Renfred Gladstone

Details

Renfred has certainly been blessed with good looks, and he is very confident about his appearance. Together with his charms, he’s usually rather good at winning the company of women. He has light brown hair with eyes that almost appear to be the same color, but if you look deep enough, you are able to find hints of green and even blue in them, though, the green is certainly more dominant.

He has strong muscles due to his work as a smith, and most of the time, he wears a short stubble beard on his face. Most of the time he looks rather dirty as well, may it be from his work with the ovens, or from spending a lot of time on the road.  

Charismatic/Suave
Renfred is a very charming man, in his own way, and one who can smoothly talk his way into (or out of) almost everything. He shows a lot of confidence and he is usually rather polite to people, even if he doesn't always mean it. The man also knows how to read people and how to play them, making them do whatever he wants them to do.

Deceitful/Self-centered
The man doesn’t necessarily lie in order to deceive other people, sometimes he speaks the truth in such ways that they would possibly not believe him, or he finds ways to hide different meanings behind his words. He keeps a lot of his secrets to himself, and he likes to play games, usually the ones where he keeps making people guess about where his true intentions lie. But his intentions aren’t always good, and most of the time, they are quite selfish.

Patient/Tactful
This is actually one of his most dangerous traits, because he will always think out his plans carefully and he isn’t afraid to wait for the right moment to take whatever he wants. He is also quite smart with both his words as well as his actions, only rarely acting out of impulse.

More will be added later.

Renfred had to find out all on his own that he was a Necromancer, because no one had ever told him what it was. He learned most about his powers by actually testing them on animals, something he had to do on his own as well. He really needed to concentrate to make his magic respond to his own commands, because most of the time, it only responds to his rage. This is also when his power is usually stronger. Which is why he tries to control his emotions more, because he doesn’t want to make any more mistakes. He himself is aware of how dangerous his magic is, not only to others, but also to himself.

At first he had only been able to raise animals from the dead, but recently, he has been able to bring back people as well. This only happened because of his rage, since well, that is something that usually fuels his magic.

When he uses a lot of energy on his magic, he will usually have some kind of drawback. It will make him much weaker for sometimes even a couple of days, depending on how much energy he lost.

Renfred was born the second son within the very small Armstead family, living somewhere in the north of Ravaryn on the other side of the river near Norwyn, fairly close to the west coast. He grew up in a little village there, and for the most part his childhood wasn’t actually that bad, except for the fact that his father was a very violent man. The man drank a lot, and when he and his older brother weren’t careful enough, he would teach them very hard lesions.

Due to this Renfred often sought refuge in the forest, where he could sit alone with his own thoughts. He could stay there for many hours but one day, he found a little dead bird in the forest, and somehow he felt strangely fascinated by it. He didn’t even know how long he had looked at it and why, but suddenly, the bird stood up again, looking at him with glazing eyes, almost as if it was waiting for him to give it commands. At the time, the young boy didn’t understand that he had done that, or why the bird had looked at him like that. But these things started to happen more often, and he began to realize that he was in fact the one that was bringing these animals back from the dead. And he liked doing it, because it made him feel powerful.

He also didn’t tell his parents about his little secret, because he didn't want them to know about it. But then, on another day, his father did find out about it. It all happened while he was fighting with his wife in the kitchen right after their dog had died, and things had become so violent that Renfred hadn’t been able to control his emotions. So, out of the blue, the dog suddenly came back alive and began to attack his father. The animal mauled his arm, but eventually, his father had been able to kill it again. Almost a bit shocked, he looked up at the little boy who had tears in his eyes. That was when he realized one of his sons had inherited the magic he had not, and instead of feeling repulsed by it, he actually began to encourage him to use his magic. But certainly not in a good way, as he only tried to use Renfred and his magic for his own selfish gain.

And it was only after about 14 years later that more rumors began to spread about the strange things happening in and around the village. People went missing and they ended up being murdered by what seemed like animals at first, however, those animals actually ended up dead as well, laying beside their victims without showing any appearant wounds that could have killed them. It was all a bit strange, and most of the people in the village began to grow very scared that there was some kind of monster hiding in the woods, controlling these animals. But then, someone saw something he wasn’t supposed to see, and the next morning he began to ramble about a necromancer living in their village. Due to this being very much outlawed in Ravaryn, it got attention very quickly. At first, Renfred actually felt very worried about it, but his father convinced him that they weren’t able to catch them.

Two more years followed and the people were slowly starting to close in on them, but Renfred was beginning to grow tired of listening to his father, always telling him what to do. So, he decided to turn his father in, mostly for his own sake but for the sake of his family as well. Telling them his father had been behind everything, that he had seen him witness the death of all those people and that he had killed each and everyone of them. In a way, he never lied to them, or well, not exactly. Because he never said that his father was the necromancer, nor did he mention that he himself had been the executioner.. But they all believed him, and soon enough, his father was beheaded for his filthy crimes. Renfred always hated his father, so he never felt sorry for it, and he may have even enjoyed watching his father die.

However, right after his father’s beheading, some of the people from the families of people he had murdered were still holding out a grudge against his family. Not all of them agreed with them though, because Renfred had always been a charming little boy, and his mother had always been very kind. But that didn't really matter much, because his mother wanted to leave, and not only because she didn’t want to be constantly reminded of everything her husband had done. She knew her son had done all those things as well, and she still wanted to protect him, mostly from people who could possibly find out the truth of what happened.

So, he left with her and his older brother. But after a few days on the road, they eventually ran into some Ishgardian patrol guards. They had heard some of the rumors about the village as well, and while he tried to explain to them what had happened, they didn’t believe him. They decided to take his mother and brother, holding them at knifepoint. This very much angered Renfred and with his magic he quickly began to search for any animals that may have been rotting away somewhere close to them, making them rise up and attack the guards. Using them as a distraction he stole a sword from one of the guards, and then the whole thing quickly turned into a bloodbath. A few guards managed to escape, but when he looked around, he found his mother lying dead on the ground. This pained him very much, and for a while he just sat there, waiting for something to happen. He didn’t want to return her, because he knew she wouldn’t be the same..

After a little while, the guards returned with some more friends, during which Renfred was still sitting beside his mother. Eyes colored slightly red due to the emotions and the rage that he was feeling. Slowly the guards tried to get closer to him but before they were even able to reach him, swords were drawn from behind their backs by the dead guards that had been laying around. A bit shocked, they all turned around, and then Renfred quickly started the fight. He had always been very well trained in sword fighting, but spon enough his magic was also starting to weaken him. So, eventually, he grabbed one of their horses and fled from the battle.

A short chase began after that, but Renfred was lucky that his horse was able to keep the pace longer than the others. After that he even waited a few days within a hidden ruïn as he let those guards pass him, so that he could then change his direction towards the kingdom of Avalon..  

- Renfred Gladstone is not his actual name, only the people from his old village know his real name.
- He stole some things from a man he found in the woods, as well as his last name.
- He's a skilled swordfighter.
- He's also a skilled blacksmith.