Bren Bloodblade

Appearance
Short and wiry, Bren is blessed with a plain face and unmemorable appearance, and he takes care to reinforce that image, keeping his brown hair short and mussed, a forgettable top for his plain and dull workman's clothing.

History/Background
The bastard get of a half-elven tavern-wench, Bren was never really given a chance at a whole lot of the good things in life. He got beaten by customers, pressed into hard chores, and generally lived the life of a kid on the edge of poverty. Until somewhere in the middle of his fifteenth year, when something happened.

Behind the tavern, as he emptied a chamber pot, he ran into a fairly common sort of waylaying. And, of course, the cry came up. 'Help me, kid, and I'll reward you!' Now, the thought of money made Bren a rather brave boy, and he cracked the brigand over the head as hard as he could with his chamber pot, killing him with the cast iron implement. Unusally, the reward actually materialized, and Bren was left to deal with the body. Many might have learned from this, perhaps, that it pays to be heroic. What Bren learned though, was that sometimes, you can get paid to kill someone.

And quickly, he became such, a killer for hire. He went in and out of jail for several years, barely escaping the executioner's sword, until he found the Assassin's Guild. Recruited, they taught him to be effecient, to be quiet, to go uncaught. And he learned one thing more, though they did not teach it to him. He learned to enjoy the feeling of a man's life leaving between his finger tips.

To that feeling, something deep within him responded, perhaps some forgotten part of his elven heritage, polluted and torn, perhaps something else, and in time, he learned to taste it, to feel it, to devour the life so recently released. With that life, he learned that he could do things, to strengthen his body, to tear and twist the bodies of others.

And then, he was given what he, in his own mind has come to think of as The Contract. The man he killed, he learned during the surprisingly difficult fight to defeat him, had been one of those darkest of mages, a true necromancer. The mark's Grimoire he claimed for his own, a fell book that he studied intently, realizing it for what it was. And now, he has integrated those dark arts into his own skills, making himself a powerful force within the Guild, for what other assassin can force his mark to arise and serve his purpose afterwards?

Roleplaying Notes
Bren is a killer for hire. And he's good at his job. Very good. For an assassin, he is wealthy, and powerful within whatever guild he serves, though many of the others despise or envy him. He has no silly notions of himself as justice, and he now remains an assassin for the pleasure and power of the act, preferring challenging marks. He's well aware, though, that if he violates Guild rules, he himself will be assassinated, so those laws do restrain him.

One of his common MOs is to sneak into a home, slay the mark, and reanimate him, walking boldly out with the man as if he was an honored guest. He will also kill men and bind their spirits, forcing them to answer questions from beyond the grave, a far surer and more certain method of inquiry than simple torture.

He prefers to strike from stealth, and with a weapon, though he is not beyond poisons, or, if he has killed recently enough, placing his hand upon his foes heart from afar. Usually, the fallen's life-force is added to his own, a form of vampirism, though he can use it for other purposes as well.