Tarola

Tarola is a roving vigilante, war criminal, mercenary and enlisted soldier in the Union of Haven Military.

Early life
In September 2021, Tarola was born somewhere in the Uldarashi controlled mesa, into a family of indentured servants. Due to his situation, he was not enrolled in any kind of education and was put to work at a young age. He stated this at an interview at Axel:

“What was my childhood like? Right, I hear people had those. What do people do as children? They have fun, right? Yeah, so, I’ll tell you what I used to look forward to. I remember I liked when they told me to stand on a big bucket, because I couldn’t reach the, uh, the hatch thing on the train cart. I took coal from the big sacks that came in and dumped it inside the hatch. Why’d I like that? Well, by doing that, my fingers didn’t hurt, my knees didn’t either, and I was also the best at that, you know, not many times I fucked up, so I didn’t have to worry too much about them getting pissed at me, right? *Laughs* Yeah, then I had a bit of an easier time walking home when they didn’t.”

In Late December 2021, at the age of 15, he fled the Mesa and wound up in the city of Refuge in Eldham, an autonomous settlement within the borders of the USSE that was mostly made up of loyalist civil war refugees, founded by Thomas Cornaro. It is unknown exactly how he fled, as he reportedly changes the story each time he tells it:

“I won a bet against Robert Vorpes. We were playing poker and I wagered if I won he’d absolve my entire family’s debt.”

“I organized the toughest workers in my sector and riled them up, I gave them the hardest fucking speech they ever heard in their life and we took some clubs and pointy spikes and kicked the foreman’s teeth in as well as all his toadies’. Then we took off by boat and went wherever the stars brought us.”

“An Urrakan spy came up to me one day, she - oh, right, she didn’t tell me she was a spy but it’s not like she was hiding it either, right? I’m saying, have you met someone from there? Anyways, she gave me a tiny little dagger, it was very pretty, had a skull as a ‘hilt’ thing. Yeah, so, she gave it to me and told me if I killed some military brewing or arms contracting guild leader that was passing through, a big fat guy, she’d sail me away from the place. That was the first and easiest job of my life, *laughs*.”

As far as all historical records and documentation tell us, a labor rebellion never took place during the time specified by his account and neither were any Urrakan spies active. Robert Vorpes has never confirmed nor denied this account, perhaps because no soul on Rathnir would waste a question to ask him to.

“Tarola” is not his given name, which is itself unknown, but instead a nickname he apparently gave himself. “Tarola” is not a word recognized by any dictionary of any known language and is most likely slang of his original regional dialect. What it means is also unknown, as he replies differently each time he’s asked: “It’s a thunderous sound, like a strong clap”, “Avenger. Or un-avenged, more accurately”, “Fucking crazy”, “*********”.

The identities and whereabouts of all of his family members is also unknown, when asked, he reportedly consistently replies “Most of my family died of polio and my sister went away to study in Astyllea”.

In Refuge, he began working as a farmer, and he met Thomas Cornaro, whom he would later refer to as “the only good king”. At this point in his life, he began studying world history, which later led to him adopting a militant, radical republican political ideology.

Military training
Tarola is abnormally strong for a humanoid and is believed to be magically augmented, as he is able to lift up to 3000 kilograms. He began to learn how to fight with a variety of weapons while living in Refuge.

In early January of 2022, he eventually deemed his current resources insufficient, and decided to travel back to Haven to obtain a proper military education by enlisting in the Uldarashi unified military.

Mercenary work
During his time at the military academy in Hapatmitas, Tarola met and became good friends with Ren. Through this friendship, and since Ren noticed his combat potential, he invited Tarola to come along to his mercenary exploits around the world.

The Uldarashi military, outside of the purviews of the Auroran Order and its peripheral organizations, was very loosely organized at this time, and the Alfheimi and Montroigian divisions were famously lacking in oversight from the high council, and, though never in any official capacity, many of their members would often work as mercenaries instead of contributing to the Empire’s military, which is all also a consequence of unresolved resentment from the civil war.

Assassination of the Queen of Nullaria
During the Uldarashi invasion of Nullaria, Tarola enthusiastically volunteered to be deployed. Rakia Knight Ganeff authorized him and Paint van Barcht’s request to enter Nul’lari in a “preliminary raid”. Tarola described this “assignment” as “A big excuse to steal whatever we could get our hands on. Banditting for the Empire”. They came across Hinda B. Kahru, the Nullarian Queen, as she was gathering her belongings in preparation to flee the city. Paint attacked her, but had insufficient equipment, and the two fought for a prolonged amount of time before Tarola arrived and chased Hinda into her residence.

“Paint is a good man, I’m sure he simply wanted to deprive her of her fancy jewelry. I was intending to deprive the world of her *laughs*”.

Hinda managed to escape Tarola and lock herself in her quarters. By the time Tarola broke through the door, he found she had slit her own throat, but not before writing a suicide note addressed to her citizens. The two bandits decided to throw her corpse into the nearby river, which was found and recovered weeks later by the invading Uldarashi force.

After the story of this incident was published on continent-wide newspapers, Tarola became a minor media sensation, and briefly became a propaganda icon for the Uldarash Empire. Tarola utilized this platform to boisterously and irreverently disparage the Empire and everything it stood for, which only made his notoriety greater.

“I killed that wicked bitch because she was a monarch; a tyrant. She was no different than Scotch Knight and Aurelian, except, of course, being a demon, she must have been harder to kill.”

Tarola was exiled from the Empire for these open threats and spent the years up until its collapse working as a hired sellsword, abroad.

Union of Haven military
In March of 2022 After the dissolution of Uldarash, Tarola enlisted in the Union of Haven military. He is known to have been deployed during the third battle of New Coolio City.