Gastane Bio (Subject to change)

Gastane Weyloff, esteemed knight of the courts of Daggerfall, just wanted to see the world. Born a farmer's boy in the tail end of a minor duchy, all he knew were the rolling fields of his homestead, the simple shantytown that served as the gathering place for the locals, and the azure sea that bordered it. His father was a broad, weather-beaten man by the name of Torrand Weyloff, and his mother a kind and homely woman by the name of Magrid.

Torrand was an introspective, quiet man with a farmer's physique and a stone cottage that had been passed down the family for generations. These things were the world as far as he was concerned. He did his best to teach Gastane the values of hard work and honesty during the early years of the child's life, in addition to teaching him practical skills like forestry and how to swing an axe. His calm attitude and common sense had also granted him some measure of respect from the other locals, and every so often they'd stop by his home to ask for advice on how to deal with a difficult decision or other issue, which he did his best to help with. Gastane was often present for these events, and they became his way of learning the state of the world beyond the small home he knew.

Magrid was a Nordic-Breton immigrant who left her home town of Markarth many years ago, unable and unwilling to deal with the rising tensions between both sides of her family. She always did have a talent for knowing which way the wind was blowing. It was practically a necessity at her cramped neighborhood in the lower district, where sullen and pugnacious cousins and uncles of both bloodlines would come to blows over sins their ancestors had committed against each other, real or imagined. As you may guess, the union that brought Magrid into the world was something of an anomaly, a hidden romance that, when discovered, both strained the relationships of the two households yet paradoxically brought them together, as the families split between further entrenching themselves in rivalry and snubbing the couple or grudgingly attempting to bury the hatchet. But as is often the way with these things, those who thought such ancient feuds could be laid to rest in a single generation found themselves prone to unfortunate accidents that only served as justification for further bloodshed. Magrid felt the beginning of the end was near when she learned her father suffered an unfortunate accident wherein he fell down a full flight of stairs and onto a knife left carelessly lying on the ground. Apparently. Magrid knew what was coming next. Without her father to stave off half of her family, they'd eventually make their move. It was inevitable. Her mother was bedridden from grief, unfortunately. She wouldn't budge no matter how much the young woman pleaded. Eventually self-preservation overrode familial attachment, and she left in the night after a final tearful goodbye, taking everything she could with her.

Torrand first met Magrid as she staggered along the main road on his way to the market. She collapsed, and he carried her to his home, where he nursed her back to health. Having nowhere else to go, Magrid offered a deal; She would keep the cottage tidy while he worked, and in return she could make free use of the guest room. Torrand accepted and for months the two lived as room-mates, cordial to one another but overall distant. However, time and friendship brought them closer together, and after a simple country wedding they formed a union that went beyond a mere shared living space, and it was into this union that Gastane was born.

Gastane himself grew up tall and strong, no doubt due to his Nordic genes, making him something of an oddity among his shorter kin. However, Torrand greatly appreciated his son's strength and hardiness, as it meant he could start working in the fields far sooner than a pure-blooded Breton son would have. As Gastane grew into his middle teens, he slowly learnt more about the world around him, and began spending more and more time wandering the woods outside his homestead. He could almost feel the desire for adventure burning within him. Surely there was an endless amount of beasts to slay and treasures to be plundered if he could just leave this small homestead. Despite Torrand's talk of legacy and tradition, he wanted nothing more than to leave this cottage in the middle of nowhere. And he got his wish.

In a sense.

On that day, the whole town had gathered to watch the ships sail in. Great hulks they were, shoddily constructed and poorly maintained, but they still sailed with implacable steadiness toward the small harbor. The townsfolk didn't know what to make of it. They stood at the edge of the water, staring dumbly, as the ships paused a few hundred feet from the shore. They were a simple folk. Bandit raids were few and far between, and there hadn't been a wereboar sighting in generations. It was no surprise that they were utterly unprepared for what happened next. All at once, the ships let loose a volley of boulders launched by shipboard catapults and flaming arrows shot by squads of archers, all while smaller boats filled with corsairs were lowered into the water. The pirate fleet arrived on shore in minutes and immediately set to work looting, pillaging, and murdering everything they could get their hands on. Torrand quickly led Magrid and Gastane out of the city as it burned, but they weren't quite fast enough to avoid hearing the tortured screams of people they had known for years and the haunting sound of sizzling flesh and dying gurgles. Further and further they ran as fire and sword were brought down on their entire world. Even their home was a charred wreck by the end of it, everything of value having been ruined or stolen by the raiders, who climbed back into their boats and sailed away as the day neared its end. Gastane and his parents were ripped up by the roots and were forced to wander the road looking for a new place to call home. Eventually they found it.

The family had managed to sell what little they had on their person to purchase a run down shack in the poorest part of Daggerfall, allowing them to survive another day. But they were not who they once were. The horrors they witnessed and the arduous journey afterwards had all but killed them. Magrid had snapped near the end of it. She often had crying fits in her bed and had taken to heavy drinking in an attempt to blot out the visions of screaming faces and charred flesh that haunted her ever since that dreadful catastrophe. Gastane had become sullen and withdrawn, his eyes rarely if ever leaving the floor as he tended to his mother. But Torrand... well, he had a family to provide for, after all. There's always a need in a place like this for a strong man and a hefty axe, and truth be told, he hadn't been able to pay for this house with his own belongings. Loans had to be taken out, loans to very unscrupulous people who insisted he would repay his debt, one way or another. And so it was that Torrand found himself working as a thug for one of the town's criminal families. It was a nasty business and more than once the man was forced to go against his principles to satisfy his employer- no, his owner. For the man who pulled his strings did indeed own him. With but a word, Torrand's home, such as it was, could be stripped away in an instant. Disobedience was simply not an option.

It was inevitable, of course, that Gastane would eventually find out the truth. When the pieces finally clicked together in his mind, it roused him from his stupor like no potion or stiff drink ever could. His own father, breaking kneecaps and collecting protection money from people no different from himself. When he finally confronted Torrand about it, the shouting match that followed was unlike any argument in the history of their family, while Magrid moaned and sobbed ineffectually in her bed. Torrand tried to explain his position, how he had no choice, how he was doing anything to protect his son, but Gastane would have none of it. He said he would simply join the local guard, and earn money in a lawful fashion, in accordance with the values the man in front of him once taught. Torrand angrily denied him. Truthfully, this is what should have happened. Gastane should have joined the guard, rose to a respectable rank, and provided for his parents, saving the family from the clutches of the people who now dictated his father's life. Torrand saw it himself, this future. But there was one fact that stuck to him, one truth that prevented him from accepting this. He simply couldn't bear to see his son in harm's way. The loss of his home had robbed him of his legacy, his world. Generations of land ownership, gone in an instant. Gastane was his last link to what once was, and to lose him would be unthinkable. Surely anything was worth preventing that. Gastane disagreed, and disagreed vehemently. Nothing, he said, could be worth all that his father had done. With that, he stormed past the distraught Torrand and hysterical Magrid, and shut the door behind him. And so it was that a bleary-eyed captain found himself looking at a youth standing in front of him, carrying nothing but a dagger and nothing on him but a plain farmer's outfit, worn and frayed, asking to join the city guard. The captain was incredulous, but put him through the physical tests all the same. He manage to easily pass all demonstrations of strength and athleticism, but barely scraped by on discipline and knowledge of weapon forms, having only a minimal understanding of the basics. But there was potential within him, the captain thought. And so Gastane was given a uniform and a bunk to sleep on, which would become home for the next three years of his life.

Being in the guard was a chore, for certain. There was always something to to do, a criminal to arrest, a law to enforce, but with every batch of those there was inevitably a more... delicate situation. Some noble youth out for a night on the town does something a bit beyond what's socially acceptable and gets arrested by the guard. Naturally this simply can't happen, as it would greatly stain the reputation of the family, so Gastane grew accustomed to watching money change hands between cloaked representatives on dark nights, and seeing the noble in question be let out without a word a few hours later. But those incidents aside, Gastane did well for himself. He learned how to navigate the city and its people, common and high-born, without drawing the wrong kind of attention. He slowly advanced in rank and notoriety as he busted open larger and more prominent criminal rings and became more and more of a public figure. He was never a politician, but his impressive physique and reputation of stern justice ensured that he was a minor celebrity in his district.

But such a life could not last forever. Eventually, tragedy returned to Gastane's existence. It was during an assault on a cornered crime lord's headquarters that it happened. There was a brief fight, but most of the brigands threw down their arms and came quietly when all was finished and the target was absent a head. But as Gastane watched the prisoners file out into the street and onto the waiting carriage, his heart skipped a beat. There in the line was Torrand, his own father. Fear, relief, and worry mingled within him. With but a shout, his father could connect himself to Gastane. People would investigate, find out his ignoble origins. His reputation would come crashing down. But at the same time, before it was all over, he could probably use his connections to ensure his father escaped the noose, just as was done to countless nobles before him. He took a breath and waited for his father to speak, and seal both their fates.

But he didn't.

He didn't speak as his carriage was drawn away. He didn't speak as he was interrogated in his cell. He didn't speak as the rope tightened around his neck. Gastane's reputation was safe, but his heart was shattered. He knew what his father had done. Despite all that had happened, Torrand sacrificed his life to ensure that his son's reputation would remain unblighted. He wept on the night of his father's death, alone in his room. The next day he sent out some men to that shack he spent so much time in. They found his mother in an even worse state than before. Evidently, Torrand was desperate for money to treat his wife but knew that due to the reputation he gained as a member of a criminal society, having risen in rank over the years (much to his dismay), he would never be able to ask Gastane for help without destroying his career. So he suffered silence until the day he was hung. Gastane was now alone with his elderly, mentally unstable mother, and a guard's salary, famous or no, simply can't pay for what was needed to keep Magrid stable. Something had to change.

Given his situation, it was no surprise that when word got around of a pack of ruthless centaurs terrorizing the countryside, he would join the party sent to drive them off. Among the motley band of self-proclaimed adventurers were town guards like himself, mercenaries, wandering knights, nobles and their retinue of footmen, and various other individuals of moderate fame who wished to add another tale to their list of exploits. And so at the break of dawn they set out into the wilds, going from ruined village to ruined village and narrowing the distance between themselves and their foes. It was the second week into the quest when they finally found what they were looking for.

The band was marching across an empty road concealed on both sides by a dense forest. They were tired, hungry, and on edge from seeing the trail of death the centaurs had wrought. It was that paranoia that saved them when the stragglers and vanguard were suddenly struck by a hail of arrows. Having prepared for this moment, the main force set up a hastily assembled shield wall and prepared to hold off the horsemen once they charged. However, the charge didn't come. These Centaurs were a clever lot, and opted to hide behind the thickly forested perimeter and whittle away at the defenses of the warband as panic slowly began to overtake them. People started to break formation and flee back down the road only to be cut down in an instant. Gastane rallied the men nearest to him, however, keeping them from breaking. But the Bretons were slowly being winnowed away by precisely aimed arrows, and it was only a matter of time before they were all corpses. Or so they thought. For unbeknownst to them, one of the noblemen in the group had just finished casting something.

Suddenly and without warning, fire began to erupt all around them, turning the forest into a raging inferno and setting all within ablaze. Birds and wildlife left out panicked shrieks as their vision became consumed by orange and red, and the centaurs started to yowl and scream. The men heard the thumping of hooves and, with a mighty warcry, braced against the desperate and fear-maddened foe. From out of the bushes on both sides came massive silhouettes wreathed in flame as the centaurs charged. At the command of Gastane, a few dozen pikemen moved to the front, and took their places in-between the great tower shields of the nearest knights. The centaurs were too unhinged to see the obvious trap, and the brunt of the charge was halted as centaurs were impaled by the iron blockade. From there the battle turned into a bloody slog, both sides fighting like mad amidst a sea  of flame. During the midst of this struggle, Gastane noticed a young man in ornate armor fighting desperately to hold off a braying beastman striking at him madly with two rusted scimitars. Gastane, seeing the skirmish line was mostly intact, quickly veered away from the center of battle to assist the struggling youth. With a short sprint and a mighty leap, the guardsman slammed into the side of the creature, stunning it long enough for him to end its life with a heavy swing of his iron maul. He looked to the ornately armored man, who had just fallen to the ground and had been about to lose his life as the centaur readied a killing blow, and with a curt nod, helped him up and sent him back to the main force. Looking about himself once more for any other stragglers in similar situations, and finding none, Gastane waded back into the thick of battle, swinging his maul in great swinging arcs as he battered his foes about.

The conflict was fierce and bloody, with more than a dozen men lying on the ground, but in the end the remaining centaurs broke and ran, fading from view as they were chased down by the small cadre of horsemen that had accompanied the group. As soon as the last beasts were ought of sight, the nobleman muttered another incantation, and with a wave of his hand the fires vanished, leaving the soldiers staring confusedly at the verdant forest that was mere seconds ago was a raging inferno. As it dawned on them what had transpired, laughter broke out amongst the triumphant warriors. The fire had in fact been a clever illusion designed to draw the beasts out of hiding, which explained why, while panicked, none of the Centaurs actually died from the flames, along with why the soldiers never caught fire as well. It was a clever trick on the caster's part, as had the fire been real, the forest would have most assuredly been completely destroyed, killing everyone within.

With the day won, the surviving heroes marched back to Daggerfall, where they were met with cheers and applause from the waiting residents. After a few days to recover and put the dead to rest, a celebration was convened. All those who had participated in the hunt were invited to sit with the nobility as they put on a grand banquet. The party carried long into the night, and many stories and bits of gossip came out of it as tales of secret trysts between young nobles and dashing rogues began to surface. But for Gastane in particular, this event was his salvation. During the late hours of the party, he was pulled aside by a grey-haired fellow clothed in fine velvet and silk, bearing the name Marcier Perinnius. As they conversed, it was revealed that he was the mage who cast the fiery illusion that had won the day. And not only that, but the youth Gastane had rescued was one of the the man's sons. Noting Gastane's strength and martial prowess, the nobleman offered him a proposition; Gastane would be ordained an official knight, and in return he will instruct Marcier's son, Geon Perinnius, in the art of battle, giving him an education that only an experienced veteran could bestow. There was also mention of a significant increase of pay, to boot. Gastane had no choice but to accept.

And such is how Gastane finds himself today. After having done a fine job of instructing Geon in the art of the warrior, word spread of his tutoring skill, and he found himself being contracted by progressively more noble families, until it became his full-time job. Between training aristocrats for battle and caring for his mother (who, thanks to the efforts of several talented restoration mages, may be beginning to slowly regain her wits), Gastane will sometimes visit the barracks he spent his early days in, reminiscing with his comrades about his time in the guard, and occasionally lecturing new blood on proper discipline and useful techniques. On occasion, he will also take the time to visit his father's grave, a simple thing near the slums of his home district, and promise that he will continue to live by the principles Torrand taught him when he was young. Of course, he does not merely abide by them himself. When he is able, he will try to teach those same principles of honesty and integrity to the young squires he trains, in the hopes that the next generation will be a better one than the current morass of scheming and corruption that nests in the heart of the city. Perhaps it will, perhaps it will not. But regardless, Gastane will continue to carry on as best he can, in memory of those who could not, and for the sake of those who still remain.