Sir Connor Vulpes

Age: 23 [currently]

Personality: Calm, focused, and yet with a sarcastic wit at times. Cares deeply for family and comrades. Can be awkward with the opposite gender at times and at others take matters in some downtimes too seriously.

Appearance: Tall and fit for his age. Has orange fur and with some white spots, as well as having green eyes. Usually dons the red and white armor of the Templar Order.

Height: About 6 feet.

Species: Anthro orange fox.

Current Status: Member of The Order Of The Knights Templar.

Background:
Was born in the year 1250 and raised in a village in the Southern Irish countryside from what can be seen as a working class family of the time with a former soldier turned blacksmith for a father, Colin, and an artisan mother, Lillian. Is the middle of three children with an older brother known as Rilian and a younger sister called Allie.

For the first seven years of his life, Connor Vulpes lived the life as normal a child could have in such a time period until one day during a material shipment for his father’s business gone awry, a cart goes loose/runaway during delivery the young fox kit saves his toddler sister nearly at the cost of his own life. He is in a coma for three days and his parents were afraid they lost him. The cub’s recovery is seen as a blessing from the almighty by his mother and father. The goings on do not go unnoticed by Connor’s uncle, his father’s brother, Iain, who is a monk at a local monastery who will be one day be ordained as a priest. The future cleric cements his nephew’s survival as a sign rewarding his heroic deed showing that this child has a potential for major good in him. Uncle Iain takes it upon himself to give Connor a higher education in the monastery.

Given that the Vulpes family was more working class and not the most well off, their children were mostly homeschooled and they did not have the monetary resources to support a full-blown scholarship for all three of their children. So aside from seeing this as a way to repay for the seemingly miraculous recovery of their middle child, they had little choice but to allow him to be educated by the monastery, with support by Iain through the system.

While there, Connor went full into his studies from learning Latin to relevant theology as well as refining his knowledge of Gaelic Over the course of five years, he had times of major success and some setback, during which time he also visited his family when possible, making this sort of a boarding school equivalent of the time. Then, on his twelfth birthday did another significant event occur to change the course of the young kit’s life. He was doing chores outside when he saw a trio of young hoodlums trying to force two young girls into forced eloping and Connor took initiative going off of how he had seen adults fight criminals or rabble rousers in the village from time to time and from stories his father had told him of his old soldier days, taking after the thugs with shovel. Though he ended up with some scratches and bruising, the lad emerged victorious having knocked out two of them and nearly killing their leader in self-defense. This is noticed by Uncle Iain, who then sees this as another potential miracle, a young cub succeeding as he did against three older fighters, there is more than academic potential in his nephew, that he could put this skill of fighting to use and filed a request through letter to the Ireland division of the Knights Templar situated in the country’s capital of Dublin.

This request would be accepted by the grandmaster, a grey wolf known as Sir Arthur Lupous. The request intrigued him reading about the young potential recruit’s background, including what the monk Iain had described as divine intervention to the fact this could be the first fox from this village to become a Templar Knight, though it could have also been a fatherly instinct, given his canine nature that might have had a part in his decision to accept the request.

After a rather emotional farewell with his parents and siblings for the time being with the knowledge that for the parents their son and to his siblings their brother was going to be off to begin a new phase of his life leading to great things, as Connor’s parents had predicted years prior. The lad also had to adapt to life in the city compared to living in the country. He had never been in such a large and populated place before. It was quite the change of scenery for him, but he would have help blending in from the Order. Once at the Dublin Temple compound it took a few days for him to get situated into his new living quarters. Interacting with other students from other parts of the country and many of differing species from cats, to other canines, to even avians was quite new to him, but he would get used to it in time, and it would take a few years to build up close comradeship, but it would be worth it in time. Like back at the monastery, Connor was a largely attentive student and did his best to follow every instruction implicitly, from continued and even deeper education than what he got previously, from history to combat training. Said combat training included learning real swordsman skills, to archery proficiency, and to other hand-to-hand fighting as there would be moments where a sword could not be reached and more, though there were some instances he felt unable to perform certain tasks, but this would only strengthen the vulpine lad’s resolve. When it came to physical combat, it even included from grappling to engaging in wrestling [a combat style with roots back to the ancient Greeks and Jews], the latter of which was one of the more rougher combat sessions for Connor in which he and some other initiates were trained by a grizzly bear former Holy Land resident [half-Irish and half-Israeli Jew, who converted to Catholicism] turned Templar soldier in the Crusades, Sir Doron, who taught him and the other recruits, younger and older the ropes and had off-the-record tournaments and tryouts to test the mettle of the Templars in training. To put it simply, all took a beating, including your young vulpine, but as the saying goes, no pain, no gain.

Through all of this, he would grow close to the grandmaster himself, Sir Arthur Lupous. The middle aged gray wolf had an innate skill to sense the potential and need for support via his wolven parental instincts in this young vulpine and sense his major potential that he had been informed of by the boy’s uncle, brother Iain beforehand. The Grandmaster Lupous could foresee him becoming something great. The two were akin to a father and son with Grandmaster Lupous becoming a second father to the growing cub and Connor Vulpes becoming like the son the man always wanted.

Additionally, as Connor continued to grow and advance in his studies and duties at the Dublin Temple he would indeed be making a group of friends among his fellow initiates. Eventually this led to him, as he was turning 15 years old, meeting who would in time become his nemesis, a ten years older silver fox initiate from France called Edmund Reynalt. Connor learned that Edmund’s family moved to the British Isles years earlier to escape the upheavals at the time. He would lose his family as they are robbed by highwaymen, dampening his look on the world, and would be adopted by the Templar Order in England, but due to the ranks there being filled at the time and due to his major impulsiveness, Edmund was transferred from London to Dublin for disciplinary training where he would eventually run into Connor Vulpes. The two seemingly hit it off well with Edmund takes an interest in the younger initiate with the former impressing the vulpine with his own charisma and bombastic persona and the latter impressing the silver vulpine with his knowledge and skill. Through his training and his own education (which included learning the language and ways of the land of Ireland ), he becomes more unruly in the field of duty, albeit restrained in some other instances, in other ways and has dreams of one day being the grandmaster.

As time went on, Connor would come to be repulsed at his new mentor's near totalitarian-like methods, though Edmund would maintained that his iron-fisted dominance was necessary to protect the people. Eventually, he becomes tasked to be Connor’s secondary instructor outside of the Irish grandmaster, and yes, it would go such a route. As Connor gets older and Edmund becomes more open in the field of duty, he starts to see his ways are not the right one and even talks to the grandmaster about his doubts. Grandmaster Lupous, is not pleased and has him reprimanded, leading to a confrontation and Edmund Reynalt running away from the order vowing revenge. Connor Vulpes intervenes in the confrontation when the silver-fox is using an underhanded move to attempt to kill the grandmaster, ending with Lupous losing his left hand/paw, and Connor takes his grandmaster’s sword and gashes Edmund’s face. Leaving him scarred and half-blinded, but a couple follow him leaving the Order compound in what is now Dublin to join him feeling he was in the right. Immediately after the silver fox escapes through a window seconds after vowing revenge with his loss, Connor drops the sword to the ground and goes to his master as the other Templars arrive having heard the commotion. Vulpes sheds some tears and helps his father figure in the order up while asking if he was alright. The middle-aged wolf knight supports him, with the grandmaster embracing him in return, as he tells the other knights to find Edmund.

The Irish Templars sent a search party over the course of three days, but found nothing, the silver fox had covered his tracks too well. Turns out he had secretly stolen and stockpiled some of the order's riches and even a suit of armor which he would fashion for himself. He and what small amount of Templar recruits would support him would leave Ireland and into the British Isles, then crossing the English Channel, the same path he had taken with his late parents as a cub back to his homeland of France where he would start anew with his new rogue order. All along the way slaughtering any highwaymen that crossed their path, in memory of what happened to him.

This whole ordeal only fortified Connor’s resolve and also more cautious about his associations. Plus it made him value his family and his true friends even more. As he pushed on through his studies and combat training, through any goal and tumble, it would culminate in him being knighted and re-swearing his vows as a knight of the Templar Order at the age of 18, coincidentally at the same time his uncle was ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church. By two years later, Grandmaster Lupous after witnessing the knight’s progress in defense of the nation declared the young man the finest student he had ever had the privilege of overseeing and that he was ready to be deployed in the Third Crusade should the call from the Templar Headquarters in France and the high grandmaster of the Templar Order.

Oh, but more goings on were to be coming Sir Connor Vulpes’ way………

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ORIGINALLY MADE 12/19/2020.

Well here it is, the background of my fox knight OC. As you can see, I finally have listed an age and even a full name for him.

Keep in mind this is just the general outline. Future projects expanding on this could be well down the line so any of this could change at a given time, just so you know……

It is worth noting that various knight orders did practice many forms of physical combat including wrestling in the Middle Ages and onward [https://www.thearma.org/essays/G&WinRF.htm#.YjK1LurMK3B, http://www.lordsandladies.org/knighthood-training.htm, & https://www.freelanceacademypress.com/medievalwrestling.aspx] though there is nothing on the Templars, from recorded incidents to even opinions on wrestling from them, so I had to embellish here a little bit, and besides, this is a world of Anthro animals anyway so an inch of artistic license is to be expected. ;)

On a side note, major inspirations for my character include the films Kingdom Of Heaven (2005), Arn-The Knight Templar (2007-2008), and History Channel’s series Knightfall (2017-2019), which I have talked about in various uploads throughout my gallery and page.

I hope you enjoyed this and other character backgrounds are in the pipeline for when the time is right.

Also, hoping you are having a good day on your end and never forget, DEUS VULT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEX96W1pKjM