Wulfric Wilheim [Fang of the Beastfolk]

Wulfric Wilheim
Fang of the Beastfolk


General

Race: Beastfolk
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Class: Mage
Occupation: Fang of the Beastfolk/Gentleman

Personal

Appearance

A middle aged man of great stature Wulfric possesses a harsh appearance with swept back hair, thick and dark despite his receding hairline, large greying mutton chops covering his face and a long tuft of grey hair growing from his chin. His eyes, yellowed and sharp like a canine’s, stare out from beneath a heavy brow and bushy eyebrows.

Wulfric is a large man, tall at 6’ 3”, broad shouldered with a barrel chest and a muscular build. His hands are long, fingers thick and adorned with long claw-like nails that are dark in colour. His skin is tanned and leathery from years spent outdoors, in forests and mountains and plains, under the sun.

Perhaps at odds with his somewhat wild appearance Wulfric prefers to dress formally, at all times an appearance fitting of nobility, in clothing that is suggestive of a history in the military. Black slacks with two lines of red on the outside leg and a red dress shirt is his usual attire, even in combat. His war apparel, like the man himself, is stocky, heavy and built to last; thick plates of black and gold armour circling his shoulders and waist, covering his arms and chest. A sturdy leather sash wrapping his torso from left shoulder to right hip holds in place the final piece, a large round plate of grey steel and hide of wolf fur.

Personality

Wulfric Wilheim is above all else a gentleman. Raised as part of the upper classes at his family’s estate away from the large cities and close to nature, he was taught what that word meant. He appreciates civility and places great stock in the proper behaviour and appearance for the circumstances.

He approaches most situations with a stoicism that allows him to act objectively and without emotional bias. His feelings are to be controlled and any outbursts are to be sealed under a tight lid before they can happen; his professionalism as a Second of the Beastfolk demands no less. However Wulfric has a tendency to take things seriously and despite his best efforts he is not above letting his anger or annoyance show, albeit in a restrained way.

In most of his dealings with others Wulfric can come across as harsh or cold. He is not one to let friendly words fall from his mouth easily, nor does he often go out of his way to make people feel comfortable. Those he likes and those he respects will be treated with courtesy, while those he does not will certainly be aware of it even if he does not say it.

Despite his stiff, rigid behaviour however, despite his insistence on maintaining his gentlemanly composure, a different side of Wulfric begins to show itself when he is away from the city. While on a mission or a journey that takes him away from the crowds and the noise, or perhaps just takes him away from the political obligations of the Fang for a while, he relaxes.

He seems more at home in nature than the city; less rigid, less formal, less cold. This Wulfric is warmer and friendlier, more forgiving and less harsh, at times even wild and impulsive.

History

The Wilheim family has a long and storied history in Terra Heroum. Beginning as simple merchants operating in Ba’dagar Wulfric’s descendants had dreams of something bigger and eventually obtained enough funds to convert themselves into traders. They invested time and much of the money they had earned into developing existing trade routes and funding expeditions to find new routes of travel and prospered greatly from the growing trade between the city states which they had helped make possible.

For many decades the Wilheim family grew rich, powerful and well known, sitting comfortably in their position as the most successful traders in Ba’dagar, arguably in Terra Heroum. It was a true family dynasty with the eldest child of the current family head succeeding them as sole controller of the company, with younger children either taking less prominent roles or, as became more and more common, giving back to the city by joining the military or civil services.

However, as all dynasties must they were eventually felled, by competitors who were over time able to eat away at their market share and become powerful and wealthy in their own right. Although by this point in time they had amassed enough of a fortune to be able to sell off the remaining portion of their trading business entirely and instead subsist by investing in several small companies and the returns this brought.

With no more need to focus on running a business the Wilheim turned their attentions towards the rest of society. A family which had already produced several military officers, clergymen and politicians over the generations began churning them out with greater frequency.

Members of the Wilheim family have held many prominent positions; priests or Dragoon, captains of the Ba’dagar city guard, even reaching political offices reaching from local government to the Seconds and even one Beastfolk Representative. Members of the Wilheim family always seemed to be well positioned and prominent in society, though few are remembered beyond the term of their service.

That being said, recent years have not been kind to the Wilheim family and they have seen their prominence and their wealth decline considerably. Most of their wealth has been lost to bad investments, poor economic turns and disaster and now their holdings are reduced to a few, admittedly large, pieces of land, the properties on them and enough of an income from their remaining investments to maintain the upkeep of said land. The family itself has also shrunken in size, the only members of which are now Wulfric, his parents and his three childless uncles.

These days the Wilheim family is mostly seen as a relic of the past, far beyond its prime, by those who even remember them.

This is the family to which Wulfric was born. A family aware of its own growing irrelevance and unable to do anything about it. A family enamoured by their own former glory and determined to recapture it.

From an early age much of Wulfric’s time was devoted to study and training. He was given a comprehensive education in all subjects that were deemed useful by his father; history, geography, politics, literature, science, even music. In addition to this were lessons on etiquette, manners, chivalry and other subjects that reflected his father’s belief that members of the Wilheim family should be able to conduct themselves as gentlemen and be able to fit in at the higher levels of society.

As he grew older Wulfric was taught more practical skills, such as swordplay, riding, bare-handed fighting, field medicine, cooking, even trade skills like woodcraft and tailoring. Wulfric’s father was under the impressions that a man should be able to do anything asked of him, regardless of what it was, and endeavoured to fill Wulfric with as many practically skills as he could. While Wulfric managed to reach a passable level of skill in each of these in his youth, he would be hard pressed to remember much of them now.

However, despite showing the gift for magic there was little time devoted to developing Wulfric’s skills in this area alongside everything else he was being taught. Perhaps because he himself lacked the ability, his father never encouraged Wulfric to become a Mage and actively discouraged him from attending the Valentine School of Mages, focusing instead on developing fighting skills suitable for a warrior instead.

Wulfric was not overly concerned with this as he had always greatly enjoyed the physicality or fighting and riding and other pursuits and did not much resent the lack of time spent on the more scholarly magic arts.

This attitude played a large role in his decision to join the military, rather than the clergy or government, when the option was presented to him. Enrolling in the Ba’dagar city guard Wulfric was somewhat fast tracked to an officer’s position by virtue of his already considerable training and education.

Two decades were spent in service to the city in this way, most of that as a lieutenant, before the appeal of the role began to wear thin. Unsure of what else to do, Wulfric took an extended leave from his position and spent the next few years as an adventurer of sorts; hunting Phantasms and exploring the wilderness, but always staying somewhat close to Ba’dagar, and occasionally undertaking assignments from the city guard outside of the city walls itself, tracking down fleeing criminals and the like.

However eventually even this life of freedom began to lose his interests, and his fathers appeal of his activities was growing stronger. Even so he did not want to return to the city guard and with no other options presenting themselves he was lost as to what to do.

When the other was made for him to become the next Fang of the Beastfolk, Wulfric was surprised. As unexpected as the offer was however, he jumped at the chance, hoping to find in the role the contentment that he has lacked so far.

Extra

Other Information

OOC Name

King

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Face Claim

Dota 2, Lycan, Wulfric Wilheim