About William
William Durbs is a man in his early thirties. He stands 6’2″, lean and capable rather than imposing, with brown hair beginning to show the first traces of grey, a maintained medium-short beard, and distinctly grey eyes.
He wears practical, carefully maintained clothing and leather gear. Nothing is chosen to impress. William repairs what can be repaired and replaces only what cannot.
Known as: William, Will, Durbs
Do not call him: Bill
Home: Stormwind
Trade: Hired hand, scout, courier, leatherworker
Character · Work and principles · Daily life · Trust and belonging · Crossing paths
Appearance
William looks like a man who works for a living. His strength is practical, his build lean, and his clothing chosen for movement, weather, and use. Brown hair, slightly muted and beginning to grey, is kept at a manageable length. His beard is maintained without being immaculate. His eyes are grey.
He is weathered rather than glamorous. There is no defining facial scar, no elaborate armour, and nothing in his appearance intended to announce a dangerous reputation. Charcoal, brown, and deep muted blue suit him better than bright colours. His leather is worn, but cared for: a repaired strap, a reinforced seam, boots kept serviceable for another season.
Stormwind is his home. There are no bright insignia or expensive ornaments on his clothes. A stranger is more likely to notice the repairs, the serviceable boots, and the way he keeps his hands free.
Temperament
William is quiet, reserved, and naturally introverted. He usually listens longer than he speaks. In unfamiliar company this can make him seem mysterious, but there is little performance in it. He is watching the room, deciding what is happening, and giving himself time to understand the people in it.
He notices tone, posture, changes in mood, who is watching whom, and who looks uncomfortable. His attention also goes to doors, narrow passages, and the places where an argument could become difficult to leave. He prefers a wall behind him and a clear route out.
Crowds are easier when he can pass through them unnoticed. Having to participate, be introduced, or hold the room’s attention is another matter. His voice is low and measured. He does not naturally compete with louder people for space.
Reserve does not mean that he feels little. More often, it means that he wants time to decide what he is willing to show.
Mind and Manner
William is both street smart and book smart. His mother taught him to read, and the habit remained long after the circumstances of those lessons were gone. Books give him something to be interested in beyond the next problem. Writing gives him a way to put his thoughts in order.
He is capable with practical mathematics, good at remembering details, and attentive to patterns. Accounts, routes, locks, and the logistics of a job all reward the same willingness to look carefully. He notices inconsistencies, but does not always know what they mean.
He can misjudge someone. He can mistake kindness for an obligation, read danger into an innocent question, or trust a plausible explanation because he wants it to be true. Intelligence does not spare him those errors.
He rarely makes much of his abilities. If someone calls him clever, his answer is likely to be simple: “I pay attention.”
Kindness and Personal Boundaries
Simple acknowledgement suits William better than applause. A quiet thank-you, fair payment, or respect for a boundary is easier to accept than extravagant gratitude. A room full of people praising him would leave him looking for the door.
Disproportionate generosity makes him uneasy. Part of him expects a gift to become a claim, even when the person offering it means nothing of the sort. He may try to repay a kindness quickly so that he can stop wondering what it will cost.
That suspicion does not make kindness unwelcome. It means trust has to survive the moment when he offers repayment and discovers that none is wanted. Small acts, repeated without pressure, have more chance of reaching him than a declaration that someone is going to save him.
He dislikes being fussed over, having his possessions handled without permission, or being cornered into talking about his past. Quiet companionship leaves him room to choose closeness for himself.
Money and Debt
William is meticulous with money. He counts it, tracks what he spends, compares prices, settles his tabs, and keeps something back for an emergency. He prefers a job with clear terms and a known payment to a favour whose meaning may change later.
Coin means a locked room, food tomorrow, boots without holes, and the ability to leave. It means being able to refuse work, or refuse a person, without wondering where he will sleep. Luxury interests him far less than having choices.
His mother’s debts taught him that obligation can reach far beyond the original sum. After her death, the debts did not simply disappear. William left before those collecting them could decide what they might make of him.
He carries that lesson into arrangements that are much less dangerous. Borrowing troubles him. Owing favours troubles him. Someone spending too much on him may feel like an approaching problem even when it is intended as affection.
“Owe nothing you cannot repay.”
Work and Quiet Competence
William’s abilities grew out of surviving the streets. Moving quietly, reading a situation, opening a lock, keeping a blade concealed, and recognising when to run became useful long before he thought of them as a profession.
Caution and escape matter more to him than the prospect of an impressive fight. He would rather avoid a fight, finish a job unnoticed, or leave with his pay than win a dramatic reputation.
His work includes carrying messages, scouting, finding people or objects, theft, discreet retrieval, and hired blade work. Protection and observation are natural extensions of the same practical skills. He values competent employers, clear expectations, and an agreement that ends cleanly when the work is done.
He is mostly unknown. Someone in Stormwind may remember him from a delivery, a labouring job, or a small contract. He is more likely to be remembered for finishing a job than for the name he gave while doing it.
Morality
William steals. He lies when necessary, trespasses, accepts dubious work, and has few objections to fighting unfairly. He can use violence for payment and may kill when he believes the target is not innocent. He does not call himself an assassin.
His limits matter even when they cost him. He will not knowingly kill an innocent person for money, harm children, or rob someone already desperate enough to understand hunger. He will not abuse someone weaker simply because he can. Cruelty for pleasure disgusts him.
He is not a moral saint, and necessity has not made every decision clean. His judgement is fallible. A promise about the person he has been hired to find is still only a promise, and he can be wrong about the people who employ him.
Compassion often appears in small, practical choices. He may refuse one purse and steal another. He may take dangerous work, then quietly make sure someone else has eaten.
Faith
William does not believe in the Light. Not quite. The important part is that he would like to.
The idea of something benevolent beyond the cruelty and uncertainty of ordinary life appeals to him. He simply cannot make himself believe it because belief would be comforting. His own experience gives him questions that easy reassurances do not answer.
He does not mock sincere faith or treat every priest as an opponent. Humility, compassion, and conviction that survives suffering can hold his attention. Someone doing good without needing praise is more persuasive than a fine sermon.
Religious arrogance, moral grandstanding, and claims that everything happens for a reason tend to close him down. If he asks a difficult question, it may be because he hopes there is an answer he has not yet heard.
Whether that hope ever becomes belief remains unwritten.
Authority and Respect
William instinctively resists people who assume a right to direct his life. Arbitrary control troubles him more than a uniform, a title, or a position in itself.
He can work with guards, officers, nobles, priests, and leaders. Competence and fair dealing earn more respect from him than rank. A sensible instruction with a clear purpose is different from being ordered around to establish someone else’s importance.
Abuse of power angers him, especially when the cost falls on workers or people with little freedom to object. Speeches about sacrifice are difficult to hear from someone who will not be making it.
His first test of a person is usually a small one: how do they treat someone who cannot safely refuse them?
Alcohol
William drinks and can enjoy it. He is not afraid of a tavern or of sharing a drink. What he avoids is becoming so drunk that his judgement, awareness, or ability to leave belongs to chance.
Loud, aggressive, unpredictable drunkenness makes him more alert. He learned young that laughter could change its meaning quickly, and that it was worth watching a person’s hands as well as their face.
He does not panic whenever someone has had too much. He watches more closely, keeps his own head, and becomes less willing to let the evening carry him along.
Fears
Dependence. Being trapped. Losing control of his own life. Owing more than he can repay. These fears are close enough to overlap. The prospect of needing someone who can leave is as difficult for him as a locked door.
He is afraid of becoming like his stepfather, of allowing pain to become an excuse for making someone else unsafe. He is also afraid of loving someone enough that their loss or betrayal could undo the life he has made.
His independence is useful, but it is not effortless. Keeping every exit open can also make it hard to settle anywhere.
Deep Water
William is a terrible swimmer. He can stand near a harbour, and he can board a ship if the work requires it. The tension grows when the shoreline disappears and the possibility of stepping away disappears with it.
Around eleven or twelve, he went to the waterfront with older boys he wanted to impress. He ended up in deep water, his clothes dragging at him, unable to keep himself above the surface. The boys ran. A stranger pulled him out.
What stayed clearest was not the face of the person who helped him. It was the fact that the people he wanted to belong with had left.
Asked whether he can swim, he is likely to say, “Well enough.” This is a lie.
Habits and Body Language
William checks exits when he enters an unfamiliar place, chooses edge seating, and prefers to keep his back towards a wall. He notices arrivals without making a show of turning to stare. During a tense conversation his attention may return briefly to a doorway.
He counts his coin, checks his locks, and keeps emergency money. He settles tabs promptly. His possessions are practical, and he expects to know where they are.
When uncomfortable, he may give his hands something useful to do: a repair, a strap that needs attention, a piece of equipment being cleaned. Reading occupies his quiet hours; writing can help when a thought will not leave him alone.
These are ordinary habits in his own mind. He is not continually announcing that he is assessing threats.
Food and Hunger
William finishes what he takes and saves what can still be eaten. He has known the kind of hunger that makes wasted food difficult to watch without noticing.
He also notices hunger in other people, including the effort someone makes to pretend they are not looking at a meal. His response is more likely to be practical than charitable in tone. Food can be passed over without making a performance of the person receiving it.
He does not need to lecture a table every time someone leaves a crust. The habit is older and quieter than an argument.
Leatherworking and Repair
William learned repair because replacing things was expensive. Patching leather, replacing straps, reinforcing boots, mending belts, and fixing bags began as ways to keep moving. Over time, necessity became skill.
He understands the value of an old object that still does its work. Wear is not the same as uselessness, and a careful repair can be worth more to him than an unnecessary replacement.
Leatherworking gives him a practical trade alongside less predictable jobs. He knows what a sound strap or a well-repaired boot is worth when someone has to depend on it.
Being asked to repair something sentimental offers a kind of conversation he can manage: there is a real problem, something useful to do, and no need to demand the whole story at once.
His Mother’s Needle
Among William’s possessions is a simple sewing needle that belonged to his mother. She used it to repair his clothing when new clothes were beyond their means. After her death, he kept it. Eventually he began using it himself.
It has no magic and almost no monetary value. It is simply the same small tool that passed through her hands.
He owns things worth far more. Almost none would be as difficult to lose. The needle belongs to the short list of possessions he considers irreplaceable, and he would risk a great deal to recover it.
He does not need to explain that every time he uses it.
Small Pleasures and Dry Humour
Hardship does not account for every part of William. He reads because he likes reading. Practical craftsmanship interests him. Clear agreements, useful tools, good boots, and people who mean what they say make life easier to enjoy.
Quiet companionship suits him. So does humour that does not demand an audience. His is dry, understated, sometimes mildly sarcastic, and often delivered as if it were a straightforward observation.
Called a hero, he might say, “I was standing nearby.” Given too much gratitude for a paid job: “You paid me. We’re even.”
A quiet tavern gives him room to listen. A secondhand book can hold his attention longer than a loud evening’s entertainment. He is more at ease with a useful tool in his hands, or a familiar voice nearby, than with an audience waiting for him to say something impressive.
He dislikes spiders. “Anything with that many legs is fundamentally suspicious.” The undead make him uncomfortable too.
Names
William is what most people know him as. Will generally suggests that he likes you. Durbs feels natural among companions and coworkers.
Bill is different. His stepfather called him that, and the familiarity does not feel friendly to him. Someone using it innocently may not receive an explanation, only a boundary.
“Don’t call me Bill.”
Love and Trust
William has loved someone. He once let a woman beyond his usual defences and allowed himself to believe that what they had was safe. She betrayed that trust.
He keeps the details to himself. What remained was a stronger conviction that sooner or later, people leave.
He is not incapable of affection or intimacy. He is afraid of needing them. Closeness would have to grow slowly enough for trust to become something he has experienced rather than something he has been asked to promise.
Someone continuing to show up, without demanding access to every guarded part of him, may matter more than William knows how to say.
What William Says He Wants
Money. Useful work. Clear terms. Enough saved that no one can decide whether he eats, where he sleeps, or what happens to him.
Asked what he is looking for, this is the answer he would give. He is not setting out in search of redemption, destiny, religion, or a new family. He is looking for work.
What William Actually Wants
A home. Safety that does not have to be renegotiated every morning. A few people he can trust without keeping score. Someone who notices when he does not return.
He may understand more of this than he admits. Money is simply the easier answer: it can be counted, earned, saved, and put somewhere safe. Belonging asks him to trust things he cannot control.
A company might attract him through fair contracts and competent colleagues long before it could attract him through talk of family. He would be slow to call coworkers friends, slower still to call a place home. That does not mean either is beyond him.
Crossing Paths
William is easier to approach with something practical than with a question about himself. A letter that needs delivering, a missing possession, a torn strap, or a book left open on a table can all give a conversation somewhere to begin.
Work and payment
A courier job, a scouting task, a discreet retrieval, or a practical repair can draw his interest. Clear terms make conversation easier. An overpayment or an unexplained favour makes him look more closely at the person offering it.
Books, craft, and quiet company
Books and careful workmanship can draw him out. Something worn that matters to its owner may hold his attention more readily than an expensive new object. Shared work gives him time to become accustomed to someone’s company.
Boundaries under pressure
A journey by sea may make him unusually particular about the arrangements. An unpredictable drunk will draw his attention. Someone calling him Bill will discover a boundary; someone mistreating a worker may discover another.
Faith, trust, and belonging
A priest who listens without preaching may keep him at the doorway a little longer. A key given without conditions would be difficult to accept and difficult to forget. People who keep showing up have a way of troubling his certainty that everyone eventually leaves.
