Emeric Hale

Appearance:
Emeric stands at around 6 feet and four inches tall, and weighs about 230 pounds, making him a towering, and intimidating figure. Weathered features from decades of fighting and hardship brand his skin but Emeric carries himself with a posture radiating pride and self-respect. He stands tall, keeping his back straight and shoulders broad. His facial features are strong and masculine, with world-weary hazel eyes embedded there. He has dark brown hair often kept short but left unkempt and a rough dark beard on his face in varying levels of length and neatness. All of which with a moderate amount of gray creeping in, showing his age and experience with the world.

Throughout his lifetime Emeric has seen many battles and suffered more than a few injuries. These experiences are evident in his appearance, with various battle scars decorating his body. There is a series of small scars on the left side of his face left there by an explosion, remnants of burns and cuts from shrapnel visible upon close inspection. There are a few larger scars about his form such as a long, jagged example on his lower back. Emeric also walks with a slight limp, having suffered a crippling injury in his left leg that he has since adapted to.

In battle Emeric has been known to don a heavy plate armour. A full suit of all-encompassing metal that transforms the man into a walking tank, a bulwark of fury. Outside of combat, he wears only the gambeson that’s normally worn under the plate armour, the heavy padded clothing serving as the casual attire for a very militaristic man, and personal protection should trouble arise and he can’t get back in his armour. The typical outfit is made up of darker, thicker long coat with the hanging lower end secured to his waist with a belt, and padded trousers along with leather boots and gloves. Beneath the padded coat is a simple shirt and a silver necklace.

Personality:
Emeric is a stoic individual, cold to most he’s known with few exceptions. Conditioned at a young age to carry himself with pride, honor, and respect, some of this still remains in his gait even though any feeling of “Nobility” has long since passed, along with most of his will to live. In his younger days Emeric was much more boisterous, a booming voice and energetic demeanor that pulled people in and infected them with a certain carefree comfort. And sometimes this still shows, but Emeric is not his younger self anymore. In his old age Emeric has grown dark, somber, and solemn with few things giving him respite from his darkness, such as his daughter, Eliza. He loves his daughter dearly, and few things other than her will bring him any happiness or joy.

Emeric was born for royalty, but aged in war and battle. All his life he was made to embody discipline and this translated to an insurmountable strength of will and resilience. This has also, as a result, reinforced an unmoving stubbornness and terrifying relentlessness on and off the battlefield. Emeric is respectful and well-mannered to most he encounters, but he cares little for anyone else other than himself and his family. He is not compassionate, kind, or generous, though there are many times where he wishes he could be. That he could show his daughter a better man than he really is.

“Wrath Incarnate”
Years of dedicated training in martial combat and weaponry have given Emeric a detailed and expert understanding of battle, as well as a physique well-tailored to athleticism and combat. At an early age Emeric demonstrated great potential and skill in fighting, and decades of training and experience have honed this skill and transformed him into an unstoppable force on the battlefield. Equipped with a full suit of heavy plate and his greatsword, Durendal, Emeric becomes an avalanche of steel and death capable of breaking hordes and cutting down dragons. He loses himself in the fight, able to feel and anticipate so that even if he can’t be the fastest on the field he can tailor every movement, action, and reaction to the current battle and make them count. His mind works quickly, and his body follows his intuition, every twitch and swing calculated and optimized instantaneously for maximum efficiency. They called him names such as “Wrath Incarnate” and the “Steel Monster” as there was no escaping his onslaught. And while old age and a lifetime of injuries have slowed down his body he maintains his extraordinary combat prowess through his great fortitude and sharp instincts.

Gear Maintenance
Emeric knows how to maintain his equipment on and off the battlefield. He makes sure to keep everything in order and in working condition because he knows that the quality of your gear can make all the difference between life and death when the filth hits the fan. With his many years of experience as a soldier and mercenary regular maintenance of his equipment has become very much like a compulsive habit, even if his magical equipment does not require much servicing.

Savoir Faire
Having been brought up in a regal household, trained for much of his life in the ways of politics, diplomacy, and in ruling a kingdom, Emeric knows his way around the ballroom, so to speak. While it has rarely been needed of him since his transition into a more violent line of work Emeric is in fact well-versed in the ways of honeyed words and silvered tongues. He can entertain even the proudest, and most pompous of nobility having been brought up in that lifestyle himself, though he does not often fancy the opportunity to do so.

Psychological Warfare
Emeric is a capable Illusionist, specializing in the manipulation of one’s mind through direct contact with their body as opposed to creating fixed illusions in the environment around him. While he seldom utilizes his magical talents when he does resort to them Emeric is fast and brutal. He can quickly pick apart another’s psyche and their perceptions of the environment around them. Poking, prodding, and playing with their inner mind to weaken or manipulate them or simply twist their emotions and perceptions of reality to win their cooperation for a short time.

Bracelet of Weapon-Binding
Emeric wears an enchanted bracelet on his right wrist that is magically connected to Durendal, his greatsword. This magical connection between the items allows him to call the weapon to him from within a mile’s distance at a moment’s notice should the need arise. As such he doesn’t need to always carry the weapon with him, nor does he need to worry much about being disarmed, but he can trust that while it is within range of the bracelet’s enchantment it may as well be in his hand.

Amulet of Recovery
Emeric’s necklace is a locket enchanted to provide healing energies after a battle. During periods of rest, Emeric’s body recovers faster than is natural while he’s wearing the amulet. It was given to him by his wife, who enchanted it herself with much effort, wanting him to have it so that she could be more assured in his return from the bloody conflicts that he was once often hired to seek out. Within the locket is a small photograph of his wife and child.

Durendal
Durendal, Emeric’s magical sword, is an alchemical catalyst created from magical components by a skilled alchemist and smith who was under Blackriver’s employ. The metal of the blade, pommel, and crossguard are made of a pale moonsteel found only in Upper Aneos. The hilt is of a polished wyrmwood, a type of tree that only grows from charred lands burned by dragon’s fire. The pommel is made to look like a dragon’s claw, with a durable onyx stone embedded into it, like the claw is grasping the stone. In the hilt is a strand of hair that once belonged to the mane of a Juice-mutated lion, and the components of the weapon were treated in a mixture made from the blood and a powder grinded from teeth and bones of this same lion during the forging process.

The greatsword is extraordinarily durable and capable of cleaving through dense materials such as thick stone and hardened metals with more ease than a mundane weapon of the same type. It also reacts to Emeric’s battle-fury and bolsters his own resolve and hardiness in battle. The blade generates a magical aura that is normally visible only under intense focus and is powered by Emeric’s bloodlust. This magical aura allows for the weapon to cut through extremely dense matter with relative ease, and the blade will glow increasingly brighter with every successful blow.

The blade is somewhat wider than is normally seen with similar weapons, and Emeric has mastered its use in defensive techniques just as well as offensive ones, parrying with the blade and using it much like a shield at times. Emeric has killed countless enemies with this weapon since its creation and it has never yet failed him.

Kodiak Battle Armor
Forged and crafted by several skilled alchemists and blacksmiths the Kodiak Battle Armor was Blackriver's signature suit of protection for the best of their heavy infantry and assault specialists. It consists of several layers beginning with a padded coat and pants, on top of which are a mithril or steel chain suit and leather harness, and finally the outermost layer is a dense, heavy plate mail designed for maximum protection against small arms fire and close-combat weapons. Within the joints of the armor are interlocking clockwork mechanisms that, along with the leather harness, help to alleviate the burden of the suit's weight and optimize mobility for the wearer. Emeric earned his armor for his reliability, resourcefulness, and his efficiency on the battlefield despite his outdated weapon and fighting style. Since Blackriver's dissolution no one was there to repossess Emeric's armor or any other equipment he might have received from his time with them so he took it with him and continues to wear it to this day.

Nobility
Emeric was born to the royal family of Whiteridge, one of the various kingdoms and grand cities of Upper Aneos. The eldest child to the King and Queen of Whiteridge his childhood consisted of near-endless tutoring and training to one day inherit the throne. And Emeric embraced this predisposed prophecy wholeheartedly. He indulged in the royal luxuries, and took to his studies excitedly. He was also trained in martial combat so that he could have a better understanding of strength and discipline that only an experienced soldier would have, or as close as one could get without actually enlisting and serving. As he was meant for so much more.

As the years went by Emeric demonstrated a growing readiness for the crown, aspiring to be a just and capable ruler and leader. With his father’s encroaching age withering the man’s body and mind the thing he’d been trained for his entire life looked as though it would soon come to pass. Emeric was now 19, and ready for his place upon the throne. But a damning revelation would strip him of everything he’d been made to believe would be his. It had come to the attention to some within the kingdom’s government that Emeric himself was an illegitimate child of the king and a servant of the castle, as a bastard his place as king would be forfeit. This scandalous realization had also served to cause a large amount of unrest and conflict among the royal court and those who advise the king and queen in their rule.

After many arguments and much heated debate Emeric’s younger brother was named heir apparent. Emeric would be allowed to remain within the castle, still being a child of the king, but he would never be named king in any circumstance. This angered him but he learned to accept it, taking to his studies and combat training as a means to displace his frustrations. After another year, Emeric’s father had succumbed to old age and illness, and soon passed. After the kings passing, and Emeric’s younger brother ascending to the throne at only the age of 17, there was another great unrest within the royal court of Whiteridge. Emeric’s brother was crowned king, with his mother acting as regent and advisor along with all the others in the royal court. But Emeric’s brother was not prepared for this position, not trained and tutored for it like he was, and so the government of Whiteridge became very unstable as many in the court sought to exploit the new order to better their own advancements and gains. Emeric’s mother could not endure all the infighting and surfacing corruption and the stress would take her.

With both the king and queen having passed, and only an inexperienced boy on the throne it was chaos. Rivals in the court competed and battled with one another verbally and legally, all vying for their own views of how the kingdom should be ruled and matters handled. Emeric tried to help his brother, offering advice and guidance to the complex machinations thrust upon him as ruler. This went rather unappreciated by some in the royal court, however, and it was not long before plots were put in place to remove Emeric from his current place of influence. Damning evidence was planted to make Emeric the guilty party of a crime he did not commit, and he was quickly jailed and disgraced as a result. Emeric served several years in Whiteridge’s prison and upon release was never to be allowed back into the castle or the government’s dealings ever again. He was effectively disowned and exiled as if he were never a member of the royal family.

Exile and Finding Blackriver
After months of living a poor and displaced man, a beggar and urchin on the streets, Emeric began utilizing the skills he learned to make a stable living for himself. He took odd jobs for some, worked honest wages in a few places, and became a mercenary. However, disgusted with the current state of Whiteridge, and the royal court’s dishonorable handlings, Emeric gathered the funds he saved and left for the world below. Emeric arrived in Victorix to start a new life. He became a soldier for the Golden Order, climbing the ranks and showing skill as a soldier and commander. News of his success and talent reached the ears of the then current director of the private army known as Blackriver, and a recruiter was quickly sent to offer Emeric a place among the renowned mercenary company. Emeric accepted this position and left Victorix, becoming one of Blackriver’s best mercenaries in the coming years.

While working for the Blackriver Private Army Emeric was put in an elite detachment and dispatched to high-profile missions. For Blackriver’s soldiers he was a bit old-fashioned, using a greatsword as his primary weapon as opposed to the more advanced tech offered to him by the company. But everyone else in the company soon learned that he would never need anything else. In battle Emeric was a force of nature in full plate armor and wielding his enchanted greatsword against his enemies. Emeric could cleave through dozens of foes, emerging from the carnage covered in the blood and gore of those who stood in his way. For this reason many in Blackriver, cold, hardened mercenaries who had killed many in their lifetimes, feared Emeric’s wrath.

Emeric worked as one of Blackriver’s most effective soldiers and agents for years. Killing, slaughtering in their name for gold and for the thrill. He enjoyed the work, indulged in the means to forget himself and his home that had forsaken him. But then the Blackriver Security Company began to suffer and decline as its business dried up. No one needed Blackriver anymore, and no one wanted to hire them. Their reputation had come to betray them, they were too efficient, and commanded too much fear and loathing. The company’s upper ranks also suffered infighting, the leaders and those in charge could agree on very little. And as the coin dried up, so too did the loyalty of most of their finest fighters. Blackriver dissolved, and its soldiers disbanded to wander Aneos alone in search of… something else. Emeric watched the company crumble and it reminded him of Whiteridge, of the reasons why he joined them in the first place. Emeric lost himself in the wandering as he once lost himself in the fighting and the carnage of war.

In the later years of Emeric’s employment under Blackriver he met an Elfish woman named Eliwyn and together they had a daughter they would name Eliza. When Blackriver all but dismantled itself Emeric was able to settle down with his family and leave the blood and destruction behind. However, elements of his past have caught up as his sins haunt him once again. Forcing him to depart from his family once more so that he can put certain matters to rest and truly be free. These matters have led him to Kan Lodar…