Grimnir Shalasch

CHARACTER PROFILE

PERSONALITY

Grimnir “Grim” Shalasch is a stoic and imposing Hrothgar, shaped by war, loss, and the struggle to reconcile violence with virtue. Quiet and guarded, he speaks little and trusts even less, but beneath his silence lies a strong moral compass. He resists authority, rejects exploitation, and refuses coin for helping the downtrodden. Though calm on the surface, there is a deep rage inside him—one forged in battle and trauma—that he keeps buried beneath discipline. When unleashed, it’s not blind fury, but a cold, brutal clarity that makes him as terrifying as he is effective.Though haunted by his past and deeply wary of his own darker impulses, Grim is fiercely loyal and protective toward those he deems worthy. He keeps emotional intimacy at bay, not out of fear of others, but fear of himself and of what might be revealed if someone truly looked. He doesn’t see himself as a hero and doubts he deserves peace, but he fights for it anyway. A protector by choice, a weapon by nature, Grim is a man constantly walking the line between who he was and who he’s trying to become.

Goals

BACKGROUND

Grimnir Shalasch was born in the Bozjan countryside, far from the armored halls of Garlemald or the politics of Eorzea. His early years were spent among lakes and fields, a quiet life filled with books, family, and the dream of living life. That dream died twice—first with the Garlean occupation of Bozja, then with the Bozjan Incident that shattered his homeland. In the aftermath, he was left crawling through rubble to recover the broken bodies of his wife and daughter. Grief turned to fury, and fury to resolve. Grim joined the fight, not just for revenge, but to tear down the machine that had taken everything from him.His path led him through some of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history. From the early skirmishes with Garlean patrols, to the brutal guerilla warfare in the jungles of Dalmasca, to the final, hard-won liberation of Bozja during the Resistance uprising. In each campaign, Grim honed his skill but also felt himself slipping further into darkness. When the Final Days came, he joined the allied forces in Garlemald, not as a conqueror, but as a rescuer. He carried the wounded, buried the dead, and tried to rebuild something from the ashes. Now, he walks as a nomad, refusing banners or glory, seeking out injustice in the cracks of civilization and trying to reconcile the war-torn man he became with the one he used to be.

HOOKS

Relic Recovery & Dangerous Work
Those chasing lost relics, cursed tomes, or ancient magicks often follow whispered trails that lead to Grim. Known as much for his resilience as his silence, he sometimes takes such contracts for coin, but more often for reasons unspoken. Depending on the job, and the person offering it, they may find a brutal guardian with a scholar’s eye, or a mercenary whose interest in the artifact runs deeper than the pay.Difficulty Rating: ★ ☆ ☆

Lost or Kidnapped Child
Desperate parents or guardians searching for a lost or kidnapped child might hear whispers of Grim’s reputation for helping the powerless. Approaching him with their plight, they may discover a fiercely protective warrior who refuses to accept payment for aiding those in dire need, driven by his own sense of justice and compassion.Difficulty Rating: ★ ☆ ☆

Journey to Tural
Explorers or researchers planning a journey to the distant land of Tural might come across tales of Grim’s love for travel and his nomadic lifestyle. Approaching him for his expertise, they seek to secure the aid of a seasoned traveler and warrior whose experience and skills are invaluable for such a perilous expedition, eager to uncover ancient secrets and forgotten lore.Difficulty Rating: ★ ★ ☆

Assault on an Authoritarian or Tyrannical Figure
Revolutionaries or oppressed citizens planning an assault on a tyrannical figure might seek out Grim for his combat prowess and strategic mind. In doing so, they could find a staunch ally who despises power imbalances and injustice, ready to lend his strength to their cause, whether out of a sense of duty or a personal vendetta against authoritarian rule.Difficulty Rating: ★ ★ ★

Trek into the Ruins of Bozja or Dalmasca
Adventurers or scholars organizing an expedition into the ruins of Bozja or Dalmasca might hear of Grim’s survival skills and history with these lands. Seeking his protection and guidance, they might enlist a seasoned warrior who knows the terrain and its dangers intimately, eager to join their quest for knowledge and lost artifacts.Difficulty Rating: ★ ★ ★

OOC INFORMATION

STORIES

Below are select snippets of roleplay told from Grim's perspective—his thoughts, his words, and the way he sees the world around him. These moments offer a glimpse into the mind of a battle-worn Hrothgar: quiet, watchful, and deeply loyal. Whether in the heart of conflict or the stillness between, these entries reveal the man behind the armor.Note: some of these snippets contain mature themes including violence, torture, sexuality, and more. Please proceed with caution.

Dream

Grim’s body was already sagging, limbs heavy and breath shallow, when Scarlet spoke. Her voice was soft, maybe too soft, but the words still registered through the fog. He blinked slowly, head rolling slightly to the side to face her, his body refusing to rise from where it slumped against the bed.His hand reached for hers.Rough fingers found her smaller ones, calloused digits curling gently around them. He did not look at her. Could not. The fever had taken his strength, left him pale beneath the fur and flecked with tremors. But his voice came through, low and rasped.“Thank you,” he murmured. “For not leaving. For… being in my life. Even with all this madness.”He swallowed, throat dry and thick. The next words teetered at the edge of his tongue, pushed by heat and exhaustion. He did not stop them fast enough.“I lo—”A pause. He pulled in a slow, shallow breath, jaw tightening.“I care for you. More than I should.”And then, with the confession lingering in the silence, he slipped under.
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The dream came immediately.Grim stood at the edge of a high cliff, bare feet pressed into the stone. Wind tugged at him gently, brushing his matted fur. Below was an expanse: shifting and alive, a living tapestry of memory and time. He stared down, uncertain if he was meant to fall or to observe.The first image rose like mist.A lake. Still and silver under a Bozjan sky. Children laughing, Hrothgar boys and girls diving into the water, their roars echoing off the cliffs. Grim was there, younger, lighter. No bandage. No scars. Just sun-warmed fur and muddy paws. His mother called from the distance, waving him in for supper.A pulse of longing caught in his throat, the ache of something gone.The scene shimmered and shifted.Bozja again, its streets clean and bustling. A university courtyard. Grim leaned against a railing, a thin book of poetry in hand, watching a woman argue animatedly with a professor across the way. She was tall for a Hrothgar, her fur paler than his, speckled with gray. Eyes bright with passion. He remembered that day. She was late for class. He offered to walk her home. They never stopped walking.Love bloomed in the folds of that memory, unfiltered joy. It lingered only for a breath.And then came the fire.Explosions. Smoke. Rubble. Grim clawing through debris, his claws raw, eyes wild. His roars rang off shattered buildings. He uncovered a hand first. Then a charred lock of fur. Then faces: his wife, his daughter. Still. Cold. Crushed.He screamed into the sky. The dream screamed with him.Then came battle.The first was iron and fire, clashing against Garlean legions who marched in rigid lines. Grim shattered their order with rage and a blood-wet spear, crushing soldiers beneath him like insects. He remembered the first time he did not feel guilt after killing.Then the forests of Dalmasca, where he learned to hunt men like animals. Guerilla skirmishes among moss and mud. Night ambushes, knives in throats, and the silence of watching the life drain from enemy eyes in the moonlight. He became something else there, something primal.Bozja again, but changed. The Resistance now. The banners raised, the people rising. He fought alongside his kin, drove the invaders from their cities, and watched the steel skeleton of Bozja rebuild itself through smoke and screams. There, his fury had purpose.Then Garlemald during the Final Days: frost and sorrow. Grim carried the sick, fought off horrors that were neither Garlean nor Eorzean. He helped bury children, build shelters, ferry survivors to warmth. He was no longer a soldier. He was a shield.But then—A bell above the door. The soft jingle of glass vials. An apothecary. A counter lined with dried herbs and tinctures. And behind it, her. Scarlet. Looking up at him, a little wary, a little amused. Her voice:“Can I help you?”Everything faded around her.
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Grim gasped awake.His body was slick with sweat, fur damp, bandages clinging to half-dried wounds. The room was dark, lit only by a single oil lamp burning low. He shifted, groaning as his muscles fought to respond.And then he noticed.He was alone.Scarlet was gone.

Defiant

It had been thirty minutes. Maybe longer. Time bled like his wounds: slow and relentless. Grim’s body was a tapestry of new injuries, painted in fresh crimson. Lashes across his chest, arms, and thighs burned like brands. Long, clean slices oozed down his sides where the Elezen had been meticulous. Hooks had been tested on his shoulders. A nail had been driven into the meat of his palm and then yanked free. Still, Grim hung there, arms stretched tight, feet barely brushing the ground, his head low, breathing slow and heavy.The Elezen was soaked in sweat now. His movements, once surgical, had grown erratic, more desperate. The man muttered to himself, fingers trembling as he reached for another tool: some polished spike or wire, something meant to unmake a man piece by piece. But the shine of confidence had long since dulled in his pale eyes. Grim had not screamed. Not once. His jaw remained clenched tight, his single eye locked on the torturer with a cold, detached fury that stripped away any illusion of control the man thought he had.Around them, the crowd had gathered. Ruffians with tankards in hand leaned against the walls or sat on overturned crates. Roegadyn and Highlanders, some laughing, some silent, others sneering. But all were watching now. The show had turned grim, and not in the way they expected. This wasn’t some whimpering noble tied to a post or a smuggler begging for death. This was a monster they couldn’t tame.Grim spat a thick glob of blood at the Elezen’s feet. “Is this all?” he rasped, Bozjan accent thick and guttural, voice like crushed gravel. “You sweat like pig. Torture not hobby for you, mm?”The Elezen’s lip curled, hand tightening around the leather grip of a thin iron rod, but he didn’t raise it. He turned toward Grim’s old officer instead, face pale beneath the sheen of exertion. “He’s... he’s not breaking. We need more time. He will—”“Out,” the officer snarled.The room went still. The command rang clear.“All of you. Get out.”Voices quieted. Chairs scraped stone. One by one, the onlookers filed out, some with scoffs, others with wary glances. The Elezen hesitated, still gripping his tool, but a shove from the officer sent him stumbling toward the door without another word.And then there was silence.Grim didn’t raise his head when the first punch landed.It was a sharp hook into his ribs: brutal, practiced. Followed by another to his gut, then one square to the jaw. Flesh smacked against flesh again and again, each blow rocking Grim's frame as he hung suspended like a punching bag. The officer grunted with every swing, fury overtaking whatever strategy he had walked in with. Blood sprayed from Grim’s lip. His eye split. Still, he grinned—fangs red, breath wheezing.

Snapped

Grim's eye snapped wide.Through the veil of smoke, the brute had turned and made a break for her, charging toward the woman like some maddened beast cornered in fire. Grim didn't think. There wasn’t time for thinking. Only the sound of his own heart, pounding hard enough to drown the flames, and the sick rush of something primal: rage, instinct, something older than language, propelling him forward.He ran.A roar ripped from his throat as he lunged into the smoke, his form a streak of white and shadow cutting through the chaos. His spear came forward in one fluid motion, aimed square for the man’s spine. It struck, hard but off center. The tip punched through meat and chainmail, sinking deep into the brute’s shoulder with a wet, bone-snagging crunch.The man screamed. Grim did not.Momentum gone, the brute stumbled. Grim was already moving.He let the spear go, left it there buried in flesh and metal, and surged forward with both hands. There was no room for finesse, no strategy. Just fury and a body honed by war. He wrapped his arms around the man’s throat, one locking in the crook of his elbow, the other gripping the back of the skull, and squeezed. Lifted.The brute’s boots kicked against the stones, flailing. A fist struck Grim’s side. Then another. The blows landed heavy: one caught his temple, another bruised against cracked ribs. Pain flashed, but it was a distant thing, filed away and ignored. Grim’s grip only tightened, arms bulging as the brute’s weight sagged. Muscles screamed. He didn’t care.All around them, the fire howled.It painted them in gold and red, the shadows of two beasts locked in violence. Smoke curled through Grim’s mane, and his single eye burned with a light that had nothing to do with flame. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like vengeance, coiled tight around the last breath of something that deserved no mercy.The brute kept struggling, but slower now. More desperation than power. His hands clawed at Grim’s arm, nails scratching against fur slick with blood. His lips moved, maybe trying to speak. But Grim was already leaning close, lips near the man’s ear.“I told you,” he growled, voice raw and thick with venom. “I bring only death.”And then it ended.With a burst of brutal precision, Grim twisted—pulling the head one way, wrenching the neck the other. The body resisted for a heartbeat.Then came the sound. A pop. A snap. Something wet and final.The light died from the brute’s eyes.Grim held him there for a breath longer, suspended in the thick, acrid air. Then, with a grunt, he let go. The body dropped like butchered meat, armor clattering dully against the stone. Unmoving. Silent.He stood over it, chest heaving, steam rising from his fur in the cold. His bandaged eye glinted red from reflected flame.When he turned to her, still curled on the ground and wrapped in fear, his face changed.Not entirely. He was still monstrous, still streaked in blood, still breathing like some great engine of war.But his eye softened.“You alright?” he asked, voice rough and breathless.There was reassurance in the sound. Just enough to hold on to.

Hunter

Grim moved through the jungle like a shadow in the trees: quiet, deliberate, patient.The underbrush whispered around his legs, damp leaves brushing his shins, the scent of loam and crushed fern heavy in the air. Every footstep was placed with care, every breath slow and measured. The jungle here had its own rhythm, and Grim moved within it like a hunter who had known this dance for years. He hadn’t. But survival taught you to adapt quickly or die slow.He spotted the signs before he saw the beast. Broken twigs. A clump of shed fur. Faint hoof prints pressed into the soft soil. He knelt beside them, white-furred fingers brushing against a smear of disturbed moss. Pronged hooves. Antlers. Something herbivorous. Probably solitary.He followed.The ache in his joints spoke of the battle earlier, the monsters they had barely driven off. No rest since then. No chance to close his eye and let the tension bleed out. His body protested every crouch, every slow step, but they needed food. And he would not return to Saiiri empty-handed.The pronghorn grazed alone in a clearing, unaware of the white-furred predator moving silently behind it.Grim closed the final distance, moving in a low crawl, every movement smooth despite his size. He struck from within a yalm, spear driving clean through heart and rib. The animal collapsed instantly. No noise. No suffering.By the time he slung the kill over his shoulder, his fur was damp with sweat. Not from the heat, but from effort. Even with a body like his, the jungle resisted.Back at camp, Grim moved with the methodical ease of someone who had done this a hundred times before. The pronghorn was skinned and quartered with the same calm focus he brought to battle. Antlers were removed and set aside; they could be tools later. The pelt was stretched and hung to dry. Meat was separated into cooking cuts and preserved pieces, bound with twine and wrapped in broad leaves. Everything had a use. Nothing was wasted.The fire crackled low beside him as the meat cooked. He added logs to keep the flame steady, watching the flickers lick against the fresh-cut loin. The air was thick, humid, soaked with the scent of ash, meat, and living jungle. It reminded him of the Dalmascan forests. The same heavy air. The same unrelenting green.When it was done, he placed the loin on a flat stone near Saiiri’s sleeping form. If she woke, it would be there.The leg he kept for himself.He sat beneath a tree, one arm draped over his raised knee, gnawing at the meat as his gaze drifted to the canopy. Thoughts came unbidden. They always did in moments like this, when blood cooled and breath steadied.He remembered the faces first. Not their deaths—those came later. Just the smiles. The voices. The way someone used to laugh before the war burned it out of them. The way another used to sing while sharpening a blade.Gone, all of them.And still he walked.Still he fought.The meat grounded him. So did the weight of the spear beside him, and the firelight that cast flickering shadows across the campsite. His gaze flicked to Saiiri, bundled in leaves, her face soft with sleep. He didn’t know her well. But he had stood with her. Protected her. That was enough for now.He let out a long breath through his nose and leaned back against the tree. One more night survived.He would keep watch. Let her rest. And when morning came, they would move forward again.He always did.

Wounded

Her fingers moved like breeze over ash: light, deliberate, and just distant enough to be professional. He felt the gauze pass over the shallow cut, the cold of the water bleeding into the raw edge beneath his fur. Her scent clung closer now, less of the sea, more of that subtle sweetness he couldn't place. Rolanberry, perhaps. He stayed still.“Still so demanding,” she murmured, voice carrying a smile even as her hands worked with quiet care.Grim didn’t respond. Not aloud.Her voice softened, less teasing now, more grounded. “Where to begin... I was what the Eorzeans called a healer. More a clinician than that, though. I imagine you know they aren't too keen on aetheric use for that…”The words landed, and his vision pulled sideways.Dalmasca. The air was heavy beneath the canopy, thick with the scent of blood and humidity. Rows of makeshift medic tents sat beneath the trees, their canvas stretched and stained. Grim moved among them, slow and deliberate. He passed a cot where a man whimpered into a blood-soaked pillow, another where a body lay still beneath a thin blanket. Healers moved like ghosts, hands red to the wrists. There was no prayer, no pretense. Only triage. Only tags. His eyes scanned the lines without stopping. No names. No purpose but to witness.The memory faded as her fingers shifted.They trailed down his neck, not as a medic would, but with the silent touch of someone measuring the shape of what war had built. He didn’t tense. Not this time. His hands stayed relaxed on his knees, his ears still, tail settled behind the chair.She kept talking.“I tended to those of our own and our guests, or captives. Wasn’t much for the type of work you seem a-keen to, though I played my parts.”Another shift behind his eye.Bozja. Blackened stone cracked beneath his boots, heat rising from a field half-buried in ash. Smoke coiled in the air, flattening the horizon to a dull haze. A line of Garlean prisoners knelt in the dirt. Some stared blankly forward, others lowered their heads in silence. Grim walked past them with his spear angled low, dragging beside him like a blade drawn across wet earth. One by one, the steel moved. No hatred. No pleasure. Just necessity. Just silence. He didn’t count them. He didn’t speak.Back in the room, her voice threaded through the memory like a rope pulling him back to the present.“Still, I seemed more adept with aether than those from the land. Add that to how I was treated, I’m betting I wasn’t from there. But—I digress.”The water dampened his mane again, her hands working with gentle diligence, her motions steadier now. She was calming. Or surrendering. He wasn’t sure which.Then came the shift.“As you said, the Final Days became an enemy to all. Those of us that could sense the aether felt the horror before it took shape… some of us could hear it. Like crackles of parchment being consumed by flame…”Grim closed his eye, and the world dropped into ash.Garlemald. The ruins. Snow blanketed the broken streets in a grey hush. He moved through it with a torch clutched in one hand, lifting rubble with the other. Steel beams jutted through collapsed walls. Fire still smoldered in corners where the wind hadn’t reached. With him were Eorzean medics and engineers, faces drawn and raw, eyes searching for life. He pulled two bodies free from a crushed stairwell that day. One was still breathing. Barely. It had been enough.He opened his eye again.Her voice was still speaking, quiet but vivid. “Those that saw it fled in terror before the forms became corrupted... us who could smell and taste it—it was bitter. Disgusting. Like burnt food mixed with something far too ripe to consume. Like tainted wine.”He listened. Not just to her words, but to the cadence. The wear in her voice. The way the final sentence caught ever so slightly in her throat.She moved carefully now, her nails threading through the last sticky knots in his mane. Not for precision anymore. Just to do it. Just to touch something she could still control. She worked like someone afraid of silence.“I was warned when I left to expect visitors from both sides… but you’re the first not from home.”Grim sat still a moment longer.The sound of the faucet had faded. The trickle of water was gone. The room felt small again, heavy with heat and breath. Then, at last, he nodded once. Not to her. Just to the space between them.“That is good advice,” he said, voice low. “But you do not have anything to worry about from me.”The words weren’t meant to comfort. They were just the truth.For the first time, Grim knew: she was not his enemy. Not anymore.