Wendel Sommerling van Spenglersbek

Ser Wendel Sommerling van Spenglersbek is a Taemish mercenary, formerly a starred errant of the Drygrass Steppes. When he's trying to simplify his name for foreign games or to mask his identity, he uses the name Wendel of Tintown.
Having abandoned the Steppes because of a traumatic encounter in one of its dark, winter-stricken towns, he roamed the heartland of the kingdom for two years. After a second harrowing battle against witches in the Taemish bogs, he left the country altogether, becoming a borderless soldier of fortune.
== Appearance and character ==
Wendel is a towering man of twenty-three years, slender but powerful, with rosy-white skin. His hair is ashen-blond and long, cut short at the sides and slicked back over his head with animal fat, as is traditional among the Drygrassmen. He has a long, innocent face, eyes wide and forthcoming. His mutated irises, the colour of lavender, mark him as fae-touched according to Taemish superstition.
A stoic, gentle man, Wendel is outwardly simple but has a mind for religiosity and the complexities of courtesy and honour. He has a careful, if sometimes grave voice, with the marked twang and dialect of a Drygrassman. When he finds a leader of moral integrity, he is hard-working and loyal to a fault.
Wendel wears a worn chainmail hauberk and a sallet in battle, wielding an eight-foot spear, and a longsword as a sidearm. An avid hunter, he also owns a boar spear, a bear spear, and a small crossbow. Highly athletic, he is a wickedly fast swimmer and runner. He is rarely without his trust steppenhund, Splasch. He rides a fine courser whom he names Blae.
== Biography ==
In the year of 379 C.E., Wendel suffered the misfortune of being born on the Drygrass Steppes of Northern Taemar.
The Drygrass Steppes consisted of treeless grassland, terrorized by bandits known as "Hides". Sheriffs (or "starred men") protected most settlements, with roving "steppesrangers" also offering service. These men were like the knights of elsewhere, though far less glamorous. Despite their best efforts, live on the steppes was ever harsh. Come each winter, the people abandoned the Southernized Hog God in favour of the Frozen Gods. For those deprived of food by Hides or perpetual poverty, this was a time of desperation and unthinkable practices.
For most of his life, Wendel was ignorant of these horrors. Tintown, a consistently productive mining settlement, was on the better end of steppe existence. Vallen rewarded their performance with plenty of pigs each winter's eve, so the yearly Blackening had little impact on daily life there.
Despite the relative prosperity of his town, Wendel had a difficult life growing up. In Wendel's infancy, his father, a swineherd, died in a Hide attack. He, his mother Anka, and his elder sister Schoona-Lee went on to endure years of destitution. While other boys learned the vigorous skills of men, Wendel laboured for a living with his family. For being a pudgy boy who spent most of his time doing women's work, Wendel was the object of frequent bullying.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Category:Characters from Taemar
Category:Nobility
Category:Knights