Your Name ∙ Carrie
Contact Information ∙ AOL: mtnfireprincess or PM
Time Zone ∙ Eastern Standard



Character’s Name ∙ Sir Osric haMinch, Lord of Stone Mountain, Knight Commander of the King's Own
Age ∙ 32 (168 HE. Born in November, making him, in the Scranan calendar, a white earth bear)
Gender ∙ Male
Residing ∙ The Palace, Corus. Finds less and less time to spend at Stone Mountain
Character Class ∙ Noble
Occupation ∙ Knight Commander of the King's Own



Sexual Orientation ∙ Heterosexual

Overall Personality ∙
Osric is a cheerful, happy-go-lucky man who is always ready for a game, a bet or a drink. He rarely, if ever, gets mad, and treats everything in his cheerful manner, even war; he always has a joke ready and remains good natured. He treats everyone with respect but with a jovial nature. Not a comedian or mischievous, Osric prefers to laugh along with his friends, enjoying his time. He can easily and quickly measure a person's strengths and weaknesses and then proceeds to deal with them accordingly. He is directly honest with people and because he can easily measure a person, he is fair to everyone he deals with. He is calm and cool headed in a crisis and in battle. Anger, danger and injustice make him stoic while happiness and joy make Osric passionate and boisterous.

He is always keeping busy and active; Osric hates being still and gets frustrated easily by being forced to do desk work. He would rather be hunting with his dogs or his falcon, practising tilting or weapons work, or even just a game with a couple of friends. Osric also enjoys tennis and dancing. Anything that could be considered fun, Osric likes. He is patient with everyone, including children, and can be found helping pages, especially the older ones, taking well placed hints from friends and family that he should take a squire this year. He is very generous with commoner and peer alike, a great example of this is his taking in of his sister-in-law Catalina after her husband died and making her son his heir until he has an heir of his own.




Height ∙ 6' 1"
Weight ∙ 175 lbs
Overall Appearance ∙
Osric is bright to behold, with blond-red slightly curly hair cropped short, he prefers it this way rather than the longish length preferred by the other young men of his stature, and he just finds it easier to keep in order when it's short. He's also believes his light hair is a blessing for it hides his messy facial hair that he always forgets or doesn't have time to shave. His deep set clear blue eyes that sometimes reflect green in the right light, sit under seemingly well groomed blond eyebrows. They're so light that they can disappear. He has a slightly long face with a square jaw. His bottom lip is full and his upper thin.

Osric is not burly, but his weight is dispersed in wiry muscles. Osric keeps in shape with his endless energy for activities. He hates to not be moving and usually fidgets when kept still, annoying the scholars when someone sits him down at a desk to do paperwork. The bouncing of his legs disturbs their careful lettering. He has a friendly, trusting smile that makes building relationships easy. As a boy he was known for his pout which is an art he has refined although rarely uses.





Family History ∙
Osric comes from the haMinch family, one of the pillars of the kingdom of Tortall. His grandfather had been the King's Champion in his time and his father had been a trusted advisor to the previous king and still is a trusted mind when it comes to matters of state.

Stone Mountain is a northern fief upon the north eastern border with Scanra, but closer to the City of Gods. Stone Mountain had been under Crown management when the last Lord died without leaving any heirs. This was about ten years before Osric was awarded the fief for services for the Crown. Osric and his men-at-arms uncovered and stopped a human smuggling trade in Tortall's hill country that was sending people to Maren to be slaves.


Family ∙
Father: Lord Edwin haMinch (57)
Mother: Lady Adeliza haMinch (53)
Older Brother: Sir Garrick haMinch (35)
Younger Sister: Adele haMinch (34) (gone into service as a priestess)
Younger Brother: Sir Esmond haMinch (deceased, would be 28)
Youngest Sister: Rosaline haMinch (17)
Sister-in-law: Lady Catalina haMinch (25) (Catalina was originally from Anak's Eyrie)
Nephew: Esmond haMinch (6)

Other Important People/Creatures:
Anders: Man-at-Arms
Nils: Man-at-Arms
Lotte: Woman-at-Arms
Anders, Nils and Lotte follow Osric everywhere, they are his most trusted fighters and extensions of his mind and body. Anders is a rough looking hillman, whose father was haMinch's fletcher. Nils is the odd combination of a Bazhir father and Scranan mother; he worked for the Gallan Rogue before meeting Osric and taking a liking to him. Both Osric and Nils have sworn blood-oaths to protect each other. Osric met Lotte, a K'miri woman while looking for a warhorse. She introduced him to Ox and then declared that she was going with him to make sure he treated Ox well, though everyone else knows that Lotte was just bored with being a horse trader like her Maren father.
Sybil: Riding Horse (mare)
Ox: Warhorse (gelding)
Lena: Favourite Hound
Violet: Lotte's charger, Osric calls the mare a brute of a horse.


Birthplace ∙ The Palace, Corus, Tortall

Background ∙
Osric was the second son born to Edwin and Adeliza haMinch, born in Corus in the couple's rooms at the Palace while they were at court. Osric spent his childhood at the Palace during the social season and at home in Tortall's hill country where the haMinch ancestral manor is located. A pretty manor, more like a small castle than a house, it overlooks a lake and is backed by large hills and mountains. Osric grew up close to his siblings, Garrick and Adele who were two and one year older respectively than Osric, and Esmond, the baby, four years younger than Osric. The siblings made themselves busy with hunts for game, fishing, and sailing their small boats to escape tutors and nurses. They were a happy bunch and for the most part didn't quarrel, though like all siblings argued eventually, though with so many things to do the four were usually too tired to argue very long and hard about anything.

Osric learned more when he was doing something and luckily he had a tutor that indulged such things. Drifting along in his boat, Osric learned to read. While walking through farm land and woods, mathematics lessons slipped in somehow and it was trail rides on his pony that gave Osric and his tutor time to discuss law and politics. Luckily for his parents, Osric wasn't picky about what he did, as long as he was doing something. His mother would set him down on cold winter evenings and teach him to sew, though his father objected if the lessons went past mending. Chilly late summer and fall evenings when the mist crept over the land, Osric canned and learned how to keep food over the winter. It was in this fashion that Osric learned the principles of logistics, which were much the same lessons that Adele was given on how to manage a fief. It was also in these shared lessons with his sister, Osric learned first aid and how to manage servants and other people.

When Osric was about to turn eight, his brother Garrick headed off to the palace to become a knight. Hearing about the lessons and exploits that his older brother was learning and going to learn, Osric was extremely impatient for this time of his life to begin. The two years seemed to take forever coming and were only interrupted with a tearful farewell to his older sister Adele who travelled to the City of the Gods to train as a lady and a mage. Osric spent most of the next year playing with Esmond and teaching him everything he knew. This brought the two brothers closer than ever to each other and to their parents who found themselves nervous about having all their children out in the world.

The letter from the training master agreeing that Osric could try for his shield was the single happiest note Osric has ever received. To this day he still feels this way and has framed the letter between two plates of glass to preserve it. Osric travelled to Corus with his father and older brother who had been visiting for the summer.

He settled in well to page life, though he found classroom work to be tedious no matter what the subject matter and his teachers found him most tedious as well, though for different reasons. During the morning in combat exercises, Osric excelled, and his excitement and joy to be doing something made him a favourite student of his teachers. Osric did poorly in his class work until his brother interceded and helped him through it, taking walks around the palace while explaining a concept that Osric didn't understand. When his history teacher found out about Osric need to be doing something, he taught him Yamani paper folding, and so Osric did better in classes after this, being able to fold bits of paper while listening and learning. Most of his creations he gave away to friends and some which he learned to preserve better became presents for his sister and family for Midwinter.

In his last Midwinter as a Page, Osric had exciting news from his parents; his mother was pregnant with what would be their last child. Osric was happy for his parents, and Esmond, who had joined him in Corus that fall, was happy to be out of a house with a baby. In June, when Rosaline, Osric's younger sister was born, the joy of the family or the parents could not be surpassed by Adele's joy of being free from going to court. She revealed that summer that instead of going to court that fall, she wished to become a Priestess of the Goddess and continue her mage training with them rather than the University. She was happy that, because of the birth of a sister, she was able to pursue her dream. Her parents, facing their eldest son about to take his shield, their middle son about to become a squire and their youngest becoming a page, were relieved that they would not have to pay for outfitting Adele to present her to court and then soon enough a dowry. The prospect of all these things plus a new baby had kept Adeliza and Edwin up for many nights.

Osric's knight master was the Crown Prince himself, both their fathers had discussed it because, as one of the pillars of the kingdom, haMinch was a likely contender for the Prince's squire but Garrick had missed his chance. It was Osric's skills and his Commander's spark that sealed the deal. Two years into being the Crown Prince's squire, the Crown Prince was crowned King of Tortall. Osric had watched not only his knight master be crowned King, but experienced Prince Zarian as a toddler and waited with the King dutifully at the birth of Princess Liaden. A year after the King was crowned, Osric was among the first to be knighted by the new King. Osric's Chamber of Ordeal showed him a world as a desk knight but also the fate of being frozen to one spot, not being able to move as all his loved ones were violently murdered by the very monsters of shame of his inactions that were holding him still.

As a young knight, Osric fought against hillman, made treaties with Bazhir tribes, helped with trade negotiations in Galla, where he met Nils, and travelled with Nils and Anders to Maren where Lotte and Osric's warhorse, Ox, joined the merry band. With all his trips abroad, Osric managed to slip through taking a squire for fourteen years. When Osric was twenty-three, he helped save a community by uncovering a plot to kidnap village children and sell them into slavery. He was honoured by this service to the Crown with the fief of Stone Mountain which had been under Crown control. In the few years preceding the war with the Yamani Islands, Osric faced both personal joy and terrible personal loss. His younger brother Esmond married Catalina of Anak's Eyrie in 195 HE. Their marriage lasted only about a year, with Esmond dying from ergotism from a mission that took him near the marshes of Tyra. Catalina was a widow with a new born baby named Esmond, after his father. Her family, deeply concerned with the hallucinations and psychosis her deceased husband suffered (unknowingly to them they were all symptoms of the ergotism) disowned Catalina and more importantly her child from their home. It was twenty-eight year old Osric, who became closer through Catalina through the loss of Esmond, who took the young widow and baby under his wing.

With the dawn of the Yamani war approaching, Osric made Esmond his heir to Stone Mountain in case he died without providing an heir himself. Osric fought in the war and ended up taking on a Commander position which he excelled at. He has recently come home for the islands and was happily relaxed as just a knight hanging around the palace for a bit before resuming duties. However Osric was talked about by his King and his councillors about his commanding skills. When the last Commander of the King's Own, ran away with his mistress to Tyra, Osric found himself in meetings about whether he would replace the Commander. Osric wasn't sure but his family made it clear he was stupid not to take it and so Osric agreed to the position and is now Knight Commander of the King's Own.





Osric gulped loudly as he was hit in the back in a congratulatory manner by his majesty, the King. Osric wasn't sure whether his choice was actually one to be congratulated; at least for him. When he weighed it, he knew the King should be happy; he filled an important position in the kingdom, with, if Osric didn't mind thinking, a competent knight and a loyal man. He sighed to himself and decided that even if he couldn't be happy for himself, he would be happy for his king. Osric had these feelings because truly, when he accepted this position, his death flashed before his eyes, and it was the most horrendous death Osric could imagine for himself. He had been literally crushed under a mountain of paperwork. Supply lists, health reports of man and beast, recruitment forms, royal decrees, and an endless peak of invitations from the master of ceremonies had tumbled down on Osric, crushing him as he was pinned to his new oak desk by quills and letter openers.

He had seen such a thing before. In his nightmare of nightmares, the Chamber of Ordeal. However, messengers from both his sister-in-law and his parents had charged Osric with bravery that allowed him to stand up against the fear of paperwork and general idleness to take his new position. Knight Commander of the King's Own. It was his father's words, 'my son, you would be an utter fool to reject such an honour' and his sister-in-law's more practical advice 'the allowance you receive as Knight Commander is far greater than that on which you have now' that made Osric see it was almost impossible not to accept the position without offending and depriving many.

Osric smiled nervously at the King, not because he wasn't accustom to royalty, for he was a haMinch, but he was nervous with the responsibilities that came with his new position. His predecessor had run off with his new, young, pretty wife to Maren while his older wife was screaming up a rage in their townhouse in Corus. Osric had no one to tell him how things have been done, except for those who worked under him and some things that he would need to know, were now residing in Maren in an adulterous mind lost, most likely, forever.

"If it pleases your majesty, I would like to begin my work," Osric said with a bow, "I feel I can celebrate later, but now I'm afraid, I have troops, mounts and staff to attend to." He waited patiently for leave from the King.

"Don't forget scribes now in your service," Lotte whispered while jabbing Osric under the ribs. He frowned at her, if it wasn't for royalty, he would have stuck his tongue out at the treacherous woman-at-arms. It was much like her to remind Osric of his nightmares.

Osric received his leave and quickly left the room (what he now realized was his office) and went to go meet the people he would now leave. Not missing a blink, Lotte, Nils and Anders followed him, them also coming to grips with their new positions. When Osric had just been a knight, it was easy to be around him, as most knights had men-at-arms when they travelled alone around the country. However now Osric had over two hundred men at his disposal and the three weren't sure how to take this.

"My lord, perhaps it's time I took up my father's trade," Anders said quietly, trying to get a gauge on how Osric felt.

"Your father took up an apprentice years ago and your sister married him. Please stop making excuses to leave me," Osric said, giving Anders a small, but scared, smile.

"Anders is just worried we're not needed anymore. You've got two hundred men to watch your back now," Nils commented, shrugging.

"Then what's three more? And the three I speak of are the only ones I trust with my life so far," Osric said, throwing his hands over their shoulders, gathering up Anders on his left, and Nils and Lotte squished on his right. "Moreover you three are my friends, how can I let you all go?"

"I knew you would want us to suffer along with you," Lotte muttered, trying to break free from the embrace. The trio were bumbling along until they reached the King's Own mess, Osric let them go, feeling it might be a bit of a bad beginning seeing their commander in all of his silliness.


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--Carrie