Grindarl

Name - Grindarl
Age - 50
Race - Human
Nationality - Aurelian

APPEARANCE - Grindarl stands at 5'9, and his salt-and-pepper hair is kept in a crew cut. His vaguely haggard looking, already starting to wrinkle face is devoid of laugh lines, and his blue eyes are rather flinty, giving his habit of looking down his nose at people a rather cold air to it. Despite his age, Grindarl is surprisingly fit, though by no means muscular. A whitish burn scar covers half where his left eyebrow would be, completely devoid of any hair, giving him a slightly mismatched appearance.

PERSONALITY - Shrewd, incredibly cunning, and intensely calculating. Not a jolly man. Rather prejudiced; believes the other races should serve humans as they are secondary and cannot compare to humans. Not blind in his dislike of other races however, and is more than willing to use them to further his own goals. Likes having cash, because it gives him options. Mildly afraid of being trapped in any way, shape or form, which tends to manifest as slight claustrophobia and evasive speech when it comes to commitments.


BACKSTORY - The short version: Spied for Aurelia from the age of 20 to 35, in the city of Marken. Grindarl slipped through the shadows of the courts and backroom deals for so long that the city had become more his home than Aurelia, though his loyalties had never changed to align themselves with the city he'd lived in for so long. Returned home quite hastily when he'd slipped up in his deceptions, and had found a parent dead due, indirectly, to him and his very alike mother. Retired due to not wanting to get involved anymore.

The long version:
 Grindarl was born to a pair of wealthy nobles. His father was a lecturer in the Arcane Society, specialising in fire magics, and his mother was outwardly a somewhat ditzy socialite that had actually quietly cultivated enough connections to be in touch with anyone who had any say in the rulings of Aurelia, and put those connections to use. The two of them had doted on Grindarl, and when he'd shown interest in his father's teachings around the age of seven they'd quickly put him into the Arcane Society to nurture what had already shown itself to be a keen intellect and an affinity for magic.

 Initially learning fire magic, just like his father, Grindarl had been shown the various disciplines of magic by his tutor as an example of how versatile mages could be, and had become enamoured by a brief demonstration of illusion magic; playing with people's minds to make them see things that were not there and create flashy displays that didn't truly exist. Gustav - Grindarl's tutor - had warned the child that illusion magics were commonly considered somewhat useless, but Grindarl had simply shaken his head and informed the man that "The only reason people think they're useless is because nobody's figured out how to use it yet!"

 Grin had spent 11 full years in the Arcane Society, studying and learning and working hard on perfecting his illusions first and foremost, while also making sure to practice his fire magic in his free hours. He was still somewhat fond of it due to his father's devotion to it, and it was always nice to have a backup should his illusions fail. At eighteen, Grin had decided to take a break from his endless study and practice to instead accompany his mother to events and deals that she attended, wanting to find how she lived. She'd been only too happy to bring her son along so long as he kept quiet unless it was to say something for her benefit, and he'd happily obliged.

 And so, Grindarl had found the world of political intrigue. His mother would discuss treaties, deals and relationships smoothly and calmly with diplomats and aristocrats, then plot how best to abuse them for her and Aurelia's benefit not even minutes later with the enemies of those same people without any qualms. She'd taught Grin that a soft heart was one easily taken advantage of, and in the world of politics the true rulers are those that rise to the top without ever giving something away for free. He'd overheard his mother's hushed conversations on how to quiet someone about to confess, and then seen reports of the whistleblower's death the very next day. It seemed to him like his mother and her compatriots - the slimy aristocrats, shrewd traders and utilitarian guild members - could build empires and topple the very same ones they'd created simply through whispered conversations and the clinking exchange of money.
It fascinated him.

 Grindarl had set it in his mind to be a part of that world, but his attempts to be like his mother had initially backfired - there was only room for one of her, and everybody he talked to knew it. So Grin had thought carefully about the special talents he could offer, and had begun ingratiating himself with the seedier side of things. Spies and assassins were far more common than he'd originally thought, and his mother had taught him that a critical part of doing what she did was figuring out who the spies were and deliberately showing them only exactly what you wanted them to see. Grin had started talking to spies from both Aurelia and it's enemies alike to learn the tricks of their trade, and had set it in his mind as his way to change the world. He'd listened carefully to the three main factions that his mother seemed to care equally as little about, and had figured that while the aristocrats had always been near the top, they had no clue how to run things, and the guilds had neither the tact nor the passion to truly keep Aurelia on top of the world.

 So Grin had cast his lot with the traders. Those with the vested interest in staying on top and the money, influence and power necessary to keep it that way. Some discussions with prominent official and not so official trading bigwigs had convinced him that the stage of operations he was most needed at was the city's biggest rival.

 Marken.

 Grin had left with a carefully guarded explanation to his mother and a simple heartfelt goodbye to his father, for he knew not how long he would be absent. Imagine his amusement when, shortly before his departure, a shady looking representative from the Aurelian guilds had approached him and informed him the guilds would be in touch and would offer hefty payments for information on their enemies in Marken and anything that Grin could provide on the side. On arrival to Marken after many a day's travel, Grin had set about finding his way into Marken's underbelly. His illusionist talents came in spectacularly handy in his new environment as he disguised himself as 'Sundquist,' the fiercely loyal smooth talker with a hot temper, and he'd quickly ingratiated himself with the merchants of Marken as the most reliable man around, trustworthy enough to discuss all your deepest, darkest secrets around as he would never speak a word of it to anybody else. After all, he was giving all news from his old connections in the guilds of Aurelia to them, which had worked perfectly to stymie their plans and further the merchants!

 Even while all this was happening, Grin frequented various taverns and bars without his disguise and picked up on local rumours and scandals, slowly spreading his shadowy influence into more and more circles.

 Grin delighted in playing his enemies off against each other. For each piece of news he fed the guilds, he informed the merchants what the guild response was going to be. The merchants would always be just out of reach of the guilds, but the information he'd fed would appear to be perfect anyway - the guilds only came so close to sabotaging the merchant's attempts at gaining a foothold in Aurelia due to Grin's efforts, after all. And the whole time this little game was going on, Grin reported each and every move back to the traders, and sat back and watched as their influence grew and spread. When Sundquist's usefulness had slowed, the traders had asked Grin to spy on the nobles also, and he'd happily obliged. Cynthia, the delicate foreigner with a mysterious past and boatloads of money was born, and had risen through the ranks of nobles very, very quickly. It was all too easy for Grin to find the noble's deep, dark secrets and use them for his own benefit, whilst not a single speck of dirt clung to Cynthia, as she didn't truly exist.

 Grin came to love Marken almost as much as he loved Aurelia in his time there. The city had a culture different from, yet similar enough to his place of birth to keep him captivated, and it's rich political culture was just as intriguing as back home. Unfortunately, time spent in Marken had also corroded his views on the other races. Grin had found almost every single nonhuman he interacted with to be unreliable, flaky, violent or outright stupid. He stuck to fraternising with humans, and thus his enjoyment of Marken was not soured, and the years fell by without problem.

 When Grin was 35, however, things changed. A spy had spotted Cynthia entering a building and Grindarl leaving, and this small mistake had ended a fifteen year career of flawless subterfuge. The same spy had begun tailing what seemed to be a nobody who spent most of his time partaking in the rumour mill, and had found Grin entering Sundquist's home and not coming back out till morning, where Sundquist had gone on an errand.

 A day later, Grindarl had been visited at his home. Not Cynthia's home and not Sundquist's, but his own. He'd been informed politely by a messenger that a noble requested his presence at a dinner that night. On checking his two character's doorsteps, letters had been laid at the locked doors that with the exact same message - one of the nobles wanted them at a dinner tonight.

 He'd been figured out. But it wasn't too late - clearly they only had their suspicions so far, and he'd been careful to keep illusions of Sundquist and Cynthia in their beds or doing day to day activities to throw off the spies he was certain were on his trail. So he was still safe, but not for long.

 So Grin got the fuck out of dodge. He hastily left the city disguised as a farmer with all the fortune he'd amassed in a donkey-drawn cart, and had made the long trek home, to Aurelia. Things just didn't feel the same anymore however, and a strange feeling of being out of place had settled on the man the closer he got to his childhood home. On entry to it, he'd found his mother sitting and waiting for him pensively, looking far older and greyer than when he'd left. She'd hugged Grin tightly after so many years of being separated from him, and had sat him down and carefully explained how his father had been poisoned as a result of an attempt on her life going ever so slightly awry, four years ago. She was far too old to still be in the business, but it seemed someone had retained a grudge from when she'd been an active part of driving the country forth.

 Grin's heart had practically turned to ice at the news. He turned his back on his mother without a word, collected his final payments for his service, and retired out to the countryside near Sienna to live out his days quietly (setting shit on fire) farming and drinking at the local pub.


EQUIPMENT - ASSUMING I'VE BEEN HIRED BY CROCK: Uses an elegant walking stick with a hidden sword inside it. Carries two fairly large knives in sheathes that rest in the small of his back, hiding them from view.


STATS:
STRENGTH -
DEXTERITY -
CHARISMA - 2
WISDOM (magic!) - 3