Lord Phineas

[Tarlish]

Name: Lord Phineas Alagar of The Ironclaws
Age: Thirty nine
Birthplace: Mea’ahara, Capital of The Isle of Phineas
Gender: Male
Species: Wildcat
Job/Position: Patriarch of The Southern Wildcat Patriarchy/Lord-in-Exile
Physical Description:

Phineas is of a particular breed of wildcat knows as a Great Wildcat. This makes him larger and stronger than other wildcats, albeit a bit slower. He is coated in a luxurious dark grey fur coat which is scarred with various black slashes.

He is as tall as a full grown male badger, some would argue even taller. His body is thick and bristling with muscles which do bulge out from underneath his thick-furred skin. A large head tops off his royal shoulders with is ornamented with some rather tattoo-like patterns of black fur which, among other things, give the appearance of two thick black scars slashing vertically through his eyes.

His tail is a bit longer than others and once ended in a sleek and elegant royal tip, along with the rest of the tail which was slicked down to the skin. Now however it is much more ragged and unkempt, his exile in Mossflower has given him little time for personal looks.

But he still looks like the noble birth of which he is. A powerful, commanding gaze pierces from his radiant amber eyes. His face, downtrodden as it may seem at times, strikes ones heart with the awe of being within a truly noble presence.

His frame does also bear the scars of many an encounter with the foe, indeed he has spent much of his last three years locked in combat. Some scars, mostly smaller ones that are fading, are mere trinkets which remind him of accidents from his training or just the simple foolishness of young beasts.

Others however are far more fresh and much larger, decorations and trophies from the Vermin Wars. Most of them are well-covered by his fur and are not very noticeable. But some are more visible, particularly one which stretches from his right armpit to his waistline, a jagged reminder of one of Vara Shvall’s Wolf Elite Soldiers.

Belongings:

As a ruler in exile he does not own a great amount of materials for himself. He has a suit of royal armor, now scarred and dull after much combat. In addition to this is a royal tunic and robe of fine materials plus a cape and a golden band which he wears in on his head in place of a crown.

But he most commonly wears rather basic attire. A tough but comfortable tunic and leggings. In combat he usually just dons a chainmail shirt, a breastplate, leg-plates and a helmet with no visor.

His weapons include a wildcat Great Sword which is a weapon that is a bit longer than a longsword but not as long as a broadsword, but it does have the weight and width of a broadsword plus a two-pawed grip. He also has a long channeled dirk at his side, plus a small dagger.

Personality:

Phineas is a wildcat and therefore has a rather aggressive approach to many obstacles. But he is also a noble, well educated and versed. Therefore he can control his attacking instincts and look the bigger picture as a whole. This self-control helps him greatly in coordinating both attacks on his people and for more simple domestic and political obstacles.

As a warrior and a commander he is both fearsome and brilliant. He studied under personal tutors for years during his royal education, majoring in military history and surprisingly, psychology. This has allowed him during the Vermin Wars to predict his enemies movements based on their nature which grew predictable too. During the final stages of the war before Mea’ahara was torched, he lead the Patriarchs Great Fangs, the Patriarchies most famed and efficient soldiers, in three attacks which where devastating on the foe.

Brilliant as he may be, a near-overwhelming sense of honor often compels him to make rash decisions for the sake of honor, both his own and his soldiers/

However he is not just a soldier.

Before the war where the most of his rulership took place, he was an incredible politician and ruler, completely renovating the Patriarchies fleet and establishing a large string of ports all around the Isle to serve as both settlements, sources of fish, and as defenses and military outposts to both keep eyes on the horizon for invading armadas and to help keep law and order in the more remote parts of the island.

He helped strengthen diplomatic relations with the Marten Isle and was the third Patriarch, after his sire and grand-sire respectively, to keep out the law allowing any non-cat to be taken as a slave.

Despite his education and encouragement of learning, he did dismantle the Astronomy Faction, considering them to be “Star-wishers and money-gobblers.”

A lover of food and wine though also, he would often host incredible public celebrations and extravagant banquets, he was also apparently an excellent at the art of brewery for he made some of the best fire ale in the entire Patriarchy.

History:

Lord Phineas VI of The Ironclaws, Six Hundredth Patriarch of The Wildcats was born as the crown prince to Lord Cajon III of The Flared Tail. He grew up as a natural leader, influenced by his father and mother.

His education began when he was five years of age, still just a kitten. His tutors were the best in their fields of expertise. As he spent more and more time in the school room as he grew older, he also began to wonder about what it was like to run a kingdom. His father began to let him sit in on meetings, even asking for his input on the situation.

Besides hitting the school books, his father began to up his physical and combat training. Captain Safan of The Patriarch’s Claws, the Patriarch’s body guard force, was given the personal responsibility and the honor of training the heir to the throne.

He showed no mercy, crown prince or not. Phineas found his training sessions brutal, with the spilling of blood common enough despite blunted weapons. He was harshly taught not to let down his guard, the importance of staying alert to everything that happened, no matter how intense and/or chaotic the fighting was.

Phineas learned to how fight with a sword, how to shoot a bow and crossbow, to wield a spear, to block with a shield, how to stay light on his feet and not commit himself to fully to his attacks and how to take advantage of his foe when his opponent did just that as vermin so often do.

He was trained vigoursoly to keep him in tip-top shape.
Running up the side of a mountain and back down as fast as he could, swimming against the current of a river. The once-spoiled royal kitten became a tough and hardened warrior, following orders without question.

His father began to give him more and more detailed explanations of how the intricate inner workings of the Patriarchy worked, how to make them work and how to fix them if need be.
But tragedy was soon to befall them.

When Phineas was fifteen years of age, his father was assassinated during a public ceremony by a self-proclaimed member of the Ashashani who leaped from the crowd to embed a hidden blade in the Patriarch’s neck.

In the turmoil which followed after the death of a ruler and the killers public execution, Phineas suddenly found himself with the powers and responsibilities of rulership thrust upon him while he was still mourning. The young cat took control of his father’s legacy, determined to continue and expand what his father had sought.

His first decree was the absolute banishment of the Ashashani from the island, despite the assassin group venomously denying the murder. It made no difference, and after refusing to leave the island, Phineas lead an army to abolish their small town and chase them out.

As the kingdom eventually got over their immense grief for Lord
Cajon, Phineas set to work to empower their nation greater than ever. He was ever-fascinated by Military history and he knew that the Isle was really rather vulnerable to any enemy armada and it in fact had been for eleven generations.

Wildcats disliked the sea in general and would go out of their way to avoid it. Some were fishers but that was generally the limit of their tolerance. As a result, the Patriarch’s Webbed Claws, their navy, was composed of four or five outdated ships, with only two still sea-worthy and grossly understaffed.

Very quickly a vast amount of the sums began to go to newly-constructed and renovated shipyards which soon began the production of a whole new fleet of vessels of both trade and war. New classes were created, vast merchant ships with three times the payload of former variants.

However production soon ran to a standstill as the funding also ran dry. There was simply not enough money to keep up this production and meet the needs of all the others. Phineas decided to use his newly built ships to amend this issue.

A fleet of merchants craft set sail for Southsward brimming with unique beauties and items only available in the Isles. Holds full of firestone, beautiful weapons, paintings, literature and fire ale returned a month later heavily laden with jewels, gold and silver.

As the funding began to pour back into the economy, production began to get back into gear. More and more ships were created along with large schools to start teaching the masses of sailors, largely pressed though with a few volunteers.

In the third year of his reign, his grip on the throne firmly established and the Patriarchy currently thriving and protected by its new-found fleets, Phineas set off to visit Dairmasen, the
capital of The Isle of Argong which was controlled by their Marten allies across the channel. Recently during the reign of the late Lord Cajon, diplomatic ties with the Marten Rulership had crumbled somewhat.

His visit was a massive boost for the decaying relations of the two governments, after three weeks of talking and meeting with Lord Daje, deals were worked out that greatly increased trade between the two isles and their economies as well, there were even talks of in the far distant future, of possibly even unifying the two isles into one central government. It was also during this visit that a military treaty was signed, with each leader pledging to come to the aid of the other in times of need.

When he had turned thirty eight years of age, crisis struck once again, but this one would not be resolved.

From the far Northern lands of snow and ice came Vara Shvall and his Crimson Hordes. A massive barbarian, a Wolverine war lord with thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of vermin at his command. There were suspicions of a hostile presence in the seas after several ships came back with dead crew and lost cargo to pirates and corsairs. After three
war vessels came back in tatters with tales of a fleet that stretched beyond the horizon and every rigging teaming with vermin, suspicions became reality.

With more and more sightings being confirmed and even a picket ship loaded with crimson-dyed vermin captured and interrogated, the Isles communed with each other and prepared for war.

The Patriarchs Grand Claws began to mobilize, thousands and thousands swelled to fill their ranks. Production of luxury goods came to a near halt as the economy began to mass produce weapons of war and armor.

Training schools swelled to beyond capacity with volunteers and draft members who were trained as good as possible in a short deal of time and then shipped out to the swelling armies.

More and more warships were built and merchant ships were converted into such, armed with massive ballista crossbows which could fire massive hull-crushing iron heads or alternatively ship-torching fire arrows.

One and one half months later, the vermin arrived. They swarmed ashore without being known for several days, to the Patriarchies embarrassment. A week after the initial landings with the vermin still off-loading supplies and equipment, a Wildcat fleet of two hundred warships attacked.

The Crimson hordes were poorly equipped and positioned to do naval battle. Packed and crowded together in off-loading, the ships capable of combating the Patriarchy vessels were not only few and number but where trapped by their own ships.

Over one hundred ships were sunk by the Wildcats who only suffered light damage to a few of their own. But it wasn’t even a scratch to the massive horde, who continued unloading the rest of the invasion force.

They swarmed inland, initially meeting only light resistance from some outposts and civilians. But a week after they had landed, they truly met their foe for the first time.

Phineas lead an army twenty thousand strong, largely composed of wildcats, against the invaders three hundred thousand plus army. Taking advantage of his foes brutal and aggressive nature, Phineas led them into a full out charge on his force which split in two at the middle and parted, allowing the enemy to charge right into them before closing back to fight a suddenly encircled enemy.

An astounding success, it was not enough to do any true damage to the hordes. This continued for months, the Patriarchy slashing away great swathes of vermin before being overrun.

The upper half of the island was eventually abandoned, there were simply not enough soldiers to hold back Shvall’s butchers.

Phineas, desperate now to hurt his enemy, launched a naval attack with almost the entire navy of four hundred ships with the intent of cutting off his enemies supply and naval power.
Seventy five Patriarchy vessels went to watery graves with over a hundred more badly damaged.
Nearly seven hundred of Vara’s own vessels were torched or smashed to driftwood. But now they had landed their soldiers who were simply gathering food from the fertile isle itself.

It was also during this time that
Phineas made one of the most controversial and heatedly-debated decisions of the year when he upheld his pledge to Argong, sending over a two thousand soldier force to help the beleaguered Martens. No help came in reply.

Phineas’s last great offensive came two weeks before the fall. Ten thousand warriors led by
Phineas launched a massive drive into the enemy lines with the intent of slicing off a massive part of the horde and pushing them into the sea.

This was successful for awhile, but Vara pulled ships from his
Marten campaign to rescue the trapped horde members, nearly seventy thousand. Then Phineas and his commanders suddenly found the vermin coming around behind them, forcing his army to fight savagely to break a hole in the hordes lines and dash back for the safety of their territory.

Five thousand warriors dead, over two thousand wounded. The Patriarch armies had all in all lost over half of their strength in the war. In this bloody struggle, heroic charges of bravo and heroism were becoming outdated.

The final blow was struck when Vara’s remaining ships launched an all-out attack on the ports of
Mea’ahara while his armies launched an all-out assault on the city from the land. The battle raged on for well over a month with the vermin being forced to burn the piles of their dead due to the lack of diggers to bury them all.

With the gates breached and over half the city aflame, Phineas was forcibly taken by his sixty elite guards who got him onto his ship before setting sail with four other warships. Thus with their
Lord gone and their capital ablaze, the surviving administrators were forced to sign a total and complete surrender of the Patriarchy to Vara Shvall. The signers of the surrender were found dead the next day in their quarters, their swords in their hearts in a act of shame.

Phineas made it to Mossflowers with three vessels, one being lost in a typhoon. Now he has a camp on the western coast of Mossflowers where he is slowly building up an army to one day retake his homeland.

Code Words: [[Correct]]

[Tirael]

Nicely written! Definitely one of the more thought-out bios I've seen. It could use more outlining of his weaknesses, but I'm willing to accept it for now so long as you keep that in mind. Accepted.