The Thalmgar Enigma

Thalmgar was an enigmatic and mysterious figure who became well knowin in the early Third Age. Popular interest was re-ignited in the late Fifth Age, where he became a popular character in childrens books and young adult novels.

Golden Age.

Very little is actually known about the creature; he did exist, he was clearly not human, and he appeared to have an indefinite lifespan.

Surviving images and eye-witness accounts describe a short, anthropodal humanoid of about five and a half feet(though experts disagree on exactly how he was measured). His skull was elongated and came to a point in the back, and he spoke out of a strange, scar-like gash on the side of his face. His hands held thick, ungainly fingers, like mittins, with only three fingers on his right hand and as many as seven on the left. His legs had little mobility and ended in wide, hoof-like feet. His skin was covered in a series of strange, wart-like growths, though many described their texture as being more like that of tree-bark. Very little scientific examination of Thalmgar was made, but it was concluded that he was definitely not human, and may have been a silicon-based life-form. Later speculation added that he most likely had artificial origins.

History

Thalmgar first appears on court records from A.Y. 215, which indicate that he already had a considerable criminal record that may have been lost during the Ninety-nine-years war. His age is listed as 35, and the last name given was later determined to be a deeply unpleasant profanity dating to the Golden Age. At the time of the document, he was taken into custody for theft, but while standing trial, attacked a clerk in the courthouse and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Thalmgar would spend 15 of the next 25 years in and out of jail for various petty crimes. Theft, vandalism, and assault charges were the most common, though "disorderly conduct" shows up often. In A.Y. 240, during a fight in a bar, he shoved another man hard enough that he hit his head and was killed instantly. Thalmgar received a thirty-year prison sentence for manslaughter. Due to poor behavior, that sentence was extended to 63 years.

Released in A.Y. 2103, Thalmgar enjoyed a grand total of three weeks of freedom before being arrested again for theft. More petty crimes would see him in and out of prison over the next two years, before a judge finally gave him a large, punitive sentence of five years for a minor offense. While in prison, Thalmgar committed his second murder, killing another inmate over a disagreement. The judge sentenced Thalmgar to what was thought to be a life-setnece, giving him 100 years.

Over the next century, Thalmgar killed three more inmates, extending his sentence by an additional century and a half. He served the entire time, being regrettably released in 2252. At the time, he still staunchly insisted that he was only 35 years old, despite having spent almost a quarter of a millennium behind bars.

While had had, at this point, killed four people, it was noted that each killing, aside from the one over a disagreement, had been primarily motivated by self-defense. Other inmates who spent time around him observed that he never started fights, though he seemed to enjoy them when provoked.

This time, Thalmgar spent almost an entire year as a free "man". During this time he mostly lived on the streets and made some money begging. For a brief time he was part of a traveling circus exhibit, but his unflinchingly fowl tongue and generally anti-social demeanor made the job untenable.

In A.Y. 2254, having somehow obtained a gun, Thalmgar murdered a convenience store clerk during a robbery. It is speculated that he was put up to the crime by unidentified individuals, but each time he was questioned, he gave a different statement. At the time, Alliance law had no death penalty and a moratorium on "whole life" sentences. Knowing that Thalmgar was, at this point, quite old, he was sentenced to three hundred years.

Again, in prison, he continued to kill. He had become something of an enigma at this point, and the warden and guards paid close attention. His killings were always in retaliation or self defense, always provoked. If left to his own devices, Thalmgar was perfectly harmless. He seemed to revel in routine, and when asked, claimed he enjoyed prison life. The schedule suited him, he thought. He enjoyed watching television and reading(though, when tested, he was found to be illiterate).

Each prison murder added fifty years to his sentence, and within thirty years he had commited three. He was placed in solitary confinement, but by special dispensation, the warden allowed him a private television in his cell. He spent the next 157 years that way, apparently completely content.

By A.Y. 2441, the region Thalmgar was being held in had come under the joint administration of the Alliance and the [{Gudersnipe Foundation]]. The Foundation was heavily reforming prisons at the time, and felt that 187 years probably should be enough to reform Thalmgar and released him. He spent twenty-seven hours on the outside, before being re-arrested for murder.

When interviewed, Thalmgar offered no defense, and stated that he had enjoyed his time in prison and wished to return. He harbored no resentment towards his victim, and saw the killing only as a means to an end. His victim, this time, was an eleven year old girl who had been playing alone in her yard near where the buss from the prison released Thalmgar.

While the Foundation did hold the right to apply the death penalty, Thalmgar was protected by a grandfathered clause due to his status as an Alliance citizen pre-dating the application of Foundation law. He could not be executed. However, the Foundation did not hold the same rules regarding sentence length, and issued Thalmgar a whole-life tarrif.

Thalmgar would spend the next 500 years in seven different prisons, serving the bulk of his sentence in solitary confinement. He was interviewed many times and some studies, mostly phsyological, were conducted during this time. He was determined to be of bellow-average intelligence but deemed sentient. One psychologist noted that he seemed unable to reason more than a few steps ahead, or comprehend the consequences of his actions. To quote on alaysis "If he saw an item he wanted, he picked it up, believing the act of holding something made it belong to him. He had no concept of money, no understanding of ownership beyond the act of holding." He also seemed oddly obsessed with the superficial trappings of humanity. Thalmgar would watch television alone or with other inmates, but expressed no preference over what he saw. He was even observed, on more than one occasion, to spend hours staring at a blank screen.

He was known to be completely illiterate, yet was a common ficture in the prison libraries. While he never quite understood ownership, he had a strange ability to follow all the rules reguarding checking books in and out, even returning them on time. He would sit in the library or in his cell, flipping through the pages, pouring over them, even moving his mouth as if pretending to read. One psychologist even gave him an empty journal and observed his behavior did not change. He pretended to read the blank pages.

This strange attitude towards reading extended to writing. Most of the prisons were required to provide him with writing materials, which he would use. But as he possessed no language, he would merely scribble. He would sit, and think, and act as though it was a great effort, and then make nonsense loops and scratches with no pattern.

When questioned, he would insist that he could read and write with great proficiency(he also insisted he was still 35). If asked, he would pick up a book and 'read aloud' from it, though he merely murmured incomprehensible sounds.

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