Calidar Stadler

The Wayword Minstrel

**Calidar Stadler** is a Free Marcher Minstrel and member of the Wild Hallas Adventurer's company.

## Appearance

Calidar is a handsome man with vulpine features, high cheekbones, softly curling hair and sparkling green eyes. Often worn rugged from his traveling of roads and byways for weeks on end he makes an attempt to shave clean his scruffy beard whenever possible as he feels it makes him appear far less appealing which is a grievous crime against nature. He has a lean but athletic frame and walks with a consummate grace and surety that whether in combat or performing parlor tricks never wavers in form or substance. Hands calloused from years of scuffling and lute playing he is surprisingly gentle to most how have reason to notice, though he makes attempts to mask this fact as it falls in contrast to his standard bravado. Often dressed in simple homespun trousers, soft leather boots laces up his to his knees and a long tailed leather jerkin over a simple Orlaisian shirt he would appear to be an admittedly dusty travelling dandy if it weren't for well used daggers resting at either hip and the prominent dueling scar on his chin which in his own words lends his a certain amount of roguish charm. Preferring to travel light the small pack hanging from one shoulder rarely seems as though it would hold enough to support the life of a wayward traveller yet he spontaneously always seems well fed and in generally good shape despite every indication the opposite should be true. With lute adorning his back and the sun shining bright on the endless road Calidar is as at home as he is anywhere else in the wide and dangerous world.

## Combat Information

### Armament

* A heavily curved Antivan dagger jokingly named “Tooth”
* A well made Orlaisian thrusting dagger jokingly named “Nail”
* A handmade hunting knife inherited from his uncle Byron
* His Orlaisian made lute which he has named “Andraste’s Grace” is his most prized possession and the tool most key to making his living.

### Abilities

* ***Stealth** -* Calidar, not one for direct confrontation avoids it as often as possible instead opting to disappear from sight and blindside unsuspecting foes while other less important people hold their attention.
* ***Evade** -* Ever the showman Calidar puts his acrobatic skills to use by nimbly jumping and flipping from the path of enemy weapons and spells.
* ***Twin Fang** -* Leaping with daggers in hand Calidar viscously rends flesh from his enemies in a gruesome downward thrust.
* ***Spinning Blades** -* With an elegant twist Calidar delivers slash after slash to drive enemies back and allow him to reposition.

### Skills

* Knife fighting
* Stealth
* Deception
* Acrobatics
* Light armor training
* Music
* Singing
* Storytelling
* Knowledge of lore
* Performance

## Biography

Calidar True-Song, voice of the Maker’s grace was born of the perchance union of an outcast bastard prince of the Anderfells and the greatest bard of Orlaisian history who upon meeting could not help but feel destined to be together so that the voice of the divine could be given mortal shape. If you were to ask Calidar this, or some equally nonsensical story would be his answer. The truth is significantly more mundane if no less unlikely. In the poorer section of Starkhaven there lived a young and insignificant guardsman with aspirations of being accepted to the Templar Order. One night while heavily intoxicated in a local tavern the guardsman managed to nonetheless seduce a traveling minstrel, be it some degree of rugged charm or the pity of a lose young woman is a question for the ages. The result was a rather predictable one. Nearly a year after the brief encounter the guardsman woke to find a babe left on the stoop of the pitiful little shack he could afford on his measly salary, a brief note only present to make it very clear to his brash young mind what had happened. He of course immediately began to panic. For several weeks he scrambled about aimlessly, spurning the child that had crushed his small hopes of greater heroism. Not long after becoming a father he realised he could no longer stand it and on a sunny day near harvest he left the boy with his older brother Byron with the only gift he would ever give the child, his name; Calidar. And so began the life of Calidar Stadler, son of Duncan a foolish young guard of Starkhaven that ran into the country to become a Templar.

Raised by Byron in a small cottage on the outskirts of the great city Calidar was brought up as an apprentice hunter, one with very little interest in the craft. From the very start the child could not be held at bay and was always wondering about on ill advised treks through the vast streets of Starkhaven spending more time in taverns and common rooms than in the forest. Even as a small child no higher than a grown man’s knee Calidar was entranced by music, by the stories they told, and by the men and women who told those stories. Who with voice and strings and flute created life through events long since past. Magic of a purer sort, free of the danger of demons, the Maker’s own magic given form by any who were skilled and faithful enough to pursue the art for themselves. His uncle didn’t much approve of these outings and more than once physically dragged Calidar back to his work, spending long afternoons learning to step quietly and avoid danger. Unfortunately for Byron this training only made it easier for young Calidar to slip away and parade around with the street urchins and miscreants always drawn to large population zones. From these Calidar learned deceit, and from both he learned the knife, a weapon he much more easily took to than the bows and spears his uncle favored. Needless to say the two’s relationship was a constantly strained one, held together only by the unspoken love of true family though both were far too proud to ever speak their emotions aloud. As the years ticked away Calidar grew ever bolder and from his uncle and the children of the streets learned to step as a spirit regardless of the terrain he found himself in and this, despite his constant absences from his uncle’s side, did draw pride from the old hunter during their increasingly rare journeys into the forest.

As young men often are in their pubescent years Calidar began spending less and less time serving as his uncle’s apprentice until at the age of fourteen he largely stopped attending his uncle all together, much to the aging man’s displeasure. One day during these years, be it due to Calidar’s absence or the stiffened joints and dulled instincts Byron had begun to earn the hunter’s luck ran dry. While chasing a wild boar he had wounded Byron had to misfortune of stumbling upon the den of a mother bear and, sadly, was fatally wounded fleeing the creature. He was found four days later, having only managed to drag his way halfway through the woods toward the city. Calidar hadn’t even realized he had been missing until he was told.

The days after his uncle’s death were the hardest of Calidar’s life. While his uncle had owned their small cottage and it was now Calidar’s by right Byron had never been a material man, only selling enough leather goods and meat as was necessary to pay immediate expenses and so Calidar was left without a single copper and only enough dried food to last a few weeks. A shame Bryon hadn’t died in the winter and left several months of provisions for the young man. Only making matters worse was the fact that Calidar had been the very worst example of a student nearly his entire life and thus lacked the skills necessary to assume his uncle’s craft, of in fact any craft as to that point he had frivolously spent his life meandering about Starkhaven and ogling minstrels and local storytellers. So it was that with no prospects and no family the young Calidar made the kind of reckless choice only those emboldened by youth can make. As his mother was and as he had always wished he would become a minstrel, no, the greatest of all minstrels. Of course, the problem of possessing neither instrument nor the skill to play one was an issue of some concern. For the few weeks he had to ponder this issue before he entirely ran out of food Calidar made very little progress toward a plan. For the few weeks after he ran out of food and managed to get by off of basic charity he made very little progress. For the following months where he was forced to take to the streets and beg or steal to survive...he made very little progress. As his cheeks became gaunt and his eyes became hollow Calidar began to hate his childish little dream.

As he was forced to compete with them he began to hate the urchins he had once defended. For a time, as he lay near starved and half dead not three miles from where he was raised having never seen anything else, Calidar began to hate the very Maker for his lot in life. Sorrow and despair began to replace his dreams and bluster until one day he sat down in an alley and found he simply did not have enough energy to stand again. It isn’t unreasonable to believe he would have died there, alone in that alley with no one to mourn him if a Chantry sister hadn’t stumbled by and took pity on the half dead urchin having a Templar carry him to shelter.

Starkhaven was a particularly devout city and the sisters and Templars that roamed throughout the streets were fairly close to the ideal they were expected to be. Their kindness and devotion were exactly what was needed at exactly the right time. For the next several months Calidar became a ward of the Chantry, regaining his strength, his faith, and most importantly, his hope. Through talks with the Revered Mother Calidar thought he began to understand his place in the world and was finally able to deal with the sorrow his uncle’s death had left in his heart and while it was a strange sort of devotion, he began very devout nonetheless. Calidar through his own unique perception of reality came to believe his months of struggle were a test from the Maker to challenge his resolve and strengthen his spirit, beginning to believe that his life was saved by the Maker’s very servants fore he was destined to bring holy music to the world, and the more he reflected on how very little of the world he had seen the more he realised that that meant all the world not just the small little haven of society he was used to. His time with the Chantry and months on the streets given him a healthy regard for disregard of the material, ironic considering how his uncle’s similar belief had left him in such a sorry position, and a deep appreciation of what was truly necessary and precious. So it was that Calidar, nearly a year after his uncle’s death finally formed a plan to fulfill his dream. With the Revered Mother’s assistance his uncle’s cottage and nearly everything still within were sold to the city, gaining the young man a small stipend that would decide his entire future. With this precious money he purchased the finest lute he could find in the vast city and began to practice night and day stopping only once a day to eat, and only very briefly to sleep

He had spent years listening to minstrels both good and bad and through sheer memorization and a zealous belief he was destined to play the instrument he held in his hand and so he played. He played and played, played until he split his fingers near to the bone and his ears rung always. And so it was Calidar taught himself to play the music he had heard all his life, the music that had consumed his every free hour and most of his sleeping ones. He, in his mind at least, had finally gained what he needed to start toward his goal. And so it was as a young man with calloused fingers and barely a pack of random sundries to his name marched away from Starkhaven with a broad smile on his handsome face. Calidar stadler had died over a year before in that alley, but Calidar True-song was finally free to become what he was always meant to be, a great traveling minstrel that had not a single rival.

The romantic ideal he had always envisioned was of course a mere fantasy. A minstrel’s life was a hard one, a lonely and one that entailed copious amounts of walking more than anything else. For the first year or so of his travels Calidar was met with little success. While he had learned to play and had seen enough minstrels to know what it was he should do he had no stage experience and had never before performed for anyone. It was a lean time, occasionally forcing the young man to steal food to scrap by where those he had performed for were less than impressed. Still he steadied on, learning more and more from each failure and gradually improving his performances to the point of actual profit, in that villagers began tipping him instead of booing him out of town. There was of course a place in Calidar’s mind that understood it would take him time to become what he was meant to be. He hadn’t stopped to consider the highwaymen. Bandits were an unfortunate reality of rural roads and small towns. His first encounter with them was terrifying and brief. As a young man travelling alone he was an easy target and easily taken advantage of. As one bandit help him down Calidar was driven to a mad anger as another took up his lute. That instrument was not only his only possession of any real worth but was his livelihood. The key to his destiny. He drove his hand viscously into the man’s head, and slit his throat while the man was stunned. Taking a knife in either hand he flung himself at the second man, the adrenaline channeling through his veins, Calidar ripped and tore at the man, oblivious to his own injuries, careless of his own life. It was the first time Calidar had killed a man, and the experience left him stunned and injured.

Being in the middle of nowhere he had no recourse but to continue stumbling down the road hoping to find a village before he collapsed. This did not happen. Injured and exhausted Calidar fell into the woods and collapsed. Not long after he was found bleeding by a dalish hunter whose clan was resting nearby. Taking pity on him the hunter drug him back to camp and the elves despite their general distrust of human decided to heal the young man given his piteous state. While they were not exactly friendly, they did restore him to stability and sent him on his way with advice and provisions. It was this incident that instilled a respect for the dalish in Calidar, more out of gratitude than any interest in their culture.

Calidar’s first taste of true danger was not a pleasant one but it taught him to walk more carefully down the roads, more ready to commit violence while still unseen. All the while his voice became sweeter and his songs more skillful matched with an ever growing stage presence and unshakable confidence. Throughout the Free Marches he wandered, singing and performing acrobatics tricks he had learned from various street performers during his urchin years where music wasn't as welcome. His constant walking and light diet made him lean and constant crouched movement and acrobatics tightened his lean muscles into wipecord and braided wire. For three years he walked the Free Marches honing his skills and body before he had decided he had grown to the point where Orlais, center of culture and class, was his only logical next step. And so using his hard earned coin he crossed the sea to Orlais, where he very immediately learned just how foolish he was. Orlais was an entirely different world to Calidar, the minstrels of a totally greater caliber. Another five years he spent traveling every corner of Orlais, every town and city and village and while his skills continued to ever grow higher and his lot in life grew ever more pleasant thanks to Orlaisian generosity he constantly found himself wanting when seeing the high echelon that was the Orlaisian bard. While his outward composure remained infallible Calidar came to realise Orlais was a pit trap, a vast cultural land filled with competition that sought to ensnare him entirely. He was meant to be the world’s minstrel not just another skilled practitioner spending their life in Orlais.

He had to travel to all lands and nearby Ferelden was in desperate need of culture if the Orlesians were any judge of such things. And so it has come to be that for the last two years Calidar True-Song, self proclaimed greatest minstrel east of the Orlaisian border has brought the gift of his finely honed musical excellence to the people of Ferelden. Through thick and thin, hard times and light Calidar has walked ever down the road, a song on his lips every night and most everyday.

He had to travel to all lands and nearby Ferelden was in desperate need of culture if the Orlesians were any judge of such things. And so it has come to be that for the last two years Calidar True-Song, self proclaimed greatest minstrel east of the Orlaisian border has brought the gift of his finely honed musical excellence to the people of Ferelden. Through thick and thin, hard times and light Calidar has walked ever down the road, a song on his lips every night and most everyday. It was in this period that we are brought to the present. Ever he devout Andrastian Calidar’s ears perked at the tales of the Divine herself giving life to a holy Guild to bring order to the chaos of the roads. Despite himself Calidar couldn’t help but be fascinated. As a professional vagabond the safety of the roads and small communities was of particular interest to him given it was significant to his own well being, something he was fond of. Besides, he was a on a holy mission to bring music to the world, a cause that could only be made easier by the fellowship of other devote Andrastians. It was only good sense to aid the Divines own holy warriors, and if he happened to personally benefit along the way, say with a free and steady supply of food for the first time in a blasted decade, well… that would be divine providence.

## Personal Relationships

### Family -

***Byron Stadler** -* Byron Stadler was a moderately famous hunter that lived on the outskirts of Starkhaven making his way through life by selling well crafted leather goods made from the pelts of the animals he fell. When his brother abandoned his infant son to serve as a Knight Templar as he had always dreamed Byron found himself in the position of being the poor unwanted child’s only known relative. Thankfully for young Calidar Byron was a kindly, if somewhat dour man and was willing to take him in and raise him as his own. Much to Byron’s constant chagrin however he found himself less able to relate and even less able to control the boy as he aged. Despite their differences the man held a genuine affection for his nephew and did his best to provide a modestly comfortable life for them. However no matter how skilled the hunter the beasts of the wild are always a danger and one cruel day a black bear eviscerated Byron and left his 15 year old nephew alone in Starkhaven with only a small cottage and a few mostly valueless trinkets to his name. To this day Calidar remembers his uncle fondly, even if he regrets constantly avoiding him to pursue his own fanciful dreams.

***Duncan Stadler** -* Calidar has never met his father, the guardsman with dreams of being a mighty Templar that in a youthful night when drunk he bed a traveling songstress and woke several months later to find a newborn babe on his doorstep.Young, selfish, and afraid Duncan left the child to the care of his older brother and left his lifelong home to find a place among the heroes he had always admired never seeing the irony that heroes were likely not the kind to abandon children due to their presence being rather inconvenient. Byron never heard from his brother again and to this day Calidar has no way of knowing where he is or what became of him. In contrast to what might be expected Calidar holds no animosity toward the man that contributed in his birth as he knows the lure of vast, unreachable dreams. If nothing else, Calidar is thankful for his father for giving him his name, the one thing he ever received from the man.

### Romance -

L***oriel** -* While Calidar will be the first to tell tales of the dozens of maidens he has seduced and left to continue his journeys throughout Thedes there is only a very base amount of truth to any one story and more often than not they are complete fabrications. The tale of Ioriel, the lovely Dalish hunter however is very much a reality, at least in the fact she actually exists. When he first began wandering the Ferelden countryside two years ago Calidar was accosted by a local Dalish tribe whose path he had inadvertently crossed. Rather than killing him outright the elves were taken in by Calidar’s musical skill and respect for oral tradition. Begrudgingly the clan’s Keeper agreed to allow the minstrel to accompany them under the understanding that he was responsible for his own survival including shelter and food. One of the hunters assigned to watch the human was Ioriel, a lovely young woman with a habit for sarcasm and sass. Over the next several months a pattern of snark and playful insults bonded the two more than either was able to readily admit, Calidar’s ego and Ioriel’s upbringing keeping anything serious from developing between them until the day am for Calidar to once more tread his own path. As he left and the clan made their own way Ioriel ride to him to say goodbye. After a somewhat awkward and tense moment the two shared a kiss and separated without a word. It is only in hindsight Calidar has come to realise he loved Ioriel and she is often in his thoughts when he sings songs learned from her people. These feelings have not stopped his constant flirting with the young women that come to hear his music but he has not since developed serious feelings for another woman.

### Allies -

***The Kindness of Comonfolk** -* As a traveling minstrel from small beginnings Calidar relies on the kindness of the common people he performs for in order to continue to feed himself and often for the shelter of a country inn or tavern. His wayward nature prevents him from forming many lasting relationships but Calidar has come to see the commonfolk, his folk, regardless of their country of origin as his allies in his endless quest to see all that the world has to offer.

### Rivals -

**N/A** -A slim benefit of a nomadic lifestyle, Calidar has avoided forging any significant enemies as he has rarely remained in a single place long enough to do more than irritate and occasionally antagonize. However, also as a side effect of his lifestyle, Calidar is in constant danger of the highwaymen and bandits that wander the roads of Thedas.

## Personality

Calidar is a jovial and prideful man by nature. Whether travelling down a lonesome road or singing to a tavern stuffed to bursting the young minstrel is rarely without a wide smile on his face and a whistled tune in his voice. He takes great personal pride in his musical skill to the point of intense egotism but is pleasant enough of voice to make his coin regardless, in most instances at least. A shameless, if ultimately harmless flirt Calidar has broken countless hearts in his own mind and a small number in reality with a slowly sung ballad and piercing gaze. Not much of a drinker he still engages in copious amounts of drink most nights he finds his way to a town as he is very easily wrapped up in the basic nightly festivities common to villages and towns filled with hard worker folk that need an evening of amusement at the end of the day to drudge through life. Calidar’s greatest enemy has always been his sense of superiority and pride. Never malicious and rarely self aware the minstrels ego irritates people, degrades any relationships he manages to make and leaves him in awkward positions fairly often. While is actual talent can not be disputed his insufferable self satisfaction in said talent leaves many listeners regretting the coin they threw to him during the song itself and many brigands less and less willing to leave him alive. While he may seem simple at times as if he is not exceedingly educated he has made great pains to learn the stories and legends long held by the people, his boundless curiosity for such tales landing him in dangerous situations more than once in the past.

Despite his age Calidar has a child’s sense of wonder at song and music and while he plays his music to make the coin he needs to live he does so out of simple love for music itself and the joy he feels at sharing his music with his largest flaw being just how adamantly he believes his music in particular is a gift to all those that would listen in the same way a child doesn’t understand the complexities of the world. Contrary to this he has seen enough of the wide world and lived through enough squaller to understand the fragility of life and instead of lamenting he simply chooses to face off against the gloom with a smile on his face and a song on his lips, an admirable, if annoying trait.