<div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Graham Ellery</div><div class="spoiler_body"><hr/><div align="center"><strong>The son of a disgraced duke, he now governs a mere fraction of what his father once owned and retains a family name that garners little more than scorn and ridicule. But maybe that is how he wants it to be?</strong></div><hr/><div align="center">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/05/Graham_Ellery_1.jpg)(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/1/1c/Graham_Ellery_2.jpg)</div><div align="center"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 16pt;"><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Graham Ellery</strong></span></span></span></div><hr/><br/><strong>*ASSIGNED*</strong><br/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Brief Overview</span></strong><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><strong>Name: </strong>Graham Ellery</li><li><strong>Gender: </strong>Male</li><li><strong>Age: </strong>28</li><li><strong>Species: </strong>Human</li><li><strong>Orientation: </strong>Bisexual</li><li><strong>Height: </strong>1 meter 84</li><li><strong>Weight: </strong>78 kg</li><li><strong>Relatives: </strong>Antony Ellery (father/deceased), Adriana Goodwin (mother/missing), Marshall Ellery (older brother/deceased), Duncan Ellery (uncle/banished), Usard Ellery (grandfather/deceased)</li><li><strong>Settings: </strong>Fantasy</li><li><strong>Notable Interests: </strong>Free Spirits, Rangers, Artistic Women, Military Men, Mysterious Spellcasters</li><li><strong>Related RPG Systems: </strong>None specific</li></ul><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Background Information</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div style="text-align: justify;">Graham was born the son of Antony Ellery, a noble lord of significant power and influence in his native kingdom. Having slowly expanded the Ellery family name to the point where he had the king's ear in matters of economy and trade, Antony's wealth continued to expand. The feudal system meant that more power yielded bigger rewards and the Ellery domain grew to encompass a significant part of the south of the kingdom. One thing had always driven Antony forward, and that was ambition. Unbridled, uncontrolled, he was known for his brutal, political tactics, but he retained a good reputation with his peers and subordinates. He ruled justly, and correctly, even if the occasional bit of coin landing into his palm did prove a weakness of his. Ultimately, though, these incidents were few in number and usually harmless. Of course, with his focus so purely invested in furthering his standing, his family life itself was neglected. Having married Adriana Goodwin primarily for gain, only the barest modicum of romance had flourished between them over decades of wedlock. Even when a pointless war cost the life of their eldest son, they took comfort more in their own family and friends then each other. They did not argue, they did not clash, but theirs was a cold marriage. His relationships with his sons, while genuinely loving, was equally starved. Time spent with him was rare and it left a lasting impression on the minds of both brothers that a father's duties lay with society first, offspring second.<br/><br/>In this environment, Graham grew up. He was provided for, educated, fed, treated and trained. After the passing of Marshall, who had been considerably older than he, the title of heir to the family name fell squarely on Graham's shoulders, with all the responsibilities thereof. Urgency and the lethality of life in their world dictated he be placed on the fast track, to make sure he was ready should Antony's shoes require filling ahead of anyone's expectations. During these years, Graham saw more of his uncle and grandfather than either of his parents, making them both surrogate fathers in his life. Both knew that Antony's life would lead to disaster and they did everything they could to inject morality into the harsh lessons Graham was otherwise given. Usard, his grandfather, shared experience and wisdom, while Duncan, his uncle, shared health and common sense. Graham was not the sturdiest of children, nor did he grow up to become the most enduring of men. Hypermobility and injuries sustained in a horseriding accident continued to plague him, to the annoyance of his father and disappointment of his mother. But even after Usard's passing, Duncan took it upon himself to make sure the Ellery name was not shamed when they were no longer there.<br/><br/>Sadly, such disaster was out of their control. By the time Graham reached twenty-five years of age, Antony's ambition had swelled to proportions that were less than humble. For years now, even since the ailing king had been replaced by a far less liked and competent and beloved son, he had been lusting after the position of chancellor under a new king. Many others felt the same, though their support needed to be rallied. He played a dangerous game, meeting with noble lords and wealthy merchants in private. Earning the loyalty of some, the scornful secrecy of others and the price tags of mercenaries that would help cement his rule. However, his support was recognized and consistently rewarded by the would-be usurper, who lurked in the shadows in relative safety. His wife knew of these activities, despite Antony's best efforts in keeping family and friends out of the machinations, but she did not speak up about it. By that point, their relationship had become purely ceremonial and she had long since given up on having any kind of say in her husband's actions.<br/><br/>It did not last. Eventually, the plot was discovered and traitors were rounded up. Among them, Antony and a significant part of the Ellery household. There was ample proof that only Antony had played a hand in the machinations, but his own allies turned on him, making his family the focal point of the entire plot. They needed a scapegoat, someone to divert attention, and they found the perfect sacrifice in him. In the end, Antony was put to the sword for his transgressions. On his way to the chopping block, he screamed not for his own innocence, but that of his kin, who were lined up right behind him. In the end, more than half the Ellery family was trialed for treason and executed, with the only prominent members to escape such a lethal verdict being Graham and Duncan. Despite having had nothing to do with any of it, Duncan was banished to a distant protectorate to live out the rest of his days in penance, while Graham was made the patriarch of a family that had been stripped of all of its honors. His mother had vanished in the night, leaving him all alone on the throne. Lands were divvied up, leaving him with only the meager territory that was ancestrally tied to the Ellery name. Titles were removed, power diminished and all but four villages were taken from him. Graham was made a mockery, disgrace and blemish on the kingdom's political map.<br/><br/>No amount of work that he has put forward in the years since has mended the damage, and he remains a pariah to this day.<br/><br/>But, he is not alone. While he has little left but his house guard, one man has stayed with him throughout all of this. The son of the lord in command of the old Ellery army, guard and militia. Having passed away as well, those tasks now fall upon his son, though with nothing of that army left standing, it would be far more apt to describe him as being bodyguard and confidant. The two have had the odd history of being enemies, rivals, disgruntled associates and tentative friends. It was only late in their teens when that flourished into something much deeper, more illicit and certainly secretive.<br/><br/>Today, Graham has all but given up. He goes through the motions of maintaining the status quo. He keeps his lands safe, coffers filled and people nourished. His reputation has only been restored among his own, while everyone else is still far too wise to associate with a cursed name. Foreign allies do exist, at least among those who ignore the rumors and meet the man himself. But the only apathetic reason why he has bothered to engage in foreign diplomacy is to keep local trade flowing. For the rest of the day, he just watches the world and waits, not knowing what to do with himself, or what he has.</div></div></div></div><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Personality</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div style="text-align: justify;">Graham is duality made manifest. Calm, collected, observant and almost frighteningly attentive to detail, he is simultaneously prone to stress, anxiety and deep worrying. While he tends to hide those more negative or self-destructive traits, they are always there, beneath the surface. Those who know him well will see the signs. Small ticks - barely noticeable - will herald his words or actions, and because they are completely involuntary, they will also be honest. Still, even under pressure, Graham tends to be able to think clearly and present his opinion and a course of action free of brashness. It is his physical health that suffers under the strain far more than his mental. During the most stressful times of his life, such as after the execution of his father, he would often fall ill or he would suffer ever more from the effects of his hypermobility. There are always ways to calm him down, of course, but getting him to turn his back on a problem before it is resolved has proven impossible. Once he has his mind set on something, he will be irrevocably driven to seeing that come to a satisfactory conclusion. Often, it invariably does, but at the cost of his own comfort. In that way, he is a tried and true martyr who almost annoyingly tries to always do what is best and right. Too pragmatic and bloodied to be a paragon of justice and an idealist, he is nonetheless someone who wants to better the world through every step he takes. Earn his friendship, and you will belong to a category of people who he always puts first and helps to the very best of his ability. Earn his ire, though, and learn that few stay in that group unscathed for very long...</div></div></div></div><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Appearance</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span class="bbc_u">Body</span></strong><br/>Graham is not the most physically imposing of men, yet he still manages to have a presence that overshadows those around him. Dignity, style, class, respect and charisma coat him as much as steel covers a knight in armor. He keeps himself groomed to perfection without succumbing to vanity or obsession. Shaven, a clean haircut and a fit physique meet to make a moderately attractive man into a handsome one. He maintains a slender, masculine build that errs on the muscular side without losing the elegance that matches his chose garb. Broad shoulders and a very strong core are the primary features, while a set of intensely blue eyes tend to put his intelligent and intuitive gaze on display. His facial features are pronounced, with high cheekbones, a powerful brow and a broad jaw. Black locks offer a glimpse of what he owed his mother, while his paler complexion is a definite carry-over from his father's side of the equation.<br/><br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Clothing and Gear</span></strong><br/>Graham generally dresses elegantly and tastefully, without becoming gaudy or wasteful. He buys quality sensibly and always seems to strike that perfect balance between taste and efficiency. He follows the current fashion trends only when he needs to attend some public gathering or social event, while dictating for himself what he wished to don a moment later. When traveling or hunting, Graham instead wears tough and practical leathers, complete with a quiver of crossbow bolts hanging from his lower back. A short sword is always at his side during these excursions, as is a crossbow that cost him an arm and a leg to have manufactured, but is thus of a quality many times above the norm.</div></div></div></div><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Skills and Abilities</div><div class="spoiler_body"><ul class="bbc_list"><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Scholar: </strong>Graham is a man of education and refinement, which has evolved over the years into a definite expertise in the fields of politics, economics and history. More than anything else, he adores studying and reading about the past and present, while musing about the opportunities of the future. Since an early age, he has shown himself as being tremendously adept at reading other people, judging their motivations, playing and praying on them, and using everything he knows to gain an edge in life. While having done so under a pseudonym, he is the author of a variety of widely acclaimed books on the history of the world as a whole. Well-traveled, there are few corners of the civilized world he has never seen and he uses those experiences to further his understanding of the people and events around him. His mind and wisdom - both well beyond his age - are by far his greatest asset.</div></li><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Survivalist: </strong>Graham was taught from a young age how to fend for himself. His late father was an avid hunter and loved to spend time in the wild by himself. Sometimes, he vanished for days on end without so much as leaving a single note for the captain of the guard. While he was unable to imprint that love for the outdoors quite so vigorously onto his sons, Graham still took to trekking through the world with the barest essentials on his back. This has resulted in Graham being surprisingly skilled at taking care of himself in any situation where the comforts of civilization are a distant luxury. While the harshest of environments are beyond his capabilities, the young Ellery still knows how to forage, hunt, build shelters, get a fire going and navigate remote and often dangerous locales.</div></li><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Crossbowman: </strong>While not a hardened veteran by any stretch of the imagination, Graham was still educated in some basic means of defending oneself. While he can handle himself with fists, daggers and blades, he showed more affinity with ranged weapons; crossbows in particular. He is no master with the weapon in hand, but his accuracy is certainly above the norm and he has the potential to become a crack shot. However, there are only so many hours in the day, so much of the time he would need to practice goes into his books and duties instead.</div></li></ul></div></div></div><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Major Flaws</div><div class="spoiler_body"><ul class="bbc_list"><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Hypermobility: </strong>Graham has always suffered from hypermobility, even if no medical term for it exists. Some of his joints have the tendency to overextend, causing him to have a much higher chance of getting sprains, tripping and falling, or even dislocation. Because his coordination is quite good, Graham has been able to keep it under control, but it still a fairly common occurrence to see him stumble as if tripping over his own feet. He tries to keep this to himself, meaning many misinterpret the accidents and believe him clumsy.</div></li><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Partial Deafness: </strong>A horse riding accident when he was young had nearly cost Graham his life. Fortunately, he was able to walk away from the near-tragedy with minimal lasting damage to his body. Aside from certain joints that tend to complain from time to time, he was left almost deaf in his left ear from the blow to his head after the fall. With age, it seemed to have only gotten worse, leading Graham to believe that he will lose all hearing in that ear before long. His greatest fear is that the damage has affected his right ear as well, he's simply failed to notice thus far...</div></li></ul></div></div></div><br/><div align="center"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Sexual Information</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div style="text-align: justify;">For most of his youth, Graham wasn't all that interested in romantic or sexual relationships. Much of his youth was spent studying or learning the ropes to one day take over from his father, as his elder brother had long since decided to become a career military away from home and the affairs of the Ellery family name. As such, not much time was left over to spend with girls. Still, the interest was there, under the surface, but he was never able to act on it. Before he could, he also made a very different discovery. His childhood nemesis, yet protector-in-training, Asher became more and more of a distraction as time came by and it wasn't long before Graham realized women weren't his only interest. His first time was with the other man and he has since had not intercourse with everyone else. This, strangely enough, means that he's fairly inexperienced where sex is concerned. He knows how to pleasure a man - well, one specific man - but the rest is all theory and supposition. Their relationship, while loving and intimate, is also not strictly exclusive, meaning his eyes still often turn to an attractive woman. Though, what is attractive to him? Resolve. Appearance, power and even education is secondary to resolve for the man. No matter the gender or background, he wants to see a fire in a lover's eyes. If there are no flames licking at his pupils, there will be no passion. If there is no passion, there will only be boredom. And boredom is the worst passtime Graham can think of.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br/><br/><hr/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Outskirts of Ashburne - Heading home to Amberthorne</strong><br/><br/>While he would never have said so out loud, Graham was pleased to hear the young Roland's request. Why? He had been sitting in a horse's saddle for far too long already, and he was starting to feel the painful effects thereof. Suppressing a wince, he dismounted while the guard went to attend to his needs, taking the opportunity to stretch his legs and flex his arms a little. The young lord was not the sturdiest, that much would be obvious to anyone who witnessed his almost awkward dismount. Having been arranging difficult deals from across a wooden table, while seated on a chair of poor quality and comfort for days meant that every joint in his body was either nagging or felt stiff as a board. No amount of walking was going to fix that yet. He would need to lie down on something more comfortable than soil, or whatever it was that had passed for a mattress in that abominable inn they had stayed at.<br/><br/><strong>"Careful. He stands watch outside your room sometimes. Might nurse his bladder in one of your drawers if you keep picking on him,"</strong> the comment was intended to come across in good spirit, but that did not stop Graham's deadpan and level tone from turning into a very dry statement to make. He tugged at his gloves to make sure they were proper, before taking a few steps away from his mount to look across the fields they had left behind when they had entered the forest. A part of him immediately wished he could head out - with a good sleeping bag of course - and spend some time on the road like he used to with his uncle. But, Asher would get a heart attack if his "charge" darted off into the wild without constant surveillance. That thought brought the talented warrior to mind, and Graham shot him a glance from over his shoulder. It would be barely noticeable for onlookers, for the hood of his expensive, though functional, cloak would get in the way. That same hood also obscured much of the Ellery patriarch's facial features. Shaven, a clean haircut, dressed in garb that suited his station without becoming gaudy and useless; he had the air of a perfectionist in some ways, always concerned with appearances. As superficial as that may have seemed - and it was - such matters were part of the game he had been thrust into. As much as he would like the world to share his pragmatism, the cover of a particular book still seemed to shape the opinions of others in an instant. So, he had to make sure the cover was pleasing to the eye.<br/><br/>Deep blue eyes returned to the road, even as the footsteps of Roland re-emerged. <strong>"Do you ever get the feeling that every time we take a step forward, we're forced to reconsider something, and take two more back?"</strong> something was on the intelligent man's mind, as usual. It would be unfair to call Asher the brawn, for a stupid bodyguard was a poor one, but they were still each other's antithesis in many ways. Some would argue that might be what attracted them to each other; or at least they would if anyone really knew about it. Graham turned to face the mounted trio, his strong arms crossing over his chest. <strong>"The deal with the Red Lotus. It -is- going to fall through, I know it,"</strong> he raised a hand to preemptively silence any of them that wanted to speak up. <strong>"That is not me doomsaying. Their mannerisms, poorly faked enthusiasm over the deal. It all reeks of sycophancy for the sake of getting house Ellery to shut its mouth."</strong><br/><br/>He grumbled something undignified under his breath, before returning to his horse and mounting the animal. <strong>"Let's just get home. The sooner, the better,"</strong> his mood was shot, unsurprising. No-one in his retinue could really blame him. His father had made a complete mess of their noble lineage's power base and it was up to his woefully unprepared son to fix it all again; pretty much alone. If he were not a level-headed man, the pressure and responsibility would have crushed him long before then. He shouldn't dwell on it, for the lack of progress was just going to aggravate him more until his mind forces him to go through another week of sleepless nights. He had only recently started sleeping better again to boot.<br/><br/>The group continued, with Graham retaining his silence and his expression relaying that he would rather not be subjected to banter. They needed a loan. Soon. Where in the name of the Creator's balls was he going to find a substantial one in the remaining time?</div>