Jaron Grunn

[Jaron Grunn]

Basic Information Name: Jaron Grunn Race: Human Gender: Male Birthday & Age : Summer 485, 26 Language: Common (Fluent) Physical Description Standing at a nondescript height of six feet tall, Jaron’s body has been sculpted out of necessity; strong arms and upper body strength coupled with a strong stamina for traversing long distances on nothing more than his own two feet. Scars adorn his arms where his reflexes and training failed to deflect a sword during training while a prominent scar trails down his leg from his hipbone down to the middle of his thigh. The flesh under his hardened armour and well-worn clothes doesn’t see the light of day if he’s not exposed to the heat of the sun in the summer; the dangers of his career choice also prohibit a more exhibitionist lifestyle. His eyes are a startling hazel colour that appears almost yellow in the warm beams of the sun. When Jaron has business meetings or is expected to appear proper in front of his client, he will do everything within his power to keep his face clean of dark scruff and his hair perfectly coiffed and combed neatly. If he had a choice of grooming habits, he would let the hair on his head remain the same way it appeared the moment he rolled out of bed and would only shave when the beard prohibited Jaron from eating soup like a regular person. Character Concept Jaron never thought of himself as a mercenary; the mere title alone makes him think of men with bad teeth, bad personal hygiene and grimy swords selling their skills to the highest bidder. While what he does for a living does in fact mimic the life of a mercenary, he sees his profession as more of a hired bodyguard or an extra set of hands that can get dirty instead of some pirate on the land. He takes his contracts seriously, honours every part of the arrangement and in turn expects the signing party to honour their commitment to him. Failure of doing this will not only anger Jaron, but will prompt him to do whatever it takes to make sure that the contract is honoured, or at the very least his pocket fat with the coin that he was owed and not a miza more. It was the summer of his twenty second year as a young man that Jaron met Sev, another man who was a skilled fighter. He wasn’t keen on the idea of selling his abilities for profit but Jaron soon talked him into the profession and the two hired themselves out as a deadly set. It was difficult for Jaron to try to sell the idea as Sev wasn’t a fan of Jaron’s dry wit and sarcasm, but once they came to common ground and a mutual understanding of each other the flippant remarks that Jaron would make didn’t faze Sev in the least. It didn’t take long for their reputation as hired muscle and efficient guards spread around Lhavit and they were sitting comfortably with a place of their own. The two men, deeply in love, committed to the idea of adopting an orphan from an orphanage and had plans from baby names to when they should put their future child on the waiting list for school. Spring 511, a season of freshness and renewal saw Jaron through the worst part of his life; a dark part of his history that he thought he would never make out alive. The job they Jaron and Sev were hired to perform was to bring an important set of documents from one merchant to the other, a rather silly and easy job that they had no problem in accepting and carrying out. The road that they travelled was not foreign or alien to the two men, yet when they were ambushed and the assailing party wanting the documents destroyed, Jaron and Sev both jumped into action and managed to take down their adversaries, save for one. While Jaron dispatched with the last of the grimy assailants (Mercenaries, Jaron thought, judging by the colour of their teeth.), Sev’s opponent stuck a mortal blow as Sev’s own sword sliced the man’s throat from ear to ear. Sev’s belly spilled into his hands as he sunk to the ground, Jaron at his side in the blink of an eye. They had seconds remaining to talk – Jaron to convince Sev that he would be healed, and Sev, the realist, telling Jaron exactly what was happening and what was going to happen – but they never truly got to say goodbye. The wounds that Sev sustained filled his lungs with blood faster than the words he wanted to say could escape his lips and his life slipped away from Jaron. Burying and compartmentalizing that part of Jaron’s life was difficult; he had adapted his very being to living with another man and had plans that would have carried the two of them to their grey days, spent on the porch of their house, yelling at the hooligans to get out of their yard. Instead, he had to wake up, alone, in his bed without Sev at his side. Without Sev to make quips too early in the morning before Jaron could reply in a timely manner. The sarcastic, witty and dry-humoured man that was once as happy as a pig in a mud was buried along with Sev. Jaron was nothing more than a cold shell of a man that lost everything in his life, but a life that he would not acknowledge. Rebuilding his contacts after he moved out of the shared house and the town that he had spent his childhood in was difficult; Jaron wasn’t approachable, personable, and only smiled on social cues instead of genuinely. Character History Jaron was born to two farmers; both his mother and father had grown up close to Lhavit and provided the city with food fresh from their fields. While his mother would tend to the orchards and barn duties, his father would tend to the fields that provided grain for the city and guaranteed their little farm a success. By the time Jaron was born, his older sister who was just shy of a year old succumbed to a common childhood illness and thus Jaron was raised as an only child. The minute that he could walk, Jaron was hobbling around and helping his mother with the less dangerous chores around the farm while his father had the help of fellow farmers and hired farmhands to plough and tend the fields. When he was old enough and physically able to help his father in the fields, Jaron dove right into that job and his body grew to accommodate such a taxing role on the farm. Like his father, his muscles grew and the fat dripped away from his body; from dawn until dusk Jaron was out there with his father in the spring and fall while his winters were spent inside. The “easier” time of winter meant that Jaron could commit that limited freedom to learning how to read, write, and learn what little history of the world he could from school. Like all young men, Jaron aspired to live beyond the farm and the life that his father lived since the day he was a young boy. The glint of steel and the clash of swords caught his attention from his early years as a teenager and when his work on the farm was done, Jaron would dash back into the city and soak up every available chance to learn how to properly wield a sword. Sorn, a retired guard (who had a certain fondness for a once young boy who tried to push a cow over in the dead of winter, as the young boy was told that there would be a golden egg under the cow) saw Jaron’s interest and trained him in the art of sword wielding. From such simple things as how to hold a sword and the proper stance to how and when an enemy would retaliate an attack, Sorn bestowed all the knowledge that kept him alive during all his years as a guard to a politically polarizing woman and her family. Not only did Sorn instruct Jaron on how to wield a sword with deadly precision, he also instructed the young Jaron on how to fight and protect himself if he ever found himself without a weapon in hand. Sorn was a tough instructor and had no problem in making Jaron bleed, or marring him with a black eye as a reminder to pay closer attention to his lessons and less to the hormonal urges of a teenager. On the cusp of his twentieth birthday, Jaron used some of Sorn’s old friends to get himself a job as a hired sword for a job that involved being an escort for a merchant as they travelled between cities. It was an overly easy and danger-free job (Sorn had made sure of this) and immediately Jaron was excited to this life of adventure and physical brutality. The farmhands that were on his father’s farm were more like family and when Jaron decided to leave and make his own adventure in the world, his mother and father were sad to see their child go but knew that he was safe. Jaron, in turn knew that his family would remain safe, financially secure and that the harvest and planting would be done without difficulty and without him being present. Venturing into the world was something that made Jaron both anxious and overly excited at the same time. While he didn’t see much of Mizahar, the main roads around Lhavit proved to be just enough of the world to satisfy his curiosity and the constant income from protection contracts was more than enough for him to set himself up with a comfortable place to live in the city on his own. Jaron would still visit his parents in the spring and in harvest to help where he could, as no matter how well prepared his father was Jaron still felt an obligation to help out if he was free from a contract. Just a week into his twenty second year he met Sev, a man that was virtually every part opposite of Jaron as fire was to water. Where Jaron was stubborn and was comfortable where he was in the world, Sev was adventurous and outgoing. Sev was a year older than Jaron and had seen as much of Mizahar as his coin could take him. From the harsh sands around Ahnatep to the mysteries of Alvadas, Sev had seen it all and had endless stories to tell Jaron about when the two men spoke. Jaron’s own sense of humour and sarcasm was initially something that made Sev think twice about buying him a drink, it was something that he grew accustomed to; eventually that flippant attitude towards life and strangers was something that Sev enjoyed in Jaron and was something that made him want to pursue something more than friendship between himself and Jaron. A friendship that started as Jaron’s foot getting caught in the leg of Sev’s chair, resulted in an odd courtship that saw the two men kiss two months after their initial meeting. After much coaxing on Jaron’s part to get Sev to hire out his good arm and strong sword for profit, the two men decided on an apartment to call their own. A year into their relationship and many adventures together and they started talking of the future. Of a world where it was just the two of them and possibly the pitter-patter of little feet on the ground as they both wanted to raise at least one child. Sev’s ability to entertain the children at the orphanage with nothing more than a broom was something that made Jaron initially push the idea to Sev, and they both agreed that once they had enough money saved they would “settle down” and think seriously about a child. Despite the long-term timeframe it would take to get a child into their lives, that didn’t stop the two men from talking about the possibilities of their future child together, from his or her name to how they would have to “fight” Jaron’s mother for custody of her grandchild any time they would go and visit her. The incident that took Sev’s life was one that forever altered Jaron right down to his very soul. He found a man that fully complete him, from the clichéd way Sev finished his sentences to the unspoken silence between the two men as they enjoyed a comfortable and stress free evening at home, Jaron thought he found his one true love. As Sev lay in his arms, with the warmth of his blood colouring his fingers, staining his clothes, and soaking through to his flesh, Jaron knew at that point that he could never love another person again. The pain in that moment, the reality of seconds remaining of Sev’s life was unbearable for Jaron and he wanted to slit his own throat instead of face a life alone without Sev as the rock in his life. Now Sev was nothing more than a memory, a tombstone, and a journal that Jaron kept by his nightstand. Sev bought the journal when he began his adventures around Mizahar and detailed every place that he visited from the food to the temperature and even pressed leaves from foreign trees that he thought were interesting. It was only a quarter full when he met Jaron and his adventures around the world ceased while the two of them worked around Lhavit, providing two agile swords and two pairs of jaw-shattering fists to anyone that could afford their fees. Jaron knew that sitting alone in his new bachelor apartment would be his undoing, that staying around in Lhavit would drive him insane at the memories that he saw around every corner. Jaron didn’t have deep religious beliefs in any deity, but he felt some voice in the back of his mind command him to pick up that journal and read where Sev had been in Mizahar. Jaron’s experience in travels was limited to the contracts that took him to the fringes of Lhavit and Kalea and nothing more. He heard countless tales from Sev about the sites, people and sounds of the rest of the world and from the pictures that Sev poorly reproduced in his journal. With nothing more than the essentials in his backpack along with weapons that he depended on to keep him alive, Jaron left Lhavit and headed to where Sev had first ventured in his journal. He sold his apartment and brought a box of personal belongings back to his family’s farm that he wanted to keep (some belongings of Sev’s mixed in with his own) and Jaron hugged his parents and told them of his plan. Jaron decided that he would relive every place that Sev had ever visited, to see for himself the world that was just beyond his reach.

[Jaron Grunn]

Skills Skill Level XP/100 Dual Wield Novice 1 Intimidation Novice 2 Negotiation Novice 1 Observation Novice 2 Persuasion Novice 1 Rhetoric Novice 2 Running Novice 1 Seduction Novice 2 Storytelling Novice 2 Unarmed Combat Competent 29 Weapon: (Sword) Competent 34 Wilderness Survival Novice 8 Lore How to rock a farmer’s tan Farmer’s Almanac; when and where to plant for success Hurting yourself Needing one last touch Dealing of loss Drunk and Flirty Angering the wrong farmers Bittersweet Memories Saying Goodbye Getting Lost in Zeltiva Story : The Little Thief and the Man with the Big Sword Threatening a Lady Avari's Life Story Having your Purse Stolen Your Own Brand of Justice Unrealistic Idea of Konti's Powers Giving Small Favors First time Duel Wielding Impaling Someone's Hand Equipment and Possessions Armour Price Leather, Night 60 gm Clothing Price Belt, Leather SP Cloak, Fur SP Shirt, Cotton SP Pants, Leather SP Gloves, Leather 5 sm Underwear SP Weapons Price Sword, Bastard 25 gm Dagger 2 gm Miscellaneous Price Backpack SP Eating Knife SP Flint & Steel SP Food (1 Week) SP Toiletries (comb, brush, razor, soap) SP Waterskin SP Heirloom Price Sev’s Journal N/A

[Jaron Grunn]

NPC (Travelling Companion) Name: Severn Talus Race: Ghost (Human) Age: 26, at death Skills: Skill Level XP Materialization Novice 10 Possession Novice 10 Soulmist Projection Novice 10 History: Born and raised in Lhavit, Sev sought to see the world instead of being trapped in the city that he knew like the back of his hand. He travelled as far as his coin would take him, writing everything down he saw and experienced on his travels. When he was twenty year he met Jaron, and the two started off a simple friendship that soon turned into a relationship that was supposed to last until the men were old and grey. An ambush stole Sev's life and in the sudden passing, Sev didn't cross over but remained on the mortal plane with Jaron as a faint image of the man he once was.

[Jaron Grunn]

Ledger #1 SP, Shelter Cash InIncurred inn charges will be tallied as they occur. Total ### 100, 500 600 #2 Weapons, Armour, Misc. Total 600 -60, -5 sm, -25, -2 512 gm, 95 sm Thread List Flashbacks : 40.Spr.511: What The Water Gave Me [Closed] XP: +2 Seduction, +2 Observation, +1 Unarmed Combat Lore: Hurting yourself, Needing one last touch, Dealing of loss, Drunk and Flirty, Angering the wrong farmers, Bittersweet Memories, Saying Goodbye Fall 511 : 23.F.511: The Go Getter [Astrolabe] In Progress 27.F.511: Rush Hour Risks and Rewards [Avari] XP: Rhetoric +3, Unarmed Combat +1, Intimidation +2, Storytelling +2, Negotiation +1, Persuasion +1, Running +1, Weapon: Sword +4, Dual Wield +1 Lore: Getting Lost in Zeltiva, Story : The Little Thief and the Man with the Big Sword, Threatening a Lady, Avari's Life Story, Having your Purse Stolen, Your Own Brand of Justice, Unrealistic Idea of Konti's Powers, Giving Small Favor, First time Dual Wielding, Impaling Someone's Hand 34.F.511 - All The Stars Were Shining Bright.. [Astrolabe] In Progress 45.F.511[Random Alley] Between A Rock And A Hard Place [Herb] In Progress