Baldvin Riggken

GENERAL
Full Name: Baldvin Riggken

Race: Kooka

Age: 27

Gender: Male

Sexual Orientation: Undecided

Residence: Baldvin lays claim to no specific home, but spends the majority of his leisure time in the taverns and inns throughout Rabanastre and Nalbina.

Affiliation: N/A

Occupation: Baldvin ekes out a living as a hireling, offering services to those with enough coin to offset the damage that mercenary work enacts on his pride. He usually finds himself taken on as a caravan guard or guide to travelers passing through the Dalmascan deserts, though he occasionally allows himself to work as hired muscle.

Religion: Light of Kilitas

COMBAT
Class: Monk

Gear: Two big-ass fists.

CHARACTERISTICS
Appearance: At six feet, Baldvin is quite tall for a Kooka. This, when combined with his thick, barrel-chested build (the phrase 'brick shithouse' comes to mind) and his usually dour expression, Baldvin cuts an imposing figure among the Rabanastre marketplace crowds. His hair is ice-blonde, and what fur covers his ears and hock-jointed legs is only slightly darker.

He prefers light clothing to combat the Dalmascan heat, and often only ventures out with light trousers to hide his shame and a kerchief to keep the sweat from his brow. He wears some jewelry in the way of earrings, but prefers to keep his large, ramlike horns unadorned.

Personality: Baldvin is a man of few words. Stern words, usually. He prefers to keep to himself, to let his actions speak instead of his words. He has built up a reputation for himself within the adventuring culture of Rabanastre as a reliable and trustworthy hireling, and that established level of trust suits him and his sense of honor just fine. His only relationships are professional or spiritual, and that suits him too.

Perhaps after a few drinks, Baldvin might reveal a nostalgic, pining fondness for his homeland of Loar, or quiet insight into his deep personal ties to his relationships with Faram and Kheprice, gods of the Light of Kiltias religion, but these are only brief glimpses beneath Baldvin's glacial countenance.

To call him a pessimist would be unkind, if not wholly inaccurate.

HISTORY
Baldvin does not speak of his past, and would prefer it if anyone with a mind to ask kept focused whatever task might be at hand. He admits freely that he is from Eiskeg, capital of Loar, and that he has only been in Dalmasca for the past few years. It is difficult, to say the least, to pry any weightier information from him.

He would certainly prefer it if any information naming his father, Thane Rigvald Ulfken, sire of the respected knightly order of House Blackhorn, or his own exile from Eiskeg were not to come to light at all.

Baldvin was born a twin, and while he enjoyed good health and an uncomplicated childhood, his brother Lawfer did not. Baldvin took on the charge of protecting his brother very early on, a duty of love he would continue long into his adult life, even after Lawfer too became healthy and successful.

Despite his difficult early years, Lawfer proved to be a talented and intelligent, if hard-nosed young man, far more so than his brother when it came to matters of strategy or swordplay. If this bothered Baldvin, or he felt any jealousy, he never showed it. Baldvin shunned the spotlight, and often found himself flummoxed and embarrassed at the high society functions he and Lawfer were forced to attend from a young age. Baldvin preferred to serve as his beloved brother's pillar of support while Lawfer collected the accolades.

As is natural in Eiskeg's society, both of Thane Rigvald's children followed in his footsteps as knights of House Blackthorn, and when Lawfer was put in command of his own unit Baldvin was, of course, made his second.

Four years ago, Lawfer found himself in command of a regiment during a large-scale skirmish between Loar and the Gria of Jylland and, disobeying a direct order from his father, commanded his entire unit into what would turn out to be a carefully-laid trap. Aside from Baldvin and Lawfer, the entire regiment was slain, and though the battle would eventually be won Lawfer would certainly face punishment for his rash actions. When the time came for Lawfer to face judgment, Baldvin, ever his brother's protector, claimed full responsibility.

Baldvin was imprisoned, stripped of name and title, and it was only by his brother's intervention in the dead of night that he was spared the executioner's axe. Scarred by his experience, ties severed with his home and family, Baldvin swore never to lift a sword again. He fled Loar and wandered for a time, his only solace a growing, needful reliance on his faith, one that he had never paid much heed to in his youth.

Eventually, Baldvin found his way to Dalmasca, where by sheer chance he began to make a name for himself in certain circles as a decent slab of hired muscle. Baldvin may have cast aside his blade, but when you're built like a tree and your default expression is set to sour, trouble follows you around.

He has made a living this way for two years now, and while he couldn't say with any truthfulness that he is happy, life in Rabanastre is a better alternative than anything else he could think of.