Post by markab on Jun 28, 2017 22:50:16 GMT -5
Name: Hafi Blackfish
Gender: Male
Age: 30
Species: Hedgehog
Occupation: Warrior; Champion of Redwall(?)
Physical Appearance:Generally when you think big, you think something like wildcat or badger. Hedgehog is probably one of the last – but Hafi pretty soundly defeats that particular stereotype. He’s sturdily built, quite tall, broad-shouldered and muscular and possessed of a imposing presence even considering his species, managing to scrape up some manner of intimidation with the help of the swirling white ink tattoos layered up and down his arms.
His fur is a sort of off-white cream-grey but for his muzzle; if he didn’t have spines you could probably mistake him for a badger at a distance in the black stripes that run up his face and disappear behind his headspikes. He has black-and-cream banded spines and black eyes and nose. When he’s not expecting to fight, he typically wears a green tunic tied with a plant-fiber rope and carries around a simple dagger; when he is, he comes up with heavy chainmail and a metal helmet and wields his main weapon, a khopesh.
Possessions:
+ Khopesh
+ Chainmail
+ Metal helmet
+ Green tunic
+ Dagger
Personality:
First thing you’re likely to notice about Hafi is his friendliness. It doesn’t really matter who you are to him, or where you happen to be; Hafi seems to assume good beasts are the default, at least in the way he’s cheerful, upbeat, and profoundly good-natured, ready to talk to anyone who gets close enough and doesn’t immediately come at him with a sword.
Don’t mistake that for naivete, though. Despite his general niceness he takes a while to trust anyone – though it certainly doesn’t seem like it – and he’s careful about everything he says and does around strangers. When he does warm up to you, however, he makes a loyal and incredibly devoted friend; and even while he hasn’t, he’s a good beast to be around. He refuses to stand for any sort of injustice and considers himself a protector, seeking to defend those weaker than him regardless of whether he knows them or not.
He doesn’t like to hurt others but also recognizes that sometimes it’s necessary, and there is no reluctance in him when he does; the best way to goad him is to hurt someone, particularly someone he cares about. He’s incredibly patient with a temper that’s hard to set off in any other way – but when it is, he’s much more cold fury than you’d likely be expecting from someone who is loud and boisterous at most other times. As such he comes off as completely unflappable, even when bad things happen.
He’s generally affectionate and emotional, with a strong sense of morality and right and wrong that can be detrimental to him at times. He adapts easily to new situations and tends to like them, though he can be a bit foolhardy, charging headfirst into situations without putting sufficient thought into it. It’s not enough to be considered overconfident, since often he’s aware of the risks and just does it anyways.
He’s pretty down-to-earth, with a penchant for bad jokes and puns, and likes to occupy his free time with little things like woodcarving and making an impressive cup of tea.
Strengths:
+ Hafi knows how to fight. He’s edging on expert level with his khopesh, and with the armor he can take a fair few blows while dishing damage back. Being a hedgehog, he’s also gotten good at using his spines to his advantage.
+ Very loyal, and once you have his loyalty there’s very little that can change that. He never abandons his friends.
+ Hafi is stronger than most hedgehogs and has a far easier time doing anything that requires that kind of strength. Often, on other beasts’ requests, moving heavy objects.
+ While he doesn’t love doing it, Hafi’s a competent leader when forced to be, possessed of a commanding presence and able to make quick decisions without second guessing himself. For a few days, at least.
Weaknesses:
+ Often foolhardy – charges into situations without really taking a chance to think them through, no matter the odds up against him.
+ Generally reluctant to actually kill anyone and it’s gotten him into trouble down the road a handful of times when whoever it is gets a chance to grow stronger.
+ He’s more built to be a tank than a get in and get out style fighter; he’s really not all that quick on his feet or that acrobatic and can be outpaced, especially when in armor, by pretty much anyone.
+ Incredibly stubborn and even any successful attempt to change his mind about something (almost exclusively situations and not his particular morality) will only result in having to deal with him being a giant grump about it.
+ Assumes the best of people as long as they haven’t already done something definitive to prove otherwise. Though that doesn’t really imply trust, it can lead to him getting the proverbial wool pulled over his eyes if someone’s smart enough to take advantage of that goodwill, though it will only ever harm him; he’s far too careful about other beasts’ lives.
+ While Hafi is literate, he does take longer than it probably would for others to read anything since the first time he picked up a book wasn’t until his twenties, and language's not something that comes easy to him.
History:
Of all the places for a hedgehog to be born, a raider ship likely wouldn’t be the first guess. But Hafi’s circumstances have never exactly been normal; his parents, after all, were the captains of their vessel, the Blackfish. Hardly a monarchy – not on the high seas, when someone unsuited as leader could be thrown overboard and left to drown – but his parents, even as they placed him in the care of their healer, meant for him to captain the ship one day.
As things turned out, it wasn’t to be.
Among the crew, it went that a beast born on the sea could never leave for long. So it was with the Blackfish – in the port towns they drew up to, the ones that they didn’t raid, anyways, they rarely spent more than a few days to fix up their ship and restock before heading to the water again. Hafi grew up almost exclusively surrounded by vermin, searats and foxes and ferrets and weasels, and at first, it was okay.
Raising a mischievous child on a ship would be a recipe for disaster, but luckily for his parents Hafi was a quieter one from the beginning, and their crew was still well-pleased with them. He was obedient, and dutiful, and if not the most quick-witted beast out there smart enough to pick up smaller tasks and his first sword and to stay out of others’ way when it was necessary. That was the lucky part.
And for several years, it went on like that. He picked up how to use a sword, watched the crew raid other vessels, learned steadily how to kill. But by the time he was about twelve, a missing captain’s key led him down into the belly of the ship, where the oarslaves – otters and mice and shrews and voles – were kept.
That was where his parents’ luck turned. He’d known they were down there, but with no contact – out of sight, out of mind, as they say. But there was something in Hafi which really wasn’t cut out for the raiding life, that wasn’t obvious until he was face-to-face with other beasts that had been harmed by it. The vermin could take care of themselves, but even then they’d harmed those who couldn’t protect themselves.
The resentment started. Grew, as he hid under benchrows and looked through metal-slit grates to watch the wardens whip the slaves for not moving fast enough, to watch some of them die and be thrown, later, into the waves. Dead crew, his parents told him. And as much as he wanted to help, he knew he was completely useless as it was, far younger than the rest of the crew and nowhere near experienced enough with a blade.
So, to get there, he threw himself into training. To everyone else it just seemed like he was eager to fight; what should have been expected from the captains’ son. He learned how to use a blade, bought and stole what he could in weapons when he reached shore, mostly daggers and knives, things that would seem easily lost. And slowly, over years, he grew trusted by the crew, fiercely loyal, as far as they knew, and dangerous as anything with his khopesh.
The ship sailed on for years, his parents at the helm, and Hafi had just reached nineteen years when he put his plan into action.
On the middle of the sea, in the dead of night, he killed the duo of lookouts on the deck of the ship. With the captain’s key he’d stolen so many years earlier they’d made a replacement by now, he unlocked the armory. In the belly of the ship, every oarslave was freed, armed with the weapons he’d stockpiled and those on the ship itself.
It wasn’t a clean or an easy fight. There were many deaths, on both sides, but together Hafi and the slaves cleared the entire ship of the vermin crew. Even to this day Hafi’s not sure how his parents died, in the end; they’d done horrible things, but they were his parents, and he’d gone out of his way to avoid fighting them.
Under the new crew’s command, the ship sailed into Mossflower, and though Hafi kept his name he put as much space as he could between he and it. Those from other lands took the ship to find their way home again, but Hafi had no such place to go. A large group of the former slaves along with him, the group returned people to their families and the remainder marched to Redwall with Hafi, in armor and wielding his sword, leading the charge to fend off any vermin along the way.
Finally, though, after years at sea, they reached a safe place on land. With everyone who had made the long journey with him, Hafi settled down in Redwall and, barring his frequent trips out of the gate to protect the nearby woods, has remained there ever since.
Relationships:
Kanuti Blackfish [father, deceased]
Corva Blackfish [mother, deceased]
Other:
As stated in occupation above I’m kinda interested in making this guy champion. I heard there’s usually a lot of interest in it though so I’m down for waiting if need be and just keeping him a generic warrior/abbeydweller in the meantime.
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