Rosa Tegil

[Reeg_ 75]

Rosa Tegil

Art by Rodmendez

Skins

 

 

 

 

Astald’s coat. As this was my first skin, I didn’t give much thought to her clothing originally. After a few times where she was asked in rp about it, I decided the reason she wears it is because it was her dad’s.



County of Lewe’s levy uniform. For some reason, this de Sola levy let her join as a recruiter, not a soldier. Idk.





Istrian legion uniform. This is still my favourite uniform that I’ve seen on LoTC thus far. Props to whoever made it.



Second Istrian uniform. Keepin’ it fresh.
 

 

 

Basic Information

Nicknames: Red, Rose, Rosey

Lived: 1509-1571

Gender: Female

Race: Heartlander

Status: Deceased

 

Description

Height: 5’8’’ (1.73 m)

Weight: 153 lbs (69 kg)

Body Type: Mesomorph

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Red

Skin: Fair

Markings/Tattoos: She has a scar running diagonally across her face, from her right eye down to her left cheek. She received this mark from a shrapnel explosion during the Siege of Fort Dunami.

Personality: Introverted, courageous, curious, willing to learn,  kindhearted, a bit melancholy.

Inventory: A ferrum xiphos, a small first aid kit, a holy golden cross necklace, and a pouch of monkbread.

 

Life Style

Alignment: Lawful Good

Deity: God, the Creator

Religion: Canonism

Alliance/Nation/Home: Oren. Redwood, Istria

Job/Class: Blacksmith, Istrian legionnaire

Title(s): Man-at-Arms

Profession(s): Smithing

Special Skill(s): Can play the guitar

Flaw(s): Socially shy, fearful of combat (in the past), too “letter of the law” on occasion (during soldier period)

 

Weaponry

Fighting Style: Sniping, cut and thrust swordplay

Trained Weapon(s): Short and longbows, longsword, xiphos, dagger

Favoured Weapon(s):  shortbow, xiphos

 

Family

Parents: Astald Tegil,  Fea Tegil (maiden name Applegreen)

Siblings: None

Children: None

Extended family: Richard and Miriam Tegil,  Boone and Elizabeth Applegreen (grandparents), Anthony Tegil (uncle)

Pets: None

Quotes

“Everyone thinks I’m a fighter because of my outfit. I’m not.” -Rosa

“I know people generally drink for one of three reasons: pleasure, addiction, or some great sadness. Which is it for you?” -Rosa

“Fire! Her hair is on fire!” -Random pedestrian

“Only a man should be wearing that uniform, w****.” -Particularly rude gentleman

“Then what are you wearing one for?” -Rosa’s response to said gentleman

My father believed in his God, but not his church." -Rosa

 

Biography

Well done, soldier.

A short story I wrote about Rosa’s life.

 

 

“There is no training that will test you for the moment when the world is collapsing around you. For that moment when you feel so, horribly… fragile.”

That was what she had overheard her father say to her mother after returning home for the first time during the Duke’s War. What scared her was that her father was not a coward. He was the strongest man, in body and in spirit that she knew at that young age. He had valiantly led their family’s escape from Athera only a few years before. After the Battle of the Forest, Rosa’s family did not celebrate with the rest of the Loyalists. Astald’s death shattered her spirit, as well as her mother’s. Fea followed 6 years later, falling victim to the infamous plague that struck in the year 1526.  

For many years after her mother’s death, she had fled from the faintest whisper of war. She worked odd jobs wherever it was safe, with little regard to dignity. Street peddler, delivery woman, bard… eventually beggar. Rosa forced herself to take up a job that requires one to stay in place, as a barmaid, in the quiet town of Monteford.  

It was here Rosa met many veterans of the war against Urugan. Some were more shaken than others. Men who spoke of it as an everyday occurrence, she found, had fought in the Duke’s war themselves.

Her boss, Adam, had said something profound to one of them once:

“Oren thanks you for your service.”

Many families didn’t receive this kind of thanks, she discovered, not just her own. The Brother War left many unsung heroes. So, it was quite ironic that Rosa found herself having taken on the only job she could do that could pay bills:

Serving under a de Sola, and later the Roswells as a newly initiated soldier.

Some men were pleasantly surprised to find a woman serving, some outright disgusted. But none of that matters when one is standing in the fog, face to face with a Dunami. All that mattered was that she made it out of The Battle of Maradel, and even with one dwarven head to her name. It was a proud moment when Rosa heard the rough voice of her Commandant, Thobithos Fanrenson grunt:

“Y’ve been promoted ta Footman. Congrats, Tegil.”

It was nice to own an actual house. Well, more like scrape up enough money each month to live in a small room, but it was a luxury in comparison to the past. She had taken up a trade on the side of levy work; smithing. Never full time, but selling a mail shirt every once in awhile helped. Training with the Istrian legion continued.

It wasn’t until the siege of Fort Dunamis that her mind fully encompassed her father’s ideology that war is hell. She felt confident at the beginning, shooting arrows, picking off men at the wall, the sounds of trebuchets firing on her right and left.

The sinking feeling started when the trebs began to run low on ammunition. When the commandants’ voices began to get hysterical. When she heard the voice of Arthur Roswell shout to his legion to leave the trebs, they were going in.

Hell began when mobs of dwarves, men, and orcs began spilling over the broken wall. An arrow head ripped through her torso, and simultaneously a massive explosion knocked her backwards in a spray of debris, miraculously into a small crevice where she could shelter herself. She willed herself to stay conscious, and endured the pain of cauterizing her own wound shut. She found herself retreating with the rest of the battered Orenians as a terrifying wave of Dunamis hit them from behind.

Next followed the Seahelm victory, the funeral of John Horen I, and the Peace of West Avar. Initially, she was relieved. But what was a soldier to do during a time of peace?  

She continued smithing, for awhile. But she was making items that were too low a quality to be sold to most who wanted them, and without a war going on, mediocre work was simply not needed. She knew no other work, really, and age was catching up with her…

To be thrust into hell and just as quickly removed leaves a scar on more than just one’s body. Middle-aged now, Rosa left Redwood, Istria, and decided to settle on her own for a time, to relax and rejuvenate her spirit. She spent time building a cabin for herself in the unsettled lands of the duchy, hunting for food, only occasionally returning to a city to buy goods with the minas she had saved up over the years. Her hair, that had once been so red people cried “fire” in the streets, grew grey. Her gait became somewhat of a limp; her old wounds had never really healed.

Taint spread over the lands as Rosa grew to be in her sixties. She felt the spirit of her Creator beckoning her to leave… with much reluctance, she packed her old uniform and blade, her golden cross, and a pouch of monkbread. The soldier had a feeling she wouldn’t need anything else.

She came to the docks of the Cloud Temple and witnessed crowds of people scurrying about, moving packages onto boats. The skies roared in anger, voices wailed hysterically, and above it all: a stranger atop the auction house. He seemed to be guiding the whole event.

“Orgon’s plane is collapsing; we do not have much time! We must sail into the spirit realm itself!”

People finalized their packing, and ambled aboard the ships in frenzy. Rosa ran as fast as she might towards the nearest boat; the boat of the wood elves, as each left the harbor in turn. The grey-haired heartlander woman wearing Istrian armour got a few odd looks from some of the more composed mali’ folk, but it didn’t matter much at this point. They were heading straight for the portal now… 

And then all was quiet. They had entered into a calm, dark sea, surrounded by many pillars of some form of stone. Years ago, the Canonist would have entered into a panic at the fact that they were in a realm of Orcish spirits, but Rosa felt her God’s comforting presence, even here.

The exit portal came into sight. It was then Rosa saw the alarming shape of a spirit with many eyes, covering the creature’s head. Somehow, it spoke…

“I come…I come…My Lord, Apohet, he denies your passage…You are not prepared for the realm ahead. You do not understand what it will require. Apohet will not let you pass. Turn back…Find another way.” The spirit whispered these words over the waters. The air was filled with a sense of cold foreboding. The ship glided on.

It was a long, tense silence, for a time. A horrible sound suddenly erupted from the dark; one of flames. There was deep breathing from somewhere… and creatures of fire began drifting down towards the deck of the ship. Shrieks were heard from some distance, and warriors roared in fury as steel and arrows clashed against the supernatural. Rosa drew her blade, a shrill ring echoing across the sea of the spirit realm.

And truly, this was probably closer to hell than any battle the soldier ever fought in, but she was not afraid. The world was collapsing, (well, it already had), but somehow…she was fueled with strength. The Descendants rowed on.

Rosa’s sword passed through a creature’s neck (one of three necks, mind you), and turning to her left she caught sight of an extremely time-sensitive situation: A young wood elf had tripped and fallen over backwards… under the gaze of a jet black drake. Its wings pumped gusts of air along the deck. The beast reared up, screeching, and its head dove down towards the wide-eyed mali’ame.

But before this had occurred, Rosa had made her decision. With a cry of fury, she leaped and her sword came down upon the drake’s skull, slicing through the spot of cartilage it had been guided to. A wailing cry erupted from its maw, and pure evil poured forth: flames and poison beyond any mortal’s imagination.

Hanging on to the hilt of her sword, she wailed in much the same way the drake did. They both were defeated, but both determined to finish what they’d started. Rosa’s knuckles whitened; she held dear in order to keep the deathly expulsion from hitting the elf below.  The drake seemed hell-bent to make its killer suffer as greatly as was possible in the time it had left. Finally, the beast collapsed, and the soldier grunted as its skull slammed down upon her rib cage.

Someone pulled her out from underneath it; she never saw who. Her skin was charred beyond repair of any monk. The poison had taken effect. How fitting that she, whose father had fallen in battle, and mother fallen to disease, would fall due to the actions of Orgon.

Her last vision was the bright light of the sun as the Descendants made it through the portal, into the Isles of Axios. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosa was my first ever character on LoTC, and I enjoyed roleplaying her immensely. The part in her story  where she lives in a secluded state for a while was OOC’ly me going inactive on her character for a few months. By that point I had begun spending more time on other characters, and the Vailor end event was a great opportunity for me to end her story on a valiant note, which is how she, as a character, would have gone out.

It was on this character that I displayed a lot of newbness, (which I still do, a lot.) I realize not many people knew Rosa, but thanks to those that helped me out then, @merchant being one of them, for giving me my first “job” on LoTC. You may not realize it, or even ever see this post, but you showed me a lot of helpful hints to someone who had no clue how to roleplay. Thanks to Istria, and the legion that faded in and out of activeness, it was good fun. The Eighteen Years war, which I caught the tail end of, was great fun too.