Birth Name: Harathir

Nickname or Title: Whistler

Race: Corsair of Umbar (Man)

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 160 lbs

Age: 32

Appearance: Fierce and bearded are the main characteristics of his face. His features are slanted and angular, his nose crooked from a poorly set break, his eyes set in a permanent squint underneath sharp eyebrows, his long, perpetually wind-swept hair and his black beard matted and tangled over his shallow cheeks and sharp jawline. The over-all effect, when combined with his sun-beaten skin, gives him the look of a sea-weathered cliff, battered and pockmarked and strewn with old tide-weed. In build he more resembles a whip than anything. He is lean and tightly-muscled, long of leg and broad of shoulder, he is agile and quick in combat and strong enough to overpower most ordinary men. His long arms end in rough, calloused hands marked by years of work at sea, pulling ropes and wrestling with oars.

Description: Harathir is a surprisingly amicable fellow, for a man who kills and steals for a living. He enjoys drinking and smoking, of course, such are the vices of men, and he is partial to loud and lewd tavern songs. Usually a fairly even-tempered and fair-minded man, Harathir can have his dour moments. Often when he has been reliving old memories or is contemplating the mysteries of the sea, He will become increasingly rude and unfriendly, often utilizing various insults or unsavory metaphors to color his speech. The only other thing that will turn his head is Treasure, with a capital T. If it's shiny, sharp or shapely, Harathir would very much like to have it. It probably has something to do with him not having very much of anything when he was growing up, so now he is making up for all the wealth that he missed out on.

Weaponry: An oak and steel crossbow and a broad-bladed cutlass.

Armor or clothing: Tanned and waterproofed leather makes up his boots, trousers and overcoat. Under his overcoat he wears a black, open tunic and some light scale-mail that covers his torso and shoulders.

Miscellaneous: He carries a pair of rings, one on the middle finger of his left hand and its twin on his ring finger. They are silver and each is adorned with ornate carvings that mirror the other.

Skills and Abilities:
Swashbuckler - Over a decade of fighting at sea has given Harathir excellent form when crossing swords on any floating vessel, be it on becalmed waters or swept up in a fierce maelstrom. On land this translates into a somewhat unpredictable and seemingly random bunch of swinging, swaying and stumbling as he compensates for the rolling of a non-existent boat. Most enemies are thrown off by his unusual fighting form, allowing him to easily slip through their defenses and dispatch them.

Marksman - While he is not an Elf, nor a ranger of Dunedain, He does possess above average sight. That and having first hand knowledge about the advantages of ranged combat, caused him to take up training in the use of a crossbow. Now he is able to put a bolt through the heart of a man at 200 paces from the deck of his ship on a stormy day.

Dexterity - Being a sailor requires more than just a love of the sea. The average deckhand will be climbing ropes, shimmying up and down the mast, crawling through cramped cargo-holds and balancing on top of the sails, all while carrying rope or equipment and being tossed about and splashed by the wind and the sea. Harathir is very good at climbing, balancing and carrying things because of this.

Whistler - A skill taught to him by a Dwarven weapon-smith whose life he saved. To show his gratitude, he taught Harathir how to make his weapons sing by reforging them and then engraving small grooves and patterns along the edges. The engravings on his cutlass make a sharp whistling sound whenever it is swung, surprising and intimidating his enemies as it sings the song of their demise.

Flaw(s): Aside from the fact that Umbar and Gondor have been on opposite sides of the war for more than an age, Harathir's love of all things valuable would jeopardize the safety of the Ring-bearer.

History: Born in the back room of a tavern in the Deckhands District of Umbar, he was raised on bawdy tales and sea-breezes. As a boy he would watch the boats of merchants and traders sail in and out of the bay, wishing he was brave enough to stow-away and escape his life of begging and thievery. Then, one day while he was ship gazing, a sleek and dangerous looking ship sidled up to the docks near him. It was a Corsair ship. The two men that stepped off of its deck, looking for all the world like they owned the place (which technically, they did), were perhaps the two most fierce men Harathir had ever seen. He could see them scanning the docks from where he was sitting, they looked like they were after something in particular. Curious about what could bring these two dangerous men, with the best ship he had ever seen, to one of the poorest parts of the city. As he climbed down from his vantage point atop a few crates of cargo, he accidentally knocked one off the edge of the stack and it smashed open on the ground, spilling its contents everywhere. He only stopped to stare in shock for a moment before the owner of the crate began shouting threats and insults at him, then he was off down an alley with the man chasing after him. He ran for what seemed like hours before the emerged from the other end of the alley and crashed right into something, the angry crate owner emerging behind him. As he looked up from where he had fallen, Harathir saw the two fierce men from before staring down at him, then two meaty hands pulled him up by his scruffy hair and wheezed promises of pain as loudly as he could considering how far he had just run. Just as the fat merchant was about to drag him away, one of the fierce men spoke up.

"Hold there, Gerlon."

The fat man went still as a statue, he even stopped breathing for a moment, then he turned slowly with eyes comically wide. But he never released his grip on Harathir.

"Y-Yes? What would you have of me Captain?" Clearly he knew the men and something about them terrified him.

"I would have that crate of ale you promised me a month ago, Gerlon."

Gerlon panicked for a moment, before a cruel light gleamed in his eyes, "I was just about to bring it to you, but this boy smashed it." He shoved Harathir forward and both men focused on him. The man on the left looked rather angry that a whole crate-full of ale had been wasted, but the one on the right, who Gerlon had called 'Captain', looked to be weighing him up in his mind.

"What is your name, boy?" he asked.

"Harathir, sir."

"Very well, Gerlon we will take the boy" said the Captain, "consider us even."

With that they turned and left, Harathir trailing along confusedly behind them. So began his life as a deckhand on The Black Serpent.

For the next few years he spent as a cabin boy, Harathir picked up all sorts of tricks and skills from the other crew-members. How to tie knots properly, how to carry things while climbing, how to swim and how to fight. When he turned 15, he had grown strong enough to man the oars for more than a few hours at a time, so he was given a hammock of his own, a strongbox and a spot on the oar bench. It was not long after this that he first killed a man, a boarding party from a Gondorian long-ship had jumped across in the dead of night, Harathir took an arrow to the shoulder for the Bosun, the man who was with the Captain when they first met, then stabbed the archer to death with his own dagger. After that the Bosun began teaching him how to fight with a sword, specifically the cutlass, so that he could better defend the ship and his crew-mates.

A few weeks after his 16th birthday they made port in the Deckhands District again, at the same dock even. The Captain sent Harathir to go and pick up a few crates of supplies that would be waiting on the docks while he and the Bosun attended to some business. Harathir had just located the stack of crates that were marked with a black snake, when he heard a muffled scream and some scuffling in the nearby alleyway. He quickly drew his sword and dashed to the corner, peeking around and taking in the situation before him. Two men, large and dressed in dirty castoffs, had accosted a young girl. The shorter one had his hand over her mouth and was half-carrying half-dragging her further into the alley while the fatter one was blocking her escape if she managed to wriggle free. Harathir only had to see the look of terror in her eyes, her soft blue eyes, before he was around the corner and had plunged his sword into the fat mans' back. As he fell to the ground, choking on his last few seconds of life, Harathir jumped over him and raised his sword high, then brought it down on the short mans head just as he turned to investigate the noise behind him. He was dead before he hit the floor, head split nearly in two, arms going slack as his life was extinguished. Harathir calmly wiped the blood and brains off on the rags of the dead man at his feet, before sheathing it and turning to the girl he had just rescued. She was younger than him for sure, pale blue eyes framed by tangled blonde locks and tear-stained cheeks. She was half starved but looked to be around 14.

"What is your name?" he asked the quietly sobbing girl.

She looked up at him in awe and not a little fear, "S-Serrah, my name is Serrah."

"Well you won't have to worry about them anymore Serrah" he said reassuringly "You're with me now."

Harathir did all he could for Serrah, using his share of loot to help keep her fed and safe while he was at sea with the Corsairs. The other men snickered whenever they saw him jump overboard as they passed the Deckhands District, pack-full of silver on his back. Harathir was in love and he didn't even know it. The Captain watched all of this unfold from his cabin, as weeks turned into months and months became a year, until finally he called Harathir to his cabin the day before he turned 17. They talked all day, well the Captain talked most of the time, Harathir really just sat there in a mixture of confusion, embarrassment and fear. When they emerged, the Captain called for someone to carry a rather drunk Harathir to his hammock so he could sleep off the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed.

\\ Okay, for time reasons, I will just outline the rest of his history up to the present so that we can get on with the RP and I can write all of this properly when I get time.

Basically, Harathir realises he wants to spend the rest of his life with Serrah, finds a matching pair of silver rings he thinks they should wear to signify their bond, gets back to Umbar after a few months at sea to find her dead, she had been raped and killed by the captain of another Corsair ship, The Reaver. Harathir asks his Captain to help him get revenge, the Captain turns him down citing some code of honor or something, so Harathir goes alone, challenges the Captain of The Reaver to single combat until one of them is dead. Harathir triumphs and takes over as Captain of The Reaver, then sets about looting and pillaging and gathering all the wealth he can find, during this time he comes across the dwarf who teaches him how to make his weapons sing and he takes up training in marksmanship with a crossbow. No matter what he does and no matter how rich he becomes, he still feels the emptiness where Serrah used to be. Then his ship, The Reaver, along with scores of others, are burned at port in Umbar by a force led by Aragorn (playing with time, I know, but Peter Jackson got away with it :p). He feels this is a sign, so he takes what remains of his fortune, very little, and acquires the tavern in the Deckhands District where he was born. It is here that Gandalf finds him.

\\End Summary.

RP Sample: It was a dimly lit room, air filled with smoke and noise, that greeted the grey-cloaked traveler as he ducked under the slightly-too-low door frame. There was a large fire burning steadily in the center of the room, keeping the cold blowing in off the sea at bay and bathing the room in a dull glow. The tall man carefully maneuvered his way through the drunk and unwashed crowd, nudging people aside with his gnarled, wooden staff as he approached the bar and, specifically, the man behind it.

"What can I get'cha?" said Harathir, wiping down the bar with a none-too-clean piece of cloth.

"A moment of your time, if it's not too much trouble" replied the man in grey.

Harathir frowned slightly, before pouring two mugs of ale and gesturing for the other man to follow him, call over his shoulder "Maarz! Take over."

As they sat at the table Harathir had chosen, the grey man lowered his hood, revealing a long beard as grey as his clothes and the wizened face of an old man.

"So" began Harathir, "What brings the Grey Pilgrim to my humble establishment?"

Gandalf managed to hide his flicker of surprise behind the facade of humming slightly and stroking his beard, as if in thought. "What indeed? I am in need of warriors. Exceptional warriors, much like yourself, to carry out an important and dangerous mission for me." He paused again, stroking his beard, lost in the web of his unending plans.

"Important and Dangerous, eh? Why should I care? Sauron stirs in the East while the West tries to rally what's left of it's armies. Let them have their war, I say. Neither has done me any favors." He stood up to leave, his refusal all but final, when Gandalf's hand shot out and caught him on the arm in a surprisingly firm grip.

"Wait, I know you care less than nothing for the West. I know you care less than nothing for most of anything. I feel the emptiness in you where love and adventure used to be. For the sake of the man you once were and the woman that you loved, for the sake of the man you could be again, help me save this Middle-Earth from the tide of darkness that threatens to drown it."

Harathir was frozen for a moment, trapped in whirlwind of memory that flashed through him in an instant. The shouts of a fat merchant, an arrow being pulled from his shoulder, terrified blue eyes, men being torn apart by monsters, a cruel bloodthirsty grin, heat and light, burning, searing, choking. He caught himself on the arm of a chair, panting as if he had just fought for an hour. He sank back down slowly and held his face in his hands, before rubbing his eyes tiredly and looking back up at Gandalf.

"To destroy the darkness?"

Gandalf nodded, "Walk among the Trollshaws outside Rivendell before noon, one month from now."

With that Gandalf the Grey was gone, and Harathir the Corsair had some arrangements to make.


No, we do not travel with the Fellowship.