Galen Heelsbottom

Galen Heelsbottom

Galen is a younger son at his family's farm in The Heel, cursed with red hair and an uncomfortably tense home. His father died two years ago, and his uncles Idorn and Parn serve as the men of the house now.
The close quarters of three marriages and their combined children can be grating, especially on a remote homestead, but that is all Galen has known. He has friends in the community, whom he sees most often at the local temple where he attends classes a few days a week, but his family is the center of his life.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

He looks like he grew up lifting heavy things—he did—but his build is practical and agile, not bulky. His hair is bright red, a source of constant embarrassment and a problem as they move east. He has a quick smile, when he's not fretting.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Lisveth knows that Galen ran away from home in the belief that it would save one or more lives in his fractured family. No one else does, and it's not a thing he likes to bring up often.

Education

Galen had an informal education at home, as most farm children, but he also attended the nearby temple classes. This free Temple Training for the Public taught additionally in subjects ranging from arithmetic to combat.
His uncles disapproved of his wasting time in classes while his brother and cousins worked on the farm, but once Galen's quick calculations saved the family considerable money in a negotiation, they grudgedingly agreed to let him continue.

Employment

He was a laborer on the family farm until he left with the stolen amulet. Then he found a place as a caravan guard, a position he thought he'd enjoy, but after a disastrous encounter with The Fire Brigand that was no longer an option. These days, he and Lisveth take odd jobs where they can find them, escorting a merchant through a rough bit of town or delivering packages faster than a slow caravan, and Galen also makes a bit in the local fights as they travel.

Mental Trauma

Galen's father died when he and his brothers, Galen's uncles, burgled the temple where Galen trains. One of the goods they stole was an amulet reported to be a magical and to protect its wearer from harm. Galen attended classes at the temple for years knowing its missing relic was in his home.
Two years after the theft, Galen learned in one of his uncles' unfiltered arguments that his father had not died in the raid itself, but in a dispute among the brothers for possession of the amulet. He realized his mother had known all this time and had done nothing.
He could muster only a little blame for his mother, who could hardly start her own farm away from the labor and relative security of the family. Still, he felt the family should not have accepted his father's murder, and he feared for his mother and the rest as his uncles' arguments grew increasingly incensed.
In the end, he decided the only way to prevent another murder for possession of the magical amulet was to steal it himself and get it out of the house. They could not kill for what wasn't there to claim. As it would be futile to return it to the local temple where they'd stolen it, leaving it within easy reach, Galen took the amulet and fled across country to the city of Abbay.
It was in Abbay where he tried to rely upon the amulet's protection for the first time, gambling in an informal fight ring for money to pay off a deputy who'd found him, and where he learned that it did not in fact protect its wearer. He was hauled semi-conscious from the fiasco by a kind stranger, leaving him to face that he had given up all he knew to save his remaining family from a hoax.

Intellectual Characteristics

Galen lacks extensive education—the temple classes can seem extravagant to the Heel folk, but they are rudimentary from a city scholar's view—but he has a quick mind and uses what learning he does possess.

Morality & Philosophy

Whether a result of his temple training or a natural characteristic, Galen has a strong moral compass. He genuinely wishes to do well by others and to leave any place a little better than when he arrived.
He doesn't always have the right company to do that.
He does not really question The Faith he learned at the temple, though his family never seemed to offer more than lip service to it (and indeed flouted tenets such as the prohibition of robbery and murder). He does not practice with the devotion or outward signs he now sees in the larger cities, though.

Species

Humans

Gender

male

Eyes

pale blue

Hair

red

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

light, but often tanned with sun

Height

5'10"