[quote][b]Here's the deal. You pay me, and I do whatever it is you ask of me to do. And if you ask me to do -that-, then I'll cut off the hand you offer me the coin with. [/b][/quote]

[b]-Background-[/b]

Landsknecht. Condottieri. Soldier of Fortune. Freelancer. Sellsword. Gallowglass. Routiers. Mercenary. They've been known by many names, but their function has always been the same: To fight for, to protect, and to kill other people for financial gain, regardless of their own personal ethics, feelings, or principles.

No matter what world you live in, life in a medieval setting is never easy, and this is something Krimhilde learned at a young age. Whatever the war was about, it didn't really matter. Land? Resources? Religion? Pride? No matter the reason, both sides saw fit to hire as many mercenaries as their coffers could pay for, and let them off their leash to do as they wish to the other. Unfortunately for Krimhilde, her small village lay right in the path of one of the stampeding mercenary companies. Her father, who only knew husbandry, tried in vain to hold them off with a plow, and was cut down easily before Krimhilde. Her mother and older sister were gang-raped repeatedly by the mercenaries, taking their spoils. Krimhilde, the lucky little girl, escaped repeated rapings by virtue of her young age. Instead, she only suffered a few rapes by one mercenary who was into little girls. The young girl passed out in the midst of it all, the smell of smoke, burning flesh, death, and blood all around her. When she awoke, thin daylight streaming over the ruined village, most of the other villagers, including all of her family, lay dead, with the survivors trying to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and the only thing they could: Move on.

Battered, bruised, with no known living family, and at such a young age, most girls would have been dead within the month. The experience with the mercenaries, however, lit something inside Krimhilde. While she was young, she now understood the way the world worked. Her father had explained to her who these sorts of men were before he was killed by them, and, after a first-hand encounter with the force with which they swept through lives like a raging torrent, Krimhilde understood, even at such an age: If money hired mercenaries, and mercenaries had power, then money, of course, was power. And a mercenary with money would be absolutely powerful, and could whatever he, or she, wanted, to anybody they wanted, including the people who ruined her life.

Krimhilde made her way to the closest city, sneaking rides in wagons and carts, stealing from farmhouses and inns along the way, sometimes starving for days at a time, but making it there alive. There, she made a living for the next several years by begging, stealing, and, as she got older, whoring and mugging, both in equal amounts. All throughout this time, however, she never stopped training. As soon as she was able to eat enough to have the energy, she started working her body, making sure she was as strong, as agile, as dexterous as anybody else on the streets. More importantly, it allowed her to run down and beat up any John that attempted to skip out on paying her.

The first time Krimhilde asked to play soldier games with the orphan boys, they made fun of her. Then she broke one of their noses, and they never made fun of her after that, and let her play all the soldier games she wanted to with them. As she grew up, the street fighting became more real, and she killed somebody for the first time around twelve or thirteen - She had lost track of her age by that point. Despite what she was expecting, the act traumatized her. She thought she had been hardened by that night with the mercenaries and her years on the streets. Unfortunately, things are never that easy, and she ended up puking her hard-stolen dinner all over the cobblestone streets. The face of the man - still a boy, really, barely older than her - begging with his eyes not to die haunted her for years after that, and likely always will.

It got easier after the first time, though. By the time the first mercenary company came through the city once she was old enough, she had killed enough to get used to it. The mercenaries, like the orphan boys, laughed at her when she wanted to sign up with their company. A demonstration of her fighting talent, by disarming one of the company sergeants in a single flourish, convinced them she was worth her coin. After a few quick cursory questions to make sure they weren't the same company that destroyed her village so long ago, Krimhilde signed on as a sellsword, starting her career as someone who killed for money.

[collapse=tl;dr][b]2edgy4me[/b]. Mercenaries ruin little girl's life; Little girl decides to become a mercenary through some twisted logic; Little girl grows up tough as nails and becomes mercenary[/collapse]

[b]-Personality-[/b]

Life in medieval times, and life as a mercenary in medieval times, doesn't lend it to a soft personality. Krimhilde is altogether cold, hardened by her experiences when she was young and the conditions she eventually grew up in. Life on the battlefield hardens you even more, when you see the few friends you do manage to make cut down or gutted on just plain decapitated, the smell of their blood and gore impossible to get out of your nose. More than anything, as Krimhilde knows, you need to be cold and hard in order to [i]just survive[/i]. Passion of any kind leads to an early death, and Krimhilde does not intend to die - not just yet, anyways.

Beneath this rough, hard, cold exterior, though, there is still a little girl, a little girl that survived those horrors of youth and who has been locked away for years. This little girl is sad, afraid, and, more than anything, angry. It is this last part of the little girl that drives the older woman she inhabits more than anything. The little girl wants revenge: revenge on the men who killed her father, tortured her family, and raped her, leaving her for dead. And the older woman intends to give the little girl that revenge, so that the little girl, and perhaps the old woman, as well, might finally be able to rest at peace with themselves.

There is also, however, the ghost of the young woman who was never able to be - the young woman who could never grow up happy, learn to love, have children, and start a family. Despite her best efforts to keep this young woman under raps, sometimes, the older mercenary lady can hear her cries.

Krimhilde, while a mercenary, and while having been amongst male mercenaries for years now, still does not tolerate undue cruelty. She understands that, as mercenaries, they have to have their fun, but if it goes too far, she will gladly take out her roundel, put it to their throat, and calmly but firmly ask them to stop.

Being a sellsword, Krimhilde will do most things for money. She will not, under any circumstances, sell her body for money. She whored as long as she needed to, and she is a whore no longer, and she will not allow anybody to treat her like one. The men in her company learned that lesson after she shoved her roundel through the guts of the first man that tried to force her into it.

[collapse=tl;dr]Rough, hard, cold; Burning for vengeance and vulnerable on the inside; Doesn't like undue cruelty; Hates being asked to whore[/collapse]

[b]-Settings-[/b]

Krimhilde can be played in a number of settings, although with her backstory it obviously favors more dark, perhaps realistic settings, or "low-fantasy" stuff like Warhammer Fantasy et al. She can also be transplated to higher-fantasy or even "lighter" settings with ease. She'll always be a mercenary, though.