Approved by Con

Name: Porthan
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Rank: Journeyman wherhandler / wher candidate
Appearance: Porthan is fairly large barrel shaped bloke who seems bigger than he is through loudness and force of manly enthusiasm. He probably wrestles tunnelsnakes drunk and has a great time doing it. He possesses light brown skin, handsome deep klah brown eyes with pretty lashes, and glorious thin dreadlocks half way down his back. He has plenty of scars from a violent life that he's pretty proud of, including a couple of duelling scars on his face.

Whether on duty or off duty Porthan likes to be comfortable and pretty practical but he does enjoy putting a bit of flare into his off duty outfits when he can and is a big fan of jewellery, he'd wear lots of gold if he could afford it but only possesses one piece- a gold thumb ring set with a large oval cut milky fire opal. Most of his jewellery is made of bone, shell or wood with a few other pieces of less precious metal.

Personality: Feasting, fighting and - ah - fornicating.

Porthan is very amicable, everyone's friend, always up for a laugh and a wrestling match. He's also pretty sexist, with the notable exception of fellow wherhandlers. Wherhandlers are different, have you seen whers? He tends to treat effeminate gay men (again, not handlers!) as he would a woman; this means that he'll carry things for you, open doors, and indulge the whims that come into your pretty head but not take you too seriously. Such people are for romancing, so far as he's concerned, but not for true romance; if he were to have a partner he could truly love, respect and stay with long term they would probably have to be a fellow handler. Much as a lot of people see riders as a people apart, since coming to they Weyr Porthan has sort of started to view handlers as people apart. He doesn't think they're better (though he does think they're a lot tougher), it's more the fact that he values the experiences and culture he shares with other handlers. His mind might be changed by falling hard for a non handler, but that's how he thinks at the moment.

Porthan doesn't often get angry but when he does, after a slow (obvious!) menacing build up he explodes and will probably need to be hauled off by his friends to stop him doing major damage. He calms quickly in general and doesn't hold a grudge unless somebody has really seriously offended or harmed him or one of his friends, but that's usually not much comfort to somebody if they've just had their nose broken. The things that really do make him angry are badly insulting those he's close to, or hurting them, or upsetting them. It's hard to insult Porthan personally, mainly because he'd confident in himself and his skills; why take offence if you know they're talking crap?

Porthan almost never has any bad intentions towards others but he can be quite a bull in a china shop with delicate matters, well ones related to feelings anyway. He can be rather too blunt or just plain oblivious, and will be totally confused by people who are easily insulted or upset though he will be a lot more sympathetic and apologetic to the latter kind of person than the former; highly strung idiots with huge glass egos are things he could very happily do without.

Porthan is loyal to close friends and to huntmates absolutely without question. He can easily be led astray by such comrades but will insist they're in the right even if provided with evidence to the contrary. He forgives his friends easily too about just about anything, the only real exception would be hurting one of his other friends. No matter how dark their deed they're his friend okay, and if you have a problem with them then unfortunately you have one with him too. A lot of the fights Porthan has got into over the turns he has entered calmly because a friend needed him to back them up, or defend their honour in a duel should they be unable to for any reason.

Perhaps surprisingly Porthan is a good actor, but he is a character actor, not a chameleon. He does big stupid guard, big stupid bodyguard, big stupid drunk... the gist is given, anyway, he does it very well and remembers well what he hears and sees. He tends to play dumber than he is most of the time actually, not that he's clever; he's just more average than he is dense and he tends to come off as dense especially on first acquaintance. Mainly he just doesn't like the effort of intellectual conversations and, well, if somebody might turn out to be an enemy there's no harm in them under estimating you.

Porthan's aims in life are pretty simple; he wants to carry on with his work, carry on having a full belly, and spend his free time drinking and laughing with his friends. He has a vague ambition to be recognised as a Masterhandler one day but he would need a bit of a push himself in life to put in the effort needed to achieve it.


History: Porthan's mother Orelsa was a drudge, who told him as a child that his father was a dragonrider who had sworn to take her away to his Weyr but had ultimately spurned her for a Harper. Porthan believed the story as a boy but he's not quite sure what he believes now; mostly he doesn't think about it, or any of his early turns come to that. White Cliffs Hold in the Tillek territories was wealthy, or at least the wealthy were wealthy - very wealthy - but in turn the poor were very poor and it was not a kind place to be a drudge or the child of a drudge. There was basic crèche provision for the children of the Holders' drudges but only if the children were legitimate which Porthan clearly was not; Orelsa had no choice but to carry him with her as she worked. Almost before he could walk the boy began to help his mother with her chores; scrubbing the Holder's fine floors, keeping the fires stoked, and all those tasks that little hands are better at.

When he got a little older Porthan was put to work of his own, most often tending to the fires that heated the Holder's extensive, expensive bathhouse. It was through this work, and the sparse breaks he got, that he began to associate with other children extensively for the first time. Far from being shy of his new-found peers Porthan loved them and fitted in easily. Soon he preferred to spend time with them than with his worn out broken-spirited mother and he resented being dragged off to sleep by her side at night.

Turns wore on and Orelsa wore down. By the time Porthan was twelve she was a shadow of a person, gaunt and dirty with dead eyes. When a coughing sickness spread through the Hold that winter Orelsa simply wasn't strong enough to recover; she died in her sleep alone in a narrow cot of the Holder's small 'workers infirmary'. While Orelsa had not been especially emotionally available or any fun at all for turns Porthan was heartbroken at the loss of her, heartbroken and afraid. Was that his future? To just work and work until he dropped? It was not a future he was prepared to accept and so he started working on a way to avoid it. Every fraction-mark tip he was able to earn, or steal, he hid behind a loose stone down in one of the store rooms; he would save up, and then he would escape before he could swear a formal contract at the age of fourteen. A couple of his friends quickly agreed to join him in his venture and the trio of boys began to plan their futures together.

Aged about thirteen and a half Porthan fled the Holder's household, taking the marks he and his friends had gathered with him. Following directions given to him by the eldest of their number he located a tavern where he was to wait for the others to join him, all three going at exactly the same time might have drawn attention they felt. Porthan waited... and waited... and waited. His friends never came, and he never did find out why. Perhaps they were caught trying to escape, or thought better of their wild plan all together, but whatever the reason Porthan never saw them again. It took him a few days to accept that they weren't coming, and when he finally did he paid off the room he had been hiring (and was fleeced) his food (and was fleeced) along with other miscellaneous charges (which were made up on the fly by the landlord).

Determined to make the rest of his marks last Porthan sought work on the docks, finding himself a hayloft to sleep in at night. He didn't find work but somebody did find him in his semi-warm nest. He was probably lucky that the only thing they slit was his purse but it was a bit difficult for him to appreciate that when he awoke to find himself completely destitute, and missing the extra sets of clothes he had stolen from the Holder's household too. For the next couple of days he looked for any kind of work, getting increasingly desperate, but there wasn't enough work to go around all the unskilled poor and a small underfed boy stood no chance. He took to begging instead and, out of desperation, to stealing from food stalls in the market. He was caught in the act quickly, but this was actually his first piece of good luck in a long while for the person who caught him had just been stealing from the same stall himself. Chivar was perhaps a handful of turns older than Porthan - he wasn't entirely sure - and he was as streetwise as they came, compassionate too; he took Porthan under his wing and taught him all the tricks of the trade.

Chivar was perhaps a handful of turns older than Porthan - the thief wasn't entirely sure of his age - and he was as streetwise as they came, compassionate too or at least compassionate to another kid down on his luck; he took Porthan under his wing and taught him all the tricks of the trade. Some of the tricks Porthan learned were dirty, as were some of the things he and Chivar did to make their living. Porthan doesn't think he killed anyone in those turns but, well, who knows if a guy they beat up just never woke up? He doesn't think about it much, deliberately so, and he's glad nobody he knows now is aware of it. While he's not exactly ashamed of what he did to survive he's certainly not proud of it either and is happiest leaving that murky bit of his past well alone.

While Chivar was compassionate to 'his' sort of person he had little regard for the well-being of the rich, and in turn 188when Porthan was aged eighteen, he became embroiled in a plot to kidnap the young daughter of a wealthy merchant to extort a ransom. The potential pay-offs were tantalizing and Porthan very nearly agreed to be cut in on the plan himself but in the end he decided he couldn't square it with himself to do that to a kid. It is worth noting that by this point Porthan was getting by reasonably well himself, his belly full more often than it was empty; if things had been different he might well have made a different choice. While he didn't want any part of what was being planned it didn't even cross his mind to betray his friend, he just looked forward to it all being over and maybe getting bought some drinks. The plan actually went off without a hitch as did several that followed but the jobs got ever murkier and Porthan got worried, tried to persuade Chivar to quit while he was ahead. Chivar did not. Murders became involved. Eventually Chivar and a couple of others were caught by an undercover rider of third-two and taken away to Tillek Hold to await judgement. While Porthan's friendship with Chivar was well known to the rider who investigated he was left alone; his petty crimes were a bit beneath the work of the wing, and left where he was he had the potential to be useful in future in some way.

Alone again Porthan drifted aimlessly for a while, actually taking on some honest work on the docks now that he was bigger and stronger. While crime clearly paid Porthan had become too aware of its risks to want to maintain that lifestyle. Lonely and facing an uncertain future he answered a recruitment drive to the hold guard force in turn 189 when he was nineteen. It was far from glamorous work but it was the first steady job he'd ever had and Porthan soon found that he quite liked the routine and he loved the camaraderie of the guard house. As it turns out he had quite a talent for the work; he was observant, had a talent for putting the boot in, didn't spook easy and - once well fed - he became stocky and powerful. He made friends easily once again but became particular friends with the handler of a green wher, one of a dozen or so that guarded the Hold's streets at night. Porthan was understandably terrified of the beast at first but the more he warmed to her handler the more he persuaded himself that - while frightening - whers were amazing creatures, creatures he wanted to work more with.

The handler, Aramin, took as much of a shine to Porthan as the rough and tumble teen had to the old guard and their relationship developed into a close mentor/student bond. Anything Aramin was teaching Porthan wanted to learn, and that of course included handling. When Aramin's green next clutched he persuaded the Hold's Huntsman that Porthan was a good candidate for one of the three eggs, and so it was that aged twenty one Porthan became the handler of a squeaking little brown wherling. The Porsk did not stay small for long however and the pair were soon taking off guarding the streets and set to guard the walls of the Hold along with a handful of other handlers of the larger colours.

Everything was going perfectly well, until the plague came. Terrified for his bondmate Porthan quickly accepted Aramin's suggestion that they should flee White Cliffs for somewhere more remote, somewhere the sickness hadn't reached. Honestly he probably would have gone regardless of the situation; his oaths didn't mean half as much to him as his friend and mentor did. They headed eastward, inland, and surviving was a struggle to say the least; whers take a lot of feeding, something both had been aware of of course but had never truly appreciated as the Hold had taken care of all of their needs in return for their sworn oaths... that they'd abandoned. Woops. The outbreak of war was almost a relief, it meant that it was easy for a pair of rough tough men and their whers to find employment; they ended up with Gaedwin's forces, fighting for Ruatha, because Gaedwin's were the first troops they happened across.

This turned out not to go so very well. Aramin and Araminsk died at the battle of Hestin. Porthan and Porsk fled.

Porthan travelled north hoping to find a Hold to take him in but before he could find such a thing a group of bandits found him one day as he was out scavenging for wild berries or shoots in an attempt to ward off starvation. Two things happened in rather quick succession as the bandits closed in; Porsk charged from where he had hunkered down to rest for the day and a wing of riders appeared overhead. The ensuing scuffle was brief and the bandits came off worse for it to say the least, several were killed and the rest were carted off to High Reaches Hold to await justice.

Remembering what had happened to his childhood friend Chivar Porthan wasn't especially stoked by the idea of asking the riders for help but he was also not especially stoked by the idea of starvation. Having run away from many lives and oaths already, when the wingleader approached Porthan to enquire what a wherhandler was doing alone out in the wilds he explained that he was a refugee from Ruatha looking for a new life which was in fact true, it just left out an awful lot of detail that had come before. They wouldn't have taken him if they knew the whole story though, right? That was what Porthan believed anyway and when he was invited to come to High Reaches Weyr and swear an oath to its service he could hardly change his story right?

When he arrived Porthan discovered a life that he hadn't thought he could ever life himself. He might not dine like a fine Holder, like the people at the High Table did, but he got meat at least once a week and fish when there was no meat! The beer was good and plentiful, he could afford to buy himself good wine from the tavern, and he quickly made a wide circle of friends again. Life couldn't be better! He also discovered early on in his life at the Weyr that thinking men were hot as well as women was totally okay, and was a first baffled but soon very pleased by this.

He ended up serving with a green-led hunt that did most of its work either on border patrols or with 2nd wing and was happy there. He even took on a squire, an aged out dragon candidate named Feragall. He may or may not have got the younger man into trouble here and there but he taught him the skills he would need to one day Impress at the same time so it was probably mainly alright.

But then Porsk died in turn two. Duty, bandits to fights, nothing they hadn't done before plenty of times but there was good handful of keen-eyed archers and... well.... Well, the job got done. The hunt however was near done for too, several of the whers and handlers were slain including the huntleader's partner and the woman herself. The rag-tag group was steered home by Second Wing and then given the space to lick their wounds. Porthan spent the next couple of weeks very drunk and several after that quiet and withdrawn but eventually he began to take an interest in life again. He rather hoped at that point that he might be considered for Mastery and the next gold egg that came along but it was not to be; Porthan was only mildly insulted.

At the start of turn three he felt ready to find a new partner and has recently sought permission to join Natalya's Hunt, and to attempt to claim one of Natask's eggs.

- 170 born
- 182 Orsela dies (12)
- 183 Porthan flees the Holder's home (13)
- 188 Chivar et. al arrested (1 cool
- 189 Porthan joins the guards (19)
- 191 Porthan Impresses Porsk (21)
- 193 flees White Cliffs (23)
- 196 arrives at HR Weyr (26)
- 02 Porsk dies (32)
- 03 ready for a new wher (33)