“Who I am? Where I’ve come from?” He asks. “What’s to say? I was a farmer.” He pauses. “I simply worked my fields, planted my crops, managed my livestock. I was proud to call myself a Pohjolan farmer. But the cataclysm came when I was off in Tarn, after a trade agreement for an exotic plant that grows there, which was a farce anyway. I took Maurus here,” he pats his dog’s head, “And Sanlee,” He gestures to his donkey, “With me on that trip. I was horrified at what I saw when I returned. I joined a small group of men who were fighting for their lives, but, in the end we were taken captive and most of us were killed.

“My farm was razed. I went back with that group of men, seeking supplies. It’s gone. Them and my family too. My son wasn’t even three years, and my wife… Can you believe it? Imagine it?” He looks at you, then scowls. His eyes find their way upward, toward the sky, “Of course you can. This land was so full of life. Now… Now it’s full of death. S’the embodiment of death. Funny that though my farm had been destroyed, I found my scythe laying where the pasture’d been. Its blade was stained with blood, and its haft was covered in mud, but I recognized it as if it were an old friend. You can see where the handle’s worn from using it so much.” He runs a finger down the wood of its handle. “And now I’ve made something of myself. I wish I could go back to being a farmer, but… I can’t. And now here I am, leading a group of men thirty strong, some of which are my kindred.

“I never knew them before, but they seem like old acquaintances, all of them. And there’s the matter of Durindana here. What am I to do with such a make-believe, fairy-tale object? Yes, it’s a mighty weapon, but I feel it’s not meant for me. It feels too unnatural in my hands. Its alien power is… It makes me uncomfortable.” He sighs as he notices my expression, “Don’t look at me like that, I know this is a mighty object, it’s just… Weird to me.”

–Faerin Thain, leader of the Green Tree Bandits, 13/2/563