Character Name: Lord Cullen Newbury

Canon/Original: Canon

Gender: Male

Age: 37

Family:

Wife – Lady Constance Newbury (deceased)
Sons – Sir Roger Newbury (19), Lord Julian Newbury (18), Lord Michael Newbury (12)
Daughters – Ladies Isobel (16), Rachel (14), and Bridget Newbury (12 – Michael’s twin)

Occupation: Ruler of Newbury Fiefdom

Place of Habitation: As above

Physical Description (five sentence minimum):

Cullen Newbury is tall, a little over six feet, and fairly lean for a man of his rank; while he's always been hardy and broad-shouldered, he lacks the robust bulk typical of most career soldiers. Even in armor, he cuts a smaller, sharper figure than most of his subordinates, and tries to make up for this with somewhat exaggerated shoulderplates.

His hair, once a rich, rusty brown, is almost completely grey, and his eyes are dark to the point of being nearly black, but age hasn't slowed his body down in the least. Physically he is in perfect health, and though he may be more svelte than his peers, he wants for nothing as far as muscle is concerned. His movements are sure and quick, every step and gesture deliberate and unconsciously measured after years of precise martial training. He also dresses like a soldier regardless of where he is, though he does make a point of keeping well-dressed people around him when he has to be someplace where he ought to look good. He's never not wearing a sword, and has to be coerced to go anyplace where he can't wear one.

While his face is a map of smile lines and crow's feet, Lord Newbury has had very little to be happy about in recent years and generally keeps a solemn expression. Before his son Roger left, it seemed his lust for life never left his face, but with time he grows a little more somber, a little sadder, with each day. Nonetheless, he's a handsome cuss, though it's obvious his sons get their more refined features from their mother.

Personality (eight sentence minimum):

Cullen is a soldier to the bone, through the marrow, and out the other side, and has been for as long as he can remember. He believes in nothing so much as camradarie, loyalty, virtue, and duty to his King, and has lived his life according to the notion that a man's worth lies in how hard he's willing to fight-- and how well he's willing to die-- for what he believes in; he's also potently charismatic and has never had trouble inspiring his fellows to similar ideals.

In being a soldier, he's also pointedly not a politician, and has specifically arranged his fiefdom the way he would keep a military outpost, partly for the necessity of having an active militia, but mostly because he knows how to play to his own strengths. He doesn't mind doing unorthodox things if it means serving the best interests of his people, though-- he's at least as stubborn as he is charismatic.

Unfortunately, his stubborn nature has cost him much, his family especially; while he can be very empathetic and attuned to the needs of his people, his general pigheadedness keeps him from being very reasonable when something rubs him the wrong way. This is especially true when it comes to his family, who he makes great effort not to treat like another platoon, but he takes disappointment poorly. He and his eldest son, Roger, had a terrible falling out, and only Cullen's diehard stubbornness is keeping him from trying to reconcile.

Without his beloved wife to counsel him on these matters, Cullen is, for the first time in a long while, largely unhappy with his life, even with battle soon to come; while they were not married for love's sake, they did have a wonderful relationship. Constance was his Lady, born and raised to the life of a noblewoman and knowledgeable of the affairs of the heart that weren't wholly the product of battle, and through her he gained a great respect for feminine wisdom and intuition. He's been trying to find ways to incorporate the womenfolk of Newbury into its military structure beyond caretaker positions, but doesn't know how to do it without making everybody's life harder in the long run.

Since becoming a widower he lacks a second perspective on his own thoughts, and he's only just recently come to understand how very badly he needed Constance in his life. He's also slowly coming around to the idea that he hasn't always been a very good father and needs to change, but seeing war on the horizon and deriving no joy from it, and watching his second son struggle to take his lost eldest son's place, and even watching his daughters speed along to marriageable ages when he'll have to bid farewell to them, is driving him close to despair. Cullen feels as though he's watching his life drift away, and doesn't know how to reach out and snatch it back for himself.

He has no intention of remarrying, and, though he would never admit it to his family or his subordinates, often longs for the campaigns of his youth, carefree flings with village girls while on the march, and bivouac-battlefield love affairs with his peers; it's been a long time since he was able to enjoy the freedom of roving knighthood and surrounding himself with loyal friends and lovers. More and more he's feeling the weight of his position, and the sad truth is, he's lonely. He's not as young as he used to be (though his sword-arm would argue otherwise), and sometimes feels like an old dog snapping at dreams of hunts long past; he hates the feeling and rarely, if ever, speaks of it.

History (ten sentence minimum):

As a child, Cullen had interest in nothing so much as battle, spoils, and service to his King; he never knew anything about his father, save what his mother told him: that he was a brave knight who had long since fallen in battle. Every waking moment, he devoted himself to learning swordsmanship with a broom handle and a straw dummy, but even his laughable beginnings proved that he had a natural inclination toward the blade.

As an adult he came to realize that his mother's tales of "Brave Sir Newbury" were little more than bedtime stories to mollify a bastard child, but by then, he had already taken up his alleged father's name and joined the militia as an infantryman, an unknown knight's son.

While he only rose to the rank of Captain in the course of his military career, and the campaigns he lead with his regiment weren't more frequently successful than others, Sir Newbury dedicated each and every battle to King Aelfric, and would personally carry the best trophies from each battle to him at the end of every season. During one such errand, Cullen discovered a trio of unhappy Baskar men whose families had been slain in the wars-- their plot was to simply assassinate King Aelfric and be done with him, though they knew it would cost them their lives.

Cullen confronted them immediately and was set upon by the group; the battle was horrible-- though Cullen had the better arms and a loyal horse, the Baskars had superior numbers and the great benefit of speed in close-quarters combat. Even when the three Baskars had fled in different directions, Cullen simply chased each one down over the course of a week, refusing to let even one of them make it to within a mile of the King's chambers. By the time he had dispatched them, however, he was nearly dead from injuries, unable to even mount his horse.

But he pressed on nonetheless, staggering into Aelfric's throne room a mess of deep cuts and broken bones, to present him with the trophies from his last campaigning season, and promptly collapsed. Once he had been nursed back to health (over the course of nearly a year), Cullen relayed the tale of the Baskar assassins, but insisted that it was only chance; he'd only come to give his King the rightful spoils of the battles waged in his name, as he'd done every season for years. Impressed with this showing of loyalty and dedication, King Aelfric remembered his name, and when the Barbarian Wars had finally drawn to a close the King gifted him with the Newbury Fiefdom.

Having enough sense to know that he was of fairly mundane stock and had no clue how to actually manage land, he decided the best thing to do was to arrange it in the only way he knew, and marry a woman of intelligence to figure out the rest. So he did; while he didn't marry her for love, he did come to love her, and they had six beautiful children together. She was the light of his life, and offered wisdom and calmness when his hot temper would have caused more problems than it was worth. After years of marriage, he had gentled somewhat, but he still needed his wife to counsel him out of his mule-headed stubbornness. She died in childbirth, about a year after the death of King Aelfric (for whom Cullen was still grieving); what would have been their seventh child died with her. It was after this that he had a falling out with his son, Roger; too alike in their personalities to deal with problems with any civility, and without Constance to rein them in, their argument got out of hand and they had a falling out. Without an heir and just coming into a new wartime, Cullen was forced to call his younger son back to his fiefdom to take Roger's place as the next head of the family. He feels guilty about this, but isn't the type to show remorse for doing what he believes is necessary.

For now, he's preparing for war, and seriously re-evaluating his own life.

Plot Potential: Roger, anything involving the Newbury fiefdom, battle, potentially an avenue for female combatants.. the list goes on. I think the only thing that would limit his plot potential is that he's rather strongly tied to his fiefdom and probably can't travel much if he's not actually on the march.

SAMPLE RP (with this character only):

The inkwell had long since dried to sludge, and the parchment on the desk had only a handful of blotches where Lord Cullen Newbury had started, stopped, and started again to write a letter he had been trying to write for years. Normally he had no need to write, and had only ever become lettered as an afterthought, but as the years pressed on he found himself starting this same letter more and more often.

But nothing legible ever graced the page. Every time the quill stroked the parchment it would trail off into nothing, or be scratched out with clumsy frustration, or end in a splatter of ink and obscure it altogether. When he managed to scrawl, in jerky, poorly-spelled script, even a handful of words, they would be as jumbled and disheveled as his own thoughts, and meaningless at best.

He had scribes at his disposal; he could hear his wife's voice in the back of his mind gently urging him to find one and simply have him take dictation. But Cullen Newbury was not a man who let his fears and regrets see the light of day, let alone reach the ears of the impressionable youth; better to die slowly of the inner hurt than be undone by the failing of his soldier's faith in him.

When half of the page was spotted with ink and aborted words, the old soldier simply drew his knife and cut the parchment in half. The clean half went back into the drawer of his officer's desk, and the other, stained with his uncivil feelings and confused regrets, and somewhere in amongst the tangled threads of ink, apologies and beseechings and tears, Cullen took in his hand.

I cannot continue this, he thought, as he did every time, Julian is further out of his element than I was when I assumed this post.. Isobel and Rachel will be attracting suitors any day now.. and the twins will be starting on their own paths soon enough. I have my children and my land to think about. I don't have time to waste on this.

Another letter to Roger met another candle-flame, and Lord Newbury watched it burn to ash again.

What's the name of the Creator God the Endikai worship?: ((yes))

A truly excellent application. You've obviously put a good deal of thought into it. The plot with the Baskari assassins is a little sketchy, but not beyond belief, and I'm fine with it. And the app isn't all that long! It was a fun read, too, and I think you have plenty of plot potential. I'm sure he would be able to travel; we've established that there's a system of stewardship for the fiefdoms, and, in addition, the war has begun. You will want to clear up whether he's going into battle himself, because that's potentially HUGE. You could even post in our current battle; it's really only just begun.

One minute note: might as well say 'barbarians,' if you like, since remembering all the forms of Baskar (Baskari, Baskar [as the plural], etc.) can be annoying.

You are really tempting me to make Roger, you know that? >.< I must resist somehow.

I will try to resist.

PM your son and start some plot with him, perhaps--hey! HE could look after your fiefdom while you're gone. After all, he can't exactly go to war himself... and he's getting married soon (stealing my woman! Gr! :P).

Yes. Talk to Julian. And, once you've sorted out war/no war (his going to war makes more sense, but if you can figure out a reason for him not to...?), post for some plot in our Conspiracy and Conquest forum. We have lots of soldiers and lots of Baskar who'd be willing to fight with/against (respectively) you. I think you'd like some of our soldiers quite a lot, and have fun interacting.

Anyway, in case I didn't make it sufficiently clear, this is accepted, gladly. Have fun!

The Baskar assassin thing was a little farfetched to me too, but when I tried to think of how a knight's bastard gets a fiefdom handed to him, I figured it would have had to be just shy of ridiculous to get a king to remember the name and deeds of one soldier out of thousands. So I went with it. :P