Description

Personality

Wecks gives the impression that nothing much bothers
him. He shrugs off insults, threats, danger, and attempts at friendship with equal disinterest. So, while he rarely gets very mad, he isn't very happy very often either. He doesn't like physical contact, and one of the few things that ever upsets him is the invasion of his "personal bubble." He's rather ruthless, and doesn't seem to understand the purpose of mercy.

He's also quite polite, but his courtesy should not be mistaken for an interest in friendship. His moral code can be summed up as "might makes right."

Wecks has some obsessive compulsive tendencies. His pack must always be stowed in a particular order, for example. He also finds it upsetting to see certain colours together in clothing or art - especially red and green.

Equipment

See above for his clothing. For a weapon, he carries a serviceable shortsword, belted about the waist and hanging on his right hip. His sword has a plain singlehanded hilt with a disc shaped pommel. The crossguards are short and angle slightly bladeward. The blade is anout as long as his forearm, straight, and sharpened along both edges.

Wecks keeps some compact cookware in his pack. This consists of a shallow pot and skillet that nest within one another, as well as a tin cup and a large spoon with a folding handle that fold into the pot and pan's cavity. He also carries good travelling rations, namely dried meat, a block of blue-veined cheese, and small sacks of grains for making gruel. He also carries the usual adventuring supplies like rope, a sturdy knife, a tinderbox, and a big sheet of waxed canvas that he can use to fashion a bender tent. He also has a few tools of the assassins trade - a brown linen mask for when he does not wish his face to be seen, a thin, curved dagger meant for slitting throats, and two bottles of poison for incapacitating a foe. One, made from peach pits, will cause unconsciousness in small doses but no lasting harm. The other is made from the secretions of a tropical fish, and is both deadly and nearly undetectable.

History

It would be an understatement to say that Wecks' life
did not turn out the way he had planned.

Wecks was born a Sea-Gypsy, a member of a wandering fisherman tribe that
made its living off the south coasts of Azrael and Tahael. Most sons of
the Sea-Gypsys never set foot on dry land, living their entire lives on
board house boats and barges and slender sea-canoes. The Sea Gypsies are
a joyous people, and although Wecks was always somewhat somber by the
standards of his people, he certainly wasn't the rock that he appears to
be today.

When he was fifteen, old enough to build his own canoe, disaster struck.
Not at the hands of any malicious person or people, but thanks to good old
impersonal nature. A freak storm caught his tribe's flotilla unaware.
His family's houseboat was swept onto a jagged rock reef and smashed to
bits, dumping his mother, two aunts, and the various small children of the
family into the frothing waves.

Other members of the community tried to leap to the rescue, but the
unpredictable crosswinds of the gale made it nearly impossible to reach
the victims of the shipwreck. Although Sea Gypsies are generally strong
swimmers, people and boats easily become separated in rough waters. They
managed to save his Aunt Ista, and Wecks himself hauled his little brother
Gin into his canoe, but neither he no anyone else saw the rest of the family again.

Wecks tried to stay with the tribe, but life became very hard. The loss of their family houseboat impoverished his remaining relatives. Wecks was young, and it was easy for him to sleep in his canoe at nights, but it was almost impossible for the Mattaus to store provisions for the lean season to come. Worse than that were the memories. Everything reminded Wecks of his lost family, and the unpredictable sea frightened him. How could he ever plan to make a life for himself when the ocean could steal it all away on some cruel whim?

So, Wecks paddled his canoe ashore and attempted to begin a new life. The first thing he did upon arriving on land was to sell his canoe, as he didn't see any reason why he would need it again. He got far too little money for the sleek craft. He lucked out when a messenger's horse stumbled on the road ahead of him and threw its rider, snapping the man's neck. If it weren't for the pouch of coins, sword, and sturdy boots he stole from the dead messenger, he probably would have perished.

He bluffed his way into a job guarding merchant waggons. He learned through doing, and by watching the other guards as they worked. The strong muscles he earned paddling his canoe and and the precision he learned spearing fish served him well, and he developed his own style. He was eventually recruited by a shadowy northern guild of assassins, of which he has been a member since his mid twenties.

He's currently under contract to the Syndicate of Mahil to kidnap the Xahti girl. He doesn't know why they want her, and he doesn't particularly care.