Talinn with his cane and cloak.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Talinn is a fox of average height and a lean build, his fur kept cut short except for a few tufts on his head. His color is an unremarkable flaxen interspersed with spots of white around his neck and chest, the tip of his tail being a dull black. He has several faded scars across his face from combat, although they are hidden well by his fur. He has deep, ocean blue eyes which tend to be expressive these days compared to his younger years, flickers of deep emotions sometimes rising to the surface. He has remarkably good teeth for a vermin, likely due to his Fyadorian noble heritage which has an emphasis on cleanliness and discipline.
His usual outfit these days is a black tricorn hat, a red scarf, a military jacket in the blue and gold colors of House Ryalor, dark brown or black pants, black military boots, and a black cloak. He carries around with him a reinforced steel cane with a dark blue tourmaline gemstone pommel, his Auldarnian Steel katana Duty’s Burden and its sheath, and a steel backup dagger. Occasionally he can be seen dressed up or down depending on what event he is attending or if he is going incognito.
INVENTORY AND REAL ESTATE
Weapons
One Auldarnian Steel katana, Duty's Burden.
Backup regular steel knife.
Reinforced steel cane with a dark blue tourmaline gemstone pommel.
Real Estate
Ancestral Storm's Peak fortress (Peltarra, Westisle).
All official properties of the Minister of Innovation.
Ryalorian seaside castle (Insanely Rich Area, Bully Harbor, Vulpinsula).
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Talinn, widely regarded and being notorious for being an outspoken and brusque individual in his younger years, has learned more tact and restraint as he has aged, often holding back his real thoughts to be more palatable to the general public. He now generally has a more reserved, polite, and somewhat cryptic demeanor, choosing his words carefully and often omitting details that he considers to be unimportant or that would make him and the Ryalors look bad. He is generally a morally gray individual who bends the letter of the law as far as he can without openly breaking it for his own interests and those of his family, and most notably attempts to keep all of his promises, albeit it can be a nightmare to get him to actually commit to anything and one has to be very specific with the terms of what they get him to agree to.
Beneath this exterior lies a fox of many emotions and traumas, however, as he is a beast who has continually reached new heights only to have them stolen or to fall through his own flaws again and again and who has lost, been forced to kill, or has as “guests” of the Empress most of his family members. Those few who do enter his service note that he is doggedly loyal to them and does his best to protect them from harm and that his almost impenetrable mask breaks whenever they come to serious harm, and a select few might see the real, guilt-ridden, anxious fox behind his cool exterior.
STRENGTHS
-Excellent and deadly swordsbeast who is one of the best in the Imperium with his katana and dagger combination and more than formidable with just his cane as well.
-Decent at firing and directing artillery.
-Has a large amount of financial resources and commands a battalion of soldiers per his rights as Duke.
WEAKNESSES
-Mediocre with ranged weapons or melee weapons other than a sword and a dagger and his paws.
-Little popular support to aim higher than his current station in the Imperium, and even whether he can maintain his present station without being forced to retire remains to be seen.
-Feels compelled to live up to the letter of the law as it shields him and his family and is loathe to break a promise, meaning if one can catch him in one he will almost always honor it if he is able.
HISTORY
The history of the fox known to the Imperium as Duke Talinn Ryalor or to many as Talinn the Traitor for his betrayal of the Ministers during Empress Amélie’s coup and for striking down his own grandfather and submitting Westisle and House Ryalor to Imperial rule is one shrouded in mystery, unknowns, and half-truths and few, if any, are close enough to him to know the full story. If one were granted the power of omnipotence, however, they would see that the nature of his heart is not cold and black like many insist it is, but rather pained and painted with many shades of gray, and to truly understand his nature requires an understanding of his past.
Talinn was born in Fyad, the capital of the ancient and powerful vulpine empire of Fyador, in 1710, second son to the Emperor after his brother Falun, in the midst of civil strife and a mere three years before the Fyadorian Revolution of 1713 which would see the deposition and slaughter of much of the Imperial family and their hasty retreat to their ancestral province of Eastisle as the country collapsed into total civil war, the two heirs smuggled out of the mainland at the last moment by their grandfather Alexei while his mother and father died. They would be safe and enjoy a happy kithood, perhaps the only period in his life where Talinn truly was so, until he turned fifteen in 1725 and the unrest and factors which led to the collapse of the Empire reached Eastisle. Talinn was forced to live in isolation hiding deep in the Auldarnian mountains, watching many of his loyal retainers and friends were struck down by warfare and disease, while his brother Falun fled to the Vulpine Imperium at the insistence of his grandfather to seek assistance and ingratiate himself with the powerful seafaring empire to restore the House to its rightful place.
Falun would eventually return with the crew of the Golden Hide and with the Imperium’s assistance the Ryalors regained their ancestral fortress of Storm’s Peak in 1727 and their capital of Peltarra and with happy news-he had married the sister of the Captain of the Hide, Tanya Rainblade, and had two kits with her, Aille and Valdrisk, and was second in command to the Minister of War Nuori Sken, seemingly being groomed to become the Imperium’s next Minister of War, which Alexei hoped could be leveraged into solidifying the position of the House and beginning to reclaim their birthright as an alliance was struck between the Ryalors and the Imperium. Things were looking up for the House and Talinn was able to leave exile, although he was unable to meet his brother, having missed his departure by a few days, but he was hopeful that he would be able to meet him, his wife, and children, and slowly regain the happiness he had lost in exile.
Unfortunately his brother was struck down in 1728 on the orders of Minister of Misanthropy Vladimir Ullyanov as part of his coup against the reigning Emperor Markan II and his move on Minister of War Nuori Sken, which threw Eastisle into chaos as the enemies of House Ryalor rose up once again sensing weakness. He and his grandfather Alexei fought them to a brutal standstill in a dirty and violent conflict known as the First Troubles that raged for two years, and he left the conflict bitter and changed at the actions he had to take to suppress the rebellion and the impact of the death of his beloved brother. By the time they had succeeded, the situation in the Imperium had changed, with Nuori Sken emerging victorious but being unable to depose the new Emperor without causing the country to devolve into civil war. Ullyanov was effectively put under house arrest, and Talinn returned to the Imperium in 1731 searching for his sister-in-law Tanya and his niece and nephew Aille and Valdrisk.
In another stroke of bad luck for the future Duke, they had fled and were presumed dead under fear of the Emperor’s potential resurgence and to seek a new life, so he and his grandfather decided to serve the Imperium and rebuild the fortunes of House Ryalor, with Talinn allying with Minister of Misanthropy Zilaco Wyndshard to do so and, it was rumored, seek vengeance on the Ullyanovs for their slaying of Falun. Over the next few years he would commit many dark deeds for the Minister and eventually succeeded him as Minister of Misanthropy, with his grandfather Alexei becoming Fogey Commissioner and gaining many allies as well as a cousin Vaelora that he grew close to. He even managed to get his first wife, Weylin, and things were looking up for the family and vengeance for Falun’s death seemed within his reach.
But such was not to be as yet failure struck and at the zenith of House Ryalor’s power the Imperium was invaded in the vicious Winter War of 1733 before Talinn could make his move on the Emperor and seize the throne to further his family’s ambitions. Although the Imperium succeeded in fighting off the foreign threat, it and House Ryalor were crippled, and his controversial actions to save the Imperium, such as seizing Bully Harbor’s food supply in Operation Frosted Cupcakes, eventually led to his ouster as Minister of Misanthropy, Alexei’s departure of Fogey Commissioner, his divorce from Weylin, and the death of his cousin Vaelora. Disillusioned and broken, both Talinn and Alexei returned to Eastisle, the Ryalors remaining allies of the Imperium but with comparatively strained relations.
Arriving back at Eastisle, Talinn and Alexei focused on solidifying their control over the two islands that comprised the province, Talinn married once more and had a number of kits, although their numbers and identities were kept hidden for reasons of security. Once more their fortunes seemed to rise, only for the Revolutions of 1748 to set off the Second Troubles, which lasted for another five years and which stained Talinn’s paws with even more blood. Emerging victorious around the time the Imperium’s Civil War ended, Talinn decided to make his move for the now throne of the Imperium to fulfill his decades-long ambitions. Allying with the Ministers under the pretense of restoring order to the Imperium and deposing General Amélie who had declared herself Empress, they concocted a plan to tie up her main forces by having the Ministers sally out of Bully Harbor while Talinn took House Ryalor’s forces and marched on Amarone to force the badly outnumbered Empress to surrender…and, it was rumored, perhaps take the throne for himself by having the Amélie and the Ministers annihilate each other.
In what became known as the Frimary 26th Incident, however, something mysterious happened. Talinn, with five battalions of House Ryalor troops, encircled Amarone with Empress Amélie only having a battalion to resist him. The new Empress offered a parlay to Talinn, who, intrigued and hoping to avoid losing any of his troops, agreed, meeting just outside the city limits of Amarone, a line that if crossed one could not come back from. The two would meet alone inside the tent for approximately one hour, ostensibly to discuss the future of the Imperium. Talinn was seen by his troops as walking in full of an almost Imperial confidence, and many were expecting him to walk out with the crown.
But something strange happened. Far from emerging victorious, Talinn exited the tent pale, looking ill, and even a bit fearful. He announced to his bewildered troops that instead of marching into Amarone, they would be allying with the Empress instead. Uneasy, but willing to trust in the Talinn, his battalions agreed and together he and Amélie’s combined strength forced a Ministerial surrender. Things seemed to be looking up for the Ryalors as Talinn entered the Ryalorian compound in Bully Harbor…and then everything changed as he entered to meet his grandfather Alexei.
No one knows exactly what occurred, only that heated voices were heard, steel was drawn, and Talinn emerged severely wounded with Alexei dead, now the official head of the Ryalor household. After his recovery, and with the backing of Amélie’s larger forces and with cannon surrounding them, he announced to his shocked troops that Eastisle would be renamed the Imperial Duchy of Westisle, that they would submit to Imperial rule, and that his own family would be “guests” of the Empress in Amarone. Furious but unable to do anything and fearing the costs of another civil war and fighting the now unified Imperium, his troops backed down, but with many of them spitting on the ground before him, and his nickname as the “Traitor” was solidified, betraying both his Ministerial allies and seemingly betraying his own people and house as well.
In the decade since the Incident, Talinn was “rewarded” by the Empress as Minister of Innovation, working to improve upon the technological discoveries of steam, cannon, and other such advances during the Imperial Civil War while rebuilding the loyalty of his people in Westisle by showcasing the Imperium’s power and ability to protect them, Although he has had more than a few successes, including a tense but improving relationship with his sister-in-law Tanya and her kits, it remains to be seen whether he can restore his reputation to his family, his people, and the Imperium at large…
| Age | 54 | ||
| Species | Red Fox | ||
| Gender | Male | ||
| Height | Average | ||
| Weight | Medium | ||
| Rank (Skill Rank) | Imperium's Finest Swordsbeast and Brawler, Professional Artillerybeast, Rookie Archer. | ||
| Rank (Official) | Minister of Innovation, former Minister of Misanthropy, Duke of Westisle | ||
| Alignment (Optional) | Lawful evil is the closest to his personality, although as he has grown older and more jaded he has grown closer to chaotic neutral. |
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Talinn is a fox of average height and a lean build, his fur kept cut short except for a few tufts on his head. His color is an unremarkable flaxen interspersed with spots of white around his neck and chest, the tip of his tail being a dull black. He has several faded scars across his face from combat, although they are hidden well by his fur. He has deep, ocean blue eyes which tend to be expressive these days compared to his younger years, flickers of deep emotions sometimes rising to the surface. He has remarkably good teeth for a vermin, likely due to his Fyadorian noble heritage which has an emphasis on cleanliness and discipline.
His usual outfit these days is a black tricorn hat, a red scarf, a military jacket in the blue and gold colors of House Ryalor, dark brown or black pants, black military boots, and a black cloak. He carries around with him a reinforced steel cane with a dark blue tourmaline gemstone pommel, his Auldarnian Steel katana Duty’s Burden and its sheath, and a steel backup dagger. Occasionally he can be seen dressed up or down depending on what event he is attending or if he is going incognito.
INVENTORY AND REAL ESTATE
Weapons
One Auldarnian Steel katana, Duty's Burden.
Backup regular steel knife.
Reinforced steel cane with a dark blue tourmaline gemstone pommel.
Real Estate
Ancestral Storm's Peak fortress (Peltarra, Westisle).
All official properties of the Minister of Innovation.
Ryalorian seaside castle (Insanely Rich Area, Bully Harbor, Vulpinsula).
PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS
Talinn, widely regarded and being notorious for being an outspoken and brusque individual in his younger years, has learned more tact and restraint as he has aged, often holding back his real thoughts to be more palatable to the general public. He now generally has a more reserved, polite, and somewhat cryptic demeanor, choosing his words carefully and often omitting details that he considers to be unimportant or that would make him and the Ryalors look bad. He is generally a morally gray individual who bends the letter of the law as far as he can without openly breaking it for his own interests and those of his family, and most notably attempts to keep all of his promises, albeit it can be a nightmare to get him to actually commit to anything and one has to be very specific with the terms of what they get him to agree to.
Beneath this exterior lies a fox of many emotions and traumas, however, as he is a beast who has continually reached new heights only to have them stolen or to fall through his own flaws again and again and who has lost, been forced to kill, or has as “guests” of the Empress most of his family members. Those few who do enter his service note that he is doggedly loyal to them and does his best to protect them from harm and that his almost impenetrable mask breaks whenever they come to serious harm, and a select few might see the real, guilt-ridden, anxious fox behind his cool exterior.
STRENGTHS
-Excellent and deadly swordsbeast who is one of the best in the Imperium with his katana and dagger combination and more than formidable with just his cane as well.
-Decent at firing and directing artillery.
-Has a large amount of financial resources and commands a battalion of soldiers per his rights as Duke.
WEAKNESSES
-Mediocre with ranged weapons or melee weapons other than a sword and a dagger and his paws.
-Little popular support to aim higher than his current station in the Imperium, and even whether he can maintain his present station without being forced to retire remains to be seen.
-Feels compelled to live up to the letter of the law as it shields him and his family and is loathe to break a promise, meaning if one can catch him in one he will almost always honor it if he is able.
HISTORY
The history of the fox known to the Imperium as Duke Talinn Ryalor or to many as Talinn the Traitor for his betrayal of the Ministers during Empress Amélie’s coup and for striking down his own grandfather and submitting Westisle and House Ryalor to Imperial rule is one shrouded in mystery, unknowns, and half-truths and few, if any, are close enough to him to know the full story. If one were granted the power of omnipotence, however, they would see that the nature of his heart is not cold and black like many insist it is, but rather pained and painted with many shades of gray, and to truly understand his nature requires an understanding of his past.
Talinn was born in Fyad, the capital of the ancient and powerful vulpine empire of Fyador, in 1710, second son to the Emperor after his brother Falun, in the midst of civil strife and a mere three years before the Fyadorian Revolution of 1713 which would see the deposition and slaughter of much of the Imperial family and their hasty retreat to their ancestral province of Eastisle as the country collapsed into total civil war, the two heirs smuggled out of the mainland at the last moment by their grandfather Alexei while his mother and father died. They would be safe and enjoy a happy kithood, perhaps the only period in his life where Talinn truly was so, until he turned fifteen in 1725 and the unrest and factors which led to the collapse of the Empire reached Eastisle. Talinn was forced to live in isolation hiding deep in the Auldarnian mountains, watching many of his loyal retainers and friends were struck down by warfare and disease, while his brother Falun fled to the Vulpine Imperium at the insistence of his grandfather to seek assistance and ingratiate himself with the powerful seafaring empire to restore the House to its rightful place.
Falun would eventually return with the crew of the Golden Hide and with the Imperium’s assistance the Ryalors regained their ancestral fortress of Storm’s Peak in 1727 and their capital of Peltarra and with happy news-he had married the sister of the Captain of the Hide, Tanya Rainblade, and had two kits with her, Aille and Valdrisk, and was second in command to the Minister of War Nuori Sken, seemingly being groomed to become the Imperium’s next Minister of War, which Alexei hoped could be leveraged into solidifying the position of the House and beginning to reclaim their birthright as an alliance was struck between the Ryalors and the Imperium. Things were looking up for the House and Talinn was able to leave exile, although he was unable to meet his brother, having missed his departure by a few days, but he was hopeful that he would be able to meet him, his wife, and children, and slowly regain the happiness he had lost in exile.
Unfortunately his brother was struck down in 1728 on the orders of Minister of Misanthropy Vladimir Ullyanov as part of his coup against the reigning Emperor Markan II and his move on Minister of War Nuori Sken, which threw Eastisle into chaos as the enemies of House Ryalor rose up once again sensing weakness. He and his grandfather Alexei fought them to a brutal standstill in a dirty and violent conflict known as the First Troubles that raged for two years, and he left the conflict bitter and changed at the actions he had to take to suppress the rebellion and the impact of the death of his beloved brother. By the time they had succeeded, the situation in the Imperium had changed, with Nuori Sken emerging victorious but being unable to depose the new Emperor without causing the country to devolve into civil war. Ullyanov was effectively put under house arrest, and Talinn returned to the Imperium in 1731 searching for his sister-in-law Tanya and his niece and nephew Aille and Valdrisk.
In another stroke of bad luck for the future Duke, they had fled and were presumed dead under fear of the Emperor’s potential resurgence and to seek a new life, so he and his grandfather decided to serve the Imperium and rebuild the fortunes of House Ryalor, with Talinn allying with Minister of Misanthropy Zilaco Wyndshard to do so and, it was rumored, seek vengeance on the Ullyanovs for their slaying of Falun. Over the next few years he would commit many dark deeds for the Minister and eventually succeeded him as Minister of Misanthropy, with his grandfather Alexei becoming Fogey Commissioner and gaining many allies as well as a cousin Vaelora that he grew close to. He even managed to get his first wife, Weylin, and things were looking up for the family and vengeance for Falun’s death seemed within his reach.
But such was not to be as yet failure struck and at the zenith of House Ryalor’s power the Imperium was invaded in the vicious Winter War of 1733 before Talinn could make his move on the Emperor and seize the throne to further his family’s ambitions. Although the Imperium succeeded in fighting off the foreign threat, it and House Ryalor were crippled, and his controversial actions to save the Imperium, such as seizing Bully Harbor’s food supply in Operation Frosted Cupcakes, eventually led to his ouster as Minister of Misanthropy, Alexei’s departure of Fogey Commissioner, his divorce from Weylin, and the death of his cousin Vaelora. Disillusioned and broken, both Talinn and Alexei returned to Eastisle, the Ryalors remaining allies of the Imperium but with comparatively strained relations.
Arriving back at Eastisle, Talinn and Alexei focused on solidifying their control over the two islands that comprised the province, Talinn married once more and had a number of kits, although their numbers and identities were kept hidden for reasons of security. Once more their fortunes seemed to rise, only for the Revolutions of 1748 to set off the Second Troubles, which lasted for another five years and which stained Talinn’s paws with even more blood. Emerging victorious around the time the Imperium’s Civil War ended, Talinn decided to make his move for the now throne of the Imperium to fulfill his decades-long ambitions. Allying with the Ministers under the pretense of restoring order to the Imperium and deposing General Amélie who had declared herself Empress, they concocted a plan to tie up her main forces by having the Ministers sally out of Bully Harbor while Talinn took House Ryalor’s forces and marched on Amarone to force the badly outnumbered Empress to surrender…and, it was rumored, perhaps take the throne for himself by having the Amélie and the Ministers annihilate each other.
In what became known as the Frimary 26th Incident, however, something mysterious happened. Talinn, with five battalions of House Ryalor troops, encircled Amarone with Empress Amélie only having a battalion to resist him. The new Empress offered a parlay to Talinn, who, intrigued and hoping to avoid losing any of his troops, agreed, meeting just outside the city limits of Amarone, a line that if crossed one could not come back from. The two would meet alone inside the tent for approximately one hour, ostensibly to discuss the future of the Imperium. Talinn was seen by his troops as walking in full of an almost Imperial confidence, and many were expecting him to walk out with the crown.
But something strange happened. Far from emerging victorious, Talinn exited the tent pale, looking ill, and even a bit fearful. He announced to his bewildered troops that instead of marching into Amarone, they would be allying with the Empress instead. Uneasy, but willing to trust in the Talinn, his battalions agreed and together he and Amélie’s combined strength forced a Ministerial surrender. Things seemed to be looking up for the Ryalors as Talinn entered the Ryalorian compound in Bully Harbor…and then everything changed as he entered to meet his grandfather Alexei.
No one knows exactly what occurred, only that heated voices were heard, steel was drawn, and Talinn emerged severely wounded with Alexei dead, now the official head of the Ryalor household. After his recovery, and with the backing of Amélie’s larger forces and with cannon surrounding them, he announced to his shocked troops that Eastisle would be renamed the Imperial Duchy of Westisle, that they would submit to Imperial rule, and that his own family would be “guests” of the Empress in Amarone. Furious but unable to do anything and fearing the costs of another civil war and fighting the now unified Imperium, his troops backed down, but with many of them spitting on the ground before him, and his nickname as the “Traitor” was solidified, betraying both his Ministerial allies and seemingly betraying his own people and house as well.
In the decade since the Incident, Talinn was “rewarded” by the Empress as Minister of Innovation, working to improve upon the technological discoveries of steam, cannon, and other such advances during the Imperial Civil War while rebuilding the loyalty of his people in Westisle by showcasing the Imperium’s power and ability to protect them, Although he has had more than a few successes, including a tense but improving relationship with his sister-in-law Tanya and her kits, it remains to be seen whether he can restore his reputation to his family, his people, and the Imperium at large…
