Bartolomeo Bjurnsen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gentlecountry) wrote2019-01-27 10:25 pm
gentlecountry) wrote2019-01-27 10:25 pm
Application: Fade Rift
Application for Fade Rift
Name: Mica
Age: 32
Contact: here
Other Characters: Sorrelean "Sorrel" Ashara
Interests: I just think it would be nice to play a dwarf and a warden and also play with a set of built-in CR so I can feel less isolated. I'm hoping it will be fun to try something different.
Name: Bartolomeo "Barty" Bjurnsen
Canon/OC: OC
Journal:gentlecountry
Race: Dwarf
Nationality: Orzammar
Occupation: Former Nug Farmer, former Caravan Guard, Unprentant Ex-Mummer, Grey Warden
Division: Warden
Mage or Not: Not
Age: 45
History
His mother was a member of the farming-caste who owned the nug ranch that had been in the family for many generations, which grew deep mushrooms, edible lichen, and specialized in farm-raised nugs both for the tables of Orzammar and for fancy breeding purposes. As she was the lone heir of said farm, there was no one to stop her from pairing up with a casteless duster like Barty's father, nor from producing children out of this happy, lifelong marriage. So when both parents had passed away, as per Orzammar tradition, Barty's younger sister inherited her mother's caste, and her farm, and Barty inherited... being a casteless loser who had been kicked out of his own childhood home by his own sister. Siblings are garbage, inheritance is garbage, castes are garbage, who needs 'em.
So, faced with a choice between Dust Town and the surface he ultimately decided to try his luck topside, and ascended the ranks at a meteoric speed to achieve the lofty title of Thedas Ultimate Sunburn Champion. Also he happened by luck to get recruited by a traveling band of entertainers, players, and general ne'er-do-wells. They had low standards and he had nothing to lose, but also he was very poor and probably wouldn't get a better offer himself. It seems to have worked out well given that he has lot of skills in managing excitable often-naked creatures and fighting things that attack in the dark, and the mummers have a lot of skills in the realm of somehow remaining solvent despite everything. Then, when his troupe of idiots got ambushed by a random pack of Darkspawn, followed belatedly by a perusing Grey Warden, he ended up showing to advantage in the process of getting blighted and was given the usual ultimatum.
Thereby did he become a Warden. And there's something about being being humble, hardworking, and extremely unwilling to die that just says "officer material." It must be the way you eventually outlive everyone, and thereby carry the secret private sorrow that most adults consider to be a normal state of affairs.
So, he eventually he became Warden-Constable, and helped lead a generally normal and peaceable pack of what he fondly refers to as "half-blighted idiots" in Antiva, had a good and fruitful career by dint of not getting involved in famously-cutthroat Antivan politics. Even so, after a period of years, he grew to dislike the particular lifestyle of a stagnant, uninvolved Warden outpost, and retired from responsibility once he had spent a period of years training a successor for his position and seeing them comfortably in place. Barty is big on the peaceful transfer of power.
And then, since no real Warden ever really wanted a quiet retirement, he went off to see what good could be done since he heard a rumor that old Battleaxe Teren died. It's got to be exciting if it can do all THAT.
Personality
☖ denotes a weakness
☗ indicates a strength
Peaceable and Calm in a Crisis
☗ Rarely starts fights, always finishes them
☗ Abdicated his position in favor of a living successor
☗ Once called his lieutenant "son" for a month until it got so awkward that he was asked to stop, seemed confused as to why
☗ Always takes a turn on the cooking and cleaning chores, even though he doesn't have to
☗ Whenever he cooks, whatever it is, it has Many Butter in it
☗ Largely apolitical
☗ Big proponent of Warden Community Outreach, making him popular with local farmers and peasantry
☗ Known to react to being charged with deadly intent, by sighing and saying "That's a shame."
☗ Not angry with the murderers and brigands he's had to kill, only disappointed
☗ Finishes his Warden-Commander's sentences and usually follows orders before they are issued, because they've known one another for so long and can predict what's needed.
☖ Occasionally slow to react to social tension before it hits a tipping point
☖ Elementally weak to the temptation of not doing anything and hoping for the best
Earthy and Practical-Minded
☗ Refers to the regular and necessary culling of Darkspawn as "chorin'"
☗ Can make moonshine from mushrooms and cheese from nug milk
☗ Categorically incapable of turning down a fistfight should one be offered
☗ Uses wood-cutting tools as weaponry
☗ Beard
☗ Claims he only attained his current rank by outliving people, which facts do not contradict
☖ Has no actual respect for a Warden's place of reverence in history, nor much for the non-utilitarian traditions of Warden Culture.
☖ One time, he initiated someone by handing them the chalice of joining and declaring:
"May you never go to hell
But always be on your way."
☖ Will, on occasion, milk a nug
☖ Barn Smell
A Poet At Heart
☗ Knows many poetry, and will say them, particularly when attempting to sound wise
☗ Once spent six months aggressively spite-researching andrastianism specifically for the purpose of winning religious arguments with a Chanter who annoyed him
☗ laminates pressed flowers onto his armor, because they're pretty
☗ Drank that Respecting Women juice
☗ thinks that "the language of flowers" is a real thing
☗ despite everything, good at speechmaking in his own gentle way
☖ seems to genuinely think that being well read on a topic of interest is a useful substitute for knowing how to flirt or indeed talk to objects of romantic affection at all
☖ Shares his opinions with people, even when they clearly do not want them
Misc
☗ If he holds a lamb in a field, whilst wearing a homespun shirt with a little of his chest showing at the neckline, you should not look directly at him, in the same manner that one should avoid looking directly at the sun
☖ maybe someone died that way. you never know.
Opinions & Affiliations
About the Chantry, the Qun, and the Qunari in general, Barty has always considered them to be large and vaguely important things that nevertheless have nothing to do with him, or indeed with anything of actual importance such as, for example, whelping season or the right way to make a sharp cheese. This opinion is echoed similarly with things like elven race relations, the fade, mages, all forms of dreaming, and also the actual literal Sun.
If asked, he would opine upon things like the Circle, Templars, and other such power imbalances vis a vis noble classes and Orlais in general as: "Well it seems to me as that this sorts of things is unfair in a kind of poetical manner. But then agains, I guess it just goes to show" without elaborating on what, exactly, it goes to show or in what specific ways anything is unfair. He is interested in knowing about things, and usually has an opinion, but it's almost never a very strong one, and he's unlikely to do much about it being as it has nothing to do with him and is none of his business anyhow. While he hopes to make the world a better place before he leaves it, his first and only real job is keepin' the Darkspawn down and making sure other Wardens are available to do the same after he's done.
This lackadaisical attitude sometimes doesn't apply when dealing with personal injustices visited upon people he knows and is friends with. But that's not about justice, fairness, or combating bigotry, that's about pride and friendship. What kind of friend won't get in a fistfight for his good buddy who'd certainly do the same thing for him? No friend of mine!
Strengths & Weaknesses
☖ denotes a weakness
☗ indicates a strength
Combat
☗ Hand-axes
☗ can throw them and hit a deepstalker at a really impressive range in very low light
☗ stronk farmboy with big muscles
☗ will fistfight on request for no actual reason
☗ can take a punch and not mind
☗ not a sore loser
☖ willing to bite off far more than he can chew in a fistfight
☖ not used to wearing anything but the lightest leather armor
☖ never liked a weapon that wasn't also a useful farm implement
Skills
☗ The Care And Keeping Of Quality Nugs
☗ Very Good nug steak skills
☗ cave flora cultivation
☗ cheesemaking
☗ mushroom moonshine
☗ killer hangover cure
☗ amateur poet
☖ cannot sew more than a patch to save the life of him
☖ some of those words only rhyme in a rural dwarf hick accent
Personality
☗ generally very easygoing and difficult to offend
☗ Lawful Good
☗ Honest and Kind
☖ Very Strong nug and/or nugsteak opinions
☖ Lawful Good
☖ Has an ordered list of favorite dwarven cheeses which he can and will recite from memory, with reasons explaining each placement.
☖ The exact opposite of a smooth operator.
Inventory
☗ Throwing-balanced hand axes x 6
☗ Warden armor (scale-mail, well maintained and shiny)
☗ Several books, written in a small but neat hand, some of which have detailed illustrations
☗ A personal journal, written in cipher
☗ a small bell
☗ A well-worn wooden tankard declaring its bearer as "World's Best"
☗ A large, squat bottle made from bubble-marred amber glass which is labeled Vintage: Warden Bjurnsen. Mostly Mushrooms, Partly Piss. It has a small, round handle worked into the glass, just big enough for a thumb.
Motivation
He's abdicated the responsibility of his position and is now both curious and wanting to be useful. A bad case of the Warden Wanderlusties.
Rocky Road | Open Log
"Now, most Grey Wardens, being of right minds, dislikes the Deep Roads. T'be fair, there's a lot to dislikes abouts 'em," Barty said, awe in hand. He was using it to gesture at the cavern around himself, which had suspiciously flat and perpendicular walls, though the roof had long ago gone to limestone and now dripped with stalactites, "But I'll tells ya, there's a lot to learn abouts the Dark Roads, and it'll save your life. So pay attentions here."
It was not an orthodox place to give a lecture. It was, actually, a terrible place too give a lecture. But this part of the Deep Roads was more road than deep, and only really a day's walk underground. The call had gone out, and however ignorantly, the unknowing of the had-been Inquisition had answered; if they were going to end up in the Deep Roads from time to time, why not attend a lecture on the subject of how to navigate them? It was being led by a Grey Warden, after all!
"Now, lookie here. What you gots here is your standard bas relief work of arts. This is indicative of ancient dwarfens settlements. Now what that means, is that somewheres around heres, if you were to keeps walkin' you'd find yourselfs in a Thaig. Can anybody tells me if they remembers what a Thaig is?"
Pointing with the axe, he selects a likely student, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Smooth Waters | Crystal Broadcast
[There is a sound of crackling paper and a faint, birdish noise. After some delay, as if to gather his thoughts, there comes a voice in an odd, drawling accent. He is eating something from a paper package.]
I feels that, given the circumstances, some congratulations are in order.
[The paper rattles. crunch crunch crunch crunch]
Now, t'be fair, I had heard a good deal of rumors before comings here. Why, to hear some people's talk, you coulds be building a new chantry everys-other day and they'd say it was just so's that you could burn it down in the mornings, but I still expecteds a lot of poor management here. But.
But.
I sees now, [crunch crunch crunch crunch] That I oughts to be calling it allegedlies poor management.
Griffons. Real live griffons. And I thought yous were full of it, when I heard! And do you knows, Warden Teren's been called deads out in Antiva? Now there's a lie what's getting somebodies in trouble. I owe you an apology, each and every ones of you, don't mind saying.
Seems you could be doing a lot worse.
PLAYER
Name: Mica
Age: 32
Contact: here
Other Characters: Sorrelean "Sorrel" Ashara
Interests: I just think it would be nice to play a dwarf and a warden and also play with a set of built-in CR so I can feel less isolated. I'm hoping it will be fun to try something different.
CHARACTER
Name: Bartolomeo "Barty" Bjurnsen
Canon/OC: OC
Journal:
gentlecountryRace: Dwarf
Nationality: Orzammar
Occupation: Former Nug Farmer, former Caravan Guard, Unprentant Ex-Mummer, Grey Warden
Division: Warden
Mage or Not: Not
Age: 45
History
His mother was a member of the farming-caste who owned the nug ranch that had been in the family for many generations, which grew deep mushrooms, edible lichen, and specialized in farm-raised nugs both for the tables of Orzammar and for fancy breeding purposes. As she was the lone heir of said farm, there was no one to stop her from pairing up with a casteless duster like Barty's father, nor from producing children out of this happy, lifelong marriage. So when both parents had passed away, as per Orzammar tradition, Barty's younger sister inherited her mother's caste, and her farm, and Barty inherited... being a casteless loser who had been kicked out of his own childhood home by his own sister. Siblings are garbage, inheritance is garbage, castes are garbage, who needs 'em.
So, faced with a choice between Dust Town and the surface he ultimately decided to try his luck topside, and ascended the ranks at a meteoric speed to achieve the lofty title of Thedas Ultimate Sunburn Champion. Also he happened by luck to get recruited by a traveling band of entertainers, players, and general ne'er-do-wells. They had low standards and he had nothing to lose, but also he was very poor and probably wouldn't get a better offer himself. It seems to have worked out well given that he has lot of skills in managing excitable often-naked creatures and fighting things that attack in the dark, and the mummers have a lot of skills in the realm of somehow remaining solvent despite everything. Then, when his troupe of idiots got ambushed by a random pack of Darkspawn, followed belatedly by a perusing Grey Warden, he ended up showing to advantage in the process of getting blighted and was given the usual ultimatum.
Thereby did he become a Warden. And there's something about being being humble, hardworking, and extremely unwilling to die that just says "officer material." It must be the way you eventually outlive everyone, and thereby carry the secret private sorrow that most adults consider to be a normal state of affairs.
So, he eventually he became Warden-Constable, and helped lead a generally normal and peaceable pack of what he fondly refers to as "half-blighted idiots" in Antiva, had a good and fruitful career by dint of not getting involved in famously-cutthroat Antivan politics. Even so, after a period of years, he grew to dislike the particular lifestyle of a stagnant, uninvolved Warden outpost, and retired from responsibility once he had spent a period of years training a successor for his position and seeing them comfortably in place. Barty is big on the peaceful transfer of power.
And then, since no real Warden ever really wanted a quiet retirement, he went off to see what good could be done since he heard a rumor that old Battleaxe Teren died. It's got to be exciting if it can do all THAT.
Personality
☖ denotes a weakness
☗ indicates a strength
Peaceable and Calm in a Crisis
☗ Rarely starts fights, always finishes them
☗ Abdicated his position in favor of a living successor
☗ Once called his lieutenant "son" for a month until it got so awkward that he was asked to stop, seemed confused as to why
☗ Always takes a turn on the cooking and cleaning chores, even though he doesn't have to
☗ Whenever he cooks, whatever it is, it has Many Butter in it
☗ Largely apolitical
☗ Big proponent of Warden Community Outreach, making him popular with local farmers and peasantry
☗ Known to react to being charged with deadly intent, by sighing and saying "That's a shame."
☗ Not angry with the murderers and brigands he's had to kill, only disappointed
☗ Finishes his Warden-Commander's sentences and usually follows orders before they are issued, because they've known one another for so long and can predict what's needed.
☖ Occasionally slow to react to social tension before it hits a tipping point
☖ Elementally weak to the temptation of not doing anything and hoping for the best
Earthy and Practical-Minded
☗ Refers to the regular and necessary culling of Darkspawn as "chorin'"
☗ Can make moonshine from mushrooms and cheese from nug milk
☗ Categorically incapable of turning down a fistfight should one be offered
☗ Uses wood-cutting tools as weaponry
☗ Beard
☗ Claims he only attained his current rank by outliving people, which facts do not contradict
☖ Has no actual respect for a Warden's place of reverence in history, nor much for the non-utilitarian traditions of Warden Culture.
☖ One time, he initiated someone by handing them the chalice of joining and declaring:
But always be on your way."
☖ Will, on occasion, milk a nug
☖ Barn Smell
A Poet At Heart
☗ Knows many poetry, and will say them, particularly when attempting to sound wise
☗ Once spent six months aggressively spite-researching andrastianism specifically for the purpose of winning religious arguments with a Chanter who annoyed him
☗ laminates pressed flowers onto his armor, because they're pretty
☗ Drank that Respecting Women juice
☗ thinks that "the language of flowers" is a real thing
☗ despite everything, good at speechmaking in his own gentle way
☖ seems to genuinely think that being well read on a topic of interest is a useful substitute for knowing how to flirt or indeed talk to objects of romantic affection at all
☖ Shares his opinions with people, even when they clearly do not want them
Misc
☗ If he holds a lamb in a field, whilst wearing a homespun shirt with a little of his chest showing at the neckline, you should not look directly at him, in the same manner that one should avoid looking directly at the sun
☖ maybe someone died that way. you never know.
Opinions & Affiliations
About the Chantry, the Qun, and the Qunari in general, Barty has always considered them to be large and vaguely important things that nevertheless have nothing to do with him, or indeed with anything of actual importance such as, for example, whelping season or the right way to make a sharp cheese. This opinion is echoed similarly with things like elven race relations, the fade, mages, all forms of dreaming, and also the actual literal Sun.
If asked, he would opine upon things like the Circle, Templars, and other such power imbalances vis a vis noble classes and Orlais in general as: "Well it seems to me as that this sorts of things is unfair in a kind of poetical manner. But then agains, I guess it just goes to show" without elaborating on what, exactly, it goes to show or in what specific ways anything is unfair. He is interested in knowing about things, and usually has an opinion, but it's almost never a very strong one, and he's unlikely to do much about it being as it has nothing to do with him and is none of his business anyhow. While he hopes to make the world a better place before he leaves it, his first and only real job is keepin' the Darkspawn down and making sure other Wardens are available to do the same after he's done.
This lackadaisical attitude sometimes doesn't apply when dealing with personal injustices visited upon people he knows and is friends with. But that's not about justice, fairness, or combating bigotry, that's about pride and friendship. What kind of friend won't get in a fistfight for his good buddy who'd certainly do the same thing for him? No friend of mine!
Strengths & Weaknesses
☖ denotes a weakness
☗ indicates a strength
Combat
☗ Hand-axes
☗ can throw them and hit a deepstalker at a really impressive range in very low light
☗ stronk farmboy with big muscles
☗ will fistfight on request for no actual reason
☗ can take a punch and not mind
☗ not a sore loser
☖ willing to bite off far more than he can chew in a fistfight
☖ not used to wearing anything but the lightest leather armor
☖ never liked a weapon that wasn't also a useful farm implement
Skills
☗ The Care And Keeping Of Quality Nugs
☗ Very Good nug steak skills
☗ cave flora cultivation
☗ cheesemaking
☗ mushroom moonshine
☗ killer hangover cure
☗ amateur poet
☖ cannot sew more than a patch to save the life of him
☖ some of those words only rhyme in a rural dwarf hick accent
Personality
☗ generally very easygoing and difficult to offend
☗ Lawful Good
☗ Honest and Kind
☖ Very Strong nug and/or nugsteak opinions
☖ Lawful Good
☖ Has an ordered list of favorite dwarven cheeses which he can and will recite from memory, with reasons explaining each placement.
☖ The exact opposite of a smooth operator.
Inventory
☗ Throwing-balanced hand axes x 6
☗ Warden armor (scale-mail, well maintained and shiny)
☗ Several books, written in a small but neat hand, some of which have detailed illustrations
☗ A personal journal, written in cipher
☗ a small bell
☗ A well-worn wooden tankard declaring its bearer as "World's Best"
☗ A large, squat bottle made from bubble-marred amber glass which is labeled Vintage: Warden Bjurnsen. Mostly Mushrooms, Partly Piss. It has a small, round handle worked into the glass, just big enough for a thumb.
Motivation
He's abdicated the responsibility of his position and is now both curious and wanting to be useful. A bad case of the Warden Wanderlusties.
SAMPLES
Rocky Road | Open Log
"Now, most Grey Wardens, being of right minds, dislikes the Deep Roads. T'be fair, there's a lot to dislikes abouts 'em," Barty said, awe in hand. He was using it to gesture at the cavern around himself, which had suspiciously flat and perpendicular walls, though the roof had long ago gone to limestone and now dripped with stalactites, "But I'll tells ya, there's a lot to learn abouts the Dark Roads, and it'll save your life. So pay attentions here."
It was not an orthodox place to give a lecture. It was, actually, a terrible place too give a lecture. But this part of the Deep Roads was more road than deep, and only really a day's walk underground. The call had gone out, and however ignorantly, the unknowing of the had-been Inquisition had answered; if they were going to end up in the Deep Roads from time to time, why not attend a lecture on the subject of how to navigate them? It was being led by a Grey Warden, after all!
"Now, lookie here. What you gots here is your standard bas relief work of arts. This is indicative of ancient dwarfens settlements. Now what that means, is that somewheres around heres, if you were to keeps walkin' you'd find yourselfs in a Thaig. Can anybody tells me if they remembers what a Thaig is?"
Pointing with the axe, he selects a likely student, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Smooth Waters | Crystal Broadcast
[There is a sound of crackling paper and a faint, birdish noise. After some delay, as if to gather his thoughts, there comes a voice in an odd, drawling accent. He is eating something from a paper package.]
I feels that, given the circumstances, some congratulations are in order.
[The paper rattles. crunch crunch crunch crunch]
Now, t'be fair, I had heard a good deal of rumors before comings here. Why, to hear some people's talk, you coulds be building a new chantry everys-other day and they'd say it was just so's that you could burn it down in the mornings, but I still expecteds a lot of poor management here. But.
But.
I sees now, [crunch crunch crunch crunch] That I oughts to be calling it allegedlies poor management.
Griffons. Real live griffons. And I thought yous were full of it, when I heard! And do you knows, Warden Teren's been called deads out in Antiva? Now there's a lie what's getting somebodies in trouble. I owe you an apology, each and every ones of you, don't mind saying.
Seems you could be doing a lot worse.