Miklos Ralander

[Miklos]

Player Name: Tovi

Character Name: Miklos Ralander

Age: 38

Race: Human

Physical Description: Constantly looking around and often lurking in shadows, Miklos is hard to get a good look at. He has dark grey eyes and dark brown hair and usually a dark expression on his face as well, though his face is mostly dominated by a proudly arched nose, very aquiline in nature. His skin is tanned more than one would expect for someone who seems most comfortable in the dark, and the many scars line his face speak of a hard life as a fighter. His voice is surprisingly mellow for such a rough looking man, and when he does rarely speak it often catches people off guard.

Miklos is not the tallest of men, but he can have a commanding presence when he tries. He is about 5'11" and his shoulders are broad and well-muscled, and he walks with the strange grace of a man who has trained all his life with the sword. He wears modest clothing in dark greys and greens and browns, sturdy black leather boots, and often a long hooded black cloak. His forearms are covered by scarred leather gauntlets used to protect his arms from his birds' talons, and his shoulders have the same battered leather coverings. He constantly carries a belt pouch full of jerky strips for rewards strapped onto his belt near his sword.

Possessions: Miklos owns a small house on the outskirts of Marn. The house is mostly bare of any meaningful possessions, though there is a lot of clutter - old clippings from the paper, broken furniture he got for free and intends to fix but never does, dirty clothes, ect. It's a three room place with a small stable attached out back where he keeps his horse, an unimpressive creature named Pigeon. Above the stable and in his attic (which only has about four feet of headspace) he keeps an aviary for his birds - two falcons, three crows, and an assortment of sparrows.

Ylli and Behar are his falcon pair, and while Behar ranges farther, Miklos is rarely without Ylli on his shoulder. The female gyrfalcon is primarily white with black accents in coloring, about twenty-five inches long, and weighs around three and a half pounds. Behar is dark brown and cream, about twenty-two inches long, and weighs around three pounds. Both are very imposing birds and have sharp beaks and talons and strangely intelligent expressions.

Of the three crows, two are males named Kamen and Ognen and one is a female named Iskra. They look much better taken care of than most of the crows in the city and all have small metal bands around their right foot that messages can be tied to.

Beyond his birds, his sword is his most prized possession. It is not a remarkable blade, and not particularly finely made, but Miklos is attached to it for the personal significance it holds for him. In addition to the sword he has a longbow that he occasionally uses when he hunts and a pair of daggers mostly used for skinning small game.

Powers or Strengths: Formerly known to the Guards as the "Birdman," Miklos is never seen without at least one of his birds on his shoulder. Whispers of magic have followed him for years but he shrugs them off, just saying that if people take the time to train an animal there's no magic about it, just animal sense. He uses his crows for general message runs, as he has trained them to recognize specific faces and buildings. The falcons are his personal birds, trained to recognize a few different concepts like "murder" and "secret" and be able to report them by different patterns of flying. He also uses his falcons for the most important messages.

He is a good swordfighter, not the best, but certainly able to hold his own. His training comes from eleven years service in the Guard and he continues to practice every day. Likewise he is decent with a longbow and a crossbow, though he doesn't practice either of those near as much as he should.

Miklos is always hyper-aware of everything that is going on. Maybe it's something he picked up from spending so much time in the woods and needing to be constantly on watch, maybe he picked it up from his time in the Guard, maybe it's another aspect of his affinity for birds, but whatever it is, Mik doesn't miss much.

He is also an extraordinary singer, though this talent has not been shown to many people, and certainly not in the past five years. He occasionally sings to his birds, usually laments or ballads, and the few people who have heard his voice are very surprised at the smoothness coming from this rough man. The mellowness can be heard a little in his voice, especially when he's tired or feeling content.

Weaknesses or Flaws: Miklos does not like people. After his fall from the Guard seven years previous he lost most of his trust and respect he had for his fellow humans, with very few exceptions. He prefers the company of his birds and his solitude, though because of how useful his birds are he is seldom left alone.

Because of how alert he is, he can appear somewhat anxious to people watching him. His eyes constantly flit around the room and he has trouble with eye contact. He likes to sit with his back to a wall at all times, preferably facing the door and as many windows as he can see, and has a difficult time settling down in public settings... or anywhere with more than three other people.

He is extraordinarily protective of his birds and will resort to violence if one of them is harmed or killed. This has gotten him into trouble before and that trouble only reinforced that he could trust his birds and his birds alone. The humans that are around him just have to learn to accept his eccentricity when it comes to the birds because it is not something Mik will change.

His social skills are sorely lacking and he will often say something offensive or rude or blunt. He doesn't have an issue telling people exactly what he thinks of them, regardless of their rank or age. He lost all his respect for hierarchies when he was fired from the Guard and while he will follow orders, he will do it because he wants to and if he thinks it's a stupid plan he will refuse. He is not an easy man to get along with in the least, nor does he try to be.

Deep down, Miklos might want to have real friends again, but he is so withdrawn that he wouldn't remember how to make them even if he tried. He is very set in his ways and it would take either a miracle or a catastrophe to shake him loose.

History: Miklos was born and raised in Marn by a single mother who had three other children and therefore not a lot of time for him. From a young age he was good with birds - he could fix their hurts better than others, they came to him when he taught them how to respond to his call more quickly than even the trained falcons of the nobility, and best of all, they were always there when he needed to talk to someone. His first birds were crows and sparrows, though he always admired the falcons that would rest on the arms of the nobles, and he was around twelve years old when he finally managed to get a chick from a nest. He tamed the young female bird easily and quickly bonded with her and named her Era.

He joined the Guard when he was twenty, as being a tavern cook as he had been doing did not suit him and there were no birds allowed in the kitchen. Despite being teased for the falcon and sometimes crows on his shoulders, Miklos quickly showed himself to be a good guardsman with a knack for the sword. He was quiet and well mannered and didn't make a fuss and was generally considered a decent guy. He came into his own a bit in the Guard, going out more and making some friends and even having a few relationships that broke his heart and a few that didn't.

Eleven years he served loyally and faithfully, and then came the day that everything changed. It was a regular patrol duty in one of the shadier parts of town when Miklos and his partner came across a wealthy-looking man apparently haranguing a shopkeeper about something when the man stormed off. Mik's partner checked with the shopkeeper, an apothecary, to be sure the man was alright and the story went that the aristocrat wanted a certain kind of potion that the apothecary did not stock because the apothecary was a law-abiding man and the potion had magical elements to it.

Though it seemed like a regular enough event, it quickly spiraled out of control. The later story Mik got was that the aristocrat had stirred up some drunks at a tavern or three with a tale of how the apothecary worked magic secretly and the suddenly roused and completely sloshed crowd returned screaming and howling for blood. All Mik himself saw however, was a rabble of drunk men (and a few women) descend onto the apothecary's shop yowling about magic. Realizing that things had quickly gotten out of control, Mik told his falcon Besnik (the one chick of Era's he had kept) to fetch help from the guard's headquarters.

As Besnik took off the aristocrat started screaming from his safe place at the back of the mob, and Miklos watched in almost slow-motion as the man offered good money to a group of teenagers that had shown up at the noise if they brought down the bird. One of the kids knocked Besnik out of the air almost casually and the bird fell with a scream, then thudded down onto the cobblestones with a terrible sound and then did not get up.

Miklos forgot the riot, forgot everything except that his bird was dead. He raced over to the kid and tackled the boy, who couldn't be older than eleven or twelve, to the ground and started beating him. His sword was forgotten as he screamed ragged words and tried to hurt the boy as best as he could, tried to inflict some of the pain he was feeling onto the kid, and he only dimly remembered being dragged off of the new bloody and barely-moving boy, sobbing as he fought his captors.

He was taken back to the guardhouse after the small riot had been dealt with, his partner watching him warily. Thirteen years of good service and suddenly he snaps? Mik's partner had searched for Besnik's body but he thought it had been trampled under the feet of the mob and he wasn't about to share that information with the blankly-staring guardsman. Their sergeant entered, his face like a stormcloud, and demanded that Miklos come into his office and explain himself.

Mik stood and started walking to the door, but before he could get there Ferric, one of the men Mik recognized as a newer guard, muttered under his breath as Miklos passed. "Look at yourself, prizing your hawk more than the lives of people. Guess all those assholes were right about your birds after all, hmm?"

Before he could help it, he took a wild punch at Ferric, at the man who had tormented him before about his devotion to his birds. He didn't get very far with beating the man, as other guards quickly pulled them apart, but it had been one taunt too many and Miklos was still raging and screaming that he would kill Ferric when they unceremoniously dumped him out the door. He was officially fired the next day and with no where to go and few friends outside the guard, he went into his house and barely came out for weeks.

He developed a hatred for Ferric, coming to see him as the man who had been responsible for his firing from the Guard. There had been another guard who had reported everything and stuck every charge on him that she could - Tasza, he learned his name was, and he hated him too. He was hauled up in front of the council, of course, but they let him off easy due to his eleven years of good service. Anyone could crack under pressure, they said, and most break down before eleven years. But the damage was done - now his family wouldn't talk to him because he turned the Ralander name to dirt and none of the guards look at him except with either pity or disgust With this treatment over the next few years he learned to hate not just Ferric but all the guards, and then the kids in the city, and then everyone.

He tamed two new gyrfalcons, Behar and Ylli, and slowly got over the murder of Besnik as he raised the chicks. He trained these ones to be able to fight to defend themselves with claws and beak, wanting never to have to lose another bird to human violence. Since his connection with humans was dimming, his affinity with his birds increased and Behar and Ylli have become his most highly-trained birds ever. If he'd ever talked to anyone for more than a few moments with his birds around they would have seen that his connection with them was definitely uncanny and probably magical, though if asked Mik would still deny it.

He had just accepted that he was going to be alone for the rest of his days when he met a man at one of the bars he had started going to irregularly. This man too had grievances against the Guard, and they commiserated for a time before the man, Justin, started to hint at something. What if someone was doing something about the Guards, and this whole city and its hatred of magic? What if there was a group of people who also hated the Guards and also wanted to see them fall? Would Miklos be interested?

And so he was introduced to the Rebellion in Marn and became responsible for passing their messages in a somewhat secret manner. He maintains his aloofness around most members of the Rathole that he deals with though he is almost friendly to Justin, who is the first person he's felt a connection with in years. Now, with more human contact in a day than he's had in the past year, Miklos is struggling to fit in again with humans, though admittedly, he's not trying all that hard.

[Saruna]

Approved. Show them guardsmen who's boss!