horses, and he has rarely missed a single day's training since. He is an expert in the use of longsword and lance, both on horseback and on foot, a competent rider, and a student of the art of war as well. He is not a swordsman so much as a fighter, trusting to his heavy armour to absorb incoming attacks whilst smashing apart foes with two-handed sword; he knows where the weaknesses are in a standard suit of plate armour and how to attack them, but lacks the finesse and grace of a true blademaster. On the other hand, instincts developed by twenty-odd years of fighting with swords are not easily lost, and many is the time that Jehan's surprised even himself with flashes of skill. As a footnote, he does know how to use a shield properly in a fight, but does not see what a shield offers that his nigh-impenetrable armour and mighty longsword don't already provide.
Mighty Blow: Not so much an ability per se, but Jehan's great strength - approximately twice that of a normal human - allows him to sweep aside multiple enemies at once or penetrate thick armour with his longsword.
Berzerker: From time to time Jehan has shown flashes of a darker side to his usual easygoing personality, usually when he or his men are direly threatened. At times such as those, his brothers-in-arms have spoken of a focused bloodlust falling upon the hulking warrior, of a newfound reckless valour and suicidal courage that is in stark contrast to his usual tactical astuteness. Such fits unfailingly leave him exhausted and nearly helpless in the face of further attack, but more concerning is his struggle to discern friend from foe when under its influence. Jehan knows deep inside that the time will inevitably come when said bloodlust hurts his comrades as much as he does his enemies, and yet for all that he cannot deny that the strength he derives from it is not inconsiderable.
Strength of a Hundred: In times of desperation and need, Jehan's mind instinctively unlocks an innate strength and constitution that is in normal circumstances unintentionally held back. For approximately a minute's worth of activity as a fresh burst of adrenaline flows through his veins, he gains twice the strength as usual, at the cost of utter exhaustion when the danger fades. Needless to say, he cannot make use of this ability more than once a day, and repeated use will place great strain on his mental and physical stability.
Champion: First and foremost, Jehan is a knight. But he is also a vastly able commander of men, motivating them by leading from the fore and terrifying them with his deep bellowed commands and the glint of his sword. He inspires such devotion in his brothers that at the Battle of Starling Bridge he and ten others charged and broke a Caledon warband of two hundred, singlehandedly turning the tide of the skirmish. As champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, to him and his men often falls the role of the vanguard in battle; theirs is the forlorn hope that they might survive in their courageous duty, and earn the right to carve their names into the annals of the order. Through martial skill and tactical nous and not a little luck, they might yet succeed.
Forlorn Hope: Whether by a few well-chosen words or a single mighty deed, Jehan is somehow capable of inspiring the best and greatest out of those alongside him. NPC and PC allies fighting alongside Jehan can - within reasonable restrictions - exceed the limits of their abilities for a brief period of time. Of course, this may then leave them fatigued and vulnerable or worse...
Glory of the Eagle: Jehan is the firstborn scion, albeit bastard birthed, of High Templar Gunther Leitdorf, the Golden Eagle for which his knightly order was named. From a young age he has lived in the shadow of his father, inheriting much of the great hero's martial ability, intelligence in matters related to war, and political wisdom. None dispute his capability as the champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, and there is no clearer choice for High Templar once the elder Leitdorf finally retires.
Character History
Jehan Leitdorf was bastard born. He never knew his mother, a camp follower who died giving birth to him. The moment that the giant squalling baby was dumped in Gunther Leitdorf's arms was one that the new father would never forget; feeling guilt and regret over his inability to comfort the dead mother, the newly decorated High Templar of the Knights of the Golden Eagle decided to assuage his conscience by adopting the newborn childhood into his care and looking after him.
As High Templar of one of the Twelve Orders of Olbina, Gunther was a gruff and busy father, not unkind to his son but oft called away to war or council. Hence, Jehan grew up with two hundred knights as surrogate fathers and a hundred camp followers as his adoptive mothers. Outwardly he took after Gunther with his golden hair and green eyes, and it was not long before he began to display the same talents that served the elder Leitdorf so well - eager skill with the blade, and a measured thirst for wisdom. When Gunther remarried and fathered a second son, Jehan took to the role of older brother with relish, and never once questioned why the newborn Hectorus had dirty brown hair and brown eyes so different from his own.
Time flew by, and the genial giant boy grew into a genial giant man. Almost by granted he was inducted into the order at the age of twelve; Gunther himself bestowed a cuirass upon the newly appointed squire. By the age of sixteen he had won his spurs on the field of battle, and completed the set of full plate that marked him as a full knight. Through years of experience in innumerable skirmishes with neighbouring Caledon and Thule, he won the devotion and admiration of his brothers, and the fear and respect of his foes. It was merely natural that he eventually was appointed First Knight, second only to Gunther within the Knights of the Golden Eagle.
But with new titles came new responsibilities, and amongst them was the need to represent the Twelve Orders and Olbina in diplomacy with the outside world. Although Jehan, still newly appointed in his role, was not expected to head such important expeditions, Gunther still thought it useful to send the young man into the wider world to gain experience of those who lived beyond the borders of the Five Kingdoms. As such, he dispatched Jehan not to Salvar or to Raiaera, where rumours of risen Forgotten Ones made the lands too dangerous for an Olbinan emissary, but to the island nation of Corone, where traditions were not so dissimilar as to cause trouble to the inexperienced diplomat.
It was with customary confidence and genial good nature that Jehan made landfall in Radasanth, accompanied by two Knight Templars and his younger brother Hectorus as an entourage.
Pseudonym: -
Titles: -
Age: 27
Race: Human
Hair Color: Golden Blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 193cm (6'4")
Weight: 91kg (202lb)
Details
Occupation: First Knight, Berzerker, Champion
Personality: Jehan's personality can be summed up in a simple phrase: friend to his brothers, grim to his foes. On one hand, he is known amongst his fellows as a easy-going and compassionate man, caring for the knights under his command as if they were true family. On the other, his enemies and those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong end of his lance regard him as a merciless and ruthless butcher, a cold-hearted killer without heart or soul.
The combination of the two make him the perfect champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle. The position is one that his father, High Templar Gunther Leitdorf, has long groomed him for; as a result, he wears his aura of command as a natural extension of his skin. Honest to the point of brutality, somehow Jehan remains somebody that can't quite be disliked, no matter how harsh his words seem. His bastard birth has made him particularly sympathetic to others in the same predicament, as well as partly explaining his strong attachment to anybody that can be considered his family.
Appearance: A big and powerfully built man, Jehan is not one to blend in to a crowd. Broad of shoulder and strong of arm, his muscular legs brace like tree trunks; even his neck is almost as thick as his face is wide. He is not particularly handsome: one too many clubs to his helm means that his features are broad and coarse, his face square and flat. But there is an open honesty to his expression that some find appealing. His hair is closely cropped, almost golden in hue, while his eyes are a light blue-green oft seen glimmering in the depths of sturdy metal.
Jehan almost always can be found in his armour, if not the quality barbute, full plate, and mail hauberk worn by the Knight Templars of the Golden Eagle, then at the very least cuirass, greaves, and vambraces. On the very rare occasion that he isn't obviously in armour, he is either asleep in a location known and proven to be safe, or wearing his surcoat over the top.
Jehan's voice is a bass rumble echoing from the depths of his massive chest.
Belongings
Weapons:
A pair of knight's lances, one light and one heavy, both of ash with steel heads. The light lance is approximately two metres long and three centimetres in diameter, suitable for use as a couched shock weapon or in an overhand or underhand grip as a thrusting spear. The heavy lance is approximately three metres long and four centimetres in diameter, usable only when couched. Both are painted black, and stream the pennant of the Golden Eagle from their tips.
A knight's longsword, one-and-a-half metres of straight double-edged steel tapering to a thrusting point. The edge of the weapon is not finely ground, meaning it bludgeons rather than cuts, but the core is strong enough to pierce through mail and even weakly-forged plate. Its guard is ornately decorated in an eagle-wing motif, and parrying flanges protrude halfway along the blade to prevent other weapons from sliding down. Too large to be carried in a sheath, it is generally slung over Jehan's shoulders like a polearm.
A nondescript steel dirk, thirty centimetre blade mounted on an oaken hilt and tucked into a scabbard at Jehan's belt. Doesn't see much use beyond carving his meat.
Armour and Clothing:
A suit of full plate armour made from well-tempered fluted steel, the finest and best that can be crafted in the smithies of Olbina. Consists of barbute, gorget, pauldrons, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, cuirass (back and breastplate) with fauld and tassets and culet, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons. Also included in the set is mail hauberk and skirt to be worn underneath. The complete suit weighs around twenty kilograms, well distributed over the body, and though Jehan is not going to be performing any advanced acrobatics in it, he still remains highly agile, able to move freely, jump, and run as necessary.
A pair of silk shirts and trousers, final insurance against lucky arrowheads.
A simple sleeveless surcoat of black satin, bearing the arms of the Golden Eagle.
Accessories:
A small leather pouch worn on the belt, carrying coin.
Horses:
Aeton ('Swift as an eagle'), black stallion. A powerfully built destrier, easily worth as much as the rest of Jehan's equipment combined. Young and impulsive, he is a true warhorse; together, he and Jehan are nigh unstoppable on a battlefield.
Abastor ('Deprived of the light of day'), black gelding. A swift and strong courser, preferred as for riding, hunting, and hard lengthy battles. Quiet, calm, and easy to handle, he responds instinctively and without hesitation to Jehan's spurs.
Epona ('Goddess of horses'), chestnut mare. An old sumpter horse, used for carrying spare equipment and baggage. Jehan is quite fond of her gentle temperament and easy nature.
Skills and Abilities
First Knight: From a very young age, Jehan has trained to be a knight. It is his devotion, his calling, the one and only path from which he has never even thought of straying. His earliest memories are of swinging wooden swords and falling off horses, and he has rarely missed a single day's training since. He is an expert in the use of longsword and lance, both on horseback and on foot, a competent rider, and a student of the art of war as well. He is not a swordsman so much as a fighter, trusting to his heavy armour to absorb incoming attacks whilst smashing apart foes with two-handed sword; he knows where the weaknesses are in a standard suit of plate armour and how to attack them, but lacks the finesse and grace of a true blademaster. On the other hand, instincts developed by twenty-odd years of fighting with swords are not easily lost, and many is the time that Jehan's surprised even himself with flashes of skill. As a footnote, he does know how to use a shield properly in a fight, but does not see what a shield offers that his nigh-impenetrable armour and mighty longsword don't already provide.
Mighty Blow: Not so much an ability per se, but Jehan's great strength - approximately twice that of a normal human - allows him to sweep aside multiple enemies at once or penetrate thick armour with his longsword.
Berzerker: From time to time Jehan has shown flashes of a darker side to his usual easygoing personality, usually when he or his men are direly threatened. At times such as those, his brothers-in-arms have spoken of a focused bloodlust falling upon the hulking warrior, of a newfound reckless valour and suicidal courage that is in stark contrast to his usual tactical astuteness. Such fits unfailingly leave him exhausted and nearly helpless in the face of further attack, but more concerning is his struggle to discern friend from foe when under its influence. Jehan knows deep inside that the time will inevitably come when said bloodlust hurts his comrades as much as he does his enemies, and yet for all that he cannot deny that the strength he derives from it is not inconsiderable.
Strength of a Hundred: In times of desperation and need, Jehan's mind instinctively unlocks an innate strength and constitution that is in normal circumstances unintentionally held back. For approximately a minute's worth of activity as a fresh burst of adrenaline flows through his veins, he gains twice the strength as usual, at the cost of utter exhaustion when the danger fades. Needless to say, he cannot make use of this ability more than once a day, and repeated use will place great strain on his mental and physical stability.
Champion: First and foremost, Jehan is a knight. But he is also a vastly able commander of men, motivating them by leading from the fore and terrifying them with his deep bellowed commands and the glint of his sword. He inspires such devotion in his brothers that at the Battle of Starling Bridge he and ten others charged and broke a Caledon warband of two hundred, singlehandedly turning the tide of the skirmish. As champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, to him and his men often falls the role of the vanguard in battle; theirs is the forlorn hope that they might survive in their courageous duty, and earn the right to carve their names into the annals of the order. Through martial skill and tactical nous and not a little luck, they might yet succeed.
Forlorn Hope: Whether by a few well-chosen words or a single mighty deed, Jehan is somehow capable of inspiring the best and greatest out of those alongside him. NPC and PC allies fighting alongside Jehan can - within reasonable restrictions - exceed the limits of their abilities for a brief period of time. Of course, this may then leave them fatigued and vulnerable or worse...
Glory of the Eagle: Jehan is the firstborn scion, albeit bastard birthed, of High Templar Gunther Leitdorf, the Golden Eagle for which his knightly order was named. From a young age he has lived in the shadow of his father, inheriting much of the great hero's martial ability, intelligence in matters related to war, and political wisdom. None dispute his capability as the champion of the Knights of the Golden Eagle, and there is no clearer choice for High Templar once the elder Leitdorf finally retires.
Character History
Jehan Leitdorf was bastard born. He never knew his mother, a camp follower who died giving birth to him. The moment that the giant squalling baby was dumped in Gunther Leitdorf's arms was one that the new father would never forget; feeling guilt and regret over his inability to comfort the dead mother, the newly decorated High Templar of the Knights of the Golden Eagle decided to assuage his conscience by adopting the newborn childhood into his care and looking after him.
As High Templar of one of the Twelve Orders of Olbina, Gunther was a gruff and busy father, not unkind to his son but oft called away to war or council. Hence, Jehan grew up with two hundred knights as surrogate fathers and a hundred camp followers as his adoptive mothers. Outwardly he took after Gunther with his golden hair and green eyes, and it was not long before he began to display the same talents that served the elder Leitdorf so well - eager skill with the blade, and a measured thirst for wisdom. When Gunther remarried and fathered a second son, Jehan took to the role of older brother with relish, and never once questioned why the newborn Hectorus had dirty brown hair and brown eyes so different from his own.
Time flew by, and the genial giant boy grew into a genial giant man. Almost by granted he was inducted into the order at the age of twelve; Gunther himself bestowed a cuirass upon the newly appointed squire. By the age of sixteen he had won his spurs on the field of battle, and completed the set of full plate that marked him as a full knight. Through years of experience in innumerable skirmishes with neighbouring Caledon and Thule, he won the devotion and admiration of his brothers, and the fear and respect of his foes. It was merely natural that he eventually was appointed First Knight, second only to Gunther within the Knights of the Golden Eagle.
But with new titles came new responsibilities, and amongst them was the need to represent the Twelve Orders and Olbina in diplomacy with the outside world. Although Jehan, still newly appointed in his role, was not expected to head such important expeditions, Gunther still thought it useful to send the young man into the wider world to gain experience of those who lived beyond the borders of the Five Kingdoms. As such, he dispatched Jehan not to Salvar or to Raiaera, where rumours of risen Forgotten Ones made the lands too dangerous for an Olbinan emissary, but to the island nation of Corone, where traditions were not so dissimilar as to cause trouble to the inexperienced diplomat.
It was with customary confidence and genial good nature that Jehan made landfall in Radasanth, accompanied by two Knight Templars and his younger brother Hectorus as an entourage.