Mercenarystuck

Official Blog for the Homestuck AU Mercenarystuck. See the navigation page for more information. sc_hit(440067,0,6); free Hit Counter

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Very few people in their right mind will willingly approach Court Jester, Gamzee Makara for several reasons. The main one being that everyone’s more than a little sure that he brutally murders people in his spare time. But he entertains the queen, which in turn keeps her from hassling others for a while, so most people are content to let him continue as he is. As long as they aren’t next on his chopping block.

Though few people pay enough attention to know that Gamzee is highly involved in a mysterious cult that more or less causes most of the troubles in the kingdom. He may even be more influential than the queen is at this point. But what Meenah doesn’t know probably won’t hurt her. Yet. 

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The previous executioner for the Queen, Horuss “Darkleer” Zahhak is currently the royal blacksmith and spends most of his time making weapons, rather than swinging them. Over time, he began to find the idea of killing to be incredibly loathsome, though through some coaxing on the Queen’s part, he didn’t completely leave the court and agreed to arm her guards and knights, claiming it was helping to keep the kingdom safe. Between him and his apprentice, a younger cousin of his, Equius Zahhak, they do a fine job of keeping the knights in swords and armour.

Luckily the Queen is very unaware that she is not his only customer. Due to a soft spot he has for a certain mercenary by the name of Rufioh Nitram, Horuss has been uneasily supplying the guild with weaponry and armour for several years now. In attempts to calm himself down about the issue, he often insists that it’s only fair to arm both sides of the conflict.

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Eridan Ampora is the son of the legendary “Dualscar” and a “lady of the night”, having never met the latter, but of course no one knows that outside of the Ampora family. If his father has his way, no one ever will. He’s been put in a position by his father to ask for the hand of Princess Feferi, who he’s well aware would rather remain solitary for the entirety of her reign, but after having been pushed about the issue as much as he has, Eridan’s not to fond of the idea of her saying no.

In his downtime, he often goes out hunting, because it’s the closest an ‘aristocrat’ like himself is ever going to get to a real battle, with his father insisting that joining the Queen’s Guard is a terrible idea, and he would know. Not to mention, he doubts even he could get away with murdering people in the street, not without being accused of misuse of power and causing trouble for the queen, who likes him well enough, but would just as soon behead him as she would help him.

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The life of Equius Zahhak was a fairly simple one. He would be the apprentice to his older cousin, formerly the Queen’s Executioner and currently head blacksmith of the castle, and then when his cousin retired or died, he would take his place. A simple, but good life in his opinion. But of course life is never that easy or that simple. 

With his cousin supplying criminals with weapons and a young fortune teller slowly worming her way into his life, Equius isn’t sure what he’s doing anymore and whether or not he’s on the right side, or if everyone he cares about has officially become the enemy.

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Formerly a powerful rebellion leader, Rufioh “The Summoner” Nitram took a rather violent fall from grace that cost him everything. With the rebellion a horrible failure and the law quickly closing in on him, Rufioh sent away his young son, Tavros, and quickly joined up with a mercenary guild who offered protection from the law.

He has no idea what happened to his former friends and allies, assuming that most of them had been captured and executed or had been killed during battles, he merely accepted his fate as a mercenary of the guild and does his work without question, with the help of his hunting hawk, which he has since named Tavros, after his long gone son.

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When Dirk Strider was young, he’d dreamed of being a knight of the court. But as it turned out, that future belonged to someone else, namely his younger brother. If he was asked how he’d ended up working for a mercenary guild, he’d probably just shrug. He had very little clue what had led him to becoming one of the higher up’s in the guild, third in the chain of command. It probably had something to do with his ridiculous friendship with their leader, Jake.

Even though they are now on opposing sides of the law, Dirk still goes to extreme lengths to keep an eye on his brother, Dave and even more extremes to keep him as far out of guild business as he can, not that it actually works. He comes off as pretty easy going, even flirty at times, but is so uptight, it’s becoming a running joke within their little ‘family’ of paid murderers.

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Peregrine, more commonly called Penny, just wants to do their job and to do it well. But of course, that can't happen, because then the world would actually work as it was meant to, which it so clearly doesn't. Penny has an unfortunate knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when all they wanted was to deliver the mail.

Penny frequently hears things they don't want to know, shouldn't know or might get killed for knowing, leaving them to just wish everyone would leave them alone. And consistently, they accidentally spill all the things they learn to a local bartender who has a knack for getting the truth out of everyone whether they want to confess or not, which they really wish she wouldn't do because it is none of her business. Penny just wants to deliver the mail.

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No one knows her real name, well no one who's willing to tell anyway, she's commonly referred to as "The Old Queen", because no one really remembers who she was before, no one really wants to. Having been pushed off the throne over a decade ago by the current queen, Meenah Peixes, who tried and failed to behead her as she beheaded her king in front of the entire court, she's been on the run and lying low. Until recently.

Rumours of the Queen's reappearance have been surfacing all over the kingdom, talks of a rebellion against the current queen in a bid to return the rightful heir to the throne, or for other purposes. But one thing is clear: The Old Queen is not dead, but the new one soon might be.

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As a former knight, it isn’t hard to tell where Cronus “Dualscar” Ampora got his nickname from. After leaving service as a knight relatively young, his life took what he see’s as a rather odd but profitable turn when he was landed with a son, his mother being a whore he’d only seen for the one night. He lies about the origin of his son, merely claiming that his wife died in childbirth for official records, when really she left the kingdom after he claimed their son Eridan as his heir.

His life as an aristocrat is one of completely pointless pleasures, he makes a point out of not acting unless absolutely necessary and was thrilled when the Queen declared that his son would become the husband of her heiress to the throne, Princess Feferi. He remains almost entirely oblivious to most of the plots going on around him and is a regular patron of the Dolorosa’s brothel, much to the disdain of it’s owner, as well as having a habit of running into the pirate Mindfang rather often (Much to his chagrin, he almost always leaves their altercations in worse condition than he started in).

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Despite his current lifestyle, Kankri Vantas was something of a wild child during his younger years. He believed in the idea of living for the moment and not a second longer. A prime example of this was an incredibly brief affair he had with a travelling fortune teller when he was much younger, whom he never saw again and therefore is blissfully unaware of the son whose profession he probably wouldn’t approve of anyway.

After getting involved in some particularly seedy business, Kankri decided to turn his life around and joined a group of monks known as the Signless. He tries to remain very calm and has an incredibly passive and peaceful outlook on life. One of the few friends he has outside of the monks, is Porrim “the Dolorosa” Maryam, who has a never ending abundance of patience for him, as well as a lot of jokes about how if he ever decides to give up celibacy, there’s a place for him at her brothel.

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If someone asked about Latula “Redglare” Pyrope, they’d say she took a fall from grace, a harsh one at that. Having clawed her way to the top of the legal system as a young woman, Latula was a force to be reckoned with. She had a bright future ahead of her, until, seemingly without cause, she quit her job as High Court Judge and disappeared into the night. In more recent times, she’d be found in some less than seemly places, making some deals with some less than upstanding people. Few know the real story of what happened to Latula, only that she’s been running with a guild of mercenaries.

After learning some horrifying facts about the system and people she dedicated her life to, Latula started a rebellion that unfortunately was unsuccessful. Most of her men, people she trusted, were killed almost immediately. But the one person she really tried to save, her lover, a man by the name of Mituna, was captured and taken prisoner by the Queen. After the loss, she’s turned to the guild for help, joining them on the condition that they help her with her lengthy efforts to find and free Mituna.

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No one knows much about Damara Megido, because regardless of what accusations she's faced with, she'll deny them. Officially she works as the apprentice of the castle doctor, a Doctor Scratch, though anyone who's been around the castle for more than five minutes knows she's treated more as a slave than as an apprentice. A good portion of all the trouble in the place is caused by Damara's wrath.

Maybe she's accepted her fate, chained to a man who revels in causing her misery, but she's still defiant that everyone in the place is going to treat her with some respect. She does more work in a day than any of them do in a year. She has a grudge against most aristocrats, but gets along fairly well with most of the staff. She's even fairly frisky with some of them, but the second a higher up touches her, blood will be spilt.

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Once a well known and somewhat feared rebel leader, Mituna currently, and for the last several years, is the prisoner of the Queen, and in a less than stable condition. After joining forces with a relatively new, but incredibly brave, rebel by the name of Latula Pyrope, Mituna found that he was in for more than he'd bargained for. Reports vary from person to person, but most believe they became lovers. Neither ever confirmed or denied as such.

But during their rebellion, Mituna was captured by the Queen's Guard and held prisoner. After refusing to hand over information regarding Latula or the rebellion, he was tortured to the point of insanity, continuing to refuse to tell the Queen anything. His current whereabouts are unknown.

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Kurloz would tell you that he's always known he was destined for great things, he only believes so because his fortune teller, a fortune teller called Meulin informed him of it several years ago, prior to attaining his current position as head of an infamously dangerous cult. How he attained that position is widely debated, because after arriving at the headquarters for a cult he knew little to nothing about under very vague instructions from Meulin, he was almost immediately accepted as their messiah, and given a position above every other member.

With the help of one of their higher ups, an undercover operative named Gamzee, Kurloz quickly caught up on everything he needed to know about the organisation and what they stood for. While originally he was pretty confused about it all, he accepted that all of this was meant to happen, and went with it, embracing the culture so to speak, adopting the name of the Grand Highblood. In order to keep her happy, he started selling off ingredients for potions and such to Meulin, who in turn continued to very happily guide him through life with her predictions.

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Tavros Nitram grew up pretty normally, despite his less than average heritage, he was raised as the son of a fisherman, and worked at the docks by the sea, tending to boats and handling the smaller parts of his father's business. However he never actually goes out fishing with his father, due to the fact that Tavros couldn't swim to save his own life, a fact that he loathes about himself.

Outside of his family, the only person he spends any time with is Vriska Serket, who also happens to live by the docks. His family doesn't approve because they are fully aware of who Vriska's mother is and what she does, but he thinks it's sort of cool, so they spend a lot of time together. But if him not being able to swim was annoying to him, then there aren't even words for how much it annoys Vriska. She's tried at least twenty different ways, attempting to get him to learn how to swim. No luck thus far.

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John Egbert considers himself to be a pretty easy going guy, all he really wants is to make people laugh. Of course due to being born in less than ideal circumstances, his dreams of being a court jester were put on hold and he was forced into working in whatever job he could get. He thinks it’s a sort of bittersweet comedy that he got to work in the court, but not in his dream job. Instead he works as a servant in the court, most of the time working for the Princess, which really isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Feferi is one of his closest friends, mainly because she’s the only one who thinks his dreams of becoming a jester are anything more than just childish hopes. As Feferi is more than a little scared of the actual court jester, she often summons John to tell her jokes. He in turn drops a few fish puns to keep her happy. One of his only other friends is a local brothel worker named Karkat, whom he only knows due to having to look after the horses while some of the higher ups have their fun inside.

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