Jareth Oakenfist is a human Infusionsmith Artificer and bounty hunter. He is currently part of the king's elite operatives. Jareth contributed to hunting down and capturing Morgan Bran before being jailed in the village of Embrent.
Current Status: Jailed in the village of Embrent.
Jareth is the sixth of six children in the Oakenfist family. His family name is legendary; his mother is the powerful warrior Brigg "The Closed Fist” Tannis, and his father is Tarn, the Barbarian, “The Oak that Stands Against the Flood”. When they wed, Brigg and Tarn chose to fuse their honorifics, creating the surname Oakenfist, in the hopes that their children, carrying this name, would outstrip their parents in acts of heroism and build the renown of their house even further.
And for the most part, that’s exactly what they got. Each of the first five children grew into a warrior more powerful than the last, a fighter, a knight, a paladin, a battle master, and a barbarian. Then, Jareth was born as his parents were aging, a complete surprise. At first, the whole family was overjoyed, thanking their ancestors for their hand in bringing another family member into the world, but their joy soon turn sour when Jareth was shown to lack nearly all of the strength and martial prowess of his brothers and sisters.
While fast and nimble enough to dodge some of the attacks thrown at him by his family in their daily sparring sessions, it wasn’t enough to avoid all the blows, and didn’t remotely approach the speed and strength required to strike back.
Giving up on him, his family largely ignored Jareth into his teen years. However, they were shocked when one day, he rejoined their sparring matches and began to hold his own, a weapon in each hand. Ducking and weaving around the attacks of his oldest sister, he was able to catch her off guard and even landed a few blows. She retaliated, and disarmed him of one of his weapons, but couldn’t seem to counter the speed and agility of the weapon in his other hand.
After a long, drawn out match, she saw her opportunity; she allowed her guard to drop, intentionally opening up to a hit in order to draw his attack and destabilize him, knocking him to the ground before the blow fell - but the weapon still connected. She looked up from where Jareth was laying on the ground and saw the sword, still hanging in the air, waiting for the next attack.
His family knew at once what was going on; Jareth had used magic as a substitute for physical prowess and on top of that, had lied about it. He was immediately banned from his family home, denied his inheritance, and forbidden to use the family name they had worked so hard to establish.
Since then, Jareth has found work where he can. His skills sharpened as he associated with criminals of all sorts, eventually turning to bounty hunting to pay the bills and to try to achieve a shadow of the heroism that his family expected of him.