WCD#20:

Thief Character

Continuing my mini-series. In place of my old Wild Card Day I am now pulling “cards” for my character profiles.

I continue to share my writing on this blog, while honing my focus on completing my primary goal: The Sands of Chaos, Book One of my Chaos Chronicles.

Here’s one of my favorite characters, just about to join my hero’s team:

Character Card: Rargem

BASIC
Name: Rargem Reddale
Aliases: The Lifter
Gender: Male
Race: Fuul*
Age: 87 (young adult for a fuul)
Birthplace: Tomo
Current Location: Traveling
Flaws: Has a bad habit of thieving
Strengths: Dexterity and cleverness
Accomplishments: Has escaped prison on occasion
Health: Great health, strong hearing (for locks)
Literate: Yes

(*Fuul—pronounced more like “fool” mixed with “full”—is the Paelstori name for the race most typically called “dwarf” in high fantasy)

PHYSICAL
Build: Average for a fuul, a little leaner than some
Height: 4’7”
Weight: 155lbs
Gait: Surprisingly quick and light
Posture: Always slightly hunched and guarded
Gestures: Expresses with flat hands cutting a horizontal line in front of him; open upward when questioning, downward when dismissive
Eye contact: Often narrows his eyes when he focuses in conversation
Hair: Brown, shaves his scalp but grows the sides and back and blends it into his beard
Eyes: Deep blue
Skin: Light tan, slightly pocked on his face
Features: Nose is a bit crooked to the right

FAMILY/RELATIONSHIPS
(Include age, occupation, location, brief description and relationship)
Parents: Father Waltar Reddale, owner of Reddale Brewery, and mother Omanda (Valden)
Siblings: Four brothers and two sisters
Extended: The long-lived and impressive Daredage Reddale, paternal grandfather, and aged and sickly maternal grandparents Jenser Valden and wife Enuwe (Stonepat); among many cousins, aunts and uncles
Important: Wife Ellera and son Jenser
Friends: Many Tomans due to his ties to Reddale Brewery
Enemies: The authorities wherever he does criminal activity; as well as Hunrat Dargel of The Long-Ear Brew Company, who fiercely competes with Reddale Brewery
Advice/Mentor/Support: Blue Adder, his teacher of thieving skills
Pets: A ferret named Klik
Caste: Business class

EDUCATION
Focus: Managing a brewhouse/thieving and burglaring
School: The Grand Toman School/his mentor, Blue Adder
Vocation: Brewmeister by trade/thief by habit
Path to Vocation: Two years vocational training and a family tradition/years of training and practice in thievery
Vocational Skills: Brewing, brew sales, people skills/pickpocketing and lockpicking
Money: Ups and downs, depends on sales/depends on success in thieving or whether he’s caught
Home: Tomo
Transportation: Can ride horses, prefers to travel by land

PSYCHOLOGY
Fears: Water
Secrets: His separation from wife and son
Regrets: Messing up his relationship with his family
Anger: Easily angered but easily diffused
Intelligence: Quick-witted and clever
Eating: Huge appetite, rivals Darron Steele’s
Sleeping: Average sleeping without difficulty
Social: Very outgoing and likes to be around others
Speech: Rough and blunt
Preferred Epithet: “Curse o’ the gods!”
Laughter: Riotous and big
Smile: Disarming but deadly
Emotive: Grandly emotive with hands and body language
Leader/Follower: Neither, prefers to be solo in his work
Planned/Spontaneous: Loosely plans but open to spontaneity at all times
Careful/Reckless: Both, errs on the reckless side
Optimist/Realist/Pessimist: Optimist mostly
Hobbies: Nine Cards and singing boisterous fuul songs
Pet Peeves: Dogs, cats, people who like dogs/cats
Obsessions: Lifting precious items and treasures from anyone and anywhere
Desires: A life of luxury and peace for he and his family
Prejudices: Tharshens, basilen, gnomes, shones, authorities
Morality: Disagrees with institutions of all kinds outside of religion, yet prefers to be honest, respectful and kind to friends and family
Common Behaviors: Clapping gloved hands together loudly when ready to do something
Typical Mood: Grumpy but ambitious
As seen by others: Sour, rough, and coarse with a quick mind, witty tongue, and surprising dexterity
As seen by self: Incapable of doing wrong as long as no one gets hurt; yet he feels a deep sense of ineptness in creating the life he really wants
Hero: Uun the Ugly, the ironic name for the defender of Tomo during the War of the Browns; he was supposed to be quite handsome, favored among women, and lived an opulent life of the court

RELIGION
Main: Coventry of the Nine Magi
(Information repeated from other character cards. See addendum below)
Additional Note: Toman fuul hold the Nine Magi as the divine creators of Paelstor, yet they refer to the “old gods” in stories, allegories, and epithets far more frequently than most races of men or voltar

MAGIC
Type: Fire, Earth
Level: Very low, innate, untrained, hardly aware of
Spells: Only a rare feat of untrained magic in dire situations
Power: In fact moderate
Mana: Low

POSSESSIONS
Clothes: Plain pants and tunic
Bags: A thieving belt with many built-in secret pockets
Tools: Lockpicks, twine, cord, a tuning fork (which he uses for testing locks as well as preparing to sing)
Scrolls: Lockpicking (only used for extreme cases or rushed jobs, his ego prefers he do the work himself); Dispel (for magic locks)
Reagents: None
Books: None
Weapons: Dagger, darts, a miniature boomerang
Armor: Light leather chest armor, boots, gloves—he doesn’t like to be encumbered

HISTORY
Describe as child: Bull-headed and impatient to get what he wanted, often dueling with his siblings for things
If could change one thing from past: Wouldn’t have estranged himself from his wife and kid
Earliest memory: Seeing his father’s ale-specked beard, his smile lighting up the room as he picked Rargem overhead and spun him around as a baby
Saddest memory: The day he upset his wife so much that she told him to leave and watched his son cry as he was taken by the authorities for his crimes
Happiest memory: Enjoying a fuul holiday festival that lit up the caverns of Tomo with music, fire, and light shows, age twenty (in fuul years still a child)
Clearest memory: Walking among wildflowers with his family when his son was a newborn

So that’s Rargem Reddale…

What do you think of my thief? He actually morphed quite a bit during this character sheet, and I like him better. Now he can fill a role I discovered I needed for my story and without the derivative feelings he’d had before.

That’s the last of my main five characters. Now to put them to work.

My writing is a gift I am blessed with, and I share it with all,

Matthew

Addendum

RELIGION
Main: Coventry of the Nine
Place: Sanctums in any city where honored, which is most of Paelstor
Beliefs: The Nine Magi created the universe and the world of Paelstor; they are nine eternal beings and truths that maintain all energies and magic in perfect accord and alignment; they keep the forces of Chaos at bay from destroying the fabric of reality
Rituals: Followers honor the Nine each day in prayers to themselves, or attend sanctums to offer blessings to little statuettes of the Magi, seeking to align that part of their life that may be out of tune; often followers tend to choose one Magi over the others that may inspire certain qualities in their life
Requirements: Hold the belief in the Nine Magi as creators of all and that no other god exists or has any power; attend sanctums for prayer and advice; speak kindly of the Magi and not curse them
Boons: The Magi are not said to offer boons or answers to requests, but rather help return balance to energies that are out of alignment in followers’ lives that may be causing trouble; so in a way, the boons are to restore the natural order and balance for individuals, groups and nations
Flaws: They completely denounce the old gods and condemn worshipers of the Temples, seeking to root them out of their towns and nations; sanctums and their attending reverents can seem cold and aloof, the Nine Magi almost too abstract and non-human to relate to
Perceived by world: Most of Paelstor holds faith in the Nine Magi, citing them for saving the world time and again from the threat of Chaos and complete annihilation, so there is little contest to this prevailing religious tradition; the Temples of the Gods, however, where they are practiced, have a long-standing contention with the Coventry of the Nine for being cast out, persecuted, and hated; the Church of Lum also denies any standing that the Nine Magi even exist and discount the entire religion as a political contrivance to control the world