Name: Kandah
Age: 26 (Nameday 3547.07.09)
Sex: male
Sexual Orientation: straight
Craft: never formally trained in a craft
Rank: ship's cook
Location: wherever the Valeriya is
Physical Description: Kandah stands around 6'2" and is fairly athletic in build, though not really beefy. His dark-skinned face is somewhat oval in shape and fairly handsome, covered with dark scruffy facial hair, with a noble nose and hazel almond-shaped eyes. He wears his shoulder-length thick dark hair loose except while he's working, when he'll tie it back into a dumb man-bun. He has a perpetually cheeky grin on his full-lipped mouth and a sly wink for his friends, crewmates and captain.
He typically wears comfortable white shirts and loose cool trousers and boots that extend up over his lower legs. When the Valeriya puts into port someplace cool, he tends to bundle up with long fur-lined coats and scarves because he's desert-born and hates being cold. He also wears any of an unknown number of knives on his person no matter what the temperature.
Personality: Kandah is at heart just a big goof. Possessed of an expansive, jovial soul, he's a ham with the love of attention of a performer. In a way, he is a performer, with the kitchen of the Valeriya his stage and his crewmates as his audience. He loves to interact with them; he'll readily shove his big grinning face into the mess hall to chat them up during slow periods when he should be cleaning or prepping the next meal.
You'll never find a man more loyal to his crewmates and captain. Kandah is eternally grateful that Alora took him on board the Valeriya and trusts her with his life. He considers her and the rest of the crew his adopted family and will defend them with everything he's got. And he's got rather a lot. The man has gotten into more than one nasty fight defending Alora's honor and backing up his crewmates, grinning like a fool the entire time.
In truth, he's rather desperate for friends. Growing up in the situation he did, kidnapped and then loose on the streets, he wasn't given the opportunity to make friends the way kids with regular lives do. He thinks the street urchins he hangs out with when the Valeriya is in port are his friends; they're certainly friendly to him, and they treat him like a friend. But he doesn't get the closeness of a true friendship from them, and he longs for that feeling.
Kandah is a survivor well-trained by his former street-rat companions to take care of himself. He sometimes puts his own skin first and can be rather cold-blooded about it, though his captain and crewmates always come before anything else. Kandah pays attention to the talk on the streets and can avoid trouble like a pro, even though he is certainly more than capable of defending himself. He has a natural instinct with weapons, especially swords and knives, though he can use just about anything as a weapon. He has a cold ruthless efficiency in battle that's quite at odds with his normal rollicking easy manner -- he has no temper to speak of, so the sudden change in personality can be quite shocking.
His true love, though, is food. Kandah is an excellent cook and prepares meals for the crew of the Valeriya that would put most fine restaurants to shame. He has learned to work with what's available to him ingredient-wise while they are at sea, but rest assured as soon as they've set in at port he's off to the markets, carefully selecting quality ingredients that he can use to make delectable dishes for the captain and crew. He greatly enjoys what he does, too; he can often be heard loudly singing as he's chopping veggies and searing meat. He's a happy man.
Positive Trait List easy-going, survivor, loyal
Negative Trait List lonely, too trusting, cold-blooded
History: Kandah is from the far eastern deserts of the Western Continent. He grew up in the family caravan, travelling across the desert preparing and selling food at various oasis holds and cotholds and to other caravans. Young Kandah started out washing the dishes as soon as he was big enough to work, and as he grew he learned all aspects of the business. He really came into his own as a cook, though, demonstrating an understanding of gastronomy well beyond his young age. His family wanted to send him off at 14 to the Cooking Crafthall to hone his skills, but he refused, insisting he wanted to stay with the caravan and his family.
This was a mistake.
At 17 Turns Kandah was kidnapped by a rival caravan and dragged away from his beloved desert. They were thugs and there was no way he could fight them off. The head of the caravan forced him to cook for them, and he did so reluctantly, under pain of death. They crisscrossed the green plains of the Western Continent, occasionally stopping at Rivercrest Hold for supplies. It was on one such stop that Kandah finally managed to escape, disappearing into the crowd before his captors realized what was going on.
Lost and alone in the Hold, Kandah became a street rat, staying alive by stealing food and doing his best to feed the small group of urchins he fell in with. He learned how to fight with whatever was at hand (though his preferred weapons were knives and swords) and how to steal, and by age 20 was a formidable thug, becoming the muscle of the group as well as making sure they were all fed.
Kandah still yearned to be a proper cook, though, so at 23 he got a job at one of the dockside pubs cooking and playing part-time bouncer. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it was stable and mostly honest and made him marks, so he stayed. He kept in touch with his street-rat friends over the years, giving them food after hours in exchange for information. It was through them that he learned of a merchant vessel seeking crewmates. Kandah hated Rivercrest Hold and longed to travel again and thought this would be a golden opportunity for him to leave the Hold. So he went and put in for the position of ship's cook. And at 25 Turns he found himself a crew member of the Valeriya, captained by a dragonrider named Alora.
The desert-born former street-rat loves his new life. Even though Alora's dragon brown Rusilath still scares him a little.
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