Your Name ∙ Carrie
Contact Information ∙ PM or MSN care_bear_eire@hotmail.com
Time Zone ∙ Eastern Standard


Character’s Name ∙ Duke Carlisle of Wellam
Age ∙ 28
Gender ∙ Male
Residing ∙ The Palace
Character Class ∙ Nobility
Occupation ∙ Spymaster


Sexual Orientation ∙ Heterosexual
Overall Personality ∙ Carlisle, it can be said, is a very patient man, if only because he has yet to kill his sister out of annoyance. However he truly is patient, especially when it comes to informants, he can out wait them until they tell him the information he wants to hear. It is usually this calm and cool demeanour that makes them nervous and spills their words. He rarely raises his voice, when he is angry he has learnt to speak in hushed tones which Carlisle has found can just (or even more) intimidating than shouting at the top of his lungs.

Though quite serious in study and work, he has a good sense of humour and laughs freely at a joke. He also has a quick enough wit to keep up with his sister in their play battles of words. It was his mother's love of poetry and literature that developed this, Carlisle rarely finds himself speechless. He has a keen, observant, eye and is able to read people well, especially reading ticks that show when people are lying. Though he thought he was going to try for his shield, Carlisle left the palace before he became a squire and decided to pursue scholarly pursuits at the University. He is a learned man and can talk a persons ear off if they mention a subject he is interested in. Carlisle however is not a pure scholar, he kept up throughout the years unarmed and knife combat, saying it would be disgraceful for a nobleman not knowing how to defend himself. As an apprentice to the last spymaster, Carlisle was trained even more on close combat.



Height ∙ 6'0"
Weight ∙ 150 lbs
Overall Appearance ∙ The first thing to know about Carlisle is that he has perfect vision, despite the small glasses he wears. He confessed to Regan that the glasses make him feel scholarly and lead others to believe him unassuming. However he usually wears them reading reports and interviewing spies, pretending they are reading glasses. He currently has mages working on whether or not they can spell the glasses to give him a version of the sight, much like they can do to stones. He is tall and slender, much like a scholar rather than a fighter, though if one looked closely they would see fighter's scars on his hands and arms.

He is fair skinned, with a straight nose and a thin upper lip. His green eyes are set much like Regan's prone, set slightly forward and prone to dark circles if one is not careful. His dark and curly hair is short and kept in place because of its length. Carlisle wears well made clothes but usually not as stylish as he could be unless he's being forced to socialize, but his normal clothes are well made but well worn. He sits and stand straight in a slightly fighter's stance, without the arched back of a scholar who spends most of their time bent over papers. Much like his sister, his looks can kill and unlike his sister is his more free and honest with his facial expressions. If he is displeased, you will know it. If he is happy, he will have a smile, and not the fake courtier variety that his sister displays so often.



Family History ∙ Wellam, written first down in the Book of Gold, is one of Tortall's oldest families. Not only does the large fief have fertile soils for agriculture, but Wellam is known for its breeding of horses and dogs. Large powerful mounts are one of the best warhorses Tortall can produce, and the pack hounds they breed are cunning and quick. Wellam first, however, made their money on their Opal mines over two hundred years ago, since then the mines are empty but the monumental profits are still being invested. Wellam has produced many knights and councilmen for the kingdom over the years.

Family ∙

Father: Duke Mathias of Wellam (deceased)
Mother: Dowager Duchess Cordell of Wellam (46)
Sister: Lady Regan of Wellam (22)


Birthplace ∙ The Palace, Corus

Background ∙ Carlisle was quite an inconvenience to his parents when he was born. It was the height of the first social season for the young newly weds, which should have been party after party, Cordell showing off her new, handsome, husband to all her unmarried and unfortunately married, friends and Mathias being bombarded with jokes from other men about married life. It was the utmost inconvenience however to the matronly aunts and older relatives of Mathias and Cordell who completely lost the chance to complain and conjole about the couple having children. This sudden change from betrothed to wedded, to parenthood, affected Cordell more than it did Mathias. With a baby in her first year of marriage, he was at a completely different life stage than her friends. Cordell became a great deal more calm and introspective because of this change.

Carlisle was a healthy, if not chubby baby, usually attached at the hip of Cordell who refused to take on a wet nurse. This gave her aunts and relatives much to complain about, for it was just not proper, they thought, for a woman with such stature and money to nurse her first born like a cow in the pasture. Carlisle spent much of his early childhood with his mother in the garden or in the farm yard chasing (and then being chased by) geese and other farm animals. Mathias made sure the boy wasn't useless at the staff or riding, buying him a pony of his own at the age of seven. The birth of Carlisle's sister when he was six helped this process of moving from his mother who had taught him to read and write and his numbers at an early age, to his father who taught him things he would need to know in page training and when one day he became the Duke of Wellam.

At the age of ten, Carlisle made the journey to Corus with his family (who were moving for the social season to Corus, since Regan was old enough to stay with her nurse without crying) to begin his page training to one day try for his shield. Carlisle did well enough but as the big exams to be a squire approached, Carlisle knew he didn't want to be a knight. At the same time Regan was about to enter the convent and Carlisle knew that it would be a waste of money to outfit him as a squire when he didn't want to be a knight. In the May of that year, Carlisle approached his father and asked him how he would feel if Carlisle went to study at the University instead. Obviously upset by this, his father asked Carlisle to take his big examination and then tell him how her felt about it. Mathias assumed the boy was scared to fail the exam and was having second thoughts.

Carlisle passed the exam very successfully and had many early offers from knights. He again approached his father about the University and after discussing it with Cordell, Carlisle was allowed to go to University to pursue learning. He flourished at University, taking classes in everything, learning as much as he could from everyone. He graduated at twenty-two and joined his father in the Palace, learning how to be the Duke of Wellam. It was then while hunting, his father took a bad jump and was killed by his injuries.Though not ready in his mind, Carlisle was then the Duke of Wellam.

Only a few months after his father's death, Carlisle was approached by Lord Edward, the king's Spymaster to become his apprentice. Lord Edward said he was lucky to be alive so long, and wanted to enjoy this life he had been granted. Edward was preparing to fake his own death to escape any revenge seekers. Edward spent years with Carlisle training him to take over his job.

Carlisle was 27 when Edward felt he was ready to start taking over the day-to-day operations of the spy chain. It was then, unbeknown to everyone, including Carlisle for security reasons, Edward slipped away into the night, setting fire to his rooms, killing a foreign spy in the process to give the scene a body. Carlisle had been mentally prepared for this and though he was sad for the loss, he recovered quickly and set to work, hoping the same thing wouldn't happen to him too soon in the future.



Carlisle, Duke of Wellam, one of the oldest families in Tortall, here long before the Conte's took power, felt distinctively dirty. Perhaps it was his profession as Spy Master, which always felt muddy in its ethics and had a connection to the lowest people in the city. Carlisle, however, never liked dwelling too long on the moral implication of his job, had the feeling this particular dirty feeling was coming from his tunic which was covered in grim and tears.

"Joana, you've got to calm yourself down. Look at those tears staining your lovely face! What would Owen say if he saw his lovely bride-to-be crying about some silly animals?" Carlisle consoled the young woman who was sitting on a chair in front of his desk. He had gotten up to embrace her in a fatherly fashion when she started crying.

He was kind with Joana, she was an important spy and only broke down in tears when someone scared her directly, then she made no sense whatsoever. However, an indirect scare, like Carlisle knowing the name of her betrothed was the kind of statement that scared sense into her.

" How you know 'bout Owen?" Joana's tears stopped abruptly and she looked at Carlisle, almost sharp at the mention of him. She may have been wiping tears from her face but Joana was from the Lower City and ready and willing to defend her loved ones, even from such a nobleman.

Carlisle smiled, "There's my girl.We'll have no more tears from you, they were only rats," He handed her a worn leather pouch full of small coins.He winked, giving Joana the idea that it was a good thing that he knew about Owen.

Joana gave a tentative smile, feeling the weight of the bag, it was heavier than normal. This was a horrible job to have gotten into but Carlisle seemed like the best boss she could have gotten into. She wiped her eyes again and then left the room.

Carlisle sighed and sat back behind his desk to think and destill what Joana told him. The bookseller had been screaming at the cook for killing a rat that had been in the house. Not only that but there was a number of rats that had been seen in the house. It was the unicorn district, rats didn't get into houses, and if they did it was a non-issue about killing them. Something smelt about this. Joana's other news was normal, but this was just odd. And as a Spymaster, Carlisle did not like odd. Odd was always trouble. He rested his chin on his hands, perhaps he needed some new books for his library. Such things should be done personally.



By submitting this application, I am also stating that I have read, and understood, the forum rules, and that I agree to follow them.

--Carrie