Name: Thaniel Kriest of Olencia
Sex Male
Age 37
Occupation: Probationary Second Lieutenant
Status and Rank: Middle class
Roots and Origin: (Same as Ruuval’s)
There is some elven blood in Thaniel’s line, and it comes from his father’s side. There is also some noble blood in his line, coming from his father’s great uncle, but there is hardly enough to make a difference in his line. His father Talith didn’t need to be a noble in any case, being a successful merchant from Calandae and wealthy already at a young age. Thaniel’s mother Mara was the daughter of an innkeeper in the capital of Olencia. She was quiet and well mannered, and helped her father run the inn.
Talith and Mara met when Talith’s trading brought him to Olencia. He had business with Mara’s father and then, with intentions of staying for only a night, bedded down in the inn. However, he’d been struck by pretty little Mara, and ended up staying quite a bit longer. Mara’s father had nothing against Talith liking his daughter, and in fact, encouraged the two to get married. Some of it was due to him wanting security (which a wealthy son-in-law would definitely give) but some of it was also wanting to see his daughter happy.
The two married within the space of two months, Talith happy and Mara a bit hesitant. But she soon overcame her uncertainty, and grew to love Talith. The two were very happy, and a year after their marriage, they had their first child, Thaniel. The birth was difficult, Mara having an illness that made childbearing problematical, but she and the newborn child survived. The same would not be said when she gave birth again four years later, to Thaniel’s younger brother Ruuval. Ruuval survived; Mara did not.
Appearance:
Thaniel looks a lot like his father Talith, and nothing like his brother. If all you had was looks to go by, it would never occur to you that Ruuval and Thaniel were related. He has his father’s “fine, silvery hair”, according to his brother, though it’s a little too long for good taste and often gets into his eyes. Still, he’s a tad vain about his hair, and doesn’t like to cut it often. It’s good for whenever he gets frustrated, because then he runs his hand through his hair. He does like to keep the rest of his appearance neat and organized, both in clothing and in physical looks. Clothes are neat and without wrinkles (unless it’s the end of the day, of course), fingernails are short. His face is rather pleasing, with what he calls ‘fair’ skin rather than pale skin, and a patrician nose. Along with his hair, Thaniel’s gray eyes are probably his best feature, sharp and piercing, and slightly tilted. He also possesses a nice tenor, though he would rather die than use it for singing.
At a height of 6”2’, he’s a bit taller than most men, though by no means a giant. Strangely enough, he’s not bulging with muscles, which really should be the case after quite a few years of helping out on a ship and a good twenty years worth of military training. Thaniel’s strong, no doubt about it, but he looks more like an acrobat than a military man.
Thaniel doesn’t really have a wardrobe of his own beyond that of the military. The King’s Army has outfits for every possible occasion, so he hasn’t seen the need to go shopping for himself. He doesn’t believe in unnecessary adornments of any sort. The only concessions he has made to that are the pendant he wears around his neck and his sword. It’s a fancy sword, something fit for a prince, but just because it looks nice doesn’t mean it’s not deadly. Thaniel takes loving care of his sword, and treats it like flesh and blood. He has two other knives, one at his waist and one in his left boot, in case of emergencies.
Personality
Thaniel is, and always has been, a more serious and taciturn man. He’s the type of person who would be more comfortable in the background than in the spotlight. To strangers, he’s so reserved that some people find him standoffish and hesitate to approach him. Combined with the fact that he is of the King’s Guard, and common people all but avoid him. Among friends however, he is a different matter. Some traces of seriousness still remain, but Thaniel seems to loosen up completely. He’ll laugh and smile, and maybe even crack some jokes. Out of his group of friends, he is the responsible, sensible one, the man that doesn’t drink when everyone else does. Actually, he doesn’t drink at all.
In every aspect of life, from from his appearance to reading and writing to his habits, Thaniel is a very organized and detailed man. He can read and write fluently, skills he began learning from his father and polished in the military, though he isn’t fond of reading. In fact, his childhood has had a large influence on how he functions now, though he doesn’t like to admit it. Schedules and habits are a large part of his day, and he tends to get irritated if he gets thrown off schedule. Of course, being in the military makes following a schedule all but impossible, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try. His habits make him predictable, and slightly boring, but for all that, he’s got enough sense and wits about him to stay alive should anything unexpected happen. He’s also very cranky in the morning, and needs his personal space.
One thing that can be said is that Thaniel is no longer the naïve, hopeful boy of his childhood. He now knows that the world is not as picture-perfect place he thought it was. People don’t always want to be helped, and bad things can happen to good people (and vice versa). He still has his overprotective streak, though it doesn’t do him much good, and he seems to end up trying to sort out other people’s problems along with his own. He doesn’t really show much in the way of anger, since he always tries to rein in. Actually, he always keeps his emotions bottled up inside of him, and when they end up bursting out, someone always seems to get hurt. The one thing that soothes him is music.
Strengths
His military training. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s very good with weapons. End of story.
Simple doctoring. Thaniel can kill, but he can also bandage up fallen comrades. Years of following his brother and fixing the kid up have taught him all the rudimentary skills of healing. He can bandage wounds, clean cuts and scrapes, stitch someone back up, those simple, everyday occurrences. But he’s no professional. He can’t fix anything more complicated than a simple broken bone.
Good geography skills. Having traveled a lot with his father, he always knows where he is – and if he doesn’t, he can find out quickly. He doesn’t need a map to travel around. While his skills aren’t exactly on par with Ruuval’s, they’re good enough.
Keen observation. Years of babysitting his brother has taught Thaniel a lot about paying attention to the surroundings. He knows if something’s not right.
Weaknesses
Headaches. While infrequent, these headaches carry the force of a full-blown migraine and more. Thaniel can’t do any while he has one of these headaches; he’s helpless and vulnerable. They go away after half an hour or so.
Pushes himself too far. Thaniel wants to do the best he can, and sometimes this means going past the limits his body can take. This isn’t too bad during training, where he can rest afterwards and recuperate, but on a battlefield he’ll keep going until he collapses.
Family. Any mention of family, especially his family, is a touchy subject. Better to avoid the subject whenever Thaniel is in hearing range than to get a taste of his temper.
Obedient to a fault. In the military, obedience to your superiors is quite possibly the most important trait you’ll need, though disobeying orders can sometimes save your life. Still, Thaniel will do what he is told, almost always, and will never question the morality of an order.
Gets frustrated easily. Normally, it only happens when he’s trying to solve a problem. Because he doesn’t want other people to fix his problems for him, he’ll end up doing everything by himself, which places a lot of stress on him, and thus gets him frustrated.
Overprotective. Years of looking after his brother has instilled in him the need to protect people, whether they be male, female, 7 or 70. That’s why he joined the King’s Guard, after all. He doesn’t seem to understand the fact that people don’t want his help.
Magic
Thaniel doesn’t like magic. It makes him feel nervous and just a bit edgy. So the fact that he has zero magic is a good thing for him.
History
The first four years of Thaniel’s life were bliss. He had his mother and his father all to himself, not to mention his indulgent grandfather. They had a stable life in Olencia, and everything was happy as could be. And then, Mara died giving birth to Ruuval. Being only four years old, Thaniel couldn’t understand why Mama was gone and there was a crying baby. After some simplified explanations from Talith, Thaniel found out that Mama had gone to be with the gods, and that he had to be a good big brother to his new baby brother. What followed were several days of wailing and sulking, but Thaniel was calm and sensible by nature, and managed to adjust to new times.
Thus, Thaniel’s childhood was spent watching over his younger brother Ruuval. The two were close as could be, but Ruuval was a tad too wild for Thaniel’s liking. If he took his eyes off his brother for even a second, he could be sure that his brother would get himself into some sort of trouble, no doubt about it. Ruuval’s wild escapades often led to some sort of injury or another, and since their father was often busy commandeering his ship and too busy to take care of the wayward child, it was up to Thaniel to fix up his little brother whenever the tyke got himself hurt. Oddly enough, Ruuval never seemed to mind getting hurt, and was always up and about the next day.
He was a good big brother, always watching and caring for his younger brother. Many siblings hate each other, and fight all the time, but Thaniel and Ruuval did not belong to that category. Ruuval admired his older brother, and Thaniel doted on his younger brother. It was a wonderful childhood for the both of them, despite the lack of a true family. Not that it really mattered, because even though their mother was dead and their grandfather was someone they didn’t see for months on end, the ship’s crew became their surrogate family, their aunts and uncles and big brothers. Not only did they have each other for company, but their father also took them on amazing trips to almost every city there was. For Talith, it was just another part of business, but for the two brothers, it was fascinating. Thaniel himself enjoyed the capital Olencia, because it was there he first heard of the King’s Guard, and the noble mission they had. Obviously, he was blind to the less-than-friendly reception they received from the people, otherwise he probably never would have joined.
After his first trip to Olencia, Thaniel had two things he thought about on a daily basis; Ruuval, and the King’s Guard. A childhood of watching over his brother had given him the desire to help more people, and he was sure that by joining the King’s Guard, he could achieve that goal. He was strong enough, after all; helping his father around the ship had been a job equal to that of any blacksmith’s apprentice and had added plenty of muscle onto his boyish frame. While he’d never held any sort of weapon in his hands except a kitchen knife, Thaniel was more than willing to learn, and to work day and night to learn the skills he currently lacked. So at 15, he told his father that he was going to join the King’s Guard. It was painful, leaving his beloved brother behind, but he was wholly committed to joining the King’s Guard.
So when Talith next sailed to Olencia on business, he left port with one less person on his ship. Thaniel, with nothing more than the clothes on his back and a small pouch filled with various coins, was ecstatic. This was his chance! Immediately after saying his goodbyes, he made a beeline for the palace and signed up for the King’s Guard. The man sitting there seemed surprised by his vast enthusiasm, but nonetheless accepted him, and ushered him to the barracks, his new home.
The first few weeks were spent adjusting to his new life. The new location, the lack of familiar people constantly around him, the lack of salty air around him were some of the things, but what really bothered Thaniel was Ruuval’s absence. He felt lost without someone to constantly watch over, adrift in a sea of people, metaphorically speaking. The only consolation was that he never had time to worry about any of that. The minute he got up in the mornings to the minute he went to bed were filled with nothing but hard work. He was ahead of most of the other boys when it came to obedience and dedication, but sadly behind when it came to weapons. He didn’t know the names of anything, everything felt foreign in his hands, and he was just as likely to chop off his own arm as somebody else’s. Someone was called in to give him personal instruction because he was so woefully incompetent.
It wasn’t that he lacked skill, it was that his protective streak made him not want to hurt other people. He was forced to learn the hard way that bashing people wasn’t always a bad thing. Quite a few bruises later, things began progressing at a much faster rate. Because of his determination and dedication (not to mention the fact that he actually did what his teachers told him to do rather than fooling around), his progress was faster than that of his companions, but by no means extraordinary. He was promoted for the first time at age 17, and then again every few years. Thaniel continued to practice and work his hardest everyday, which made him the subject of several of his friend’s lighthearted jokes.
His idol at the time was Hadrian Evaristus, a boy only 3 years older than him, but who was already at the level of captain. Hadrian was so far above Thaniel that all he could do was idolize from afar. But that was just fine and dandy with him. Thaniel was just afraid that if Hadrian ever noticed him, it would be to laugh at him because he was so woefully incompetent. So it went, 9 blissfully ignorant years in the military.
During that time, he’d had little contact with his father, maybe getting a letter from his father every few years or so. They were short things, maybe a page or two of Talith’s scrawl of the places he’d gone and how Ruuval and the rest of the crew were doing. These infrequent letters were read carefully, and then placed carefully in a safe spot with the other few of it’s kind. Thaniel treasured any sort of communication he received from his father, and often wished he could see his family again. How, he never knew, since it was impossible to know the next time Talith would be in port, but it was a hope that he clung to nevertheless. It was a hope that would never be fulfilled. When he was 24, 6 months after the accident, he got word that his father’s ship had sunk and everyone onboard had drowned. It was inaccurate information, since it had been Ruuval’s ship, and Ruuval was still alive, but it was amazing that anything remotely resembling the truth had gotten to him.
Thaniel was devastated. What followed were the two worst months of his life, mostly because he gave up completely on life. His motivation was gone, and he really felt that he had no reason to keep on living. Depression set in. He started drinking excessively, hanging out in bars and pubs, didn’t work, was rude and insolent to his superiors, and did about everything else a man who has no life would do. Oddly enough, it was during that time that he found out that the people that he so wanted to help didn’t want his help, which only added to his depression. It wasn’t until he was yelled at (several times) and threatened with expulsion from the military that Thaniel began to care again.
As punishment for his disorderly behavior, he was demoted several ranks from Corporal to Private. It was hard for him to be on his best behavior all the time, because all he wanted to do was lash out at the world. But now that his family was gone, the military was all he had left, so he buried himself in work, determined to show everyone that he hadn’t completely lost his mind and could recover. Every time his grief nearly broke, he reined it in and worked harder. People could tell what sort of day he was having by the level of his physical exertion. Thankfully for Thaniel, recovery was fairly quick, and soon he was back to his old habits. He still had a gaping wound in his heart, but people were smart enough to leave him alone. The wound closed after several years, enough so that he could talk about it without breaking down completely, but it never healed. Things like that never do.
Things went back to normal. Thirteen years passed. He celebrated his 22nd year in the military. A lot of things have changed in that time. The city of Olencia has become more dangerous and more despairing ever since the young prince Penril was stolen by the Slayers. The common people are suspicious of everything, including the King's Guard, though riots and mobs are more common than anything. The King's Guard is not the glorious armed force of Thaniel's childhood, but Thaniel is no longer who he used to be.