Edmond Hawkmoor

Edmond Hawkmoor, "Prof'".

At the school, no one held longsword and shield the way he did, and the instructors told him so. He spent his days taking apart other men's forms instead of working his own. They sent him out on the roads to carry the Order's word, the task nobody wanted, and he took it. He never speaks of it. He still corrects the guard of whoever walks with him, every evening, unasked.

Describe him

He knows everyone's name by the second day. He talks with his hands, lifts an elbow back into place, steps away to show you. He explains things nobody asked about, and he explains them well. His voice carries without ever rising, the habit of a man heard across a training yard. When the talk turns to war he gets faster and more precise. When it turns to the dead, he listens.

Play him

Play him as a comrade, never as a superior. Have him explain things; it is how he loves people. Let him talk about the sword schools like a young noble hungry for adventure, with the names of guards and clean, tidy odds. Then, the first time a player describes a real wound, have him stop in the middle of a sentence and not pick it back up. He has never refused a task and he will not start now. And hold, underneath, that he cannot yet tell courage from recklessness.

What he says (rarely)

"I had a comrade, Charles, who carried his elbow too high, same as you."
"I always took the work nobody else wanted. And look at these arms."
"(grinning) I know three ways to kill a skeleton. I cannot wait to try."