Duncan Tillsdale

Duncan Tillsdale is a human fighter and one of the first members of the Kilkerras.

Early Life
Duncan was born in the Riverbottom district of Maerisport to parents Geoffery and Erian Tillsdale in 1190. Erian died in childbirth and Geoffery, unable to deal with his grief, took to drink and eventually left town in 1192, sending the 2-year old Duncan and his 5-year old sister, Mary, to be raised by his widower grandfather, Mathias Tillsdale.

Mathias was a stern old man who ran the family's ancestral farm a day's walk outside Maerisport. Though he kept the young Duncan on a short rein, he was also a devoted guardian and dedicated father figure who raised Duncan as well as he could. Duncan helped him on the farm until Mathias's death of pneumonia in the winter of 1210.

Maerisport Guard
After Mathias's death, the 22-year old Duncan attempted to continue running the family farm, but agriculture did not come naturally to him. In 1211, Mary ran off with a traveling bard, leaving Duncan alone on the farmstead. After three years of poor harvests and steep taxation by the Maerisport council, Duncan was forced to sell the farm for a pittance and move to the city with little more than the clothes on his back and his grandfather's old oak shield.

Being a hale and decently fit man, Duncan was able to secure employment with the city guard, going through basic training without incident. Duncan found he had an interest in investigative work. He did, however, show a penchant for developing overly elaborate plans--and for suspecting others of having overly elaborate plans themselves.

The defining moment of Duncan's stint in the guard came in late August of 1216, when Duncan was sent out on his first official patrol of Riverbottom's Thursday Market with another guardsman named Percival. Percival and Duncan were tasked to keep a lookout for a particular druid who had been filching produce and lockboxes from various vendors at the market over the past 6 weeks. After a vegetable stall was robbed by a figure in a brown robe, Duncan gave chase, pursuing the perpetrator around a corner into a blind alley. However, once Duncan had rounded the corner, there was no sign of his quarry; all that stood in the alleyway was a single goat, chewing contentedly on an old boot. Reasoning that the druid must have used his divine magicks to transform himself into an unassuming shape, Duncan opted to place the goat under arrest, leading it back to his precinct HQ and securing the hircine suspect safely in a cell.

Unfortunately for Duncan, the goat failed to transform back into a druid, even after two days of observation. In fact, the goat turned out to be the property of Faerlian Hornwood, Riverbottom's "respected business leader" (read: Dramora crime boss) who put political pressure on Duncan's superior officer to have the goat released and to punish the officer responsible. Thus, in September of 1216, Duncan Tillsdale was released from the city guard and found himself back out on the street.

Joining the Kilkerras
A week after his removal from the force, Duncan returned to his small shack in Riverbottom, only to discover that his grandfather's shield had been stolen. He immediately suspected Percival of the theft, as he had been Duncan's partner on that fateful patrol and was also released from the force for his part in the arrest of Hornwood's goat. Duncan recruited the help of a newly-formed band of adventurers, the Kilkerras, in reclaiming the shield. Thus did Duncan meet, and ultimately sign on with, the greatest band of adventurers ever to form in Maerisport...