Name: Rutger Mulder
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Race: Human
Class:
Dandy Highwayman Rogue
Description: A lanky fellow with slightly gangly limbs, Rutger
easily stands at a minimum of six feet tall. He's a bit slim, giving him a slightly shadowy appearance (if shadows were especially colorful), but he's fairly well-built for his slender frame. His curly hair, brownish in color and of a fairly decent length (having not had a haircut in years), tends to be unkempt. Keep in mind that he currently spends a fair bit of time camping out in treetops; he doesn't exactly have a lot of time to wash his hair. However, when he's not on one of his, er, "business trips," he tends to keep himself very clean.
Always well-dressed, Rutger likes colorful clothing, taking a particular shine to shades of blue. He doesn't usually do a good job of blending in, as a result, but he does own clothing in other colors, too, which he has few qualms switching into. His main outfit for this adventure will probably consist of a pair of loose-fitting blue pants, kept in place with a leather belt, and a white pirate shirt.
Of course, this is far from all of the clothing on his person. After all, Rutger is rarely seen without one thing in particular: his scarves. He tends to wear, at bare minimum, two lengthy, colorful, flowing scarves, at least as long as his armspan. They almost give him a winged appearance when they flow in the wind -- or maybe they just make him look like he's nuts. Both work just as well for him. Winged humanoids probably still have various connotations in this world, and if he's underestimated, that just means his marks will be that much easier to steal from. Also, he thinks they look cool, so who cares what anyone else thinks.
Oh, also, his eyes are a dark brown color. Footwear-wise, he usually goes for rather basic, yet very durable (and decently comfortable) leather boots.
Personality: Rutger is the energetic, vivacious sort who lets his overwhelming energy and apparent goofiness cover up the fact that, underneath it all, he is incredibly competent, skilled in many roguish arts and an adept actor. He's taught himself all of that; after all, he definitely needed real skills to get out of a jam more than once. Because of his occasionally goofy attitudes, he can be hard to take seriously; he leans on this heavily during a robbery in order to make his marks less likely to take him seriously.
Rutger generally has massive ambitions. Keep in mind that the only reason why he took up roguish professions was so that he could become famous for pulling it off against all odds. Rutger is probably not the best person to ask for ideas from -- since he tends to think big, coming up with something that seems utterly ridiculous in scale. He can, however, occasionally come up with a more down-to-earth idea. After all, underneath the ridiculous, colorful clothes, he does carry some very utilitarian gear that he can use to solve problems equally well.
One word to describe him when it comes to business: boisterous. Most rogues would try to keep quiet, but Rutger doesn't. Instead, he becomes as loud and obnoxious as possible, hoping to distract others by specifically grabbing their attention and grabbing their valuables when they're not focused on them (or on the fact that he's right in front of them being a clown). He loves the theatricality of fictional thieves and tries to emulate that, but he also has some sense of realism. Sometimes it's just easier to snipe an enemy from afar and nick their purse than it is to put on a song-and-dance routine and then take the price of admission without the audience realizing.
Basically, yeah: he's over-the-top and loud. However, he's very slow to anger and generally a strict optimist, a fountain of morale even in the face of truly grim circumstances. He is also, however, quick to run away and employ evasive tactics rather than fight. Despite all outward appearances, he's very careful. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell; his goofy demeanor, of course, can make it seem like it's entirely an accident.
Background: Rutger was born to a family in the east of the deserts, possibly an exorcist family; he didn't get a chance to really know them, though, as he was abducted and his parents were killed. Tossed upon the waves of the sea of a bad metaphor, he eventually wound up with another relatively lower-class family in a town in the Pocchi family's domain. The Pocchi family, hailing from the west of the continent, were wealthy wizards who built beautiful cities in the "Fortune Lands" -- named for the principle city, Fortune City. A place of gambling, gold and grifters, the Fortune Lands attracted beings of all species from around the continent to try their luck, or just to indulge a little. If there was anything in the world that someone could want, they could take hold of it in the Fortune Lands, if they were willing to pay the right price. (Arguably, being able to required you to win in the casinoes of Fortune City.)
He was granted his name by this family, the Mulders. They knew Rutger wasn't like them, but didn't have the heart to tell him ... of course, they also didn't know where he was from. As a result, Rutger doesn't know where he's from. He thinks he was born in the Fortune Lands, but... he is still mindful of that entirely-too-convenient year or two missing from his memory. It was fully possible that he could be from almost anywhere else; he saw people come and go all the time, and some of them settled down for a long time!
As a young one, he spent much of his time taking in cheap performances at local theaters and even trained as an actor for a time -- he proved a quick learner in that area. For some reason, he was always drawn to thieves in these types of stories: they tended to be unrealistic, the type of people who
wanted attention.
Don't the roguish sorts usually want to stay hidden? he reasoned. But maybe, just maybe, he could
perfect that art? His family hadn't been doing well lately anyway, to the point that Rutger already felt that he might soon need to start stealing in order to help his family hold onto their social clas. He figured he may as well strive not just to hang on to his lot in life but to rise
higher -- and if he's going to climb, why not climb as high as possible? He decided he'd try to become the sort of person about whom stories are written. For that, he'd have to be memorable, hence his specific ambition: make those stories of the olden days come true.
The Pocchi family was notoriously fortunate, thanks to the power of an Artifact. Even the most skilled of criminals who acted intelligently tended to have a hell of atime even being successful, and they were often caught in short order. That made the Fortune Lands a dangerous place for the young thief to work -- but oh, it would have made successes that much sweeter. To steal anything in Fortune City would have made him famous in a heartbeat. Rutger, though, had the strangest luck. He was a real mold breaker; for as much as some easy things tended to fail for him, he proved adept at the most difficult acts. Of course, even he wasn't about to rob a casino in the Fortune Lands just yet. He made do lightening the purses of those in a fairly nearby area. He accumulated a fair amount of money over time; eventually, he left most of it to the Mulder family before leaving them to "make a name for himself."
He eventually
did successfully rob a casino, claiming a fair amount of money for himself. Of course, this wasn't before he used the rest of his ill-gotten gains to gain himself a wardrobe of impressive, flashy, colorful clothing. He ran from the city before he could get caught. However, he
definitely made a name for himself, becoming an urban legend overnight. This probably wasn't what his adoptive parents had expected of him. Honest folks that they were, when they heard of his deeds, they gave the money away, hoping it would reach its rightful owners. No doubt about it, Rutger doesn't believe for even a minute that his adoptive family even still considers him their son, but he hangs onto the Mulder name. Hey, everyone's got to be called something, right?
He made his way westward in a meandering path, taking what he could as though it were all his. As he went, he developed his own thieving technique, with two key components: a. be unpredictable, and b. misdirect like a politician a month before a big election. His acting skills would come in handy here, he knew, and they definitely expanded a little as he kept at it. Of course, there were times when he just couldn't get away with being roadside entertainment -- he learned to be quite handy with a knife, and purchased a modified crossbow in order to supplement it, for times when theatricality wouldn't get the job done and a more deadly art was necessary.
Eventually, he moved a town on the edge of the Atma family's territory, but he certainly did seem to disappear for extended periods from time to time. Maybe he goes back to the forests to try his hand at banditry again? Probably.
Equipment:
- Sighted Crossbow: Everyone and their mother has seen an FPS that uses a crossbow as a sniper rifle at this point. This is the equivalent at Refia's technology level. It's a crossbow with a spyglass mounted on it by a Dwarven engineer. It's definitely jury-rigged, yes, but it's decently well-made for what it is. It works decently if not perfectly, since obviously, the bolt doesn't exactly shoot out the center of the spyglass.
- Dagger: Resembling a poignard in scale, it's... well, it's a steel dagger. Not really much else to say about it, honestly. This is what he uses when fighting up-close. Now with lock-picking action! (Note: Do not attempt to use lock-picking action. It may damage your dagger and will void the warranty.)
Abilities:
- In addition to his skills with weapons and as a thief, he's a talented actor with a very good memory.
- Rutger is unusually lucky. It sometimes seems like the less possible something is, the more capable Rutger is of pulling it off.
Companion(s): N/A