Artorius, Marcus

[Marcus Artorius .]

MARCUS ARTORIUS.

Marcus Artorius. “Marc”. 47 Years Old; 27th of Rain’s Hand. Imperial. Legate of the Imperial Legion, Third Division. Imperial. No Guild. Non-supernatural. Heterosexual. Custom.

[atrb=border,0,true] I grew up in a small town in Cryodiil, just on the border of Skyrim. I could toss a rock and hit a Nord if I really wanted to. Goddamn did I have fun with that… I was the youngest of two. His name was Claudius and we had a year difference, if you really give a damn. My mother, Arkay bless her soul, had to deal with the responsibility of raising two boys by herself. My father had the decency of walking out on the growing family before I was born. I’m glad to know I didn’t know the rat bastard; I might have ended up as cowardly as him. The family owned a small bakery in town which me and my brother had to help run from a young age. Looking back, I wasn’t much help. I was always standing around sweeping the same corner of the shop. I’m pretty sure my mom noticed, which is why she favored Claudius more than me. I hated him for it. Whatever I would do, wherever I would go, it always seemed like Claudius was doing it better, getting there first. I was in his shadow and all it did was piss me off. I quickly learned that if I was going to get noticed, I was going to have to be better than Claudius in every way I could. It didn’t help. I was eighteen when my mother passed away from illness. In her dying breath, she left the store to her favorite son. It wasn’t me. In a reckless fit of rage, I signed up for the Legion. Don’t get me wrong, I get her choice now, but at the time it felt like a knife to the heart. Sometimes I even lie awake in my tent, wondering what my life would have been like if I had stayed a baker... and then I laugh at the idea and fall asleep. In the first few years of training in the Legion, I learned a lot about myself as a man. I’m a reckless son of a bitch who was good with a blade, even better with my mind. Well… at least the last things were new. As it turned out, I have a tactician’s mind. I’m able to read a battle and change its tide. I can take the most dire of situations and turn them around. If I can’t and you see me running, you best keep up. After a couple years of service, I was allowed to come home for a little R&R. It was anything but. As it turned out, while I was gone, my brother had gotten himself addicted to Skooma and used all his lifesavings to get his next fix. This included our family bakery. When I found him in the ditch he called a home, I was so tempted to gut him and leave him for dead. At that moment, I realized that I did what I always wanted to do: be a better man than my brother. So I left him there to wallow in the mud. I couldn’t do any worse than he was doing to himself. There’s not much to note in my military career before I was promoted. There was one instance when I was twenty-five though that really stands out. The legion I was in was deployed to the Reach, to try and stabilize the area. It was tough, since our information on what we were going against was limited. The Legate in charge of our division sent out a small regiment for reconnaissance and I was one of the selected. We set out blind, hoping to find out exactly what we were dealing with. I was the only survivor. I was close to dying too, I’ll have you know. We were attacked by Forsworn a few days in our mission, ambushed really. I took an arrow to the chest. I was lucky enough to fall among my dead brothers-in-arms where I played dead until the Forsworn passed. It was horrible. I wasn’t much of a religious man until that day where I laid there bleeding out. When you think you’re about to die, you start searching for a way out. The Divines would grant me that in the form of a Bosmer hunter. She miraculously found me among the dead and managed to take me to her camp where she nursed me back to health. If I remember correctly, her name was Aerin. She was beautiful. It was a few weeks before she let me leave her sight. The first week she tended to my wounds from the ambush. The last few weeks she used to train me to be better with a bow. “Your sword and shield won’t help much if you’re picked off from a distance,” She would tell me, “And plus you’re a horrible shot.” She was my first love, to be honest, but I had to go and return to the Legion to warn them about the Forsworn. I never saw her again after that. You’ve seen my record after I was promoted into higher ranks. Liberating forts from bandits and forsworn alike, protecting key supply lines from raids… things of the like. They got me noticed by the higher ups and they would put me in charge of more important missions. Suddenly I woke up to find I was a Legate. And here we are, all caught up to today and this goddamn civil war. I think we’re done here… I’ve got a war to win.

ALIAS . Ryan

AGE . 18

YEARS ROLEPLAYING . 5… maybe 6? That sounds about right.

HOW YOU FOUND US . Blame Kent.