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Austen Ferron is the baby of the family, though he may look far from it. He and his family resided in a small hamlet within the Oathlands and he spent most of his youth doing farmwork and growing strong through manual labor. The older youths of the village would often pick on him, until one day he shot up and wasn't quite so scrawny any more. Then he beat them up. Austen did not particulary want to become a farmer, nor did he wish to become a smith like his eldest sister Ida, so when the opportunity arose he joined the military as a soldier. It did not take quite as well as he thought it would: after running afoul of a vengeful noble he was discharged, but at that point he was just about done with that foray anyway. He returned home, still a teenager longing to be something more in the world. One day, a perfect opportunity arose: on his trek to the nearby city he came across the beleaguered caravan of a knight, and after helping fix the wheel the knight offered him a position as his squire. He happily accepted, and for the next two years accompanied the knight errant on his travels, learning what he could. Early into his eighteenth year he was knighted to little fanfare, but knighthood fit much better on Austen than farmerhood. He arrived in Arx and joined the Iron Guard at the recommendation of a friend of a friend. The intricacies of city law still puzzle him, but he is slowly getting the gist of it.

A man of tall height and physical rigidity, Austen is imposing for someone so young. His set of rust brown eyes beneath tufted brows seem to look right through a person, carrying within them an eerie amount of intensity. His dark hair is cropped close to his scalp, longer on the crown of his head and tapering shorter on the sides. His nose is slightly crooked due to having been broken and healed awkwardly, but otherwise his facial features are unblemished, if not considered plain. He has the lean, muscular appearance of somebody accustomed to hard training.

It would be a mistake to consider Austen a dull man. While not especially outgoing, he is determined and decisive, and his silence is not borne of thoughtlessness or shyness: he's just terrible at small talk. Additionally, deception is not something Austen does: he is consciously opposed to it and terrible at it on the rare occasion he tries. He is fiercely protective of his family and the few people close to him. Threats are not beyond him, regardless of who the threat is, but he can usually get the sentiment across by glaring daggers.