Lord Miles von Wexlar (Rackenhammer)

Sade · Rogue Joined: 23 Jul 2009 Posts: 63

Name: Lord Miles von Wexlar

Species: Ferret

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Physical Description: A bit deformed but not horribly so. His left leg is about 2 centimeters shorter than his right, so he walks with an unever gait. Also, his spine is slightly crooked, which balances out the unbalance in his legs so that his shoulders are almost level. He's only 5'4'', but his head lookes like it belongs upon a body about 8 inches taller. His back is slightly hunched, which means he stands shorter than he really is. His skeleton is rather brittle, with muscles that seem too overdeveloped for it to support.

Personality: Hyperactive, or rather, he functions best when hyperactive. So long as he is doing something, "maintaining forward momentum" as he calls it, he is a cheerful, charming person. Despite the difficulties his body gives him, he still maintains a vigorous lifestyle, exercsing both body and mind. He has to, otherwise, he can lose his momentum, and find himself in a depressed funk. This happens a lot when he breaks one of his brittle bones.
He is not a very subordinate person. Not to say that he rebels against authority, it's just that the group dynamics of any situation he finds himself in usually end up with him saying what is done, usually without anyone noticing. Years of trying to get his way out of his parent's overprotection have sharpened these skills a lot.

Biography: Miles is the only son of the current Duke of Wexlar, Fredrick von Wexlar. How his father acquired this position is a significant part of Miles's story.
The old Duke of Wexlar, Otto, was singularly nasty individual. It didn't help that he was proficient in Dark Magic, and quite skilled in manipulating the lesser nobles and the various magical academies of his territory so that no widespread, orgainized resistance formed. The few who did rebel were usually crushed.
One such person was a baron by the name of Piotr. In punishment for his rebellion, Otto pronounced a curse upon Piotr's household, that the firstborn of his family and their descendants would be destroyed by a dark, mutative plague. The first victim was Piotr's eldest son, Fredrick's older brother. Piotr was a broken fur afterward. Fredrick, who was only five at the time, wasn't told what happened to his brother.
Now, as a baron's second son, Fredrick was low enough on the social scale not to have to be subject to a political match (such things were discouraged by Otto anyway, for fear that a strong familial alliance would erode his power base.) So, Fredrick fell in love with a commoner, Kara by name, and determined to marry her. A htich was thrown in the proceedings by an attack on the village where she lived by slavers, who carted her, among others, away. Fredrick wouldn't have any of that, so he immediately, upon hearing the news, dragged a few of his guardsmen and a dozen angry commoners in pursuit of the slavers.
Surprinsingly, everything went off rather well. The slavers were apparently expecting no pursuit, and were taken by surprise. The joy of Fredirck and Kara's reunion was marred by the discovery that the slavers had been in the pay of the Duke, and were in fact only a part of a larger organization which padded the pockets of the Duke and kept the populae under his thumb, by proding an "outside enemy" too keep the rabble-rouser's attention away from their local tyrant.
Incensed, Fredrick returned to his father demanding an explanation why such things were tolerated. It was then that Piotr informed him and Kara about Otto and his curse. This did nothing to dampen Fredrick's rage; it just channeled it into a conviction: Otto shall pay for his foul deeds.
Slowly, Fredrick built a rebel force, mostly from the commoners. Using the guards and peasants from his first raid on the slavers, he conducted more raids, and added to his army fromthe grateful commoners. Local nobles began to take notice, and secretly supported him. Resistance suddenly began to coalesce against the Duke, and the magical acadmenis began to take notice too.
So also did the duke notice. He figured, however, that the imminent death of Fredrick's soon-to-be-born son would break him as it broke his father.
Fredrick, however, had prepared countermeansures. The best healers he could spare were sent to be with his wife when she gave birt to Miles. While the magical treatments managed to save Miles's life, they also rendered Kara infertile, and Miles was deformed. Still, he lived, and that was enough for his father.
The conflict soon came to an all-out war. Miles and Kara were kept behind the battle lines, with Miles's Granfather Piotr. Miles grew up aware and proud of what his father was doing, and eagerly looked forward to any time Fredrick could spare to be with his son.
Then, at last, the war was over. Otto had been defeated at last, and Fredrick crowned Duke of Wexlar. He took advantage of the euphoria to begin a purging of Wexlar's nobility, booting out those loyal to Otto and appointing replacements (not always of noble blood).
Miles, in the meantime, was beginning to find out what it meant to be regarded as deformed. Among the greater population, the general reaction to him was either pity or revulsion. Depending on how he felt when he encountered these, Miles would either be galvanized to prove he deserved neither, or be pushed deeper into a derpressed funk.
Miles is now 18. He desperately wants to make his father proud of him, by doing something a great as what Duke Fredrick did in Wexlar, or at least by showing that he's capable of doing something that great. Given that he isn't let out of the Ducal Grounds often, that is difficult. But Miles is not about to back down from the challenge...

(Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where I got the inspiration for this guy.)
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"Scientists have calculated that the patently absurd has a million-to-one chance of occuring. Any competant magician will tell you million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten."
-Terry Pratchett

Telemain Eveks

Kolin von Drake

James Rackenhammer

Miles von Wexlar

Zechariah Vesperocci
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Sade rhymes with Made