Name: Bartholomew Umber.
Age: Forty-nine.
Race: Human.
Sex: Male.
Appearance: Bartholomew is tall, heavy-set man with a boisterous demeanour. He is completely bald, complimenting a clean shaven face. In younger years he would have sported a full head of hair and a lustrous beard, but with age came greying and in his vanity he couldn't handle "looking old". Not that he's particularly hideous. In fact, overall he is possessed of handsome features marred only by the stresses of time and, well, stress. Dark circles run under tired brown eyes that desperately try to remain engaged while deep forehead wrinkles speak of a brow often furled in thought.
He's often seen wearing billowy, blue clothing with an expensive flair. Satin, silk, exotic furs, precious inlays; All are equally represented in a ostentatious display of wealth. A gold-headed walking cane often accompanies him, though again more a display of wealth than for any true practical reason. In fact, Ol' Bart is strangely spry for his advancing age and lumbering build, it's not unheard of him to play as an old cripple only to spring into a cart-wheel when his audience least expects it.
Homeland: Kingdom of Tuleria.
Rank: Recruit.
History:
Born to a privileged life, young Bartholomew Umber was left wanting for nothing in his earlier years. His parents, Kristoph and Barbara Umber, were both accomplished mages of the Tulerian Mage Tower. His mother was even rumoured to sit have been nominated to sit on the high council, though she would defer to other topics if questioned about it. Kristoph was even a stranger figure. Eccentric yet incredibly stern, the already ageing wizard preferred to spend his days locked away in his private room, his faint rants on demons, gods and the end of all things sporadically making way to the rest of the home. Polite folk called him 'touched', but most just skipped such courtesies and went straight to calling him crazy, a fool who brought his affliction upon himself. Bart was never told what his father had done was, every time the boy prodded he was met with deflective excuses.
As time passed Kristoph's condition worsened and Bartholomew was sent to the Mage Tower to be spared the sight. The Tower welcomed him with open arms, both his family prestige and obvious natural talent allowing the boy entry with no fuss. There he excelled, surpassing all but the most gifted of his peers. So praised was he that may have gotten to his young head, in only his third year at the school he proudly exclaimed he was the greatest student the tower ever did see, earning him condemnation from his fellow and tutors alike. Condemnation however did little to stop the boy's ego from growing and it wasn't long before he started getting into fights. One would think that a young wizarding fight would be dangerous, but the generally unskilled students really couldn't do
that much to each other, so most just devolved into mundane brawling. Said brawling being another thing that Bart excelled at, his natural size greatly complimenting his ability to wallop on his usually dweebish fellows.
The boy's brutish nature eventually came to bite back at him when his general education ended. No right-minded tutor would take him on his own demerits and even those that could tolerate his brattiness generally shied away when they discovered the identity of his father. Only one determined master was willing to apprentice the wily youth, Ludwig Galigaz, also known as Galigaz the Stormbreaker. The Nine-Hells knows what he saw in Bart, maybe he just wanted a good challenge. The boy on the other hand, was not so keen on the apprenticeship. As much as he needed a master at the time Galigaz's school of choice, Aeromancy, didn't exactly strike him as interesting. He would have much preferred, well, anything else but what he perceived as a discipline for air-headed dweebs. Galigaz was quick to suggest otherwise though, showcasing what he must have thought the greatest ability of the school; Low winds that kicked up women's dresses. Naturally, the boy's opinion shifted immediately.
Despite his original light-heartedness, Ludwig Galigaz was a harsh teacher. Every mistake was met with a flying book and every success was also usually met with a flying book. Despite this seemingly random method of discipline, it did help set Bart's attitude straight. To an extent at least. Galigaz wouldn't have him devolve into some boring book-dweller so he encouraged the boy to push and do some stupid things. Not the least of which was throwing himself out a window halfway up the tower to test his ability to fly. Luckily he could. Not well, but well enough not to end up as a stain on the cobblestone below. Stunts like this happened frequently enough, Ludwig only ever intervening when he truly believed Bart had bitten off more than he could chew. Though even then he would only help the moment something went south. This unorthodox style of teaching, while potentially dangerous, did lead Bart to be confident than his peers and when it came to his final test he passed with flying colours.
Bartholomew continued to work and live in the tower even after he was no longer a student. Hiring himself out a contractor, usually to the Tulerian navy or other maritime organizations where his field excelled. It was on one of these contracts, working in a harbour assisting ships trying to dock in inclement weather, that he first met Audrey.
She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen (though, he thought that about nearly every pretty woman he'd ever met). The young wizard took to immediately wooing her, plying his natural looks and quirky flirtations as he had dozens of times before. At first she didn't respond, a few smiles here and a coy comment there, but she didn't budge. It took weeks of harassment, but eventually Bart won her over. It wasn't even a year late that he proposed and with her father's blessing they married. Not long after that the couple was graced with a daughter. They called her Kirina. Bart maintains her mother named her.
At first the prospect of being a father terrified Bart, he barely considered himself an adult as it was and to suddenly be thrust with the care of a tiny, helpless human just seemed... wrong. However, once he held the babbling babe in his arms he couldn't help but be won over. He was meant to be a father, or so he thought at that immediate moment. He settled down then, finding permanent work at the harbour and switching off child care with Audrey while she was away on her own trading affairs. It was on one of these periods that Bart met Nolene, the daughter of a dockside innkeeper. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The fallout came quick and hard. In the end the couple decided to divorce to save the pain, though they did decide to try to spend as much time as they could with Kirina. It wouldn't be fair for the barely-talking child to suffer for their (Bart's) failings. The wizard quit his job at the dock and went back to contract work with the Tower, earning himself a pretty consistent position with the Tulerian Navy.
That was the next two decades of his life. Travelling the blood sea for a few months before coming back and taking time with his daughter for another few months. He made to teach all he could, though she lacked his magical aptitude he still tried to teach her in the manner of his old master Galigaz, with less ballistic literature. Audrey stuck with more traditional education, something Bart respected, but ultimately couldn't help but try to undermine at every chance he got. He even humoured his daughter's request when she wanted him to teach her swordsmanship, despite the fact that he had never held a sword up to that point, let alone ever attempted to fight with one.
Time passed, Bart had already seen almost all the blood sea had to offer and yet he did not know true terror until the day Kirina joined the navy. He didn't try to stop her or even convince her otherwise, but he couldn't help but think of bad things when he thought of his young, nubile daughter mingling with low-born dock trash. Still, he trusted her with her own life, though he wasn't enough not to have some friends check in on her every so often.
She did well, even earning herself position as first mate after a particularly brutal deception. Bart couldn't have been more proud.
He loosened his surveillance, Kirina had clearly proven she could fend for herself and he instead decided to refocus his attention on his own growth. He spent a lot of time in the Amazons, the exotic atmosphere (not to mention the women) highly appealed to Bart.
His little vacation didn't last too long however, one of his last informants eventually got to him that Kririna had killed her captain by tearing out his throat. It didn't take too long for the wizard to figure what that meant. Calling in a few favours from some friends, he managed to acquire a ring that would've allowed his daughter to control her... condition. That was the easy part, the hard part was breaking into a ship brig on the other side of the blood sea. Again, contacts came in handy. A master teleportationist got Bart within close proximity of the ship and with the help of an invisibility potion, a magic skeleton key along with his own abilities he managed to take his daughter and whisk her away into hiding, making sure to slip the ring on her hand before waking her fully.
They were fugitives. Bart was quick to question his own devotion to his daughter, he had effectively ended his own life for the sake of hers. All the work he had done, all the education and training, wasted in a single selfless action. There was no point in suffering too much over it, what was done was done and he had no idea at the time on how to correct it. So his only course of action was to make things much worse.
Bart had a 'friend', one Jerod Greer, that captained a privateering vessel, though his letter of marque had expired years ago and even when he had it he seemed not to care much about it's demands anyways. Jerod took Bart and his daughter with no fuss, with the wizard's obvious use securing a position for both. It didn't take long however for him to realize just how lucky he was with the recruitment, both father and daughter both proved invaluable. The pair turned the motley crew of sea dogs into something to be feared.
It didn't take too long for Bart to tire of the life, he would admit himself he wasn't the most honest of men, but lowering himself to mingle with such trash didn't sit well with the wizard. Not to mention the constant threat of headhunters and glory-seekers. Kirina too, worried him, it seemed that she took to whole piracy thing with far too much gusto. it became apparent that if either of them were to have a future they would have to get out. The out came from an odd place, the Queen's Baldes of Renalta. Some organization that hired any desperate degenerate, he did a bit more research on the organization and aside from their obtuse casualty rate it seemed a perfect fit for the family.
Motivation: The stress of a pirate's life is catching up to Bart, he never wanted it for either himself or his daughter. The Queen's Blades seems like a way out, a way to clear their names and maybe get some coin at the same time.
