Haldiir "Hal"
A young man who does not know his lineage and just lost his father to a murderous group of bandits. He has set out for revenge, but perhaps will find adventure, learn more about his origins, and discover what beast lays dormant inside of him.
Appearance
Growing up a woodcutter left Haldiir with a rather large build. Since he was able to handle an ax, he was put to work in one way or another by his father. This physical labor left him with a powerful figure.
His hair is either tied down to his head in nordic braids, a ponytail of some kind if time is of the essence and he doesn't want to get too fancy, or loose and flowing. It's relatively long for a man, but he only cuts it if it starts to be too much of an annoyance.
Haldiir's eyes are evergreen, but usually soft, despite his appearance.
He has the makings of a beard, but he's still young.
He usually wears earthy tones, with some form of fur (never bear) cloak. When he works, despite the cold, he was usually shirtless, which he didn't seem to mind, despite the low temperatures of his home.
Hanging on his back are two axes with runes carved into the blades and handles.
Skills and Abilities
- Woodcutting. If you need a tree down, he's your man to do it. He also likes/can carve little pictures in there if you want.
- Strong Will. Despite his lack of experience in many things, he usually jumps right into them and doesn't like to give up until he has to. It makes him both aggravating and useful.
- "Unnatural" Strength. Since he thinks he's human, he's always surprised at how strong he and his father are/were. In actuality, he's about right in terms of a Nordenfiir.
- Heighten Smell/Hearing. Again, something that Haldiir thinks is supernatural for a human, is really just his dormant abilities as a Nordenfiir showing themselves.
- "Secret" Language. He speaks very broken Fiirevik. He doesn't actually know that it's a real language, thinking its something his dad made up so they could speak together in private in front of people. His dad insisted he learned it, though Haldiir never understood why.
Personality
Haldiir until recently never knew hardship. He lived a peaceful life in the wooded mountains and his personality reflects that. He is usually pretty content with most things and doesn't let little problems bug him too much. He is also pretty happy and likes to laugh and joke when the opportunity arises.
The one downside to have lived a simple life is that he is not the brightest. Not that he is completely dense, but he has been pretty sheltered when it comes to 'common sense' things that someone who grew up in society would have known their entire life. Since leaving his home, he has found this out more and more, and wants to learn more, but it's a slow process for the finer things.
Since the attack on his father, however, another side of him has come out. It's more primal and uncontrolled. He has found himself feeling angry and irrational (not that he was a genius to begin with). He can be driven by anger and confusion at what happened to his father and home and he feels like he won't be able to get rid of this side until he has gotten revenge.
He doesn't know he's a Nordenfiir. He was never taught as a child, and he believes himself just a normal human (though others may pick up on his strange natural habits).
Biography & Lore
Haldiir was born and grew up in the north-eastern mountains of The Spine in Epressa, and north east a day's walk from a village called Diirten. His mother, a human named Ellydra, left when he was very young, though his father, Wulfric, never told him why. While this was hard for a child to not know, his father did explain to him that she wanted to stay, but for reasons Haldiir couldn't understand she couldn't be with them. It wasn't the best answer he could get, but it was enough for the child to at least keep him from constantly asking.
His father, a very large man by all standards, was a Nordenfiir, though this was never revealed to Haldiir, and still remains a mystery to the young man. Wulfric had left Eretejva for some reason when he was younger, and decided to not live as one of them since then, though he still bore the marks of his people, as well as would (without anyone knowing) turn into a bear to travel faster. Haldiir always just thought the marks on his father were tattoos, hence why he decided to get some.
Wulfric would go on to train his son how to be a woodcutter, as well as hunting and general survival skills. They lived alone most of the time in the forested mountains, only leaving if they needed supplies from Diirten, and even then it wouldn't be more for a few hours they would stay there. The locals were kind enough, but they always found it strange how horses and dogs would get nervous around the two.
Haldiir grew large quickly, and was always taller and bigger than other boys his age, but his father would insist that he would never use his strength to harm the others. So Haldiir was always gentle with the other children, unless they started a fight, in which case, he would reciprocate, which his father had no problems with. He was never a skilled fighter, however, even as he got older he started to find himself at a skill disadvantage, even if he was a head taller than the other boy. He asked his father to teach him how to fight, but Wulfric would always refuse, saying a woodcutter had no business knowing how to hit someone properly.
Life was going well when the young man he turned 18; Haldiir was almost as strong as his father, he had found a young woman in the village who he fancied and who fancied him, and he was planning on building his own house soon and starting his own life. But as it does in many the start of an adventure, tragedy struck.
One day, while they were working near home, Wulfric started to sniff the air. It wasn't an uncommon thing, they both did it, but the young man's fathers' senses were always stronger. A change immediately came over the middle aged man and he turned to his son, and in his his most authoritarian tone, he told the young man to run higher up the mountain, and hide in a nearby cave until the next morning. Haldiir argued with his father, but when the older man shouted back at him, he knew that he needed to listen, despite not knowing why. His father handed him a key and asked that he'd figure out what to do with it if anything were to happen to the old man.
Haldiir, confused and concerned flew up the mountain. He didn't know why he was running, but when his father told him to do something, he had a way of not wanting to disobey his dad. It usually didn't end well for him.
After a long night of waiting, he returned to his home, or what was left of it. Immediately fear took him as he saw the charred embers of the cabin, and his father lying in front, barely breathing. He rushed to his side. Wulfric was dying. The young man tried to patch the various gashes across his father's body, but it was too late, more blood lay on the ground than in his father.
Wulfric, as his son tried to save him said two things: The key was used in the house, and with his last breath he said "One...of them...Dalak". With that final word, the old Nordenfiir passed on.
Haldiir was frozen in that spot, kneeling in his father's blood for some time, the warmth of the freshly burned house barely noticeable.
When he finally moved, it was almost dark, and he walked into the home. It was still smoldering, but he didn't care. He moved around, looking for a keyhole, finally locating it under a bed that hadn't moved since he was little. There he unlocked a secret door.
He climbed into the small space below the cabin he had lived his entire life, and found sitting in a chest three things: A leather bound tome (which he couldn't read because he never learned to read), a leather chest armor with a metal pauldron with a round sigil of some kind on it, and a pair of battle axes inscribed with runes.
Almost without thinking, he took the things he found, packed anything that had survived the fire, and left to the south west of his home the next day. He knew what the task his father had left him was and he wasn't going to stop until he killed the men who killed his father.
Deep inside him, without him knowing, a bear that had been slumbering was starting to awaken, though whether or not he would see that bear soon was up to the gods.