Benjamin Lascelles
Personality
Benjamin Lascelles was a man with a multifaceted personality to present in the faces of all of those who met him. When Benjamin Lascelles first came to Kara, he came as an angry peasant, coming from a land where being common was tantamount to being worthless, who felt he had something to prove. From a placce where one of his personality traits of refusing to pick up any item for fear of being kicked in the head, was born. It was there, in this anger and distrust, that formed the first facet that people came to identify themselves with. At a young age, Benjamin learned that if he just kept talking, people would listen, and he could spend any tale he needed to spin to rise above other people. If he simply acted as if he was strong, powerful, violent beyond any measure, then a handful of people just might believe it. Benjamin was egotistical and arrogant, but he was also meticulous and conniving, making sure that any enemies he had were the enemies he wanted. But to have enemies, you must also find yourself with friends.
This leads into the second facet of personality that less people certainly saw. A relatively goofy man who did things for the hell of it, especially if it was funny. After years of doing the wrong thing, he put himself in other's shoes and decided he didn't like how the fabric felt. But the same type of talking he did to get people to do what he wanted, worked just as well on his allies if he just made them laugh. It worked well on people he could care for. Through relationships he got to make with his future daughter, with his friends, and later with the King, he got to learn what he was missing his entire life. Many who knew Benjamin would say that he was a crazy son of a bitch who couldn't care less on what he did. That would be wrong on about 50%. Benjamin Lascelles was a man who cared so much about every little thing he did. He believed that if people thought he was a villain, or going to be the one to fear, then people would prepare themselves to fight someone like him or more.
Which leads into the third facet of Benjamin Lascelles personality. Benjamin was a solemn man filled with more regrets and more self-immolation towards his own actions than any other person ever was. He was a man that chose to regularly eat dinners alone, because he thought he deserved it. He believed truly in the things that he was doing, and that they were all things he could do with purpose- and as long as it was for the state, or benefitted the crown, then he was a happy person. However, his way of thinking also led him to believing that he always needed to be the scapegoat, or the Dirt under the Bay. That he always needed to be the one to make the mistakes so that everyone else looked better in comparison. This was a lonely existence for him. He was, at his core, a lonely kid that needed to be needed.
His personality after death obviously didn't change, but how people saw him after he died certainly changed. Several people saw him enough of a hero to allow him to die as one. This allowed those who knew him close to tell more people about the kind of man he was, combining all three facets of his personality into one man, and allowing those to comb into one well-known piece of history.
History
The life of Benjamin Lascelles starts before Kara under a name that he eventually burned away from himself in the Kingdom of Virdal. In a land where becoming educated when you aren't a noble, or without noble permission, is illegal, Benjamin learned how to read and write regardless. A young boy who was curious to the world and what it had to offer. Benjamin originally learned to read so that he could tell stories back to the other orphans who he lived with, but after being discovered for knowing how to read, he was ushered in front of a court and tried for his crimes against the state. Instead of being imprisoned or executed for his crimes, an argument was made that this child could not unteach himself but also was unable to know why his actions were his bad. The state librarian, who was already quite old and dying, would instead take him in and teach him how to run the library. This was the mistake of the state, allowing him access to information unfettered entirely by what the rest of the world held. On his 18th birthday, using everything he had taught himself, he broke out of his prison, folded himself into a whiskey barrel, and stowed away on a ship headed towards Dormas. It was from there that he ended up traveling to Kara when Stone Bay opened its doors to anyone.
Early Karan Life
Benjamins' life early in Kara starts at quite a period of time. He arrived at a time where he was looking for any ways to prove himself and looking for any way to become a figure of any relative renown. Quickly finding his way into a family that he personally found to be a group of way too trusting individuals; he joined a large family at a speed that no one should be able to rapidly form. The family he joined were the rulers of a small section of Kara referred to as The Mushroom Tribe. Young and impressionable at the time, having arrived at Kara at the age of 19, he chose to represent his family as a warrior and was introduced to the current head of The Ashen Rose, a pseudo-knight order that was working under and connection with the Diarchy of Lyrinth.
He found himself quickly joining the ranks and regularly showing up to meetings with [[The Iron Council, which was the ruling council for the Diarchy. He attended these meetings with no say but found himself regularly whispering political ideas to Blue Curtania and trying to engage in anything legitimate to raise up in works. He found himself being shut down again and again, and filling with relative rage. Even after engaging in activities for the Diarchy that could have gotten him killed by Stone Bay such as breaking into Arimaex's Tower to steal the soul of Danias of Mhede. Despite his attempts at becoming more and more, he felt underutilized and disrespected.
Eventually, he was whispered to by known terrorist Newlin Khaster, stole a sizable amount of copper from the Diarchy, and then under plots from the terrorist; he engaged in activities that led to an assault that led to the death of his adoptive mother, and the permanent demise of his adoptive father. Afterwards, being so full of guilt, he returned the money he got for the copper to the Diarchy, leaving them, and then opening up a general store known as Bajamart across from his former home. Needing quick money and believing that he still needed to find a way to gain connections, he hosted a tournament in The Pits, an underground arena underneath The City of Stone Bay.
The Birth of a Soul Dealer
Several weeks before the tournament, Benjamin attended a journey to rescue the soul of Danias of Mhede. During this, he learned of an individual there from the talks of Phobos that had taken their own soul and put it into a blade to make it stronger. This power attracted the young Benjamin, which led him to finding that exact person and becoming informed on how to write and collect Soul Contracts. Convincing two people that he was quite close with at the time to sell their soul away, he began to host this tournament attempting to find strong souls and connections to be able to create weapons out of, though he didn't even know the first way to go about doing that.