John Whig was apprenticed to a Master Armourer, Alice Stanhope, at a young age by his uncle after the tragic death of his parents in a mine disaster. An indifferent smith at best, John dreamed more of adventures and excitement than metallurgy and heat-gradients. Still, for years John carried water, worked the bellows and slowly, with not a few burns and scars, learnt how to work metal and make armour.

Best of all in this time were the old revolutionaries who used to congregate round the forge (Alice's mother having been a luminary in the battles against the King) and tell tales of the old days and the death knell they sounded for privilege. It was their talk, and their encouragement which lead Whig to form the political views which he now quietly holds.

As a young man working towards his Journeyman's sash John fell in with a number of other young idealists who believed that the city needed to change, that too much power had been accumulated by too few people and that the workers and the unions were being squeezed out. Certainly some were more radical than others in this group, but most were content with creating and distributing newspapers decrying corruption and other abuses of power and with anonymous non-violent protest. But not all, of course.

When the Upheaval struck this small cell, these small groups of friends had all gathered at a farmhouse some way out of town. One of their number, one Piotr, had claimed to have something vitally important to communicate to the group. Whig would have been with them, would have been consumed by the flux, except that the day before he had dropped an anvil on his foot and could not travel.

Shortly after Alice killed herself (leaving the forge to John), John learned from some other union members that Piotr had been an agent provocateur trying to incite the group to greater acts of disobedience and thereby to bring the law down on them. For whom Piotr was working remains a mystery.

So John up and sold the forge and from the money that was left over decided to become an adventurer and go out into the world to fight for the workers and the poor, rather than merely speak for them, and also to find out who had sent Piotr to his little revolutionary cell…

Class: Fighter

Background #1:

Craftsman

Background #2:

Heavy Armour Use

Skills

• Craft 1
• Heavy Armour Use 1 (free due to background-taking)
• Heavy Armour Training 2
• Weapon-Use (Axe)
• Weapon Finesse
• Weapon Talent 1
• Large Shield Use
• Solid Defence
• Dampen Blow
• Wealth 1
• Burly
• Strength of Arms