Brakk UrGrath

[BrakkUrGrath]

Name: Brakk UrGrath
Age: 23
Race: Zhotunn
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 250 lbs

Physical Description
. While only six feet tall, Brakk seems much larger because his body is wider than a human’s. His skin is a leathery brown and he has a wild mane of fiery red hair and a beard split in the middle and braided, sporting a carved bone at the end of each six-inch length.
. His eyes are yellow and stare sternly from beneath heavy brows, and a jagged scar cuts diagonally across his face from just above his left eye to the right corner of his lower jaw.
. He wears armor fashioned from the tanned hides of various beasts, stained a deep blood red color using various ores and rock dust blended with animal fats and smeared onto the armor. Below this armor he wears dark brown, almost black, rough linen trousers tucked into the tops of calf-high fur-lined boots.

Personality
. Brakk comes from a line of creatures that are traditionally aggressive and warlike. They are nomadic raiders by nature. They take what they want with little consideration of where it came from.
. They are barbaric and close to nature, and like Nature Herself they can seem cruel and indifferent, though they appreciate the beauty of a blooming flower or a brilliant sunset. They can be wild and uncontrollable like a raging storm or calm and peaceful lake a high mountain lake.
. Inhuman Upbringing – Brakk’s upbringing has been completely non-Human and his moral compass and basis for comparison is beyond anything Human civilization might consider “normal”. What he feels is “normal” might be completely abnormal or inhumane, and what others might consider perfectly acceptable he may find totally detestable.

Possessions
. Brakk has a nicked and pitted battleaxe he favors as his prized possession. It has a variety of carvings along its shaft and a number of colored braids wound around the handle. While the carvings are not writing, they do tell the history of the axe, and the colored braids are hair and cloth taken from some of the victims of the blade.
. Brakk also owns an old light crossbow that he struggles to keep in working order. The string is frayed and the catch is somewhat tricky, sometimes seizing, sometimes firing with a hair trigger. Because of this unpredictability, he prefers to not use it unless absolutely necessary.
. A small leather pouch on a thong tied about his neck is Brakk’s Totem. Inside the pouch are various tiny articles he’s collected: bones, rocks, bits of fur, teeth. They have no value to anyone else, but to him they represent a spiritual tie to realms beyond this one and to lose it would be devastating to him.

Powers or Strengths
. Dense – Brak is dense, in the sense that he weighs more than his volume would seem to indicate. His muscles are hard and thick as are his bones. As such, it is difficult to move him when he decides not to be moved.
. Strong – Brakk’s heavy muscles make him a bit stronger than the average human. While certainly not super strength, he can match a strong human without much effort, though doing so is a strain (see Old Wounds below).

Weaknesses
. Illiterate – Brakk’s people have no written language, and so Brakk has never learned to read or write. He understands that some markings have meaning, and can even recognize a few symbols, but he does not understand the concept of letters making words and those words forming sentences.
. Slow Thinker – While not “stupid”, Brakk’s thinking process is slower than what Humans and other civilized creatures might find normal. He has real difficulty with abstract concepts and he has poor mathematical skills.
. Old Wounds – Brakk has a number of old wounds that cause him some difficulty. He has broken bones that were not set quite right, torn muscles and ligaments that don’t stretch as far as they once did, and scar tissue on his skin. His agility suffers for this as his range of motion of arms and legs and back is not as full as it once was. Also, for some time after any heavy exertion he will be sore and stiff. In addition to ordinary limitations of agility, a day or so before and after a storm, he suffers extreme pain in his joints and other places where bones were broken.
. Exile – Brakk was forced to leave his people after an incident with a rival. It is this incident that is the reason for the vicious scar across his face. If he ever returns he must face a fight to the death (and likely against strong odds). See his History for details.

History
. Brakk is the son of a powerful Zhotunn Warrior named Grath Ur’Verlak. He had an older brother Gond, but he was killed years ago in battle. He has one younger sister, Darna, barely six years old, who has already been selected to be a maidservant to the temple when she is old enough. His mother, Jalara, was killed a few years ago when the tribe was raiding a village.
. When Brakk’s father, Grath, was growing old and feared dying an inglorious death, he instructed Brakk to be his executioner in the ritual suicide the tribe’s Shamans sanctioned each quarter year. Brakk resisted, but after much urging from his father, eventually agreed.
. But when the day came, Brakk again refused. Against all tribal traditions he loved his father and would not murder him just because the old warrior felt he could no longer fight.
. An older cousin, Kirok Ur’Gonsek, accused Brakk of being a weak woman, hurling insult upon insult until finally Brakk could stand it no longer. Enraged, Brakk attacked his cousin, but this is exactly what Kirok was trying to do.
. Brakk swung his axe in blind rage and Kirok easily blocked the attack, and with the pointed butt of his own axe scratched Brakk across the face, bringing the younger man up short.
. With blood streaming into his eyes, Brakk was now blinded by more than just rage, and Kirok easily stepped behind Brakk and kicked the back his of knees, sending the younger man sprawling into the dirt. Kirok quickly planted a heavy boot in Brakk’s back and raised his voice loudly, “Brakk, son of Grath, you have disgraced your father, your clan, and your tribe with your weakness! Leave this place, begone from us! If you cannot live as a true Zhotunn, then find yourself another life!”
. Kirok then spun around and beheaded Grath Ur’Verlak, Brakk’s father, as the old man would have wanted his son to do for him.
. Brakk struggled to his feet, blood still streaming into his eyes, mixed with tears that he should not have shed, and stumbled out of the encampment, seeking a new life away from everything he’d ever known.
. As he made his way down the mountain from everything he’d ever known, he felt himself slipping into depression. He was an outcast, deemed worthless by his own people. He had no friends he could turn to, all those he’d once had had laughed at him when Kirok stood with his boot in his back. He knew no-one outside the Zhotunn community where he’d grown up, most encounters outside his own clan were in battles and those who were not his tribe were killed. He had no home, not even a shelter, and when the rain came later that day he felt truly lost.
. With rain falling heavily, lightning streaking across the sky and the mountains that stood behind him mocking him with their deep belly laughs of thunder, he trudged along muddy trails. When he slipped and fell, sliding in the mud he screamed in anger, cursing the sky, the ground, the rain, everything! And then he sobbed. “Why do I even get up?” he asked himself. “Why not just lay here and die?” And lay there he did for some time … until his belly growled.
. Straining, he finally stood and looked around. He needed to get out of the rain. He needed to find something to eat.
. Hunting was never his strong suit. For most Zhotunn, they would simply raid a nearby farm and steal a steer or a hog or even a horse and maybe even find some vegetables or bread. If a weakling Human tried to fight them off he’d encounter the working end of a sword or axe for his troubles. But there were no farms in sight.
. He pulled his rickety crossbow from his pack and reattached the crosspiece and strung the frayed string. Maybe he’d find a rabbit or wild hog he could kill. And maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to find enough dry wood for a fire. More likely he’d have to eat whatever he killed raw, he’d done it before.
He studied the woods to the side of the muddy path, chose what looked like a decent game trail and hiked some distance into the copse of trees and hunkered down with his crossbow cocked and loaded. Some half-hour later he heard grunting and carefully peered out of his hiding place to see a wild boar rooting around the base of a tree. He took aim and lightly placed a finger on the trigger and … sproing! The damn thing fired before he was ready! The bolt struck the tree and the startled boar looked up and charged!
. Dropping the old crossbow he quickly drew his axe as the maddened beast came at him. He took a wild swing but missed as the beast tossed its head at his legs. He felt the impact of its tusks on his left thigh and stumbled slightly, which caused his second swing to glance off the creature’s flank.
Again the enraged hog tossed its head, snorting at him. He jumped aside to avoid the attack and swung, striking a hefty blow on the creatures left shoulder. It should have killed it. It didn’t.
Now injured, the boar redoubled its efforts to gore its attacker. Brakk now fought with everything he had just to avoid the creature’s tusks! Finally another hack from the large axe blade found purchase and the boar stumbled, screaming in agony as it pawed the ground. Blood mixed with the rain in the mud. But still, it wouldn’t die.
. Instead it again charged blindly at the Zhotunn, tossing its huge head with the pointed tusks. Another impact against his thigh told Brakk he’d been hurt again, and his brain began to register that if he didn’t kill the beast soon he’d lose this battle.
. He hacked again with the huge blade and finally caught a lucky break. The blade embedded itself just behind the hump of the creature’s head at the shoulders and it fell heavily to the ground, dragging Brakk’s axe out of his hand. But finally, the beast was dead. Brakk dropped to his knees next to it and it was the last he remembered until the warm rays of the morning sun and the buzzing of flies woke him the next day.
. Having been exposed to rain and flies for much of the afternoon and overnight, the boar meat was already foul. Flies swarmed all over the carcass and mud and slime covered it from one end to the other. “I must look about the same,” Brakk thought. He found his crossbow and turned from the woods. “There must be a village around here somewhere,” he murmured as his belly growled loudly.
Limping, his legs throbbing where the boar had gored him, he trudged out of the woods and back onto the still muddy road. A couple of hours later he saw a rickety sign. It said simply “Shim”.

[Niabi]

You need to balance this character out more and add to the history.

[Niabi]

Approved.