Askeladd Shipbreaker
Crusted brine and blood covered the pale greatsword leaning against the table where a massive man had kicked up his heels and sunk into a keg’s worth of ale. Scarred skin pulled taut over cruel piles of muscle shimmered in the firelight. His massive torso swallowed the chair that he had tipped back, while powerful legs rocked it steadily with soft, hypnotic creaks. The fire had long burned low but the remaining embers smoldered in his black beard and in the harsh, proud eyes that glowered over the rim of his flagon with a deliberately aimless stare. Like a ship seen in silhouette at the edge of a dark, fogbound sea - he was intrinsically ominous and perhaps reveled in the ambiguity of what such a man with such a sword might suddenly do. And one could not help but wonder with no short amount of nervous reflux whether the powers that bound the beast were virtuous or merely circumstantial - but one could safely wager.
A brawler by nature and a liar at that - Askeladd claims to be familiar with Lord Samuel Attisan and the rest of the Black Fount, the palatial district of Stormhenge’s highest human elite where nearly all the Old Courage families set up their wealthy seats of power. Even grander, this drunken brute asserts he was also childhood friends with the Lady Brealla of Irontree before the fall of White Font drove her and the rest of the elven aristocracy out of the SeaWall City.
He drinks like he’s from beer-soaked Bottletown yet claims the stately Stormhenge. He speaks like a slum rat yet claims aristocratic origins. He acts familiar with Black Fount yet claims friendship with White Fount. And what could he want with the Lady Brealla? It seems the more he reveals of himself, the more questions arise - like endless waves breaking distinctly upon the shore yet sliding always back into the amorphous, unsearchable sea.
If he could ever be caught in a sober moment, Askeladd might be able to set his story straight. But all the ships in Stormhenge would break apart at their bilges before that should ever happen.
Other Party Members
