Halfear


 * "He used to be his own worst enemy. Now he was everyone else's."
 * - Joe Abercrombie: Best Served Cold


 * If Hal had a themesong, it would be Firesign, by Skid Row.

Description
Solidly built, battered in the way of old soldiers, missing most of her left ear. Has the hard look of a world class cynic, which does her no favours. She has about sixteen stories about how she got the name Halfear, and all are baldfaced lies - mostly she claims to have lost it playing cards, saving a client's life, or in an encounter with an irate spouse. A little mystery, she claims, is good for business.

Age indeterminate, but acts middleagedish. She is most proficient and comfortable with a blade and shield, but supplements her weapons with minor fire charms and petty battle magic to hinder and distract the enemy - subtle she isn't. She knows field medicine, but tends to leave it to others as her remedies are on the brutal side. She rides (mostly horses and hawkstriders) like she could do it in her sleep.

She is a halfblood, but it isn't all that obvious when she isn't peeved at elves in general. Her slightly heavier build could just as well be muscle and her Thalassian isn't especially accented, just features the occasional odd turn of phrase.

Occupation
Mercenary, currently freelance. Dabbles in metalwork from weapons and armour to jewellery.

Family
Human family long-dead, elven kin nowhere in evidence.

Other family she refuses to discuss so pointedly that there are definitely secrets being kept.

Background
Born in Arathi, never knew her parents. Presumes she's the bastard get of some Quel'dorei adventurer - grew up with street kids and bandits, starving and stealing and angry as all hell at being cheated out of the glamour she imagined life in Quel'thalas to be. By semiadulthood, like a lot of pretty but poor girls, she ended up whoring.

Turns out the brothels did her good. The madame of the house, Trisha, quickly realised exotic elvish looks could be dolled up and sold at the price of the real thing - a smattering of Thalassian and some painfully ingrained semblance of a ladylike education turned out to make for fairly comfortable living. It's also where her association with mercenaries began. A regular of hers discovered the knife-fighting skills she had from her delinquent days, and for a laugh taught her a bit more, then started betting new recruits they were so green that even his skinny favourite whore could beat their asses in a fight. It was the first time Hal felt at home anywhere, and she had no intention of leaving.

It didn't last - eventually Trisha died, and a still very temperamental Hal had a dramatic falling out with her successor. She left and made for Silvermoon, with the vague idea of finally finding out where she came from. No such luck, of course. She spent about a decade in the city, made friends with the seedier element, learned some magic, fenced with young bucks, scandalised social events on a friend's behalf - and finally realised she has no patience for elves at all. She returned to Arathi, and for reasons she usually doesn't discuss, in stead of returning to her old tricks she chased down the regular who'd bet on her against his rookies, and talked him into enlisting her in the company.

She has been a mercenary most of the century since. Her record is both long and inglorious - if there is a job a mercenary can be hired for, she has done it, or something like it. She confesses no regrets and carries herself with the disinterested competence of a soldier whose loyalty is to the contract, not to the cause. Once bought she has generally stayed bought - except for a case or two where the employer's failure to disclose the actual hazards of the job ended in ugliness for all involved. Morality doesn't feature in her work, except to raise the price where she is being sent to do someone else's dirty work. She's spent a little time in jail for assorted crimes, but swindled, threatened or paid her way out of more. Most would call her a thug for hire - Halfear calls herself a professional, with exactly as much scruple as she's paid not to have.

Past that, she has a world of dislike for Silvermoon, a world of mistrust for magic, and no end of cynically unflattering things to say about all things good and glorious. Her youthful temper has given way to dry cynicism and ruthless pragmatism. When the mood takes her, she can philosophise at great length (and with surprising eloquence) about the fictions of innocence, justice, patriotism and honor, and of the actual value of life and blood.

She has recently returned to Silvermoon because since the Sin'dorei declared for the Horde, it's become flatout dangerous for a mercenary looking like them to operate in Alliance lands. You have to be realistic about these things: much as she dislikes Silvermoon, it's just the least hostile place to go for work, these days. The other reason is personal - the very curious and determined might find she discreetly does business with the Thundereye family.

Presently she takes jobs from the Winterspark agency, but also from private clients, handled up front or discreetly via message drop at the infamous Wayfarer's Inn ((ingame mail - IC, Hal pays the bartender to take messages for her, I don't want to hang out there any more than you do)).

Criminal Record
Across the various human kingdoms, named on warrants for theft, arson, manslaughter, murder, grave robbing, assault, lewd conduct, random war crimes and so forth. Some jail time, some hard labour, some fines paid, more settled privately or just skipped out on until the magistrate died or retired. Copies of records may exist in Undercity, but most are decades or more out of date.

In Silvermoon, a citation for assault on a member of a noble house a century ago. Charges dropped at the request of the Thundereye family, also involved in the same dispute.

Personal Notes
Not a Blood Knight, no Light magic - IC, she is a plain warrior and all the pally spells are weak-ass pyromancy that makes up for her being a scrawny halfblood. That doesn't make her any kind of mage, she's mostly clueless about anything that isn't either battle magic or demonology.

The half-elf bit is for two reasons. First, because it fit the personality template better than pureblood. Second, because I'm tired of seeing it played with emo inferiority complex, loving parents who braved the interspecies romance gap and died tragically, and bonus "imma extra badass because imma cool halfblood". Get over it already.

Inspired in equal parts by Gemma Teller, the fiercely maternal Queen of Bikers in the excellent TV-series Sons of Anarchy, and by Joe Abercrombie's sociable but sociopathic Northman killers, Logen Ninefingers and Caul Shivers. Somewhere along the line she also picked up a bit of Deadwood's Trixie - I always think of her madame and onetime role model, Trisha, as a female Al Swearengen.