Race: Human
Rank: Falconer/Necromancer
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Family: Father-Mandel, Tailor; Mother-Dreda, Housewife; Two younger sisters, Claural and Nette
Former Master Dalan Hadrow; Current Master Abrecan Shaul
Height: 5'4
Build: Thin
Skin: Darkly tanned
Hair: White-blond, straight, to nape of neck
Eyes: Hazel green
Abilities: Gawyn has a few magical abilities which help him in both of his chosen professions, falconry and necromancy. He has a natural affinity with animals that helps him work with them. He also has some very minor healing abilities as well as nature-centered magic that helps him track his birds and find his way through heavily forested areas. His necromantic abilities include the very basic ability to reanimate corpses called liches by using a small sacrifice--it is powered mostly by the ritual and thus, requires little inate ability, which is fortunate because Gawyn doesn't have much to spare. Among the things he is learning to do is the ability to cause illness or poison in living creatures, and he is also beginning to learn how to cast the runes which guard against other people's necromancy.
Appearance: Gawyn comes from a mix of different ethnic backgrounds, giving him a rather unique appearance. He is small and thin, with wiry muscles, and he has skin which is a very darkly tanned, almost brown, color; it doesn't tan much and hence is nearly uniform in shade whether he gets sun or not. His hair, on the other hand, provides a striking contrast to his skin, being a nearly white, ashy shade of blond. It is straight and neat, cut to the nape of his neck for the most part, except for a thin braid at his left temple. He has narrow, slightly slanted eyes which are a striking shade of brown-green hazel. He can afford to dress in fine, expensive clothes and is always extremely neat, with an impeccable taste in fashion.
Personality: Gawyn is a very introspective, private person. He keeps to himself and frankly, gets nervous and doesn't like to be around people or in situations where he has to talk. He is not particularly fond of being around the dead, for that matter. However, he is very fond of animals, birds of prey in particular, and keeps some birds from his days as a falconer. His affection is often one-sided; he is well aware that the birds have no affection for him beyond his ability to give them food, and at best he can build up some trust between them that he will provide them food and they will not fly away. He is content with that. He is unlikely to give his affection to anyone who could possibly give it back, i.e., other humans.
He suffers from a severe chronic stuttering problem, with inconveniant pauses, repititions of words and syllables, and drawn out sounds. He prefers to simply avoid situations where he has to talk as much as possible, and speak as little as he can when he does have to. This isolates him from other people as much as his antisocial attitude does. It's largely what keeps him from socializing with others, and his social skills are extremely lacking as a result. As much as he suffers from stuttering in the company of other people, it is nearly non-existant when he is alone or with his birds. He is also an intelligent and eloquent writer, though few ever get to see that side of him.
Perhaps because of his extremely private attitude, Gawyn doesn't show much care for the feelings or well-being of others. On the rare occasion he does speak to someone face to face, he doesn't have the social skills or the interest to keep from insulting them, whether purposely or by accident. He is perfectly content to punish someone severely for a perceived offense or crime they committed according to his personal moral code. Killing or abusing a bird or other animal is the quickest way to raise his ire. He doesn't distinguish much between light and dark, good and evil, and if he has the ability or opportunity to do something, he will use it, whatever the consequences. He has no particular interest in necromancy--he actually gets a bit squicked out by the liches--but it has turned out to be a very useful skill, so he will use it.
Past: Gawyn was born into a middle-class home of second-generation immigrants in the country of Marlia-Neura. His father works as a tailor, but Gawyn never showed any interest in taking after his father, and the family profession ended up being left to his two younger sisters, who were more than happy to take up the slack. Once his parents finally caught on to what he did want to do, which was raise and train brids of prey, they sent him off at the age of fourteen to live and learn from a Master Falconer.
His years as an apprentice were mostly spent by himself. His stuttering problem made it extremely difficult for him to be around other people, and because he was too embarrassed to speak, he hardly ever went out and gained a reputation of being mute, stupid, strange, or all three. His master, Dalan Hadrow, soon grew tired of his constant stuttering as well, and the two never really got along very well.
They particularly disagreed on how the birds were to be treated, and when his master had abused the falcons one too many times, the apprentice took things into his own hands. They got into a fight, where Gawyn ended up killing his master with a knife. Thinking quickly, Gawyn cleaned himself up and magicked the body so that it would look like a natural death. When he began stammering to everyone he met that something had happened to his master, nobody thought anything odd of him. He was seventeen at the time.
Ironically, since his master didn't have any close family, everything ended up going to Gawyn, including the birds. He suddenly became rather rich, as his old master was something of a miser. However, he was very uncomfortable living in his master's old house where he had died, not to mention he was still concerned that someone might discover what he had done, so he decided to take his money and the birds and move away. Unfortunately, there was very little work for a falconer who had never finished his apprenticeship, so he started dipping into other, more illicit things, more and more often, which is where he discovered his second talent--necromancy.
There were a lot of people who would pay a lot of money for what a talented necromancer could do, legal or no, and Gawyn had gotten used to keeping himself and his birds in luxury. At the age of nineteen, he entered into his second apprenticeship with possibly the most powerful and best-known necromancer in the country--Abrecan Shaul, the Duke of the Midnight Isles.
Though apprenticed to him, Gawyn doesn't live in Abrecan's castle; he has instead rented a sizeable house of his own nearby, an expansive place with plenty of room for him and his birds. He is content to live alone, but he has considered opening his home to a few sponsorlings--after all, he has the space and the money, and he figures it's probably a good way to build up a bit of a reputation.
Bond: Black-Red Undead Beast, Garaith Graveling
Sponsors: White-Pointed Blue-Satined Black Phlegathon Beast, Fiervoie
Albino Cocytus Beast, Cinta doliu
Pets: Male Rough-Legged Hawk, Zaeldal
Female White-Tailed Kite, Anagurn