Post by Ze Flying Wraithetti Monstress on Mar 1, 2009 18:48:17 GMT -5
Name:
Kieran Kolbjorn
Age:
Around three hundred thirty
Race:
Elf
Appearance:
Even at his age, Kieran’s looks still turn many a girl’s head. A life mostly consisting of beer, money, and women, has ensured that Kieran suffers from no premature aging- the only really noticeable sign of his 300+ years are the strands of grey shot throughout his hair and occasional beard. Kieran is average in height and weight at 6’1” and 200 pounds, but lean rather than bulky in physique. His skin is smooth and clear, with only a gentle tan, since he does most of his work at night. His eyes are very dark blue, nearly black, and his hair is jet black except for the grey hairs strung like cobwebs throughout it. Kieran’s face is rarely clean-shaven, and he usually has at least a little stubble on his chin and neck, which he sometimes allows to grow into a small beard.
Being an elf, Kieran’s face is smooth and well-formed, taking him dangerously close to being a total pretty boy. However, living in the Empire requires him to lie low, so he has had his face magically altered to more closely resemble a human’s as well as removing his pointed ears. His face is long and oval-shaped, with a prominent chin and jawbone. His eyes are framed by surprisingly long and thick lashes and he has a high, arched forehead, lending him a more feminine, aristocratic kind of beauty. This is slightly off-set by his thin lips, high cheekbones, and crooked nose, a part of the spell.
Kieran knows how good he looks and pays scrupulous attention to his appearance. His hair is always shiny and combed, his facial hair is well-trimmed, and he bathes regularly. He also pays attention to how he dresses. His line of work requires him to be wearing at least a little armour at all times, so Kieran wears a thick leather vest underneath his clothes that goes around his torso. His wardrobe varies in colour, although the garments are usually loose and baggy. His tunics are various lengths and cuts, and his trousers either end above or below his ankles. His shoe choice is usually thick, leather-shod boots. When on the occasional dangerous meeting or raid, Kieran opts for thick leather armour that allows him to move around easily. His weapon of choice is a crossbow in battle, although he prefers to kill his enemies by sneaking up on them while they’re asleep and slitting their throats or relying on others to fight for him.
Personality:
When first meeting him, Kieran is probably one of the biggest ass holes anyone could ever hope to meet. He’s rude, snide, sarcastic, and has an annoying tendency to poke and ridicule people’s weaknesses, especially humans’. He also has a bitterly short temper that he will take out on his closest staff member, especially his nephew, Helaku, who is terrified of him. Oddly, though, Kieran can laugh at most things, with the exceptions of his job, his foster daughter, and his inn, Cutthroat’s Saloon. Anyone who challenges his position is usually swiftly booted out of the bar by one of the bouncers, and he is very hard on staff and trouble-makers in his inn. The only person he never shouts at or purposely insults is his adopted daughter, Iphigenia.
On Kieran’s feelings about Iphigenia, he considers her to be the most perfect creature ever created. In a way, Iphigenia is kind of like Kieran’s guardian angel- her optimism can always pull him out of depression or douse freezing water on his temper. He compares her to his own dead daughter, and Iphigenia is rather like her reincarnation to him. However, there is a cruel, selfish side to his love for her- she’s also like a hunting trophy, a medallion of recognition for the village he slaughtered when he found her.
Besides Iphigenia, Kieran has three other weaknesses- money, women, and alcohol. He will do almost anything for cash, and often tries to squander people out of their money. It’s completely precious to him. When it comes to women, Kieran is incredibly shallow, only ever going for the most beautiful girls that are usually half his age. He has charm when he wants to use it, and a tongue that could melt the heart of even the coldest ice queen. There isn’t much he wouldn’t do to get laid. Kieran definitely sleeps around almost every night, especially with his prostitutes, but never once has he fallen in love since Noir. Kieran still hasn’t totally gotten over his dead wife, and occasionally fantasizes the women he sleeps with as her, but only when he’s drunk. On the subject of alcohol, even though Kieran’s depressed, binge-drinking days are over, he regularly indulges in beer both for his occasionally flagging libido and for fun.
Kieran serves as the head of the faction of his gang in Dras-Leona, which means he also has to have some important skills. Kieran is incredibly resourceful and able to act at a moment’s notice, which makes him very good at handling crises. He’s also a top negotiator, and is usually able to bend things his way or get out of an unpleasant situation by only talking.
History:
Kieran’s parents, Ioann and Maryshka, were both Dragon Riders who, after becoming mates, started to fall a little out of touch with their duties. This was during the time when the Riders were getting a little too sure of themselves, and they were just two of the many other Riders that started to indulge in their wealth rather than their moral codes. Ioann and Maryshka bought themselves a mansion in Urû’baen and settled down, but also disguised themselves as humans. Kieran was born around a hundred years later. Being surrounded by mostly humans, almost none of the haughty distance of the elves rubbed off on him. He did, however, grow up spoiled into his early childhood. Kieran was given basic training with a spear and bow, the weapons favoured by the elves. He wasn’t taught much magic, except for the spell that allowed him to conceal his elven features and make him look more human, a look that he has worn all his life since then.
Ioann and Maryshka were still required to do their duties as Riders, however, which meant they often flew out on missions. Kieran was mostly raised by nurses and didn’t see much of either of his parents. Therefore he wasn’t that affected, at the age of thirty-seven, still just a child, when his mother was killed fighting Urgals. Ioann, however, grew incredibly depressed by the loss of his mate, and started to drink heavily, even for an elf. However, it took a very, very long time for his body to actually be affected by the alcohol, and Kieran was over a hundred years old, in his early teens, when Ioann finally grew very sick and was bedridden. He handed over all his money and his mansion to Kieran, who, for about a year, was stumped on what to do with the lot of it.
Then, when he was 113, his hormones hit, and Kieran began to spend his time at bars with human women, whom he found much more charming than the distant elvish women. A couple of them introduced him to gambling, which Kieran tried and became hooked on. However, he wasn’t necessarily good at it, and he started to drain his family’s fortune. Ioann died when Kieran was 119 thinking his son would ruin everything he and Maryshka had created. And Kieran probably would have, if his anger hadn’t gotten the better of him one day. After losing a game, he physically attacked his opponent and accidentally killed him, getting him booted into jail for fifteen years. Kieran managed to eventually buy his way out, and once again started to gamble, but then he met Noir.
Noir, a human woman, was an oddity. She always dressed in black, and wore a glove on her right hand 24/7, not even taking it off for baths or sleeping. She was also extremely lucky, and beat Kieran several times in gambling. However, after a while, Kieran found that he liked her, and Noir found his fresh-out-of-jail hangdog look attractive. They fooled around for several nights, but eventually got tired of each other and drifted apart.
Noir, however, developed a very interesting condition soon after, one that became increasingly apparent about three months after she had fooled around with Kieran. Noir herself came from a very rich family, her father being a wealthy merchant, and her interesting condition had her family knocking down Kieran’s door demanding that he marry her, not knowing that he was an elf. Kieran wasn’t worried, but actually found it amusing, seeing as Noir would die hundreds of years before he did. He married her a month later, and then another five months after that, their daughter Lella was born.
Lella was a half-elf, which was how Noir found out about Kieran’s identity. They mostly kept her inside to keep her identity a secret. Kieran was planning on being just as distant with his daughter as his own father had been with him, but when she was born, Kieran fell in love. He almost entirely gave up gambling just to spend time with her, especially since Lella grew at a human’s rate, so Kieran could hardly keep up with her growth.
However, keeping Lella’s identity a secret was no easy task, and she was given away by one of the servants. This provoked surprise and interest in the citizens of Urû’baen, and, in some of them, disgust at the melding of two races. Lella was antagonized at school and had to be taught privately at home, and the occasional rock was thrown through the window, but that was all. Kieran didn’t really worry about it, though, considering them minor things.
One day, he returned home from visiting friends, however, to find that things had gone very ugly indeed. Thugs were waiting for him at his home, and it was only the intervention of the guards that stopped them from attacking Kieran. Unfortunately, it was too late for Lella, only seven years old, and Noir- the guards found their bodies on the upper floor.
Kieran was devastated. He almost lost his mind over the deaths of his wife and daughter, and found that alcohol could make him forget it had even happened. He started to drink very hard, just as his father had, in order to keep himself convinced that his wife and daughter were still alive and waiting for him at home. In a few years, he lost all his money and had to get rid of his mansion, and began to waste away in the streets. Eventually, he couldn’t afford even liquor, and he had to force himself to become a total ice cube to keep rejecting Lella and Noir’s deaths. He began to starve, however, and so he purposely killed a man to get himself thrown into jail so he could eat. He was 156 by then.
Kieran was quite content to rot in his jail cell for the rest of his life, but he was placed with three other men into a new cell after a month in isolation due to the prison being overcrowded. The three men were members of Myrmidon Company, a very large criminal gang that was and still is spread out across Alagaësia. Despite his depression over his dead family, Kieran still had a sharp wit, and he eventually interested and befriended the criminals, up to the point where they asked him to join their ranks. Kieran grudgingly agreed. They were released three years later, all within six months of each other, and Kieran traveled with them to a cave system near Belatona that served as one of the Company’s bases. Kieran was recruited as a lowly associate, and was trained with a range of weapons from swords to crossbows to maces for several years.
Kieran became very decent with said weapons, because he found that training took his mind off his pain. He trained constantly, up to the point of nearly burning out entirely on several occasions. Once Kieran was considered able to take care of himself, he was promoted to a slightly not-as-low position as an enforcer when he was 173, and travelled throughout the cities protecting the higher members of the Company and taking down any infiltrators.
It was only a few years later, though, when the fall of the Riders happened, and the Company had to hide underground while Alagaësia battled on the surface. Kieran witnessed the fall of the Riders and Galbatorix rising to power through mostly indifferent eyes- by then, his only interest was preserving both himself and the Company. In fact, Galbatorix’s own lack of care about his newly created Empire made things easier for the Company when they came aboveground again, when Kieran was 209. His loyalty was noted and once again he was promoted, this time to a foot soldier, which required him to carry out the day-to-day business of the Company.
After that, Kieran’s life was just tasks for the Company for a very long time. He was promoted several times, although very slowly despite his loyalty due to the Company’s mistrust of elves. Eventually, he was allowed to become a kind of lieutenant when he was nearly three hundred years old. He became the head of one of the Company’s branches called the Bloodletters, who were situated in Dras-Leona. Kieran was given money, which he used to open a bar called Cutthroat’s Saloon near the center of the city. It now serves as the main area for operations for the Company in Dras-Leona, and became popular among the citizens. Soon, Kieran took on hired thugs, prostitutes, and allowed outside business deals to run inside it. Kieran has since then been the innkeeper of the Saloon, and still keeps his position as the Bloodletters’ head.
