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⸻⠀The Self⠀⸻
Gale is is a mountain of a man with an equally hefty hammerstrike - when it's against cherry red steel. He is a modestly mannered and warm enough soul with a drive to escape from a place he doesn't want to return to, though a darker sort of cloud does seem to follow the unfortunate and unlucky soul. For all intents and purposes he has of late become a vagabond, with nowhere to call home to speak of though he does let slip that he ran his own blacksmith shop once upon a time. While typically embodying the definition of 'friendly giant' there is a darkness rarely tapped beneath the surface, and one could surmise that he maintains his warmth as to not let that part of him free.
ALIGNMENT: Good enough, though actively questions rules which get in the way of 'justice'. He would describe himself as a man of many grey areas, though one who tries to allow others to see the light side.
LIKES: The warmth of a lit pipe and the tingle of a spiced ale flagon. A good book near the fire after a long day, and doing good deeds to help others when he can manage them.
DISLIKES: Socialites, pompous nobility, and the general injustice of societal imbalance. Particularly against people taking advantage of others. He has a soft spot for the less fortunate and downtrodden, having been there himself.
⸻⠀The Body⠀⸻
HEIGHT: 6'8 (209cm)
HAIR COLOR / STYLE: Shoulder length and inky-black, though salt and peppered at the temples with the occasional flash of silver flyaways, worn typically brushed backward away from his face though occasionally kept in a small knot at the nape.
EYES: Dark brown, though without effort they often appear nearly black.
SKIN TONE: Leathery tanned and laboriously weathered.
PHYSIQUE: Barrel chested, with thickset arms and legs which have often been described as tree-trunks. His midsection is equally broad and while he does have a healthy layer of insulation, if one were to come in contact they would find it to be firm to the touch. A physique that had clearly been formed at work.
DOM. HAND: Right-dominant though largely ambidextrous from necessity to work tools in both hands.
APPARENT AGE: Late 30's or early 40's
VOICE: Deep, powerful and somewhat gravelly. Often weighted and conveying a sense of sincerity, though potentially ominous to the wrong person.
MODIFICATIONS // None of particular note.
SCARS / MARKINGS // The palms of Gale's hands are a marred mountainscape of solid callouses and taut with rounded meat and sinew of someone who constantly works with them, with flecks of lighter puffed pock marks atop them. When bare, from the collar bone to the line of his hip of his left side is webbed with the scars of what was no doubt once a horrendous burn.
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⸻⠀Tools & Abilities⠀⸻
What skills Gale possesses are entirely from his work and the briefest bit of training as a town militiaman from one week where a knight saw fit to provide them any martial training. He is strong, sometimes to a fault, though he has a severe lack for training and competency in arms. While his mind is sharp, and he is remarkably analytical, he knows that he needs to learn how to better make use of those skills.
ABILITIES // Gale has no talent for magic, and frankly finds it quite fascinating. His talents are entirely mundane and based in laborious strength. When in combat, his talents include smashing things with a hammer or hammer-adjacent weapon, and that's really all. He is pointedly lacking in that regard, and while the very rare occasion that he has no choice but to result to the fury of his hammer strikes they are often brutal, he has very limited martial training..
SPELLS // None. For all intents and purposes, Gale is mute any magical ability unless something is awakened in him.
ATTIRE // Gale is near perpetually dressed in common folk garb of function over form sorts of clothing. His clothing is typically earthen and naturally hued as he'd never had the temperament nor the coin for expensive or fancily dyed clothing. Natural fiber shirts, some bracers, a leather jerkin and travelling breeches with thick-soled boots. He also carries his leather apron as a bedroll which he dons when the need to work in the forge arises.
GEAR // The only unique bit of gear to note is a hardened steel touchmark of his makers brand so that he can stamp his work. It is something akin to a craftsman's signet ring. It is a intricately entwined 'V' and 'S' set centrally encompassed by a stylized shield shaped outline. Marking his crafts as coming from the 'Vidars-Son' forge.
INVENTORY // A travelling pack, an alternate set of clothing, a large wool travel cloak, a tinderbox, a fist-sized flat faced round of hardened metal for small tinkers or repairs, a small selection of basic engraving and stamping tools, a small jewelers hammer, a round-faced and flat-faced blacksmith's hammer, a small prybar, a floppy sun hat, travel rations, and a rolled leather apron lined with a heavy wool blanket (used as a bedroll)
⸻⠀The Story⠀⸻
Gale was born into what could equate to the medieval middle class. While his family was nowhere near nobility, and served as commoners just as everyone else, his father, Vidar, was a prestigious blacksmith for their village and as such, he and Gale's mother, Lilya, were allowed a certain degree of independence due to the necessity and prosperity that they brought to the community, as well as the goods that were crafted for the landed Lord's militiamen. From birth, Gale was exposed to the forge and from a young age he was helping and learning. It was a point of pride in their family that their boy was 'forged in the fires along with their tools'.
He had always been a large boy, his father was large, and his mother was no small woman herself, though nobody quite foresaw just how big Gale would grow. There was a running rumor that he had 'The blood of giants' in his veins. For as much as he had in size and strength, Gale also possessed kindness and warmth, two things that his father never had. For a time in his youth, the local Lord's man-at-arms requested Gale serve in their militia's ranks due to his impressive stature, though upon realizing that he was as clumsy as he was large without the same violent streak his father possessed, he was dismissed.
As a grown man, Gale inherited the smithy from his father who passed naturally, and in time became well regarded for his own smithing abilities, and grew a family of his own, with a wife and son. He'd dubbed the shop 'Vidars Son's Smithy' in honor of his father. He was, arguably, more well regarded than his father had been in large due to his much easier to tolerate temperament and it was few and far between who'd ever seen Gale so much as get irritable with someone, though on occasion he would be seen chastising his son. However, if you plunge the mines deep enough into a man's soul, every one has a depth where they darken.
The village where Gale's shop resided had been at skirmish with another village over the saddle of the nearest mountain range. A battle which was over a herd of sheep or something as he'd recalled. Nothing or altogether import to justify the loss of lives on either side, for certain, though it had formed into some sort of territory claim for either side. Though it did keep Gale's shop busy. The Lord's son, regrettably, had become something of a frequent guest about the shop, because Gale's son, Jurden, had his eye on the daughter of the stonemason and they were often in exchange. The circle of childhood, he'd supposed.
So when the Lord's son arrived another day, Gale thought nothing of it. That was, he thought nothing of it, that is to say, until he was flanked by a band of men that Gale had never seen before. The next bit was something of a blur in Gale's mind, and not something he could altogether put together wholly. To the best of his recollection the men must have been from the warring village, and the Lord's son must have made some sort of arrangement of power exchange with them, as he always was a greedy and nefarious little shit.
The Lord's son had gotten into an argument with Gale's son over the stonemason's daughter, and the Lord's son had started the exchange of blows, bloodying the nose of his son. The last clear thought Gale had was raising his voice against the Lord's son, and then the violent bludgeoning from what must have been a concealed club from one of the men that had been with him.
When he awoken later, it was as if he was in a different world. Acrid smoke draped across every surface and the glow of fire grew from every thatch roof within sight. Unfamiliar militiamen wearing colors not of their Lord were slaughtering people like cattle, and Gale's left side was riddled with the most severe, nerve-seething pain he'd ever experienced. When he'd been stuck, he must have passed out overtop of the hot coals of his forge, luckily he hadn't been working on anything at the time, and it the coals had melted their way into his flesh and the edges of his pectoral.
It was so much pain that Gale couldn't compel his lungs to inhale the overly humid air, and he slouched to the ground in a haphazard attempt to move. He scrambled in the rock and dirt at the floor of the smithy, the smoke had made it hard to see and he was certain his shop was being razed. Then he felt a wet, pooling liquid. He'd first thought it to be pitch, to help the fire catch what was a mostly rock and dirt building... and he wished it had been. The throat of his son had been slit from ear to ear and his blood was pooling against the earth.
He finally screamed. Not in the pain he'd been feeling, but in pure and unbridled rage. Gale gathered himself upright and wrung his hand about the shaft of his smith's hammer so tight the woodgrain nigh made an audible crack, and what occurred thereafter is a haze of furious bloody blur. He'd broken a few soldiers bones and turned their heads to concaved to even serve as bowls by the time he saw the Lord's son, standing atop the pillory stage and having his way with the stonemason's daughter.
He didn't finish. And Gale pulverized the boy with so many hammer strikes that they could have fit him into an earthenware jug. Despite the horrifics of the ongoing battle, few people stopped, agape in disbelief as the hulking figure loomed over the mangled corpse of the Lord's son, blackened from head to toe in soot and the coals of the fire where he'd been burned and smoked. Bloody chunks of viscera smattered across his torso and dripping from the moistened tips of his black hair. He'd killed a handful more men that day, at least one woman who'd tried to stop him from turning a man near the corpse of his wife to paste, and by the time he'd finished he'd made it out from the town and to the confines of a small coal mine he'd had a contract for deliveries.
That was a few years ago. Gale knew he couldn't go back, and frankly there was no reason for him to. The village and the life he'd known was gone, and with it he'd been convinced all of his happiness, though that wasn't true; as long as he never thought about it. He sold himself as a blacksmith and tinkerer, acquiring small tools here and there, and when that got slow he'd pick up a job as a caravan or merchant guard. Not for any good ones, they'd actually test if he had any martial training, but the shadier ones were just happy to have a big body.
He wasn't sure where his life was taking him, all he knew was that as long as he kept moving, and kept going, he wouldn't have to think about the past. That happiness was more painful than his current meagre existence.
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