Saturday 27 August 2011

Kingsmead character overview part 2

This update is a more in depth look at the Hunter family in Kingsmead.
I tried not to be too detailed. The point is to outline the heads of the family and a handful of important characters. The ones that aren't so important are at least getting a little plot drop.

Pa Hunter
Ulfrik Hunter, called Pa by everyone in the village, is a grey-haired bear of a man. He is the patriarch of the clan, and runs the Kingsmead Inn. He is known for giving honest prices for his services and wares, and is the man to come to for information on local goings-on.
He is good friends with Haskthrone Brewer and Candle, often playing cards and drinking with the former, and the latter when Candle chooses to drink.
Pa and Ma, along with his brother Derrik, used to go on all kinds of adventures, or so the stories go.

Ma Hunter
Copper-haired Therese Hunter, née Keeper, is the true owner of the inn, as the only child of the Keeper clan. She has been married to Pa for twenty odd years, and has three daughters and a son.
She spent a large part of her childhood away from the village, at the Raethmoore Mage Academy to the north. She is known to use her magical skills to improve her wares at the Kingsmead Bakery.

Angela Hunter
Roughly sixteen years of age, she has recently developed an infatuation with Ronan Brewer, following his return from schooling in Queenstown. She is most normally found in the Inn.
She can sometimes be found in Peony Thatcher's flower and vegetable garden, where Peony extolls the various virtues of the Lady of the Autumn.

Lorelei Hunter
Roughly fourteen, she has inherited some ability in Arcanery from her mother, though she is unschooled in its use. She is most often found helping her fathe rin the Inn, and is often the one cooking any meals.

Sonya Hunter
Roughly twelve years of age, she has the brightest red hair of the children. She helps her uncle Alder to run the Rabbitry, and is very good with the rabbits. Sometimes she can be seen talking to them in the meadow.

Tim Hunter
The youngest of the Hunter children in the village at about seven years old. He can usually be described as 'the snot-nosed boy running about the village'. He fetches people and things, and runs about with messages for various people. He doesn't talk much.
When not running about, he is usually found sat outside the Inn, or doting on barmaid Jessica with childish gifts.
He fell down the village well a few years ago, and now refuses to go near it (though he also refuses to drink anything but the wellwater).

Derrik Hunter
Pa's brother, Derrik is the village goatherd and a cheesemaker. He is barely a few years younger than Pa, but has never married. It is said that he once had a love, but lost her tragically.
Growing up, he was apprenticed to a local priest of the Darkling Queen, the goddess of death. He is often called upon for funerary services, but he always refuses.

Alder Hunter
Runs the village Rabbitry, is something of a hunter and butcher.

Berith Hunter
Alder's wife of many years, and Peony Thatcher's older sister. Runs the bakery with Ma.

Canaan Hunter
Canaan is Alder and Berith's eldest son. He is about ten or so, and wants to grow up to go on adventures, even if people say something terrible happened to his uncle Derrik.
Canaan has a friendship with Smerrig the Kobold, who is secretly teaching him swordplay.

Special Mention: Jessica Mandeville
Jessica is a runaway from the Noble Estates precinct of Queenstown, and is the youngest daughter of Lord Mandeville.
Whilst he was being schooled in Queenstown, Ronan Brewer and Jessica fell in love. She followed him home, though they have yet to break the truth of her relationship (or indeed her identity) to anyone in the village. She is the only employee of the Kingsmead Inn, at the insistence of Ma Hunter.
Currently, as far as Haskthrone is concerned, the girl that Ronan is far too good for (he had no idea it was a Lord's daughter) is far away in Queenstown.


Ok, that's it. If anyone wants to here more about characters, I'll try and flesh them out a bit more.
I remembered about halfway through that I should have mentioned in my first post - the overall colouration of most of the inhabitants of Kingsmead is a fair complexion with red or copper coloured hair, often with freckling.

My next post will either involve some details of Queenstown, the capital of what is now known as the Old Crown region, or I may drop information on some gods and goddesses. They've almost all entirely changed since my first blog post (you may notice discrepancies between posts).

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Kingsmead character overview part 1

So I took my time with this update.

First off, I'm going to run through important characters that live in Kingsmead. There are, apart from two exceptions, all human. This is because I'm kind of lazy, and saw it as a human dominated settlement. There are no doubt a few others dotted about, but the majority is human.
So, without further ado:

Mayor Haskthrone Brewer:
Haskthrone was educated like a nobleman in the city of Queenstown. He is the hereditary head of town, and patriarch of the Brewer family. Their name comes from their place as the mead brewmasters of the town. They also own the large apiary, and large parts of the local land.
Haskthrone himself stands at about six feet, has black hair, peppered grey, and is normally seen wearing a green cape over his everyday or ceremonial attire (the Brewers are the only family in town with recognised heraldry: three bees on a diagonal, over a green shield).
He is known to be good friends with the local innkeeper Pa and lawman Candle, and it is in their company that he often gets quite inebriated.
His son Ronan has recently returned from an academy in Queenstown in order to learn more of the family business.

Other notable families in Kingsmead:
The Hunters (more on them in the next update), Millers, Potters, Smiths and Thatchers.

Killian Winter:
Winter is the resident cleric of the Dragon King. He is an old man, wise, and gives his counsel to all who will listen. He came to Kingsmead from Queenstown many decades ago after growing up a city boy.
He is a tall man, with long white hair tied neatly. He keeps a short beard, also white. He is most often seen in his ceremonial clothing, spending the majority of his time at the temple. This includes a purple tabard adorned with the crowned dragon-at-wing, the symbol of the Dragon King.
When not in the temple, he sometimes wanders the village, or goes for walks in the local countryside. He has taken a shine to young Canaan Hunter, as well as new arrival, Smerrig.

Darriel Keep:
Keep is the resident cleric of the Great Muse. He is a very young man, and came to Kingsmead in the hopes of civilising it with the modern contrivances of his home in Queenstown. So far, he has been rebuffed at almost every turn, although the manner in which he goes about trying to convert the locals is less than exemplary.
He wears his hair cropped short, and is clean shaven. He is most often seen wearing the ceremonial clothing of the Great Muse - a grey and blue tunic with a white feather quill symbol.
He is rarely found outside the temple, though sometimes has a meal at the Kingsmead Inn.

Peony Thatcher:
Peony is the resident cleric of the locally worshiped goddess, the Lady of the Harvest. She is the goddess of bees and nature as well as harvest time. Peony grew up in Kingsmead, and apprenticed to her grandmother.
She has the characteristic copper hair of the locals, grown long. She is most often seen wearing a brown tabard emblazoned with a bee, the symbol for the Lady of the Harvest. The clothes underneath are always practical, with lots of pockets.
She is constantly out and about in Kingsmead, and tends a garden near the temple. She often gives open air service, whatever the weather, and leads the celebrations at the Harvest Festival.

Candle:
Candle is the local sheriff. He is a Dragonkin with light and dark mottled copper-brown scales.
He was a foundling of the Traveller, left at a wayshrine when he had barely hatched, and was raised by a cleric of the Traveller named Silus. He has travelled to many of the local settlements, to Queenstown in the east, to Raethmoore in the north, and as far west as the lands of the Wick on the far side of the Western Dragonspine Mountains. He has lived in Kingsmead for almost a decade, deciding to settle there rather than follow Silus across the oceans.
He is close friends with Haskthrone Brwer and Pa Hunter, and whilst he doesn't always drink heavily with them, he is known to occasionally appear seeking Peony Thatcher for a cure for a rotten hangover.
He carries a meanly curved sword, believed to be the only object found with him by Silus.

Smerrig:
From a southern tribe of Kobolds, Smerrig travelled far north and arrived in Kingsmead some months before the Harvest Festival.
It is unclear why a lone Kobold would leave his tribe, or why he would choose to spend so much time in and around Kingsmead. The villagers believe he is a scout sent by his tribe. They have yet to come up with a decent reason why this might be however. Due to the reaction of the villagers, Smerrig camps a little way outside of the town, near the edge of Slateleaf Forest.
He infrequently arrives in town with animal hides to trade for food, though he has yet to sample the local mead.
Peony Thatcher will often catch him trying to buy or consume the local goat cheese, and persuade whomever she can that this would be a bad idea as Kobolds, much like Dragonkin, have no bodily experience with milk.
Candle finds him hilarious, although it is unclear why. Smerrig only converses in Draconian, which only Candle and Killian Winter speak. Perhaps this is the source of his amusement.
Killian Winter has twice intervened when a villager has tried to con Smerrig out of coin.
He has also somehow become fast friends with the young boy Canaan Hunter, who often sneaks off to Smerrig's camp. So far, no one has caught the boy being instructed in the proper use of a sword.
Smerrig's scales are a mottled brown, with a speckling of gold and silver around his face. He is clearly a skilled hunter and trapper, and carries two shortswords at his sides.

Right, that's where I am so far. I've tried to throw a few hooks onto the characters too. I've not included any character's secrets (though these may appear in future updates - they're similar to one-line hooks, but much more difficult to find out). I hope to have the information up on the Hunter family within a week (I'm just trimming it a bit). They're the only family I'm detailing in anything other than name, excepting for Haskthrone Brewer and his heir Ronan.

As usual, please send me any and all feedback!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...