Description: Near forty years, his features are strong but craggy, with a prominent nose, high forehead, and blue eyes lined by the creases of both mirth and worry. Fair hair is worn in a braid that falls between his shoulder blades, and trimmed into a short, full beard. He is lean and lanky, fit but unexceptional in build with large, long fingered hands. Relative to the rest of his frame, Oskar has narrow hips and long legs.

Personality: Oskar favors the long view of a question. Sometimes this can seem indecisive or over-cautious, but when a misplaced step can bring ruin to a house, Oskar is the sort who doesn't mind taking a bit longer to be sure he has all the information he needs. When his temper slips, as all tempers do, he tends to get angry quickly and explosively, before recovering just as quickly. Considered quick witted by many, he enjoys showing off that keen wit. He was raised to rule and he means to do it well, damn what anyone else thinks.

Background: The eldest son and heir to King Snorri of Eswynd, one of the most powerful houses among the Isles Shav'arvani, his destiny as the next King had always been known. It was expected that he would be a warrior, and Oskar did enough in his youth to satisfy those expectations, but reaving and warring were not his strength. Still, when his father and favorite uncle Branimir were part of a failed battle against Thrax that left the old king dead and his uncle near death and short an eye, Oskar assumed the throne, and led a small, face-saving raid in the aftermath, to show the Eswynds and their enemies that his House was still strong. He was 21 at the time.

Since then, he has been content to let his kin lead the raids and rare battles, leaving matters of swords and ships to simpler minds, while he occupies his own with the larger matters of how those swords and ships will be spent. Over the passing years, he built a more powerful House than had been seen for generations, forming alliances among the Abandoned and even, for a time, with the Gyre. It was that last fateful association which would change the course of his family's destiny, forever.

As the Darkness in the Deeps rose, Oskar came to suspect that the Gyre would be the death of them all, and so, when Margot Tyde and her diplomats came into his hall and made an appeal to turn Prodigal, Oskar considered it. Amid the arguments and shouts of his kin, Oskar considered it, and ultimately he accepted. He was the last independent ruler of Eswynd, the King who Knelt. He married an Arvani noblewoman (after his first bride vanished at sea), became a Marquis, and sent his ships and soldiers to fight the Gyre under Tyde's banner. It was the choice that saved his House, and he still manages the aftermath of that choice.

Relationship Summary

Spouse:

Norah - My Queen, now and forever.

Deceased:

Edmund - You never listened.

Snorri - I wonder sometimes what you would have to say about me now.

Julea - There is no wonder why I am not overly fond of the sea.

Family:

Branimir - The loudest - and oddest, in more ways than one - voice in my support.

Oksana - Branimir keeps pestering me about a grand-nephew. He has one.

Medeia - The one I owe my education on the finer things in life to. She is well and truly one of us.

Temira - I love you, near-sister, but we're going to have to get you married off sooner rather than later and you know it.

Haakon - My cousin and hero. We argue often, which is perhaps why people caution us from meeting our heroes. I am related to mine, so it is likely ten times worse.

Ally:

Margot - Salvation in an Arvani package, and none but me knew it. The unsung heroes are always the most tragic, personally.

Jaenelle - What do they know of our lives, of the hard calls we have to make? Nothing. Let them wallow.

Patron:

Terese - We must one and all stick together, after all.

Mourning isles:

Alarissa - It is amazing what the passage of time does to one's character, no? You and me both.

Acquaintance:

Iseulet - There is something about self-made women that speaks to me.

Friend:
Lyceum:

Berenice - The apex from which to learn from and emulate.