Harold Lokar

Appearance
Harold is a man of average height and build for someone his age, if not perhaps slightly on the thin side. Soft features unscarred by conflict show the fact that he is not a warrior in role or intent. He has short, dark brown hair to go with his eyes, a short nose wedged between those eyes. He is typically seen in simple clothing of a shirt, trousers, and belt, which may vary in colour and hue, though very rarely going outside of beige and brown. He is typically seen walking with a (faked) limp, a walking stick that measures a number of inches above his own height seen in hand.

Biography
Harold’s family bought their land long ago, and it has subsequently refused to trade hands ever since. Harold is simply the latest in a long line to inherit the land, and ownership that rested upon it. His father was Gregory, and his mother Louisiana, who held areas of land larger than most, given that both parents were freeholders, and had combined their properties in marriage.

But onto Harold’s story, shall we? Born twenty years ago just within the border of a piece of land generically referred to as The Bannorn, which itself encompassed the various bannorns (please note, the case of B/b is important), which were led by Banns. The Banns hold their power by offering protection to the various freeholders – land owners – throughout the country of Fereldan, with the Lokar family being one such example of freeholders. Due to their status of being landowners, they are able to lead comfortable, if not well earned, livelihoods. They allow others to build and construct upon their land in return for a fee, which they in turn use for their own continued survival, and maintaining control of what they live on.

Due to their reputation of taking in just about everybody with the right number of pieces and/or sovereigns, Harold met a full range of peoples growing up. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and occasionally Dalish too when they were passing through. He was home schooled by his mother, who would also take him to the chantry there, raising him in the Andrastian belief system. He prayed to the maker, worshipped the Maker, and spoke good things of the Maker in the presence of those upon the Lokar family’s land. All despite a noticeable absence and lack of ‘proof’ for the maker’s existence.

As he hit puberty, something very strange happened that neither Harold nor his parents had particularly expected. In a bout of rage after a particular unsavoury dwarf refused to pay his fee, and in threatened the family, Harold gave a display of magical power, as he proceeded to beat to a bloody pulp, and subsequently murder, the dwarf. Were it not for the fact that the family house is secluded from the others on its land, then Harold would have been taken away from his family to be raised in the Circle of Magi. However, his parents refused to have him taken from them, and instead used their influence to make sure that news of the incident was not broken.

But, knowing that his powers might awaken again if not given the right training, and potentially in the wrong place. For several months he was kept away from contact with the outside world, as his parents searched for the one type of person that might be able to help: An apostate. It was hard, given the proximity of a chantry in Lothering to the south, but eventually, fortune smiled upon them, as an Apostate one day found their way onto the land. However, they were unable to pay such a fee, and it was suggested that they might instead teach Harold in the ways of a magi. A deal was struck, and his training began.

Thinking – though not quite sure – if a ruse might be needed, the staff Harold used to focus his abilities was deliberately made simple, and it was told that he’d injured his leg whilst playing freely upon the land. Thus, his stave was believed to be his ‘walking stick’, and his teacher focused on raising his abilities of utilising force. All the while, his teacher instilled doubt and questions on the truth of the chantry and its teachings. Did the maker really exist, or was it simply a method to control the masses? What about the Old Gods, who was tied to blood magic? And what of the elven pantheon, said to exist before the others?

Harold’s doubt gave way to a state of agnosticism, an acceptance that are strange things out there perhaps tied to a power he cannot see, but a refusal on how to identify such a power, without the definitive proof in front of him. At age 18, he took control of his family’s land, having come of age. He re-emerged to the public on regular occasion, travelling often in search of information and potential home seekers. He took into his employ a young woman by the name of Margaret, to care for his household during the hours in which he was gone. Now aged 20, Harold finds himself in a nation about to tear itself apart, as it at risk of being torn apart by a new blight.