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Mateus Ospina Morales

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Mateus Ospina Morales Empty Mateus Ospina Morales

Post  boots Fri Jul 02, 2010 3:34 pm

Name Mateus Ospina Morales
Nationality Portuguese
Age 34
Appearance
Mateus is a lithe, lean man, and rather tall. He has the dark tan of a man who is constantly exposed to the elements. His hair is black and raggedly trimmed, as is his beard; his eyes so dark that they nearly appear black as well. He is dressed in little better than rags, but carries himself with such pride that there is no mistaking him for a beggar.

Personality traits
Mateus is a hard man, with nearly all human sympathy stripped away from his heart. He is driven solely by hatred of the French. There is no looking for quarter or mercy from Mateus; he is vicious, and bent on bringing fear, pain, and death to as many of the enemy as he can. He sends this message by torturing and leaving the mangled bodies of his victims out for the French to find. Any French stragglers or parties small enough that he can snap up with his band of thirty men meet this fate. He cannot be reasoned with, nor will he make any compromise.

He expects and demands assistance from the Portuguese civilians in the lands that they pass through. If supplies are not given willingly, Mateus will not hesitate to rob his own people of their provenance. If they fight to defend their stores, then he does not blink an eye at killing them. Likewise, he will destroy the livelihoods of villagers in order to keep their stores out of the hands of the French. He believes that the defense of Portugal outweighs any other considerations. Those who do not see it his way are traitors in his eyes – and cowards for refusing to take up arms alongside him.

Nevertheless he has some compassion and friendship for the men who serve with him. He looks after them, and leads them to the best of his ability; he has brought them through a great deal, and they consequently trust in his leadership in return. Among the irregulars in his band, Eliezer is his closest friend, and perhaps the only man who has any influence over Mateus at all. Eliezer has no control over Mateus by any means, but he can calm the leader somewhat from the worst of his passions, and acts as a voice for caution.

Mateus has a quicksilver temper, and at very little provocation can be brought to fight. He is a virtuoso with the folding knife he carries. He is also illiterate, and speaks no language other than Portuguese.

Despite his unpredictable passions, he is an able enough leader, especially considering the difficulty inherent in keeping thirty disparate rabble together through unimaginable hardships, in an unceasing campaign against trained and well-organised regular troops. He has a certain natural charisma in his bearing and speech. His guerillas are relatively disciplined, and Mateus chooses his attacks well. With his knowledge of the terrain, they can strike swiftly on a vulnerable target and melt away like smoke as soon as the enemy organizes any retaliation. He is no coward, but no fool either, and will not risk his men in an action against formed troops or superior force.

Who is authorised to play them
Anyone, but please ask permission first!

Background Mateus was born in the mountain town of Monsanto, the eldest son of a shepherd, and born to be a shepherd himself. His childhood was uneventful, his adolescence as stormy as any young man’s. His early life was, however, mostly full of sheep, and the wool and smelly cheese that his family made from their flocks and sold. As a teenager, Mateus might have often wished for something more exciting outside the confines of his village, but there was nothing within his reach.

The town did have its compensations, however. At the age of sixteen, Mateus discovered Cátia, who was without doubt the most beautiful girl in the entire town. One look from her flashing dark eyes, and Mateus was head-over-heels – like many of the other young men in the region! In order to win a second glance from Cátia, he went to extreme lengths to impress her, but all in vain; for two years he tried to get her attention, but she was the acknowledged queen of the town, and he was no more than a shepherd.

Mateus, however, did have his merits; his father’s flocks and trade were not an inconsiderable wealth, even if they were not very glamorous. And as the time went by and he grew out of his awkward boyhood into a tall and well-built young man, Cátia’s dark eyes turned in his direction more and more often. The time came when Mateus’ father passed on, and having come into his inheritance he finally stood ready to offer Cátia his hand. The two young people were married and settled down on the homestead, looking after Mateus’ mother and brothers.

They had two children, Maria and Teresa. To Mateus, his family and his flocks were his whole world; he had traded his boyhood dreams of adventure for the comforts of love and security. He was aware of almost nothing going on outside the borders of the town. He cared nothing about the unrest that was shaking all of Europe. It did not concern Portugal, after all, and it certainly did not concern him. Life moved on, his brothers growing to adulthood and setting out on their own, his daughters growing into young women who shared their mother’s beauty. Mateus’ own mother, too, passed away, but this was a grief that could be borne when it was shared with Cátia.

This attitude of insular complacence was abruptly changed when General Junot invaded Portugal across the mountain passes of Estremadura. Part of his army swept directly through the remote little village, and in their wake they left ruin and destruction. Mateus’ home was sacked, his flocks seized to feed the French soldiers. As for Cátia and his young daughters, they went to feed another sort of hunger. Mateus fought as hard as he could to protect them, but he and his knife alone were no match for the soldiers. He was clubbed in the head and left where he lay, while Cátia and the two girls were taken along with the army.

Mateus was found later, insensible, amid the ruins of his home, by his younger brothers Manuel and José. The three Morales brothers followed Junot’s army, determined to retrieve Cátia and the two girls. No others from the village dared to come with them, and three men on their own could not hope to bring the women out of the French encampments. They whetted their desire for vengeance on any French stragglers that fell into their hands, but they could not reach their goal, and could only shadow the army as it passed through Portugal almost without resistance, all the way to Lisbon itself. They found Maria and Teresa behind the army one morning, left where they had fallen out...the two girls had been abandoned when they could no longer walk. Though Mateus and his brothers did their best to care for his daughters, leaving off their pursuit, they were gripped with fever, taken in the camps of the French. They passed away in their father's arms in the Morales brothers' camp, unshriven.

Cátia was still in the hands of the French, and the three men could not stop to do more than bury the two girls. In Lisbon, from which the royal family and thousands of Portuguese had fled before the French arrived, the Morales brothers finally found something approaching organised opposition to their enemy. They joined together with others in the city who shared their feelings. In December, the whispers of insurrection finally escalated into violence as mobs gathered all over the city and swarmed Junot’s French soldiers. But they were nothing more than citizens armed with whatever household tools and knives they could lay hands on, against the trained veterans of Junot’s corps. Even though they vastly outnumbered the French, the citizens never had a real chance. José and Manuel were killed in the fighting.

In the wake of the riots, the French put the restive population down brutally; men and women suspected of fomenting the violence were summarily executed. Cátia had been one of those who spoke out loudest against the French. During the leadup to the riot, she had broken away from the men keeping her prisoner in Saint George’s, and poured out her impassioned hatred to the angry crowds below. She was hung in the square alongside other inciters. Mateus watched his wife’s execution from among the crowd, powerless to act.

For a while he was broken by this. The others around him had no heart to fight anymore, and Mateus lost himself in grieving. He lived hand-to-mouth in the city, no more than a beggar for months. It took the news of the arrival of the British, and word of the Spanish insurrection, to bring Mateus out of his despair and drive him to take up arms again. He heard of a growing movement of Portuguese irregulars, partisans who were collecting in a secret place in the mountains, and Mateus left Lisbon to join them.

The rumours had suggested thousands, but Mateus found only a few hundred rabble hiding out in caves. One Coronel Silva, a former officer of the disbanded Portuguese army, was in command, but he was doing little with his troops. They were badly fed, and badly equipped, though their numbers were swelling little by little every day as hatred of the French increased across the entire country. All over Portugal, bands like Coronel Silva’s were forming. Silva’s irregulars attempted small raids on the French around Abrantes, and had minor successes against outposts, couriers and patrols – but their small victories only served to irritate the French in Abrantes, who gradually formed a determination to wipe out the pests in the mountains.

A detachment of the French was sent to hunt them down; they tortured the location of the irregulars out of a captured man, and at dawn the French attacked their position. Even on their own ground, the irregulars were no real match for the finely-disciplined French in a pitched battle. Silva attempted to organise them into some sort of resistance, but the ragged little lines of Portuguese peasants – most of them without even muskets, armed only with swords, knives, perhaps ancient pistols – were ripped to shreds. Nearly all of them were killed or taken prisoner, and Silva was among the casualties. Those who were captured were shot or hanged on the spot. Wearing no uniforms, they could be treated as spies.

Mateus was among those who escaped the French. Alone among the panicked partisans, however, he kept his head; he gathered as many men as he could find into a small band, and turned their rout into a retreat. He had about fifty men with him, of all descriptions. Some of them unhandy peasants from the plains, who had never done anything but tend their vineyards. Others were more useful – mountain men from Estremadura and Malcata, hardened men who had spent their lives smuggling goods across the border with Spain. These men had experience dodging soldiers and living off the land. One or two had even served in the Portuguese army, and their discipline was invaluable in the times to come.

Mateus had not meant to become a comandante, but no one else among the partisans stepped forward. He had been the man to bring them together, and even when they had reached safety from the French, the others automatically looked to him for leadership. And following his natural instincts, Mateus assumed charge of the little band. He was not ready to settle for safety – but whipped them into a frenzy and led them back against the hated occupiers again. As the French army marched out to meet with the British, Mateus and his band were among the irregulars in their wake, harrying the columns at every opportunity, attacking the baggage and pouncing on any men who fell behind the main body of the troops. This was their pattern all the way to Roliça, and Vimeiro afterwards.

Mateus had learned his lesson from Silva’s mistakes. His irregulars were not able to stand up to trained soldiers in a formed line. Even at Roliça and Vimeiro, they did not try to play at being soldiers alongside the British and regular Portuguese forces. Instead, they continued their hit-and-run tactics from the sidelines. The repeated skirmishes during the march and during the battles formed Mateus and his band into an able guerilla fighting force.

After the Convention of Sintra, when the French evacuated Portugal, Mateus and his band dispersed, each of them returning to their homes. But they had formed bonds during their time fighting together that were not easily broken. They remained in contact over the following months – and thus they were ready to take up arms again when the French returned under Soult in the second invasion of Portugal.

Only about twenty of his original band could be found and brought together again, but they returned to their old ways quickly enough, and gathered more men as they moved through the countryside. Once again, Mateus and his irregulars followed the French army. They have been constantly harassing the French ever since their arrival.
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