Name
Jordan Kreiss
Age
27
Gender
Male, bisexual
Occupation/role/type of ranger
He's been working as a field ranger for around ten years.
Appearance
Jordan has medium-length, disheveled brown hair that is lightened by long days in the sun, tanned skin, and green eyes that shimmer with a barely-hidden humor. He wears an off-white, long-sleeved white shirt with dark canvas trousers, boots, and can often be seen with a well-worn brown canvas duster when it's cold, rainy, or dusty and a black bandana tied around his throat.
Skills and equipment
Having lived on the road for the majority of his life, he's quite the survivalist and a proficient tracker, being able to recognize the footprints of most of the native Pokémon of the region. However, he has some trouble staying in one place for too long, always itching to travel, can be a quite impatient at times, and can sometimes act without considering others. He also has a few business and haggling skills left over from his days on the road with his family, but he hasn't had much need for them in his current line of work.
He keeps much of his supplies, like food, extra water, and maps in Thorne's saddlebags and his bedroll on his partner's back for when he's on long-term jobs, but keeps a serrated hunting knife and water canteen on his right hip, as well as a length of rope on his left.
Personality and background
Jordan doesn't exactly have a hometown; instead, he comes from a family of traveling wholesale merchants, who worked with small trade partners that were unable to afford the use of the steam trains or who lived distant from the railroads, using the family's trusty pair of Mudsdale, whom they recieved as young Mudbray from foreign traders along with a fiery Skiddo (see below). Highlands, lowlands, forests... the Kreiss couple and their four sons were quite experienced with many different terrains, and made a humble living trading goods such as lumber, crops, and coal. As such, he's quite social, and has little trouble interacting with people from all kinds of backgrounds.
While the Kreiss family didn't often deal in particularly valuable goods for fear of being a target of crime, one day, when Jordan was 16, one of their partners in Chromatown had gotten their hands on some ore, and the family decided to take the risk. Sure enough, a group of bandits intercepted them along their route, damaging their cart and stealing the valuable ore that they were transporting. His parents sent Jordan and one of his brothers to a nearby town to find some help, and the pair picked up a small group of rangers who were resting up in the town's bar. The brothers hitched a ride with the rangers back to the scene of the robbery, and Jordan got to talking with them. He became more and more enthralled with their stories, and once the rangers finally arrested the bandits, he decided to return with them to Vientown to enter the training program under the recommendation of one of the older rangers that he'd been traveling with. He finished his training and has been a ranger ever since, while his three brothers still carry on their parents' business.
Partner name and species:
Hawthorne (Thorne), the Gogoat
Partner skills:
Having been bred to be a beast of burden, Thorne is physically strong and sturdy, able to cover large distances without stopping, though not particularly quickly. His horns and tough skull also prove to be quite formidable when charging.
Jordan also keeps a pair of saddlebags on Thorne's flanks to carry supplies he might need (details in Skills and Equipment).
Partner personality, appearance and background:
As a young Skiddo, he was born to a breeder that raised foreign working Pokémon, such as Mudbray. Unlike most of the docile Skiddo that this breeder raised, Thorne was a stubborn and difficult little Pokémon. One day, the Kreiss family came to see if the breeders' Mudbray would be a suitable replacement for their temperamental Tauros, who seemed to destroy more product than they transported. A ten-year-old Jordan, who had fallen in love with the tiny herd of Skiddo, suggested that they also purchase Thorne after hearing that he was to be shipped back to his homeland to be released into the wild. They did so with trepidation from his parents, and sure enough the Mount Pokémon was a force of nature. Jordan didn't care, though, and spent nearly every moment with the grass-type. Sure enough, the Skiddo not only warmed up to him, but became attached to the boy at the hip, so to say.
He never lost his hard-headedness, though, and doesn't hesitate to let his partner know when he thinks his ideas are moronic. Despite this, though, the two have a deep respect and loyalty for each other forged over time and experience. He did not evolve until after Jordan became a ranger. He looks like a normal Gogoat for the most part, aside from the brown leather saddlebags and such on his back and flank.
I really appreciate the Grass-type idea too, my concern was definitely dropping in out of nowhere, so I think I'll see if I can take advantage of that if I can.
