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Jorgen

Profile

  • Full name: King Jorgen of House Hunding
  • Also known as: the Thorn
  • Archetype: The bad seed
  • Type tag: the pawn who became the hand
  • Origin: a minor house ruling Growall from the north of Algeron
  • Culture: Algeronian
  • Religion: the Four Sires
  • Affiliation: House Hunding, the Ripped Banners: he led a major muster of their independent companies, raised to counterbalance the Bracks, and secured the standing royal contract that still employs a minority of them
  • Station: King of Algeron
  • Status: Dead, heart failure at 69
  • Age: the late Third Age (the Age of Echoes), close to its end

Main Deeds

  • Raised House Hunding from an obscure line to a name men feared.
  • Led a major muster of the Ripped Banners, a widespread mercenary tradition whose companies have since kept close ties with the Realm.
  • United a small kingdom together "amidst hostile factions".

Voice

  • Register: cold and exact, with a dark wit that cuts worst when he sounds calm
  • Accent or dialect: plain Algeron speech, sharpened, none of the court's softness
  • Verbal tics: turns cruelty into a joke, and answers a question with a colder one
  • Motto or catchphrase: Sure as hell
  • Texture: low and unhurried, the calm of a man who has already decided how this ends
  • Sample line: "Mercy is a coin I was never given. No way I can spend it."
  • Body language: still as a held blade, and in his last years his gaze chases voices no one else hears

Drives

  • Ambition (passion): to own every string that was ever tied to him, and to make the house a name that rules instead of serves
  • Compelling goal: take an obscure house and carve it into a power none can pull
  • Primal stake: survival, be in control
  • Fear: the leash, being moved by another hand, the Nine inside his own head
  • Wound: raised young to the throne, "chosen because the Nine thought he could be easily manipulated, because he was young". The boy learned that weakness is a leash, and never forgave it
  • Self-image: not a pawn but the hand, the one who decides who breaks
  • Code: loyalty is a thing bought and kept the way a blade keeps an edge, for use
  • Under pressure: turns colder and more ruthless, then "stress-induced reclusiveness"
  • Vice (release): the gamble, the dice and long-odds wagers of his mercenary years, the one risk a man who owns every string still lets himself take
  • If they break: goes into senseless rage

Traits

  • Personality: Unpredictable, Ambitious, Deceitful, Vengeful, Callous, Brave.
  • Talents: a brilliant mind (Genius), a solid swordsman, a reader of men
  • Flaws: stubborn, resentful
  • Powers: none confirmed. A death-touched rumor clung to him: a Hearken named him a man who had cheated the gods' ledger and should not still breathe. The charge was buried, the whisper was not.
  • Lifestyle: Soldier of fortune, with a schemer's patience
  • The unexpected: the most feared king of the line was chosen because he looked the easiest to use

Appearance

  • Look: dark-haired and hard-faced in his prime, gone gaunt and grey at the end
  • Distinguishing marks: a scar across the face
  • Dress: black over a king's wealth, dressed more like an executioner than a court
  • Bearing: a stillness that makes men measure their words, authority that never has to shout

Standing

  • Role: A Master War Strategist
  • Lineage: House Hunding, an old line but an obscure one until him
  • Reputation: "Known for his authority", and feared more than loved
  • Circles: led a major muster of the Ripped Banners
  • Signature possessions: a banner of the Ripped Banners

Relationships

  • Edda: spouse, "who inherited a distant county from her father", which she governs in her own right: a competent, trusted hand and a quiet second power base for House Hunding far from Itis
  • The confidant: Harth, a Voice he kept close, "helped manage his immense stress", the one man whose counsel he did not punish (and, as a Voice, the Crown's own emissary and watcher)
  • The Nine: raised him young to be their instrument, and he spent a reign proving them wrong, though their hooks stayed in his mind

Stories

  • [none yet]

History

Before Jorgen, House Hunding was an old but obscure line. He changed that. Raised young to the throne of Algeron by the Nine, who "thought he could be easily manipulated, because he was young", he spent his life proving them fools. He became "a towering figure in the dynasty, a great warrior who established a small kingdom amidst hostile factions" (the re-unification of Algeron when it was breaking, which he came later to hold together), and is remembered for leading a major muster of the Ripped Banners, a widespread mercenary tradition whose independent companies have kept close ties with the Realm since. His rule was dark and feared. "Despite his great authority, his later years were marked by stress-induced reclusiveness and lunacy." He died of heart failure at 69.

Arc

  • Start: a young king of an obscure house, raised by the Nine to be their puppet
  • Pressure: hostile factions, and the makers who meant to move him
  • Turn: he became a dark king no one could pull, and the strain ended in reclusive lunacy