Harkle Family

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Very Basic Family Synopsis

"My Xerarch, I believe you are a bit confused as to my background. My house hails from a small town in the western highlands of Dwilight, and the Gilded Company was the creation of my father. When monsters began to ravish the western part of Dwilight, the local lords frantically tried to raise bands of hunters and warriors to protect their lands. My father was among the first to answer the call, and thus the Gilded Company was born from a ragtag group of commoners and farmers that my father knew at the time. Getting its name from the color of the cloths they tied to their armaments, the Company was wildly successful, and while the nobility never really cared much about the affairs of peasants, the locals in the surrounding regions told stories of how my dad and his companions bravely fought off hordes of monsters and saved innocent people from slaughter and destruction. Granted, this is a bit exaggerated, but he was a very brave man nonetheless.

His gambits did not go unrewarded, and soon we found ourselves with a small cottage and 200 acres of farmland. He hung up his sword when he became a landed member of the gentry, and we had a pretty decent life for our background. While not a full member of the noble social stratum, his rank in the feudal structure was enough to secure my sister, Absicca, an estate and knightship in the grand theocracy of Astrum when she came of age.

When beasts descended back down upon the people of Dwilight, he called the Company back to arms. His old bones didn't have the same prowess as before, and he was struck down by a hellish beast while leading from the front, holding long enough for the rest of the mercenary band to escape with their lives. That is how my father died, a hero. Certainly not by our outdated aristocratic standards, and thus his legend only lives on in my family. Nevertheless he is the reason we were able to become 'nobility' in the first place, through his bravery and unmatched leadership. This is the legacy the Gilded Company strives to maintain.

"The monsters ravaged Western Dwilight, and pretty soon every village and hamlet was in burning ruins. We fled to the East Continent, with the Gilded Company under my command, and the shadow of my father smothering me. When I stepped off that boat, Isadril was a city of wonder for me. The way the Xavax soldiers marched, the way the city never slept. It was a city of fire and steel, unrelenting, unforgiving, and unbreakable. It reflected the warrior culture of Xavax that I came to love and admire, an adamant people forged by the hellfire of war.

I owe my success as a leader and warrior to you, yes. When I handed my papers to the customs inspector in Port Isadril, I was a sellsword, a brigand, a lowlife by your standards. But when you handed me that letter of knightship, when you pronounced me a Knight of the Black Swan, and I swore my loyalty to Xavax, with a solemn oath to uphold, protect, and defend the people, property, and soveriegn territory of Xavax, you made me into a true soldier. A true man of virtue, and gave me the true potential to achieve what I have achieved, but I ended up in your arms, a toddler tossed across the sea on a boat, because of the sacrifice of my father."


– Nicolas Harkle, Knight of Isadril, Commander of the Gilded Company