PLAYED BY: Zackery Hawkins
CONTACT INFO: zackeryhawkins@gmail.com // zackery hawkins on facebook
CHARACTER NAME: Gully Snowsparrow
GENDER: male
CLASS: Warrior
AGE: born in the year 235. he is aged 33
RACE: Feral Syndar
HAIR: dark brown
EYES: blue/green
OCCUPATION: An honorable sellsword.
KNOWN SKILLS: A sturdy warrior who doesnt shy from the call to battle.
Knows how to live off the land and is particularly skilled in winter
survival.
BIRTHPLACE: the Celestial mountains of Faedrun
APPEARANCE: A large statured Syndar, he wears the furs and hides of
his feral upbringing mixed with red dyed linens and red painted armor.
His skin is fair except for the tips of his ears, which are green.
It’s the only feature indicating his greenskin lineage. His armor is
often mismatched as he has found various pieces along the way. He
carries a huge sword with another warrior’s name etched in it. Lately,
he is seen more often carrying a bottle than the sword.
NOTABLE TRAITS: Honor is not what you say, it is what you DO. He has
little patience for oath breakers and considers his own word his bond.
RELATIONSHIPS: Gully has gained a heavy respect for the Ulven during
his time on Mardrun. They remind him of home.
RUMORS: “A good blade at your side.. if you can find him in a sober
enough state.”
BIO / BACKGROUND HISTORY:
Gully was born in the early snows of the year 235. His mother, Bryn,
pushed him into this realm while tucked away inside a hollowed tree
she sometimes used for storing gathered herbs. She had kept this
pregnancy a secret from her tribe, and intended to birth her child far
away from the prying eyes of her kith. She was a shaman of the
Ramskull line and, while Lost tribe members were allowed to mate with
whoever they like, their womb was a sacred vessel to which only
approved Lost seed was allowed to be planted. Her elders would say
this “mutt” could not live among them, but she had something else to
say about the matter.
Her pale green skin was covered in sweat despite the frigid wind as
she cradled her son tenderly and examined him closely. His skin was
fair all over. She had not known what to expect, for children born to
the Lost had always been as green as the prairie grass clipped by
solara when she first shaped them, but this child’s father was as pale
as moonlight. She smiled warmly as she noticed his ears, the tips of
which mirrored the green of her fingers. She softly touched them and
murmured, “It appears you have not fully escaped your lineage after
all my little leaf-eared babe.”
She raised Gully in secret at first. It was not out of character for
her to disappear from the tribe for months at a time pursuing her
shamanistic craft, but the celestial mountains are not a big enough
place for secrets to remain so for long. The tribe cast her out when
they first discovered Gully, but as the years stretched, their disdain
waned and she was allowed to interact with them again. For Gully, this
was an amazing time. The Lost are an honorable people and they look
after their own regardless of scandal. He spent his early childhood
learning the ways of the land and all the different names of the ice.
He was taught his lineage and made to recite it nightly.
“I am Gully Snowsparrow, the pale first-born of my mother, Bryn
Snowsparrow of the Ramskull line. Grandson of Volsung Bear-rider of
the Crystal Valley, north of the dragon’s spine and south of the
fallen city, where the winged horror flies, who was the strongest son
of Cephee the quiet and Chita the witch, the shapechanger and breaker
of Hanos, which once stood by the water”
He grew up hearing the triumphs and tragedies of his tribe. The
courage of Koragnak Bear-Breath. The gambles of Wargheart. The wisdoms
of Mo’ber the warrior. His heart gushed with the pride of his people
and he was taught to honor not only the heroes, but every Lost,
however strong or meek of heart.
His mother attempted at first to shape his future as her mother did
her’s. Showing him the names of all the plants in the valley, how to
read the ashbones and see future in the night sky. But she quickly saw
the folly in this. Gully had the heart of a warrior, not the mystic
paragon of a shaman. And so she gave him to the Nagoge to be trained,
where he saw very little of her for the rest of his childhood. The
students would range far and wide across the ice wastes with hunting
parties as they explored north of the celestial mountains.
He was 14 when he was forced into manhood.
Returning home from a long expedition to the valley beyond their own,
they spotted a smoke plume over their village. Breaking into a frantic
run, they charged down the mountain-side, wild eyed with fear for
their kith. The village was in shambles, their huts ablaze, and bodies
everywhere. Screams and war cries pierced the air as they bore witness
to a bloody battle ongoing. There were only two Lost still standing,
surrounded by dozens of humans with black streaks of paint trailing
down their cheeks like demonic tear stains. “REPENT” they yelled, as
they bore down on them, “REPENT OR DIE!”
Gully’s hunting party crashed into the flanks of the fanatic raiders,
taking them by surprise and dropping many in the first few moments.
The chaos was supreme and as the last human finally crumpled to the
ground, Gully looked around to find himself to be the only one
standing. The Lost that still lived would die shortly from their
wounds and, stricken with grief, he whispered to each the names of the
ice, made sure a weapon was still in their hands, then finished their
suffering.
He spent the rest of the day picking up each fallen kith from the
ground and carefully placing them on a funeral pyre he had constructed
from pieces of their huts, in accordance of tradition for fallen
warriors. He laid his mother down last, and as he had seen her do many
times in the past, placed the ceremonial herbs on their chests and
then lit the pyres muttering the rites of passage, “from ice to flame,
and blood from bone.”
Some time after, as in a daze, he walked to the edge of the evermelt
pool their village was built around and stared down into its steaming
surface. He saw a red reflection. Looking down, he realized his
normally white and tan clothing was stained solid red from the blood
of his kith as he carried them to their resting place. His hands,
arms, hair and face…every inch covered in blood.
He wore his ancestors that day. And he vowed, then and there, to
always remember. He would wear red for the rest of his days as a daily
reminder of the evil that stole his innocence.
Gully left the celestial mountains some time after that and spent his
time traveling the lands beyond. It didn’t take long to find a name
for the people who destroyed his village. The Penitent. Willing
fanatic slaves to the undead scourge sweeping Faedrun. A yearning for
vengeance was ever present yet dulled by the similar stories he
encountered in town after town. This land was ravaged by war, and his
tragedy was just another drop in an ocean sized bucket.
Seasons passed. He took work where he found it and kept moving to
avoid the war fronts which continually shifted as the great nations of
Faedrun resisted the undead and penitent war machine. It was a losing
battle. He eventually found love in another warrior and kindred
spirit. He was an Aldorian soldier named Hrothgar who talked Gully
into helping defend the Aldorian border against the undead. Hrothgar
was a good man who wasn’t meant for war, a farm boy that was more
suited behind a plow than with a blade in his hand. But peace was a
luxury, not a choice, and when Hrothgar fell in battle, Gully truly
knew his time on Faedrun was at an end. He was only 17 but felt old
and worn. Gully buried Hrothgar with his heirloom axe in his love’s
hands, and strapped Hrothgar’s greatsword to his own back, so they
would always carry a piece of the other with them. They had known one
eachother just a year.
A boat was leaving for the new colony on Mardrun that night, and Gully
was going to make sure that himself and an ample supply of whiskey
would be on it.
SECRET INFO: gully drinks to forget
RETIREMENT STORY:
Pain, unlike any he had ever felt.
Every nerve in his body wracked with agony.
The last thing he saw before it all went black was the twisted visage of a creature torn from nightmare. He remembered the contrast of white pustulated skin against the dark night. The smell of noxious salt attacking his senses. The creature charging him but his spent body too weak to dodge or retreat fast enough followed by the void swallowing him.
Blurred vision as his eyes open in flits. A healer leaning over him yelling for supplies. Why is he even here? What is he trying to prove?
Nothing.
He doesn’t even know any of the people on this expedition. He signed up with reckless abandon – a trend in his life, he now realizes. Since coming to Mardrun, his choices have been a series of increasingly risky gambles that have netted him decent coin but little to nothing in the way of making peace with his lot in life.
And now he is here on the cot of an unknown healer, in an unknown land, helping unknown peoples. And this is it. The invariable end. The predictable losing roll of dice he knowingly weighted from the beginning.
The clarity of his life actions are so clear to him as he lay there covered in sweat, grime, blood and tears. He chose the way of the warrior not out of virtue or honor, but of spite towards the world. His path has been a long slow burn of self defeating suicidal tendencies. Drunk each night blowing the coin he almost died to earn.
“This isn’t living”, he mutters. “It’s dying”.
If the healer heard him, she doesn’t deem it worth responding to. She continues her grim task of attempting to stifle what the death bolt has done while gully slips from consciousness.
-A week later –
Gully sips from a bottle to steel his nerves before walking into the tavern he has been procrastinating in front of for an hour. There is a help wanted poster hung beside the entryway. He chose a town as far away from where he had been spending his time as possible. He doesn’t want the same faces and names around – a fresh start is what he craves. After spending the morning hunting down a buyer for his armor, weapons and travel gear, he isn’t in the best mood.
They made out like bandits.
“Hell.. they probably were bandits”, he thinks grimly.
But his pockets bulge with coin, and that’s enough comfort to salve his conscience for now. It’s not a big safety net, but it will last him a stretch; he knows he will need stable employ for the long term, and he figures it may as well be coupled up with his primary hobby of drinking too much.
He lets out a sigh before pushing in through the doors to submit his application, muttering to himself,
“Life sucks. But this is better than dying in a swamp. Fresh start Gully. Fresh start.”