DENDRIL MARDRIC HITCHINGS
“Am I light-fingered? Not with my back!”
No PB yet, sorry. I’ll post one when inspiration strikes.
SOME SAY THIS IS THE TRUTH
NAME: Sam
AGE: 23
HOW DID YOU FIND US?: Asked Spider if she had an RP forum
ANY OTHER CHARACTERS?: No
NEEDED OR ORIGINAL?: Original
AND SOME SAY IT IS A LIE
NAME: Dendril Mardric Hitchings
NICKNAMES(S) The Old Man, The Guv.
AGE: 62.
SEXUALITY: Not at my age, love.
ANIMAL: Mongrel terrier, old but still large, scarred, looks like a good ratcatcher or guard dog.
ALIGNMENT: Neutral (mainly himself).
ALL I KNOW IS I LOVE YOUR EYES
PLAY-BY: Um, don’t have one.
HAIR: Thinning white-blonde, usually pulled back into lank ponytail.
FACIAL FEATURES: Old, large and wrinkled, but his blue eyes still have a youthful twinkle and he’s generally smiling about something or other. Sadly his rotted yellow stumps of teeth have been known to give children nightmares.
BODY: About 6’3” and still fairly muscular for an older man – broad shouldered with thick legs. He carries himself slowly though, and walks with a stick.
OTHER: Regimental and gang tattoos on his arms - very, very faded however.
AND I LOVE THE WAY YOU MAKE ME SMILE
LIKES:Money
Clients
Sitting in the park
Smoking his pipe
A refreshing beer after a long day
DISLIKES:Posh people
Slow trading days
People discussing his past
Having to get physical with people who try to screw him over
Pigeons
AMBITIONS:Not die just quite yet
Earn more money
Help out such parts of the community as he feels need helping
FEARS:Get busted for illegal trade
The conflict ending any time soon
Certain aspects of his past catching up with him
PERSONALITY:Dendril is a friendly old man, the proverbial rough diamond, always grinning about something. He’s best known to a certain class of citizen as the proprietor of Alandra Trading Consortium, a large and ramshackle old building in the border of the slums and industrial district, which specialises in the sale of antiques, curios, peculiarities and… other items, if you know how to ask right. He oversees a small team of young lads and lasses from the area, each of whom is a specialist on some aspect of the merchandise, but he also expects them to work hard on the more menial tasks too. He does pay them well, but despite being surprisingly strong for his age, doesn’t do a lick of physical work himself – he’s quick to complain about his bad back and gammy hip, under the slightest provocation. He looks after his young’uns though, and woe betide anyone who tries to take advantage of any of them.
When not working Dendril can generally be found sitting in the park or his favourite corner of his favourite tavern, bantering to anyone who stop by come his way. He whistles tunelessly, and likes feeding the birds – except pigeons, dirty sky rats that they are. He’s a man of simple pleasures, an eccentric pillar of a certain aspect of the community, but happy to keep his head down and avoid attention. He deplores violence, preferring to talk (or bribe) his way out of any situation, although it’s no secret that he does know how to use a wide variety of weapons and is pragmatic enough to keep a difference-maker discreetly about his person at all times.
I LOVE THE PEOPLE WHO MADE YOU YOU
PARENTS: Alandra Hitchings, mother (deceased) was a doxie, father was a mercenary (name unknown) who retained her services for an evening.
SIBLINGS: [LIST] Jenasto, Antonio, Mikki, Eskadien, Anders, Faye, Adella, Thorin and Centhala - all deceased.
OTHER FAMILY: Various nieces and nephews and their families. He can’t be bothered remembering all of their names, there’s too many, but they work in all aspects of the community from palace kitchen staff to privates in the army to dockworkers, and most of them owe him a favour or two.
OPINION ON FAMILY: Good souls mostly and family is family. I wouldn’t want to see any of them every day but they’re all nice enough kids.
HISTORY: What? Dendril’s always been around… he’s just one of those guys who blends into the city. Everyone’s seen him around, but you only know him if you need to know him. He’s about sixty, he’s still pretty big, and he’s… just always been about, y’know?
Dendril grew up in the city, watching it transform into the metropolis it is now over the years. His mother was a working class prostitute and he never met his father, or even learned his name. He had a lot of half-siblings but they’re all dead now, through various means. At least, the ones he knows about are, but he’s under no impressions that they were all of his brothers and sisters – even his mother had trouble keeping track. Either way, he’s been left as the de facto patriarch of a sprawling and fairly loose-knit clan, more of a criminal support network with fingers in a number of civic pies than a real family.
Poor children of the time had only two options if they wanted to make anything of themselves: crime or the military. He chose both. Youth in the dockside gangs gave way to young adulthood in Eryger’s standing army. He served out his term quietly and without much distinction, either positive or negative, but learned how little it takes to take a life when you need to, and how easy it is to forge connections and skim a little off the top when you’re in a position of minor officialdom.
Upon leaving the army at a still relatively-young age, Dendril used his newfound connections and knowledge to return to the underworld a more confident and capable man and managed, eventually, to become a trusted collaborator in various illicit or crooked businesses. As he got older and the world moved on, Dendril decided he wanted to run his own little business and with the backing of a major family, founded his own imports, exports and curios warehouse which also, unsurprisingly, served as a front for various other dealings. Now finally autonomous and seen as a reliable but fairly harmless middleman in the crime world, Dendril is comfortable. He still has enough connections left from old gang or army mates who’ve gone into the palace guard, merchant guilds and other organisations that he remains a player, but he’s not enough of a player to warrant violent attention, which is exactly how he likes it.
Dendril is a rogue and a scoundrel, but doesn’t consider himself a real bad guy. He doesn’t like screwing people who don’t deserve it, and doesn’t like hurting people unduly, although occasionally he recognises that he has to do things he doesn’t like doing. Even so, most people have nothing more to fear from him than their kids getting an expanded vocabulary.
He never married, preferring to dally with various women rather than settle down with one. He has no children. Or at least, none that he's aware of.
AND ALL THE THINGS THAT BODY CAN DO
ANYTHING ELSE?: I suck at fantasy, please bear with me while I get my bearings!
ROLEPLAY SAMPLE:I’m not used to fantasy roleplaying much. With that in mind, this is my most recent roleplay, from a pro wrestling site, not one of my best but there were no titles on the line or anything:
Baby Dogg paced up and down in her locker room, thoughts racing through her mind. Smoke curled lazily around the ceiling from the joint she was sucking on nervously. She muttered to herself distractedly.”The guy can look after himself… he’s well hard… see all o’ yon championships he’s won?”She turned and looked again at the show card for Wrestling of Mass Destruction.”Aye but… the number one thing ye can have on yer side in a fight is numbers… one-on-three isnae good odds fer anyone.”She was confident in James Magnum’s abilities to win the main event match and become inaugural GCW World Champion. Even so, she liked Apocalypse and could live with him as champion. She was sure the MPW Champion wouldn’t cheat, but she was around to have Magnum’s back anyway, just on the off chance.
Waters versus Simmonds should be a great match. They were both tough as nails, and both on the right side of the ICW/MPW divide. Again, she was happy for either of them to be declared the winner… but again, she’d have Scotty’s back just in case Waters tried anything funny.
She barely knew Garth Gaffney and had no clue about anyone else in the tag team match, but she wasn’t too bothered about that one. She had her eye on that title – after all, she had her eye on all of the titles – and she’d seen nothing to suggest that either of these teams could co-exist until Krissmas Karnage.
She kinda hoped Daniel Prophet would beat Physical Appearance… everything she’d seen of Appearance suggested was an asshole and anyhow, he had a stupid name. And Prophet was a decent kid who could use a break. That said, she just couldn’t see either of them dethroning Rachel, but that wasn’t her problem.
As for Morgan Greene and Joshimitzu Kobashi, she didn’t know either of them. Morgan seemed to have a chip on her shoulder about her gender, which left her cold. If Morgan was going to prove that she wasn’t ‘just’ a woman what did that say about Rachel or Sal? Josh, meanwhile, just seemed like another lunk with an ego, one of the ten-a-penny cocky types every company’s lower midcard got filled with. Most matches, she’d be happy to see either competitor win, but she’d be just as happy to see either Greene or Kobashi lose.
But the match that had her most concerned wasn’t even being televised. Jay Dee taking on The Conclave one-on-three. She didn’t know a thing about The Conclave – maybe they were nice guys. Maybe they’d play fair. Or, maybe, they’d do their job and triple-team Jay. She owed Jay nothing, but she kinda liked the kid. He’d tried to be nice to her, and she didn’t want to see him get unfairly demolished when he’d done nothing to deserve it.
She resparked the joint, realising that it had gone out while she’d been lost in her thoughts. She sighed.”Is two on three any better? Is there any point me gettin’ masel’ beat up too?”She took another deep toke and closed her eyes, then shook her head.”He tried ta be nice ta me. He is a decent guy. He doesnae deserve this.”Sal turned and slowed, and stared out the window at the evening drizzle, head bowed slightly.”But I don’t wanna make it look like he canna handle himself. I don’t wanna be patronisin’ on the guy.”She frowned as the joint went out again. It wasn’t particularly well rolled.”I don’t want him ta get the wrong impression.”She flicked her Zippo on again, and the flame briefly caught a golden reflection in the window. She turned and stared at the objects on the table.
Her titles.
The GEW Extreme Chaos Championship. The CWF Women’s World Championship. The CRF Extreme Championship. The ICW Iron City Hardcore Championship.
Four championships. She carried them with her because she was always on the road, bouncing from city to city. She might be at a CWF show one week, a GEW show the day after, and a CRF show a few days after that.
Since ICW had been bought out by GCW, she’d never had to defend it.
She could still show her fans, and the fans of GCW why she deserved it.
A champion didn’t cheat. A champion didn’t politic. And a champion didn’t abandon people.
Tonight, she would prove why she was a champion by defending anyone – Saint Magnum, Apocalypse, Scott Simmonds, Daniel Prophet, anyone – from foul play.
Starting with Jay Dee..
*****
Dendril Hitchings
