Pippin Harby

Discussion in 'Accepted Characters' started by Darth_Slaverus, May 26, 2016.

  1. Darth_Slaverus

    Darth_Slaverus Member vet

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    Name: Pippin “Vulture” Harby

    Age: 29

    Race: Hylian

    Gender: Male

    Place of Origin: Hyrule Castle Town

    P5/W1/C3

    Rupees: 50

    Treasures:

    Compass (Racial)

    Sense (Racial)

    Bonus Treasure (Racial)

    Shield Ring (Bonus Treasure)

    Razor Seed Supply (20 Rupees)

    Rage (40 Rupees)

    Bomb Seed Supply (20 Rupees)

    Landmine (20 Rupees)

    Beloved Visage (Harvest Festival 2019)

    Summon Floormaster (Rise of the Holiday Moblin)

    Height: 5'10

    Weight: 230 Ibs.

    Equipment:

    Backpack, bedroll, knives (including Kingkiller*)

    Kingkiller: Pip's favourite blade. A slightly curved knife, with a golden inlay and an emerald set along the grip. It could probably fetch a good price at an auction, but Pip refuses to sell it due to its sentimental value, being one of the first treasures he looted as a mercenary.

    Residence: Not applicable. Currently stranded in the Lower Wilds, Pip is a long way from anywhere that could be called home.

    Pet: Not applicable. Even if Pip had a pet, he would have eaten it by now.

    Appearance:

    Most would agree that Pip Harby is not a handsome fellow. Heavyset, with arms as thick as tree trunks and a broad torso, he tends to come across as a thuggish brute. His square-shaped face does little to dispel this impression, being a blocky slab of flesh from which two small, emerald-green eyes peer out at the world. Furthermore, he partially derives his nickname, "Vulture," from his large, hooked nose, which has come to resemble the beaks of carrion birds after having been broken one too many times. Numerous scrapes, cuts, and scars dot his chin and lower jaw, his unsteady hand and lack of a proper razor combining to make shaving a painful ordeal. Perhaps the only aspect of Pip's countenance that lends him any trace of civility whatsoever is his blood-red hair, which is neatly arranged in a bowl cut at the top of his head.

    Preferring to travel light, Pip wears relatively little armour: A battered black breastplate, the front of which is emblazoned with the image of a white shovel digging up an equally white Scent Seed, is all that protects him from his enemies. The odd symbol the breastplate bears is the insignia of the mercenary company he once belonged to, the Black Sappers. In addition to his breastplate, Pip dons a simple set of travel clothes, which include a long-sleeved lime green shirt, a pair of sturdy black leather gloves with matching boots, and green trousers held up by a leather belt. He keeps most of his personal effects inside a series of satchels that dangle from his belt, save for his knives, which each have their own sheaths on either his hip or his legs.

    Having been stranded in the wilderness for a very long time, Pip's personal hygiene has been an unfortunate casualty in his struggle for survival. He smells rather bad, and it is not clear that a return to civilization would remedy this situation; given his usual proclivities, it is likely that the stench of unwashed humanity would only be replaced by that of heavy drink.

    Personality:

    At his very core, Pip Harby is a man of simple tastes: He likes the feeling of rupees in his palm, a stiff drink on his tongue, and a pretty girl wrapped around his arm. A pure mercenary by both profession and nature, Pip enjoys a good scrap but scoffs at the idea of fighting for anything but money, believing that every man has a duty to live life to the fullest and that philosophical concepts such as glory have no place on the battlefield. For him, academia takes a backseat to rowdy hedonism.

    Much of Pip’s personality is defined by his addiction, which demands that he consume Razor Seeds on a regular basis, even when there is no benefit to doing so. If none are available, he becomes increasingly irritable and willing to resort to desperate means to acquire them. His flagrant abuse of the empowering substance has had a pronounced impact upon his speech and thought patterns; he is extremely lethargic outside of battle, speaking slowly and constantly muttering under his breath. Ironically, while the adverse physical and mental effects of his dependency could hardly be described as anything but debilitating, the habits his addiction has fostered make him an ideal survivalist: He sleeps lightly, is an excellent scavenger, and is incredibly jumpy despite his sluggish demeanour.

    In combat, Pip favours brute force and scare tactics over refined technique and finesse. When faced with an opponent, his first instinct is typically to charge straight at them whilst screaming bloody murder, his knife held aloft. While this haphazard approach to fighting might seem reckless or even insane, more than one Moblin has fallen after hesitating in the face of his savagery. That said, Pip is cunning enough to temper his innate hot-bloodedness with caution when confronted with impossible odds, and is quite proficient at setting traps and ambushes to level the playing field.

    For all his faults, however, it would be a mistake to classify Pip as a wicked individual. Crass, certainly, but not malevolent. He rarely does things out of the kindness of his heart, but he rarely acts out of malice either. The only thing that gets him truly riled up is arrogance; Pip despises authority and is quick to lash out against those he perceives as looking down on him, often with his fists.


    Biography:

    Some men are born into greatness. Pippin Harby is not one of those men. The eldest son of a working class Castle-Town family, Pip was barely higher on the totem pole than the street urchins he spent his formative years playing with. His childhood was not a happy one, for poverty is a harsh mistress, but growing up among the dregs of society did teach the impressionable lad several life lessons he would not soon forget: There was a sucker born every minute, rules were for chumps, and no amount of well-reasoned discourse would ever be as persuasive as a mean right hook. Blessed with an early growth spurt, the young Pip took these adages to heart, using his size and strength to quickly become the most feared bully on the block. Allowances, toys, food... if he wanted something from other children, he took it. By the time he was ten, he had punched out enough teeth to rake in a tidy sum from the Tooth Fairy (Not that there was such a fairy to reward his efforts, but that didn't stop him from collecting his bloody trophies).

    As is often the case with juvenile delinquents, the unruly child became an unruly adolescent. Teenage Pip carried on as he always had, only now he had graduated from knuckles to knives in his choice of intimidation implements. His thuggish behaviour could no longer be excused by the innocence of youth, and his parents finally took action, terrified that their wayward son would wind up behind bars for murdering someone. Under threat of being evicted from the house, Pip's father forced the lad into the Castle-Town Guard, hoping that a stint in the military would instill some discipline in him. Unprepared to surrender what little luxury he enjoyed at home by chancing it on the streets, Pip quietly accepted.

    To everyone's surprise, Pip initially adjusted quite well to the life of a knight. His skill at back alley brawling, enhanced by the Guard's rigorous training sessions, was very much appreciated by his superiors, and his intimate knowledge of his neighbourhood proved to be a valuable asset more than once. For his part, Pip liked the respect he now received, not just from his fellow watchmen, but Castle-Town's population at large, and responded by actually applying himself for once. Unfortunately, while Pip enjoyed the perks of being a lawman, the same could not be said for the obligations that came with them. Paperwork and proper procedure were anathema to the impetuous young man, who craved real action.

    Nonetheless, Pip was able to suppress his misgivings for the remainder of his years as a trainee, devoting himself entirely to his martial education. Yet when he reached adulthood and had become a full-fledged guardsman, it did not take Pip long to stray from the straight-and-narrow.

    Chafing under the rigidity of military regulations and bored of the street scuffles that passed for fights in Castle-Town, Pip started to neglect the tasks assigned to him in favour of partaking in the newly discovered joys of drinking and gambling. As the cost of his debauchery began to exceed his pay, he stooped to taking bribes from local ruffians, turning a blind eye to their petty crimes and spending their dirty money on cheap alcohol, cards, and women of loose morals. He justified this gross misconduct to himself by arguing that he was not endorsing murder or anything serious, he was merely doing his onetime playmates a favour by letting them steal from those who were well-off.

    Besides, he reasoned, if he was going to shirk his duties, he might as well get to paid to do it.

    Of course, a crooked guardsman's indiscretions did not go unnoticed for long. Pip's comrades urged him to quit while he was still ahead, not wanting to see him piss away everything he had worked for, but he adamantly refused, thinking himself above the law. For a time he was able to evade the consequences, but when his commanding officer could no longer overlook the fact that he spent more of his shift carousing than doing actual work, Pip was hauled before a tribunal, stripped of his rank, and dishonourably discharged from the Knights for dereliction of duty.

    Out of work and no longer welcome back home, Pip immediately sought employment in the only field he had any talent for: Scrapping. He found it in the Black Sappers, a mercenary company owned by a pair of unscrupulous Business Scrubs. The outfit was recruiting all across Northern Hyrule, searching for individuals who were willing to do unsavoury jobs without asking questions. Figuring he fit the bill nicely, Pip quickly signed up. The pay looked good, and the contract stipulated that the Scrubs would provide equipment and survival training to all recruits, free of charge. It would be like serving in the Guard, but more lucrative, with less rules. Convinced that he had it made, Pip set off for the Lost Woods to finalize the arrangements, accompanied by a Black Sapper-affiliated guide to show the way.

    Upon his arrival at the Black Sappers' headquarters deep within the forest, Pip was issued a uniform, some weaponry, and a pouch of Razor Seeds after a brief assessment of his background. The interviewer explained that the Black Sappers distributed a ration of seeds or alchemical mixtures to each soldier before every mission to use as they saw fit; if a solider used up their allotted ration prior to the next resupply date, they could take more from the company's stores, though it would come out of their pay. Pip had been assigned to an assault squadron that was provided exclusively with Razor Seeds, and was swiftly handed off to an experienced Deku woodsman to be taught how to keep himself alive in the middle of nowhere.

    Two months later, Pip had mastered the basics of hunting, foraging, and constructing a shelter, and was cleared to participate in actual combat. Joining his new squad in a series of simple skirmishes against bands of brigands in the Lost Woods, Pip found that killing came naturally enough to him. His hefty physique combined with his Razor Seeds to give him a distinct edge over common bandits, and he channeled his bitterness at being kicked out of the Castle-Town Guard into a desire to crush his enemies. His ferocity in battle was lauded by his superiors, and he became popular among the renegades and cutthroats that made up his brothers-in-arms, his bawdy sense of humour and devil-may-care attitude toward life shared by many of their number. For once in his life, Pip felt like he belonged.

    However, unbeknownst to him, the Black Sappers had a dark secret. In the interests of maximizing their profits while minimizing their expenses, the greedy Business Scrubs who owned the company slyly laced their employees' rations with Craving Powder, deliberately trying to get them addicted to their seeds and potions. The repeated, unwitting consumption of the insidious alchemical agent would break even the strongest will, and when the hapless mercenaries succumbed to their unexplainable cravings, exhausting their supplies of rations... the Business Scrubs would point to their resupply policy, docking their pay in exchange for extra rations. To make matters worse, the penalty was cumulative, meaning particularly hopeless abusers could potentially forfeit their entire reward for a contract. This ruthless exploitation of their workforce allowed the Scrubs to cheaply field a small army of addled killers, too enslaved by their addictions to disobey orders or quit.

    Pip was no exception. Ignorant of the true nature of his Razor Seed rations, he went from using them to tip the scales at a decisive moment to constantly relying on them in the field. His body could only resist the effects of the Craving Powder for so long, and the next thing he knew, his reliance had become a compulsion... which in turn became an obsession. Unable to keep himself from ingesting Razor Seeds, Pip watched as his addiction spiraled out of control, his grand ambition to make his fortune through mercenary work going up in flames as the cuts to his wage accumulated at an unsustainable rate. Soon he was like the many others that had come before him: A shattered being, hopelessly in debt to the Black Sappers.

    Driven by a desperate need to distract himself from his awful situation, Pippin struck up an unlikely friendship with one of his squadmates, a Gerudo named Zannah. Zannah had fled the South years ago with naught but the clothes on her back, and had been forced to ply her warrior skills to make ends meet upon her arrival in the North. Like him, she had become ruinously addicted to Razor Seeds, reduced to a horrific shadow of her former self by her dependency. The two bonded over what they had in common- red hair, a fondness for knives, a lack of a place to go. Simple things, but for Pip and Zannah, the smallest of similarities served to take their minds off of the present. They grew quite close, and while it would be a mistake to call their relationship a romance, they found pleasure in each others' arms.

    This profound demonstration of the universal truth that misery loves company aside, Pip's life with the Black Sappers was a living hell from which there was no escape. With nothing to look forward to save his trysts with Zannah and his next Razor Seed, the young man threw himself at his contracts in the vain hope that a superior performance in battle would see an increase in his rations. As the years went by, Pip gained a reputation for being an expert looter, always the first among his squad to pick the corpses of his foes clean; the singular saving grace of being a Black Sapper was that the Scrubs allowed their employees to keep whatever items they scrounged up in the field, and Pip took advantage of this fact to such an extent that, in conjunction with his hooked nose, it earned him the moniker of "Vulture." He likewise became known for his skill with a knife, capable of overcoming larger weapons with only a dagger in his Razor Seed-fueled rampages. His employers regarded him as a successful investment, and consequently sent his squad into increasingly dangerous missions for ever-greater amounts of rupees. But no matter how bloody things got, Pip could never find the sweet release of death. Tormented though he was by his wasted life, he always returned unharmed.

    Until one day, in his twenty-eighth year, he didn't.

    Salvatore Sybus was a wealthy Business Scrub and an ally of the Black Sappers' owners. During a trip to Dragon Roost Island, Salvatore had been abducted by a gang of pirates and spirited away to a fortified compound in the Lower Wilds. The vile corsairs intended to ransom the tycoon to his family for a sizable share of his fortune, but his relatives instead turned to the Black Sappers for aid. Pip and his squad were selected to participate in the rescue operation, on account of their aptitude for lightning-quick assaults. It would be a simple assignment. A diversionary force would draw the attention of the garrison with a skirmish, while Pip's squad infiltrated the hideout by stealth, located Salvatore, and extracted him before the pirates knew what was happening. A ship was commissioned, and the Black Sappers set out, encouraged by their employers' promises that, because the job would take them so far from the North, they would be well-compensated for their efforts.

    The raid went off without a hitch. Pip, Zannah, and the rest of the squad stormed the hideout with practiced ease, killed the sentries that got in their way, and smuggled their objective out. As they fell back to signal their escape boat to come ashore, Pip was ordered to delay the enemy's pursuit by planting Landmines along the squad's retreat path. However, the pirates retaliated sooner than anticipated, having realized that they had been tricked, and in the ensuing chaos, Pip was separated from the rest of his unit.

    Pip managed to kill the attackers that had peeled off to engage him, proceeding to loot them before taking an alternate route back to the beaches. But his greed had cost him dearly. By the time he reached the rendezvous point, the ship had quite literally sailed; the last thing he saw before the vessel disappeared into the distance was Zannah, standing at the stern of the ship, waving her arms and calling his name. He had been left behind, and Pip knew they would not be coming back for him. Despite his years of distinguished service, he would be written off as an acceptable loss.

    Staring at the sea in stunned disbelief, Pip stood in silence, shaking. His only means of going home was gone. He was stranded here, in the Lower Wilds, surrounded by hostile creatures that would kill him as soon as look at him. He remained in this near-catatonic state for several minutes, until the sound of nearby footsteps forced him to confront the unfortunate reality of his situation. Not wanting to face the brunt of the pirates' wrath alone, he turned and fled deeper into the Wilds. He would have to use his survival training to make the best of things... and finding a supply of Razor Seeds was his first priority.

    One year later, he was still alive. It was not a comfortable living by any stretch of the imagination, and there was much indigenous blood on his hands. But he was alive. After some trial-and-error, he had discovered that the Compass he had pried from the clutches of a dead pirate could guide him toward food and Razor Seeds, which usually kept him in good stead as far as supplies went. Evading the local Moblins and Lynels was harder, and Pip occasionally resorted to engineering conflicts between tribes to thin their numbers by murdering a stray, then pinning the killing on another clan.

    The long hours of loneliness led to a certain measure of self-reflection, and Pip began to regret what a loathsome individual he'd been... Not that such feelings mattered anymore. He would soldier on, and if he died, no one would care. If he lived, the same.

    To this day, he still prefers the latter outcome, though.

    Timeline:

    Rise of the Holiday Moblin: +50 Rupees, Summon Floormaster
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2021
    Sinistrari likes this.
  2. Eevachu

    Eevachu Admin admin

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    A fantastic character.

    Approved!
  3. Darth_Slaverus

    Darth_Slaverus Member vet

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    Update upon promotion to Veteran: +1 Courage.