Ferrando
I know I should really stay out of this, but I'll feel awful if I don't, so here we are.
Description: Tall and powerfully built, Ferrando possesses an imposing stature that he often tries to offset with an affable personality and a winning smile. His darker, olive complexion and rugged good looks would likely mark him as coming from the southern city states of the Lyceum even without his name or the very common black hair and dark brown eyes shared by many of the Lycene. For a large, muscular man, he moves with a surprising degree of natural grace and carries himself with confident poise.
Personality: Affable, courteous, with a quick wit and jovial sense of humor, many are surprised that Ferrando seems to make as many enemies as he does. He has a strong sense of fairness and justice, reacting quickly and decisively to anything that calls for action... even if sometimes he finds later he might have been better off waiting and thinking things through. He is acutely aware how his physical strength and imposing stature can be intimidating, and would much rather use that to defuse situations than to resort to violence. His positive hatred for bullies sometimes gets the better of him, however, and his anger can catch his friends off guard who know Ferrando to be generous and warm hearted to a fault.
Background: The Lyceum is renowned (infamous, from some perspectives) for its cultural bent towards a certain pragmatic flexibility in comparison to the rest of the Compact's norms and traditions. Every culture has its outliers, however, and Ferrando to his mild chagrin has turned out to be one of them. It's not that he doesn't take pride in being a Lenosian or love and appreciate his family. He is simply the kind of confident idealist that will stand up for what he thinks is right no matter the odds, and thusly is absolutely terrible at the hallmark pragmatic flexibility of the south.
Growing up as an Artiglio and a prodigiously big, tough, and strong one at that, it was only natural that like his famed Captain of the Guard uncle Giovanni he would be fast tracked into the Lenosian Guard himself. Not only just because he was big, tough, and strong, but because it was also fairly clear early on that he did not have a merchant's aptitude for either wheeling or dealing or maximizing profit margins in general. Unfortunately, his tenure in the Guard was largely a debacle in the end.
It wasn't because he wasn't any good at being a guard, per se; he took to armsmanship like a prodigy and went on longer patrols and worked harder than anyone. What he wasn't very good at, however, was following rules and authority. Or rather, he was when he thought they were good rules and good orders but unhesitantly went off-script when he didn't. The Guard was there to keep order, Ferrando was there to help people and lay the smack down on anybody who tried getting rough, and if that resulted in slightly less order on balance he was not bothered by it at all. He simply wasn't having any part of participating in the casual corruption or letting the minions of powerful people get away with things. Needless to say, this sort of loose cannon cop do-gooding did not exactly play well with either the criminal gangs or his superiors and Ferrando racked up a collection of immensely irritated enemies in a few short years. It was at this point that the Artiglios decided to pull some strings before Ferrando pushed somebody too far, and so he was for all practical intents and purposes kicked out of the Guard and sent to Arx.
Ironically enough, he quickly thrived in Arx. As per usual, his sticking up for random strangers earned him a job when he came across someone being threatened by a minor noble and intimidated the noble into backing off. Said someone turned out to be a Whisper, and just like that he was a "remedial etiquette instructor" (i.e. bouncer) at the Whisper House with a steady salary and an excellently furnished suite to stay in, and from there soon enough rose to be the House's head of security. For a time, he also held a bit of a side hustle/hobby of "independent security consultant" (i.e. bodyguard) on a few expeditions here and there, but the return of Skald to the Pantheon of the Faith filled a hole he was never quite able to articulate before; the primacy of choices, and the importance of choosing to being true to yourself no matter if it means you stand alone. He became one of the founding Liberators of the Discipleship of Skald, and often spends time at the shrine having found it a way to help people that doesn't necessarily oblige him to intimidate bad guys (or punch them in the face) in the process. He also met the fiery forgemistress Eithne Thornburn, and over time ended up settling down with her to raise their daughter Carson together. It's an unconventional path for a kid from Lenosia, but he's made it work out, and it's worked out rather well for him at that.
Relationship Summary
Acquaintance:
Family:
| Name | Summary |
| Duarte | Devil-may-care Artiglio with a flair and good business sense. |
| Jaenelle | A man who is the perfect example of why one should take the time to listen before judgment. I hope he lives a long peaceful life. |
| Medeia | I want to like this man. Surely, we will get along? Under circumstances that involve fewer harps? |
| Sabella | This fellow is very brave! And I don't think that horse's name was Rhubarb. |
| Volcica | Well, a particular spider likes him, so I suppose I do, too! |