Einar Ulgasen (Eye-nar You'll-geh-sen)
The Seeker of Mother Ursa
Seeker of Truths Einar Ulgasen
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Einar is an absolute unit of a man. Just over seven feet tall, he is packed densely with hard-earned muscle from 20 years as a Ram mercenary combined with his natural Bear bulk. To the best of his knowledge, he is in top physical condition.
Facial Features
His eyes are a rich, forest green, but largely hidden both by his prominent, strong brow and because of the many restless nights he faces these days. Beneath the unkempt beard, his jawline could break granite.
Identifying Characteristics
A bear paw-shaped birthmark on his right thigh.
Physical quirks
He has a habit of swaying gently as if a cattail in a soft breeze.
Special abilities
Einar's mind, body, and spirit house an infinite potential, he must merely turn his focus toward achieving something and he has the natural talent to achieve it, or rapidly learn how to. However, this is no simple matter of focusing on study materials or a spellcasting ritual. Einar must dedicate his whole being to the achievement of this one task or goal... which is not a transition that can be done on a whim. He must feel with all his heart that the goal is the most important thing he can be doing, that which will bring the most joy and love into the world. As a consequence, when he is not focused on a goal that needs a particular skill or talent, he begins to lose it quickly. And the more goals or tasks he holds sacred in his heart, the less intensely his potential rises to meet the challenges that he needs to overcome to reach those goals.
The one talent that has stuck with him throughout his life is that of a polyglot. Any language he's exposed to for enough time he learns and retains, be it spoken or written.
Those who know him, and know of his origins, often believe these gifts were granted to him by Mother Ursa herself. Einar would say to anyone who asked that he simply works hard and gets occasionally lucky.
Apparel & Accessories
A short blade and a heavy axe, along with traditional Bear heavy spaulders and Ram-style chainmaille leggings, all made of Kaerwenian wyvern steel. He also carries a pack with traveling and camping gear.
When at home in Kaerwen, Einar is usually wearing thick wool-thread pants and a tunic, both dyed dark gray or charcoal. He's rarely without his spaulders and a thick elkhide tassets and fauld. He also wears a hooded cloak made of grizzly fur from an ancient bear spirit that he helped settle an old score for before it passed on. When in warmer climates Einar sheds the tunic and cloak, going bare-chested as often as not even in the "winters" that thin-skinned Adreadians experience.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Born to Ulgar Landbreaker and Fjorri Greensky, Einar nearly did not make it past childbirth. It was a long, hard labor for Fjorri, even with the help of the village's Ursa Priestess. For three days she lay in pain yet Einar would not emerge. Finally just after the stroke of midnight on the first of Bear it was as if he was ready to come into the world at long last... yet something was not right. He was not crying, and was a horrific shade of blue-purple. He was not moving, nor breathing, and all gathered wailed in sorrow at the stillborn. As the noise died down, they realized that a new, tiny voice had joined them. As if in response to their sorrow, Einar was pushed into life. With his color improving, the Priestess noted a birthmark on the infant's thigh in the shape of a bear paw, and proclaimed he had been touched by Mother Ursa herself and would be, upon his naming day, brought to the High Temple at Caerdydd to be raised as a member of the priesthood.
As a boy, Einar found an ease of existing around animals, and more than once his worried parents would find him astride a massive grizzly, laughing and having a grand time as the bear, like a good-natured uncle or aunt, rode him around the forest. Like the stories of old, it seemed Einar 'breathed with the world'. The priests saw this as confirmation of the existing proclamation, his promising to the church, and upon his tenth birthday... his Naming Day... he left his home, his unnamed little village in Bear country, to live and learn in Caerdydd.
Gender Identity
Einar fully identifies as male.
Sexuality
Einar is heterosexual but is not uncomfortable being around those who aren't. He believes in the free expressions of love in whatever forms that might take.
Education
As he grew in the temple, he discovered a love of reading, which led to any time not spent in class or in the training yard with his nose buried in scrolls. As the years passed this separation from the land eventually weakened his connection with it, his path having taken him another way, though who knows if there exists a world out there where Einar may have grown to be a master of the wildlands. The clergy saw this, and believed him to be a prodigy at first, though later it became more clear that Einar's gift was not one of omnitalent, but rather one of intense will and focus and joy.
This discovery brought him to the attention of High Priestess Hestia, who saw that though he was not magically sensitive in the way most priests were, Einar nonetheless possessed some measure of Mother Ursa's power and connection to the land. Einar fondly remembers running through the temple halls and yards with a spunky young redhaired girl named Maya. They became friends and promised to stay in touch when Einar was sent to the Ram's lands. To this day they still correspond via letter when able.
Employment
In his 16th year, having spent the last six years cloistered in the High Temple of Ursa and grown thin by Kaerwenian standards, the priests arranged for Einar to train with the Ram Clan. For two decades he spent time with the Ram tribe, learning the ways of battle, and taking many mercenary contracts to hone his fighting skills. Toward the end of his time with the Ram Clan the Great War of the Third Age broke out, and his skills in battle needed to defend his homeland. For a time he focused hard on fighting, determined to honor the promises his people had made to their... allies... the Adreadians.
During that time he learned an important lesson about himself: he doesn't like to fight. The physicality of it is enjoyable, and the joys of moving one's body are not to be discounted, but he found himself often spending his pay on books from the foreign lands he spent time in as someone's muscle. In doing so he found he had an impressive collection of books after a time. Now fully his own man, he took it upon himself to travel to the lands of the Owl, his mother's homeland. He packed all his books and his precious few other belongings and left the Ram.
On his way there, he took a detour back to his home village to see how his parents were, but when he got there a sight worse than his very worst nightmares greeted him. The villagers seem to have gone completely mad, and were hacking each other down in the streets. Dropping his gear, Einar rushed in, trying to pull neighbors off of each other, to keep lifelong friends from dismembering one another in this insane blood frenzy. In the end Einar was faced with his father: the last living member of the village, Fjorri's blood still hot on Ulgar's axe. The man barely looked human anymore... his limbs were thin and sinew-y, his skin the color of a fish's belly and pulled taut over the knobby bones of the old man's joints. The fight was short, bitter, and heartbreaking. In the end Einar managed to best his father and drove him from the village, sending what was once proud Ulgar fleeing into the woods like some savage animal. A devastated Einar spent the next week preparing and holding funeral pyres for his village. Finally he moved on from the ghost town he had been raised in, his books remaining behind, used as kindling for the pyres of his childhood.
He traveled to Baruss instead of resuming his journey to Owl, and told Bear Chieftan Bjarnhildr what had happened. Uncle Bjarn, as Einar would call him when young, was visited often by Einar and his father as Ulag specialized in keeping, tending, and treating the clan's royal sloth of bears. Any time one might get an injury or illness, or need help birthing new cubs, Ulag and Einar were called on to travel to Baruss. They spent many days in council together, both saddened and grieving at the tragedy that befell Einar's village, with the Chieftan telling Einar of the failing crops, the worsening winters, the sightings of the Undead, and the growing infant mortality rate. Einar became more and more distraught. The Chieftan named Einar the Seeker of Mother Ursa, and charged him with discovering the cause of these maladies afflicting not just the lands of Bear, but all of Kaerwen, and promised him whatever provisions he needed, even though their supplies were dwindling. And so Einar packed and set off into the wide world to find some way to discover the cause of... and ultimately end... the Curse on Kaerwen.
Accomplishments & Achievements
He rose to the rank of Commander during the Third War, which suited his preferences more even if the front line felt his absence.
Failures & Embarrassments
He failed to protect his family, failed to save or even put down his rabid father, and is afraid of failing to find a cure for the blood frenzy.
Mental Trauma
Einar had to essentially commit patricide and single-handed buried his whole village, thanks to what he believes to be some fell magic. He has a deep-seated mistrust of magic users who aren't members of the clergy of Láhm na Máthar Ursa as a result, and frequently has nightmares that cause him to awaken during the night. These sleep interruptions have led to his eyes becoming deeply sunken in his head.
Intellectual Characteristics
Einar is an extremely well-read man, especially for a Kaerwenian. While not classically taught in one of the southern universities, he is nonetheless well-spoken and world-wise.
Morality & Philosophy
Einar could be considered something of an anarchist in that he believes in the freedom of choice. Everyone should be free to choose their lives, unless it comes at the expense of another's choices, as he was not afforded that luxury in much of his own life. Like most Kaerwenians he finds arranged marriages and similar institutions to be distasteful and harmful to all involved parties, and adjacent to truly heinous institutions like slavery.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
In addition to being told to find the source of the curse that has fallen on his homeland of Kaerwen and put an end to it by his Chieftan, Einar would have begun to do so anyway out of a combination of love of his homeland and grief over what happened to his village. Finding what... or who... is behind the events that led to the blood frenzy of everyone he grew up with drives him like a fire in his chest heating the furnace of his passion for justice. Once the charge set to him by his Chieftan is fulfilled and Einar's justice is had, the Bear hopes one day to start a family and build a farm... but not in his homeland. No, he wants to then bring the peace and love of the Bear to other lands, hoping one day to in some small way promote peace between the great nations of Oleissa by teaching and showing them the gentle ways of Mother Ursa and her Bear cubs.
However, Einar has been touched by Mother Ursa, confirmed by Her priestess at the time of his birth. Does this mean he may one day sit in the longhouse of the High Chieftan? And how does High Chieftan Erik feel about this, if he even knows? Only time will tell...
Likes & Dislikes
He loves Ethalian spices and will put a boorish amount on his food. Also likes the aurora of the north, the smell of fresh fallen snow, the sound of a crackling fire, and those who share his ideals. More than anything, the three things Einar most enjoys are spending quiet time with friends, seeing two people madly in love with one another, and finding a new and interesting book to read.
Despite being quite good at it, the big Bear doesn't like fighting, or really conflict of any kind. Because of this when it does arise he has a tendency to put an end to any conflict quickly and efficiently, by whatever means are available to him to do so. As a proponent of and Seeker of the truth, he dislikes liars and anyone who tries to obfuscate the truth. This leads to him having a predisposition of distrust for most Adreadians thanks to their love of schemes. That said, it means when he finds an honest Adreadian he appreciates them even more. Like all Kaerwenians, he abhors torture. He isn't a fan of leafy vegetable, either, so good luck getting him to eat that kale salad.
Vices & Personality flaws
Recently Einar has taken to drinking to escape his nightmares in an alcohol-induced fugue more nights than not. He hates that he's so weak he has resorted to this, but can't help himself.
Hygiene
While often caked in the dirt and sweat of long travel, a lifetime of doing so means he rarely smells like anything more offensive than pine trees and mountain breezes. He bathes when he gets the opportunity, and keeps his teeth clean with neem tree branches.
Social
Contacts & Relations
He is childhood friends with Maya Katrya, now the High Priestess of Mother Ursa, and the two remain pen pals to this day, though neither has seen the other in decades.
Family Ties
Fjorri Greensky, his mother, is deceased at the hands of his curse-maddened father, who is missing and presumed to be roaming the lands of Kaerwen as the curse-mad do. The only family Einar has left are twin cousins Erika and Erikki Hillesland, who live in Horse lands with his paternal aunt Orna and her husband Geir. Erika and Erikki were a few years younger than Einar, but the three spent a lot of time together any time their families brought them together, so he is still on good... if somewhat distant... terms with them.
Religious Views
Einar is a devout follower of Láhm na Máthar Ursa. He views Aoveshanism and The Verity with bemusement, as one would a child making up stories.
Social Aptitude
Einar is a bookworm and a fighter. He is not quick of tongue nor educated in social graces. Thus he often ends up reinforcing the stereotypes others have of his people, at least before they get to know him.
Speech
He has a rich, bassy voice that turns into a rough grumble when he tries to speak softly, like the grunting of a bear.
Alignment
Neutral Good
Age
38
Date of Birth
1st day of Bear, 152 AV
Circumstances of Birth
Born under the Bear, with Owl rising in Luna
Birthplace
A small village to the northeast of Baruss, deep in Bear territory.
Children
Current Residence
Oleissa
Pronouns
he/him
Gender
Male
Eyes
Forest green, sunken, and lined
Hair
Shaggy, shoulder-length kodiak-colored hair and an equally shaggy beard
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Tanned, weather-toughened skin
Height
7'1"
Weight
280 lbs.
Quotes & Catchphrases
"Don't make me do this!" - initially said to his maddened father in the bloody mud streets of his slaughtered home village.
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