Kerney Erdősi
Skills
Skills
Total Points Available To Spend |
|---|
12 |
Physical | Mental | Social |
|---|---|---|
| Crossbow [Novice] (1) | Streetwise [Trained] (2) | Detect Lies [Novice] (1) |
| Brawling [Trained] (2) | Carousing [Proficient] (3) | |
| Dirty Fighting [Novice] (1) | ||
| Climbing [Trained] (2) | ||
| TOTAL: 6 | TOTAL: 2 | TOTAL: 4 |
General Information
Age: 21
Species: Squirrel
Sex: Male
Size: Medium
Physical Description
Often covered by his poet shirt, his neck and belly do bear white fur that covers some of his wiry and borderline malnourished frame. Still, his tail seems healthy for a squirrel - fluffy and large - which he decorates with a tail bracelet the same sheen as his earrings. His trousers are a tattered mess of green patchwork held up by a heroic black rope waistband, and his brown leather boots old but unremarkable.
The scent of ale tends to announce his presence from a great distance.Inventory and Real Estate
Pre-Revolutionary Standard Crossbow
Sad Man's Garb
Old Waterskin
Hammock, hung in the Northeast Treeline of Bully Harbour
Personality
Beasts often say that Kerney comes across as reckless, brash, shortsighted, and childish. He is all of those things. Kerney has an admirable lust for life and determination to not only find fun but seek it out in the most bland of things; often to the detriment of others. While a recent change of heart has him now consciously looking out for others' physical wellbeing, the same cannot be said for his own. While some beasts are offput by this (as they well ought to be), Kerney holds a deep and genuine desire to put his misspent youth behind him and do good... on his own terms. Though he has a well-defined sense of justice, there is only so much to be done in a world that you are only tolerated in, which has caused him much pain in the past.
Above all else, Kerney wants to belong in this world, and he wants others to see that he belongs as well. Given that he's a woodlander, it isn't exactly easy to convince vermin of this -- although it's gotten better in recent years. This has caused no shortage of identity issues that would have been solved with a nice fistfight in another life. Now, he just turns to the bottle to solve that problem.
Strengths
HE WHO FEARS DEATH CANNOT ENJOY LIFE
TO LIVE AND TO DIE IN THE IMPERIUM
HORRIPILATION
Working with shady beasts to afford your next meal puts you in many, many dangerous situations. Kerney has developed a keen sense for when things are about to turn south, and when to act before it's too late to ever act again.Weaknesses
THE SHARKS
"WORKING" CLASS HERO
This beast grew up as an urchin, far removed from any interaction the upper classes of the Imperium that wasn't taking their things when they weren't looking. He doesn't know - or care - much about aristocratisms or current prominent political figures (excepting Amélie). He is particularly jaded towards the hoity-toity rich beasts from Bully Harbour that are so easily swindled out of their gliders on their trips to Kenny's Bunk Pointe.WHO AM I?
Kerney grew up at a time when the Imperium was only just relaxing immigration restrictions, and was born of parents that had no other choice than to flee the Southern Continent. Needless to say, he has experienced no end of specism in during his youth and adult life. Despite this, he considers the Imperium as his true home; he's known no other place. Being surrounded by vermin, he is subject to frequent identity crises. Things would be simpler if he were just born a rat.History
Kerney was born in Resolution during the autumn of 1744 to Aliz and Miklós Erdősi, two squirrels that had fled persecution from a nameless woodland village in the Southern Continent. He never knew what it was that they did. Neither were citizens -- but it was clear that whatever life they made in the Imperium was better than facing the consequences of their actions back on the Southern Continent. Here, they managed to settle a small, concealed farm to eek out a meager living selling spices: sandalwood, cardamom and ginger. Of course, this was illegal; the same connections that had sailed them out of the Southern Continent had agreed to turn the spices over to the legitimate market for a large fee, leaving only barely enough for the family to live on. But it was enough. So, life went on.
Then the weather began to change. It got drier in the dry season, wetter in the wet season. Colder, too. The Erdősi house frequently had to deal with droughts, which in turn brought floods from the impermeable dry soil. They went from barely surviving on their own to needing to steal to feed themselves; and just like that, the innocent life they had wished to carve for themselves was no more. Kerney was four years old when the family awoke in 1748 to see their entire field - every last plant, every inch of crop - withered and dead. It had happened overnight, a strange blight that ravaged their and their neighbors' crops like an invisible wildfire.
Without their living, the family had no choice but to resort to a beggar's life -- the new fate of many beasts in these trying times. In 1750, Miklós ambled upon a simple understanding: Resolution was a lost cause. The family turned their heads to East Tookumberry Key. Always wanting to live there, but having run out of their meager savings years ago to travel legitimately, they had opted to stow away in a merchant ship.
Getting in was easy. When stock was accounted for, all they had to do was hide in crates and they were aboard for free. What six-year-old Kerney was sealed in with, alone and by himself, was military equipment. He spent what may as well have been an eternity pressed against steel helmets and crossbows (but thankfully no blades).
In hard times, creatures become desperate. Kerney awoke from a sleep-like state to a loud bang, beasts shouting, and water pooling at his feet. Panicking, he blew his cover to avoid drowning, running up to the top deck where beasts hacked at each other with sabres in broad daylight -- pirates. His parents were on the other side of the ship, holding each other, just enough time to lock eyes with their son. In the commotion on the morning of Macabre 10, 1750, Kerney Erdősi watched in horror as his parents were cut down in front of him.
The rest of the day was a blur. Kerney was captured alive, for one reason or another, along with the ship's cargo. He sat in the brig alone, inconsolable, redirected from their path to East Tookumberry to God-Knows-Where. It took days. Then it happened again. Bang. Shouting. Water. Then, a small taste of death.
In through the brig wall came something fast and heavy, smashing the wood to pieces and sending splinters everwhere. Had Kerney been a foot to the right, he would have been made a porcupine. Out of his new window, in the bright light of day and through the smoke of battle, he saw it -- a third-rate ship, tall and full of little navy men, with the Imperium's ensign fluttering in the sea breeze. In the light, it looked like an angel.
Another shot rang and shook the ground out from underneath him. He toppled down, over the edge of the hole, down into the frigid sea water below. Thankfully, the fight had generated an ample supply of driftwood, which he pulled himself onto and pushed himself away from the battle on. There was little else for Kerney to do, then, but wait and hope for the currents to not pull him back out to open sea.
After being rocked to sleep by the sea's gentle waves, Kerney Erdősi awoke having washed up on the shore not far from Bully Harbour with a steel crossbow a few yards down the shoreline, now his only posession. Alone and in a strange place, he decided to do what he had to do before: beg. Beg for vittles. Beg for shelter. Beg for mercy. The war was hard on everyone, but thankfully, cruel as most beasts were, some were charitible to children... Even woodlanders. One fox gave him a hammock, which he hung in a dense tree just outside of town -- his new home. He even made some vermin friends his age to cause mischief with.
As Kerney got older, the act wore thin. Beasts that had given him food when he first arrived now saw him as a leech and kicked him to the side. The Revolutions had long since ended, but nobody wanted him for work -- he was a woodlander and didn't even have citizenship. Most of his friends had died on the street or moved on. Nobody wanted to party with Kerney.
So he acted out. He started threatening, beating beasts for any semblence of a glider. He had gotten good enough with his crossbow to hunt birds in the forest; this was his fun money. He didn't need those old friends anyway, the bottle was friendly enough. He gained a whole new set of friends to do mischief with -- not kiddie mischief this time. Kerney got into no end of trouble, quite regularly getting himself into situations that could have left him dead. He'd made awful friends and even worse enemies.
Now 21, Kerney has thankfully mellowed out a little. One night, while hanging in his hammock, he had a realization: the Imperium was his home, but he has never belonged on this island. The navy promises adventure, hope, a life on the seas if one can stomach it. With his reputation in this town, there's not a lot of other options but to finally get his citizenship and join anyway.
Who knows, maybe he'll even see his parents' home again.
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