Rogier
Human (partial elven blood) - Spell Sword, Disgraced Noble, Gentle Soul

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Backstory

Rogier was born the second son of a noble house in the coastal kingdom of Bassahar, the kind of house that wore its bloodlines like armor and passed down expectations heavier than plate mail. He was never meant to inherit, only to support, obey, and never outshine. His older brother, Alaric, was the golden child, tall, strong, charismatic, and already a war hero by seventeen. Rogier, by contrast, was bookish, soft-voiced, and gracile. He would rather trace glyphs in the margins of spellbooks than wield the family’s heirloom broadsword.

His father despised this. He orderd his tutors to give up on him. Only his mother, a quiet woman of distant elven descent, ever truly saw him. She gave him a rapier, delicate and light, and taught him how to fight like the elven heros of yore, like the wind through trees, fast, precise, unpredictable. He loved his mother more than anything in the world, she was always by his side, and supported him when others wouldn't. But the world was cruel, and devised to rip her from his hands. She died when Rogier was thirteen, succumbing to an illness the physicians treated too late.

Alaric blamed him, said she’d been sick from worry. His father agreed, and that stern face of his bore into Rogier's mind like a parasite.

The night Rogier turned fifteen, Alaric challenged him to a duel in the great hall. Not a spar, a duel. He accused Rogier of dishonor, of cowardice, of being an embarrassment to the house. Rogier didn’t want to fight, but something inside him, refused to run. So he stood his ground and fought...

And he won.

He disarmed his brother with a flick of the wrist and could’ve ended it, but he dropped his blade instead. The metal clanged off of the opulent marbled floor, and a single tear fell from his cheek.

He turned his back to those he would once call family, and his father called him a disgrace. He was disowned, cast out before the moon set.

Alone, ashamed, and uncertain of his worth, Rogier fled the kingdom and wandered, trying to find his path, it was not easy, but he would do it knowing it would be on his terms.

The docks of Estrahm were slick with rain on that fateful day.

Rogier stood beneath the crumbling arch of a customs gate, his cloak soaked through, a satchel slung over one shoulder, and a rapier tied to his side by a fraying ribbon. He had nothing left but the blade, his name, and the memory of a mother’s lullaby that no longer soothed him. He was just another vagabond boy with too much training and no place to put it.

The guards had turned him away from every vessel that could’ve offered a berth. “Too pretty"... “Too soft"... “No fire in you, boy.”

He had begun to believe it. That was when a storm rolled in from the west, and with it came a ship, old, scarred by battles, but still held together like steel.

She didn’t dock like the others either, she surged, cutting through the water like an arrow, sails catching wind that hadn’t been there moments before. On her bow, the words glimmered faintly...

EMBERWAKE.

Rogier watched as her crew came ashore, an odd assortment of people, a hulking firbolg captain with storms for eyes, a gnome with a song on her lips, a frogfolk juggling knives, and a girl with clipped wings who still held her head high.

He should have walked away. But something pulled at him, the cold ember flared in his chest with fire once more.

He approached them, timid, silent. The rain washed the words off his lips before they left his mouth. But he stood there, fists clenched at his side, soaked and shaking.

A voice cut through the air like a blade, Captain Arden was his name. Calm and measured.
"You looking to join, boy?"

Rogier nodded.

"Can you sail?"

He shook his head.

"Fight?"

A pause. Then he drew his rapier, no bravado, only purpose.

"Show me."

They cleared a circle in the mud. Rogier took his stance, and danced around the sparring blades. He disarmed three before he even spoke a word.

Arden nodded once. “We’ll teach you the rest.”

And just like that, he was aboard the Emberwake.

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Life on the Emberwake

Life aboard the Emberwake was not easy, but for the first time, it was his.

He woke before the sun, often training alone on the quarterdeck, rapier whispering through air as if carving away the boy he used to be. Galli would sometimes watch with her legs swinging from the crow’s nest, offering critiques wrapped in riddles and laughter.

He cleaned the blades, polished the armor, patched sails, and charted star maps alongside Lucia and Kuoni. At first, he thought it was penance, but over time, it became belonging.

The crew became pieces of him, of a soul once fractured, now beginning to mend. He hadn’t known what he was searching for but he felt like he knew for the first time in his life. Bones taught him how to stand without fear. Tayasha reminded him that broken faith still held warmth. Grahm showed him illusion's were not always deception, but reflections of truth waiting to be seen. And Xidayn showed him the love of someone he could truly call big brother.

They gave him nicknames, “Featherstick,” “Prancing Blade," “Twig.” He blushed, hated them, then slowly came to cherish them.

And in time, when battle called, Rogier stopped trembling.

He fought for the crew, not because they expected it, but because they deserved it. He learned that courage isn’t loud. Sometimes, it’s just drawing your blade, stepping between a friend and danger, and not running away.

He still doubts himself. He still thinks he’s not enough.

But on the Emberwake, he found people that cared, who wanted him them for who he was, and not what he carried in his blood.

He often sits and stares at the stars with the other young members of the crew on the stern, and in one instance he whispered to himself, "Mother... I'm finally home."

“My brother once told me I wasn’t strong enough to protect anyone. Maybe he was right… but I will always try. Even if it kills me.” - After saving Grahm from near death

“You gave me a place when I didn’t even know how to ask for one. I would’ve followed you into the storm with no sword, no name, just a heartbeat and a hope that maybe I could be more than what I was.” - To Captain Arden