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Karl Brynjar
The Kill Keeper
The Kill Keeper
“Home is where the heart is. Every spacer and pirate from star to planet preaches the creed, but they are all of them drunk on bliss and deceived by ignorance. They have not yet looked around at their home. They have not glimpsed the flames, or they’ve glimpsed but have not gazed. If home is where the heart is then the heart is in hell.” —Karl Brynjar
Character Theme
NAME: Karl Brynjar
FIRST NAME: Karl
LAST NAME: Brynjar
NAME MEANINGS: Karl - “free man” | Brynjar - “Armored warrior”
MONIKERS: The Iron Hunter
TITLES: Captain
HONORIFICS: Mr., Captain
AGE: 29
SEX: Male
HEIGHT: 6’00”
WEIGHT: 190 lbs
PHYSIQUE: Muscular
EYES: Blue
HAIR TYPE: Braided top with ponytail and shaved sides
HAIR COLOR: Blond
SKIN COLOR: Type II: Fair Skin
RACE: White
SPECIES: Human
ETHNICITY: Deucalian
NATIONALITY: Deucalian
BIRTHPLACE: The Storm Dancer
BIRTHDATE: 6932 BBY
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Married - Separated
PARENTS: Deceased
CHILDREN: Deceased
OTHER RELATIVES: Uncle: Dagon | Uncle: Ralof | Cousin: Balgruuf | Aunt: Kaelyss
RELIGION: None
CULTURE: Deucalian
CURRENT OCCUPATION: Freelance bounty hunter
FORMER OCCUPATION: White Wolf
COMBAT CULTURE: Deucalian raider
AFFILIATIONS: The White Wolves, various Deucalian clans and Hutts, the Bounty Hunters’ Guild
FACTION: The Deucalians
FORCE-SENSITIVE: Unknown
COMPARABLE ACCENT: Nordic
DEUCALIAN CLAN: Brynjar
OVERCLAN: Bleedenstag
PERSONALITY
"A brave man. Almost Deucalian. He fought well and died well. Pour the wine and give his body to the stars. Let his friends find him and learn of the wolves who ate him." —Karl Brynjar
In many ways, Karl exemplifies what it means to be Deucalian. As a child, his father taught him how to swing a fist, pull a bowstring, swing an axe and pull a trigger. After his father was killed in action, Karl decided to preserve his lineage by bringing the hunt to his people and the battle to his enemies. The later loss of his mother and his son only fueled his fire for combat and conquest. Even after toning down on the way of the reaver and becoming a bounty hunter, Karl is no less fierce or fearless.
With all of his tendencies toward violence, his courage in carrying it out and his convictions for his heritage, Karl is yet someone who is just as much taken to his own culture and customs over those of a group. He has always been an individual first, even among the comparatively loose structure of the Deucalians overall. The White Wolves of Clan Alemanii had taught Karl a number of things, most involving claws and teeth, but one lesson revealed that he was a lone wolf even within the pack.
Family was valued above clan, and when Karl’s own family members perished, neither the Bleedenstags nor the Wolves of Deucalia could have kept him from cocooning himself within Hutt Space and all the bounties on offer there. Alongside his targets, Karl is ever battling his demons, waging an inner war with his past while fighting to carve out a new future—through blood and fire, steel and song.
BIOGRAPHY
Astoundingly Discriminating Reading Theme
"We are the Deucalians, and once we were conquerors. We claimed the planet of our namesake, cold and grey and cruel, and those of us who weren't crushed did the crushing. We bested our foe, our home, time and time again. We endured. We survived. We ruled. In the end, Deucalia beat us and won. Then we were homeless. Still, we survived. Strength through hardship, and hard places breed hard men and women. It was one woman who helped unite us, the one who would lead us to the stars. And here we are. We've come to conquer once more, to get what we earn and to earn what we take. To claim what we keep and to keep what we kill. To carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song. To forge for ourselves a new home, though we had not expected to find what we did: a whole galaxy filled with them, ripe and rich and ready for the reaping.” —Deucalian passage
Karl was born in the Outer Rim, entering the galaxy as an infant who was as naked to the stars as the starship that he was conceived and birthed on. The Storm Dancer was a corvette with a former name before it had been raided by Deucalians. Like its original crew, however, the ship’s original identity had been scratched out of existence and replaced with the ways of the victors. Those victors had hailed from Clan Bleedenstag; warriors and hunters who had led a charge against their foes and came out of the skirmish as conquerors. Their commander, Urrigon the Unmatched, had helped turn the tide against the enemy by capturing the corvette. His triumph, along with his methods in achieving it, had earned him both the ship and a surname to call his own: “Brynjar”, or “armored warrior”.
Urrigon had since already made a minor name for himself; “Unmatched” was a moniker given by others where it was due. Where infighting was a cultural creed on overlapping levels within Deucalian society, namely in regards to supplanting one’s superior, Urrigon had proven himself as daring as formidable. In personal combat, he had killed a clan chief who had crossed him. Clan Blackdrumm was no powerhouse, but its head had crafted for himself a suit of true Deucalian armor—black and gold. Urrigon had claimed it from the corpse, a prize upon taking what he earned, and donned it, keeping what he killed. Beneath the metal he wore his blue surcoat; the color that would later become Clan Brynjar's.
Urrigon, however, had been no chief himself at this point. He was a warrior first and a leader second, soaring into the stars for battle and glory. He was a raider who just so happened to stand out amid his comrades, charging into the fight in a full suit of armor. It had carried him into the boarding of the ship that he would come to call his own and his home, there where he had found the woman who would become his wife.
Karl’s mother was no Deucalian, at least not at first. Iron courage and the strength of steel, however, might melt any woman’s heart. Urrigon had found hers when he had raided the corvette, slaughtered his way to the helm and ended the bloodshed when its helmswoman had stood up to look death in the eye and accept it. Bravery had saved her life. Urrigon the Unmatched had met his match and spared her soul, and the two became one armor and one warrior—Brynjar.
From that moment onward, the newly incepted Storm Dancer and its crew would travel the Outer Rim as an independent Deucalian force. It was said throughout the halls and walls of the corvette that Urrigon Brynjar set the course and Lora Brynjar steered it. Unlike some other Deucalian crews, independent or operating directly within a greater clan, as Urrigon once did with the Bleedenstags, the Storm Dancer had a newfound purpose of roaming, raiding and resting, with focus not limited to any one.
Some of Urrigon’s closest comrades came to believe that his wife had softened his heart, since hardened by battle, though the man had hardly ceased hearing his call to carve out victory through fire and blood. Many would fall prey to Deucalian groups like the White Wolves, but the Storm Dancer was bringing her own thunder and lightning right beside them. Yet, Karl’s father now had more to consider beside himself, especially with a child on the way. Now he was hunting for more than glory. He was on the hunt for survival. Granted, when it came to a Deucalian, the two goals were one and the same.
The Storm Dancer would find itself dancing through all kinds of storms from Hoth to Hutt Space, setting down to refuel and replenish but never settling down. Moon or planet, asteroid or space station—Captain Urrigon’s approach was to keep moving. Karl would come to mimic his father’s methods, whom the latter had made it a point and purpose to teach his disciple everything he knew. The way of the warrior, the habit of the hunter, the code of the commander and the meaning of being a man. Life lessons passed from father to son were words engraved and images inscribed. Karl would never forget them, especially after his father fell in battle.
Urrigon died as he had lived, fighting on the frontier with armor on his body and blood on his blade. It was a good death, a Deucalian death, though his mother was never truly Deucalian. She had embraced their ways as best she could, though she had embraced her husband even more. When his light gave out and the darkness of space claimed his soul, tears found his corpse and soaked. Aimless, unsure of where to go from thereon out, Lora Brynjar retreated to Hoth and would spend her days in mourning. She even began to foster a certain contempt for the Deucalians, holding them and their reckless ways responsible for the death of her husband, and the reapings of the blood they sowed. Karl could not blame her, but he also could not be with her. His calling was his father’s own: the stars and the battles that blazed between them.
"Swing your ship about like it were your fist, and close in for jabs when you can. Duck and dodge, hit hard and run harder, so that your next swing comes with full momentum. Never fight unless you know the odds are in your favor. For a Deucalian, they never are.” —Urrigon Brynjar
For some years, Karl took up the mantle of his father and posted himself as captain of the Storm Dancer, donning the commander’s cap. The armor that Urrigon had paid the iron price for, however, had been committed to his body and laid to rest with him as he floated upon the black sea into eternity. Meanwhile, the son of the father sailed onward, seeking the life that his former captain had led.
Clan Brynjar survived through the Deucalian seed and the Deucalian way. The Storm Dancer reaved and ruled the space between the stars, raiding at will alongside compatriots. The greater clans governed from Hoth and other worlds, the Wolves of Alemanii prowled Hutt Space, and crews like that of the Storm Dancer filled the gap as self-sustaining marauders; friend to friend but an enemy to anyone who was not.
For a good while, Karl and his crew enjoyed the pillage and the plunder, steering their corvette all about the Outer Rim and remaining vigilant for bigger predators. It was a good life, a fulfilling venture, but not enough for Karl. His widowed mother was getting old and he had no siblings. His father’s seed was only as strong as the offspring, and Karl needed one of his own if Clan Brynjar was going to survive. So he followed his father’s footsteps and he found himself a wife.
Urrigon might have ushered in a poetic betrothal by finding his on a ship which he had come to capture, but Karl had sought his own poem. He’d met her on a shore leave of sorts and on a beach itself. Ashara, a luminary lady, whose light under the dusk was on the verge of being snuffed out by a few aliens who had seen her as an opportunity. What they hadn’t seen was a Deucalian who had seen an opportunity of his own.
He could have taken them on by himself, but then he’d seen what he had missed: he wasn’t the only Deucalian on the beach. Neither, evidently, was she. The two drove the group of lowlives into the sand and buried them. Then they were wed aboard the Storm Dancer. It was the Deucalian way.
Unlike Karl’s mother, his wife had long since embodied the tenets of her people. Conflict was her home, internal and on the battlefield. The two spouses were of one mind and one heart, and they raised their son the same way. Jomer, like his father, was an only child. His parents had pushed for a brother or a sister, but in the end they decided against it. Losing their only child had sealed that deal.
A young lad, but a strong one. A Deucalian boy—not just any child. He was five years old when his father ferried him across space. That was no strange thing; their starship was their home. What was unusual was the black hole spotted in the distance, something that couldn’t go ignored. The urge to observe it was too great, so Karl took Jomer in his Fenrir fighter* for a closer look. The distance was stable, but there was another black hole in the area, one that didn’t wait for morsels to come near before it bit.
*Modified to 2-person capacity solely for the sake of profile plot (not sure why a number of these fighters aren’t 2 to begin with but hm’whatever)
"It was jet black. A shade of black so deep your eye just kind of slides off it. And it shimmered when you looked at it. A spider big as death and twice as ugly. And when it flew past, it was like you heard a scream in your mind.” —Karl Brynjar
Over the years, the Storm Dancer had proven its worth one skirmish after the other. It had held up and held down its enemies. Its hull had taken hits. They were scratches to heal or scars to wear. Its crew had taken casualties. There were other Deucalians to fill in the ranks. Pirates, mercenaries, militants, civilians at the wrong place and time—they were all of them aliens of flesh and blood, bone and muscle. No one worth fearing. There in outer space, however, where a singularity reigned supreme in the middle of nowhere, came an enemy unlike any other that Captain Karl’s crew had ever faced. It was a fearsome thing to behold; tall and twisted, with one red eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of death.
It struck harder and faster than the hardest and fastest Deucalian raider; a kind of merciless efficiency too mechanical to be glorified. The crew of the Storm Dancer would never find out who or what had been piloting the shadow in the night. Karl and Jomer were still in the Fenrir when a red beam penetrated the corvette, and moments later she exploded. Debris had penetrated the fighter's cockpit. The shrapnel missed Karl, but not his son. Jomer had died instantly.
Karl could only watch in horror in those seconds that lasted an eternity. The Storm Dancer floated in pieces, its crew suffering the same fate. His son sat dead behind him, whose father might have taken off his helmet to breathe in death had his muscles not decided to freeze. There was nothing he could do but watch the shadow ship fly past. It had eliminated its threat. A stationary fighter must have been little more than a fly not worth swatting.
In the aftermath of the massacre, Karl couldn’t remember the moment that preceded his body floating in space. His fighter was tipping further away from him, the body of his son still slumped backwards in its seat. Maybe he’d float closer to the black hole so that it might swallow him whole. It might have been a blessing. Instead, the universe had other plans. It was happenstance that a survey vessel soon arrived, as interested in the singularity as the shattered skeleton of a once whole starship, there where they found a lone figure clinging to the debris.
“Keep flying. That is my goal. To keep my wings spread and my fires burning. All so that I may spread the flames to the next soul unfortunate enough to feel them.” —Karl Brynjar
There was yet one blessing beyond survival, the latter being something that Karl considered more of a curse. His son would never make it past five years old, but his wife had not been on the Storm Dancer when it had exploded. Ashara had been back on Hoth caring for Karl’s mother who had fallen sick. His mate had been spared the fate of death or watching it work, though the news that struck her had created something of a black hole in her own heart. She was in good company, then—two women whose mourning would never waver.
Karl blamed himself for Jomer’s demise. Ashara blamed him too. The two remained husband and wife, though they suffered a silence that might never yield a whisper. It was to folly, surely. It was a wife’s right to lash out in such a situation, to cast the blame on the one person who was supposed to protect their only child. Maybe the two should have never closed the cockpit on the fighter and ventured out.
Maybe the Storm Dancer should have sensed the hurricane and changed course. Maybe it was meant to be. His son was not, and neither was a life on Hoth, so Karl left. He sought an avenue where he could get better acquainted with the feelings building up inside his soul, the only way a Deucalian warrior might know how to. Karl looked to Hutt Space and he didn’t look back. He wasn’t heading that way.
"Where wolves’ ears are, wolves' teeth are near." —White Wolves saying
Seeing nothing left for himself, on Hoth or anywhere else, Karl separated from his wife and traveled to Nal Hutta to join up with the White Wolves of Clan Alemanii, putting what he knew how to do best to the job while taking his feelings out on his targets. Pirates, sellships, rival Hutts—the identity of the target mattered less than making it die. It was the Deucalian way. For Karl, it was the only way.
Karl quickly discovered that the Wolves of Deucalia were no mere ravagers; they were warriors of an entirely different caliber. They had to be, to maintain a mercenary foothold in the volatile region that served as their playground. Karl found out further that he fit right in with such a group. They preached individuality while practicing unity, and it worked. They challenged anyone to challenge, that the challenger might grow stronger and tougher, and it worked. They played all sides of the game, selling their blades and their guns and their ships to the bidder, and they won. They were wolves, and their howl was as haunting as their bite was brutal.
It felt like a perfect path to carve out revenge and unleash fury, though violence was but a drug—no cure for justice. Karl would not find it in Hutt Space, Deucalian space or any space that was not the void where the blackest shadow had once crawled out of. Years of chasing game in the pack had earned Karl the moniker of the “Iron Hunter”, a fitting label for a man made of metal and always on the hunt, but it was not enough. It was never enough. The Wolves continued to prowl and stalk, to take chunks out of Hutt Space and devour their enemies, and Karl let them have it all. He left the pack and became a lone wolf, but not without cause.
"Come! Grab your gear and bring your iron! There are souls for sell that no credits can buy!” —Karl Brynjar
It wasn’t until learning of his mother’s degrading condition that Karl returned to Hoth. On her deathbed, Lora begged him to give up his warring ways, to honor the memory of his father and his son, but Karl insisted that what he was doing already was honoring his father and son. His mother died moments later, his words clinging to empty air.
Ashara had said what she could to mend the wounds between husband and wife, but it was to little avail. The damage was done, the wounds too deep, yet taking his rage out on others suddenly seemed less satisfying to Karl. He gave up his reaving and became a freelance bounty hunter on a contract with the Hutts. Karl became a lone wolf, true, though one with a pack of his own.
Two of his closest comrades within the White Wolves had joined up with him and the three formed a crew of a light freighter named “Wolfborn”. Karl needed a dimmer spotlight than the one shining down on marauding mercenaries. Becoming a bounty hunter could keep him active and a little more restrained, granting him a quieter profile. His partners were onboard.
Karl had also taken up this new role to gather intel. While he was still back on Hoth to give his mother and wife their last goodbye, he had been tipped of a rumor about a ship matching the description of the one responsible for destroying the Storm Dancer and killing his son in the process, years ago. There was no mistaking such a vessel. Whispers of “the shadow pirates” presented some semblance of sentience; ravagers who roamed the fringes of the galaxy, reaving and raiding at will. Over the years, these pillagers had been popping up more and more, if incrementally. They had struck the galaxy only a few reported times since last encountering Karl and his crew; ill omens surfacing from Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, before the Outer Rim caught tale.
When they struck, however, they were like lightning, never striking the same place twice and doing so with all the power and fury of thunder. The 'pirates' were rumored to presently be lurking about in Hutt Space, with barely a glimpse of them being murmured. They were merely the silhouettes of stars in the dark playing tricks on the eye. Yet, if Karl recalled correctly the single ship that had passed his own those years ago, it was difficult for black to stand out in the darkness, and that ship had been as dark as night; a shadow upon the void.
"Death is merciless. You spend your whole life dealing it out to others, but you never get dealt the same hand. Not yet. Instead, death claims those you love, and all you can do is watch like a writhing maggot while trying to fly after them. I don’t blame death. Something so senseless cannot conceive of mercy. No, I blame those who did not show mercy to my son. But death has given me an axe, and I shall give them both.” —Karl Brynjar
Years spent crushing and decimating his foes, reaping life from the enemies that surrounded him, had shown him death in shadows. He had seen his fair share of the darkness, sailed its black waves while reaching for the stars, and it would take the galaxy to keep Karl from finding the soul who had taken his son from him.
Where the shadow ship slithers, no mortal may ever know, but despite all the oddities and the bizarre machinations of the universe, Karl has since discovered that nothing is unknowable, and that which is known can be destroyed. It might take a year, a decade, perhaps the rest of his life, but the Iron Hunter will not relent. He will find the plague of his dreams, the ghost of his past, even if it means setting the galaxy on fire to burn the bitch out of hiding.
TIMELINE
► 6932: Karl is born on the Storm Dancer, a corvette captained by his Deucalian clan father, Capt. Urrigon Brynjar.
► 6914: [Karl's Age: 18]
Karl's father is killed in battle.
Karl inherits the rank and title of Captain of the Storm Dancer.
Karl leads his crew of independent Deucalians to raid across the Outer Rim and preserve his father's legacy.
Karl's mother, Lora Brynjar, retires to Hoth in mourning of her husband's death.
► 6912: [Karl's Age: 20]
Karl meets Ashara, a Deucalian raider.
Ashara becomes Karl's wife and adopts the Brynjar clan name.
Jomer Brynjar is born.
► 6907: [Karl's Age: 25]
Lora contracts a disease.
Ashara travels to Hoth to care for Karl's mother.
The Storm Dancer is attacked by "shadow pirates".
The corvette is destroyed and Jomer is killed during the attack.
Karl survives and is rescued by a survey vessel.
Karl visits his wife and mother.
Karl and Ashara separate as husband and wife.
Karl travels to Hutt Space to join the White Wolves of Deucalia.
► 6906: [Karl's Age: 26]
Karl becomes a mercenary captain within the White Wolves and takes command of a squad.
Karl earns the moniker "the Iron Hunter".
Karl meets "Greyfish" Gloki and Dagneth "Axeye". The three form part of a small White Wolves unit under Karl's command.
► 6904: [Karl's Age: 28]
Karl travels to Hoth after learning of his mother's degrading condition.
Lora dies in Karl's presence.
Karl leaves Ashara to her own path and returns to Hutt Space.
Karl becomes an independent bounty hunter, acquiring the Wolfborn and a crew.
► 6903: [Karl's Age: 29]
Current year
GEAR
Space Craft: The Wolfborn - Z-13 Light FreighterLand Vehicle: Cec Titan X2
Pistol: C3R-2A Blaster Pistol
Rifle: Sverðbál
Melee: Elduröxi | Stun Baton
Armor: Deucalian Víkingr Armor
Grenades: Smoke Grenades x3
Droid: Stygg - MR Series Utility Astromech
Other: DM-7 Net Launcher, comlink, ship beacon, datapad, holocam, medkit
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