[hider=Red]



[b]Name:[/b] Rodrick “Red” of… where’s he say he’s from, again?


[b]Title:[/b] [i]Why, Red’s not enough for you?[/i]


[b]Age:[/b] Somewhere around thirty. It’s hard to tell.


[h3]Body[/h3] 


There is, in truth, not much red about Rodrick. His hair and beard, as scraggly and unkempt as anyone’s, though not completely wild, are more of a light brown that could at best pass for a vague russet in poor light. Nor is his skin anywhere near what one may call ruddy; even when heated by drink, its worn, calloused span is of a sallow, almost greyish hue. Indeed, one look at this short, stockily built man will not reveal much regarding the origin of his moniker, nor his age - discolouring tones in his hair and creases on his face betray that he cannot be younger than twenty-five years or so, but beyond that, he could be anywhere across two decades. What such a look would show, though, is that he evidently does not neglect the simple needs and pleasures of the body despite an altogether harsh life. Under his furrows, callouses and mess of a beard, he looks well-fed for someone who wanders the road, stands firmly on his feet and never shakes or fidgets, come cold, rain or uncomfortable silence. Attentive if weary eyes look out from under bushy eyebrows, and when he speaks one almost does not notice the gaps and spots of grime among his yellowed, but robust teeth.


His attire is likewise a cut above the worst of the ragged misery met on the travelling path, consisting of worn and oft-mended, but clearly well-made warm woollen travelling clothes, turned to an indistinct beige by age and use. Covering them are a light boiled leather cuirass and pair of boots that might not be out of place on a soldier, completed by a rigid cap and a belt holding the hem of his tunic doubled-up to shorten it. Tied to it are likewise an axe and a knife, used but well-kept, and a few simple wooden charms, supposedly to ward off the Filth and other misfortunes. What is remarkable about him, however, are the pouches and bags he carries, a full three, capacious and firmly fastened.



[h3]Mind[/h3]


Rodrick is someone who does things most people would rather not for a living, and, in his opinion, that counts for something, both for himself and for the world that has come to see such things. That is not to say that he thinks very highly of himself; used to having no one but his own thoughts as travelling companions, he has learned to see what he takes to be the simplicity of his character with a good-tempered humility. A sign of what times have come to though he may be, he is still the man who genuinely enjoys the rough solace of a bed under a roof every time, and whose desires are no loftier than a cut of roasted lamb and a keg of ale; who holds to superstition and stolid fatalism because he lacks the faith to be truly religious; who went and left behind home and family because he wanted to live more than he believed in whatever they were taking a stand for. All of this he knows and is not ashamed of, for which one may brand him a callous and craven dullard. As long as his pockets are not empty, he will not mind.


For all this, he is not one to avoid company. Quite on the contrary, after his spells of solitude he has come to appreciate the presence of his fellows, and in good fellowship can be a jovial speaker, running his mouth about all and sundry as if to make up for the silence of his expeditions. This gregarious spirit even goes a little deeper than his wind-bitten skin, for, despite not being a paragon of altruism, he dislikes the sight of suffering, and will on occasion lend a hand to those in the direst of straits. However, most of the time the pragmatism of a difficult life and the cloud of mistrust that follows any outsider win over, and, as he has done in the past, he shrugs and walks along. The world has taught him other lessons beyond self-satisfied introspection, chief among them being that in the end, it’s always every man for himself. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is.


[h3]Life[/h3]


[i]What’s there to my story? Sure, I’ve seen things, but everyone has if you ask around. Course, maybe not the kind I mean, not everyone, heh. What, that’s good enough? All right, I’ll start from way back at the beginning.


I’m from a little place way there to the west. What’s it called? Don’t bother, you wouldn’t know it, and if you do, you know why it don’t matter. It had people from a bit all over, but most of them’d come from Jornoston some generations afore. They’d disagreed over something with the head priest, I think. Nobody really knew by then, not even my folks, though they were from that stock too. I’d been thinking I’d go clear it up some day if anyone remembers at all, but you know the trade, all the time goes to moving hand to mouth and back.


Anyway, early as I can recall, there was five of us, mother, Parrel remember her, brother, two sisters. Never seen my father or heard much of him, not even sure he was the same one for all of us. Maybe that’s why I’ve been Red since then, you know. Mother, though, she’s not one you’d forget that easy. Woman damn well held half the place up on her own. Wasn’t the mayor or anything, but you got the feeling that without her things wouldn’t be going half as well. Still had time left to chase us around to do things, too. Taught us that if you stop, you’re good as dead straight up. Only way to make it out there.


The Filth, they came damn near every night. A right proper marvel that the place lasted generations. I think it was ‘cause it wasn’t much of a place to start with. You know how they near don’t care for no-good rags like you and me? Sure, they can’t stand a place where folk live. But I think they just couldn’t be bothered enough about our two mudholes. Never was many of them, and never seen a single big one back then, thank the gods. So, they kept us up at night, tore up a couple folks pretty regular, but didn’t come big enough to straight-up stomp us out. Until they finally did, course.


As luck had it, it was in our time. Lot of us were of age by then, even me, young folks coming up all over. Mother was still holding up strange well for never sitting still a moment. So, before, was always the old folks that thought what to do. Didn’t need much thinking for that, so we sort of got by just like that. But then, there was that fellow Enghard, lived a couple houses from us, near the middle. Couldn’t be much older than my sister Bethe, she’s the first of us. His old man’d been one of those who decided things, and when he kicked over, Enghard got it in his head we needed one proper leader, a mayor like in the Walls. Had to be him, ‘course, and I’ll be fair, he was made of the right stuff. Sharp head, his, but damn was it hard. So he starts saying that we’ve been going good for a while, Filth shouldn’a scare us, we got to start doing better. Now us, me and brother and sisters, and other folks too, old and young, we tell him, Enghard, what’re you thinking, we’ve been going good so far, we don’t need changes. But we can’t get it into that thick head he got, and a lot of the others liked what he’d been saying. Mother too, she liked it a damn lot.


A bit goes by with us talking and nothing really comes of it, and then one day after he’d been out a while with a caravan that went through now and then, he comes back with a few sheep. Everybody asks what’re you going to do with these, we don’t have room for them in here. Well, he answers, that means now we just need to get bigger, right? Now before then the Filth’d been getting angrier for a while, they must’ve known we were up to something. We weren’t that far from everywhere that we didn’t know what happened when a place got big enough to rile them up all fierce. So a lot of these folks that weren’t convinced, they started saying fuck it, we’re not sitting around waiting for the Filth to get full mad at what Enghard’s doing, and they got up and left. And one day sister Bethe gets us together, rest of our families too, some of us had one by then, and lays it out like it is. This keeps going, we’re all dead soon, we better get out too. Everybody agrees, some know places they’d rather go already.


Then we go to mother, lay it out to her too, and ‘course she’s not having it. She’s never been afraid of the Filth in her life, she’s not starting now, going to show the fuckers what good folk can do when they got a mind to it. We go back and forth some, but neither’s getting through to the other. So we say, that’s good, but you know these things never work out good, and we don’t feel like we’d get killed just to show them, we’re going. And that’s farewell. She must’ve been proper disappointed with us, but didn’t really show it, she right was of the good folk. I regret it? A bit, maybe, I’m no Filth to just leave it. But I know, and you know, that there’s no helping things like this. No shame in getting by whichever way goes.


Sure enough, I been back there once. You can’t even tell there were ever people living there. That’s that.


We’re out of the place, then, and that’s where we go different ways. Bethe and brother Johan, they want to go to Jornoston. It’s a big place, safe as it gets, and though they don’t take people in on the usual, since our folks were from there back when maybe they’ll let them stay. Sister Magrett and her man are going down south, where his folks are from. Haven’t heard of them since. Ligdon keep them, but you know what that usually means. Everyone else goes other ways.


And me? I was the last, still young like when you want to see things. The others’d gotten past it already, but not me. So I take up the scraps I had, and I say, gods keep you, I’m going to see what’s in the world. They try to get me to come with for a bit, but at last we say farewells, and I get going. I’ll tell you, I’d no idea really of what I’d do from then. Was a long way to any other place, I didn’t have a thing worth a damn. Then I remember, there’s the old tower I’d heard of a few times, maybe I can go look at that first.


I get on the path and it takes a while, but then I come to it. Got to tell you, there’s something about old broken places that feels just right to me. Not good, just right, like that’s the place I got to do something, see every corner of. Could sit all day looking at one, then get up and look around inside it for another. That’s how it is. And I found that out then. There’s not much left in the tower, but it feels a way that gives little chills, like when you hear the wind and the rain but you’re at home and don’t have to go out. Still remember it now, damn clear.


I get in, and inside it’s a lot more dull, but I think maybe there’s something else worth seeing under all the rubble. It’s heavy and grown over with weeds, but I don’t have a better thing to do, so I get to digging it up. Turned out there really wasn’t much else, but I do find some old scraps. Looks like iron, but isn’t a bit rusted, even after all that time, just dull. Most of it you can’t tell what it used to be, but there’s a knife with some signs of the handle that look real unusual, a kind I’d never seen. I take it up, maybe I can sell it for something. Way I was then, anything’d have been good.


So, then I start towards where the closest place was. It’s a couple days, so I sleep under trees and eat some berries on the way. Damn awful sleeping, that, at first, but you get used to it after a bit. When I’m there, I show it to the smith, see if he can make anything of it. Well, he scrubs it, tries to sharpen it, or whatever he did there, and will you believe it, he’s giving me an almost new axe for it. An axe’s good for a lot of things out in the woods, and for that old thing, it was the best bargain I’d ever seen. That’s when I start thinking, if I keep something like this going, I’ll make a living all right.


And that was how it started. Was tough at first, but you can get the hang of anything if you give it time, you know. I’d go into an old place, dig around, and sometimes I found something that’s worth something to someone. Sounds easy, don’t it? From here, sure, you can talk about it like it’s nothing. But out there, where it’s the real thing, it’s a whole other matter. You walk for days, huddle every night afraid the Filth’ll catch up to you, then you get there, poke around in the dust and stones, huddle again by night, and if you’re lucky you pull out something good before your food runs out. If you don’t, tough break, nobody there to catch you. I’d had a lucky strike the first time, and thrown it away, I found out. Who’d’ve known an old dull knife like that can be worth way more than an axe in the right place? Got a few more rotten deals like that before I wised up. That’s part of the life, too. Know the good places.


Kendles’s where you start, and where it’s over, too, if you can’t keep your eyes open. You won’t be getting good pay for a thing, some assholes with knives’ll want a cut of it, and if you show around too much you’ll end up with empty hands and a stab in the gut. But there’ll always be someone who’ll take anything, even small stuff what other big places won’t have and small ones can’t afford, and it’s easy to spend what you get well. Sleep under a roof a few nights, have a couple good meals before you get back out. That’s why you see me come back here every time.


The Walls, I’ve only been a few times, and aren’t anxious to get back. It’s damn far, and when you get there they don’t even let you in. Sure, if you’ve got good finds, you’ll get a fair trade, but good luck getting anything for their own damn coins in their own damn city if you’re from outside. Not worth the trip, I tell you.


Jornoston’s a special one for me. Remember how Bethe and Johan were going there? When I gone to see, turns out they made it, and got homes there too now. Guess it did count for something that our folks were from there. Anyway, they see me, say it’s great living there, quiet and safe as anything, people done real warmed up to them after a while, got families there now, all this. They tell me to settle down with them too, they’ll make it smooth with the people there. I say I don’t know, I’ve got a thing going now, show them some stuff I thought they’d like, them being all of faith in that place. And they do look right pleased, take me to show it to some priest they had there, bit of a shifty man, but not all that bad when you get talking, you know. Got some loose hands, too, with the trade he gave me. So I keep going there on the regular when I find something godly-looking, and that’s a good time for the pockets. Brother and sister’re still at it, only now they’re just saying I should settle in when I get too old to keep this up. I’m thinking, maybe. Sure, I know what they all say about the place, and it’s true, when you’re there something’s always sort of off in the folk. But I don’t really get better looks elsewhere, and I got family there, so it can’t be as bad as the word goes, you get it?


So that’s how it’s been going for years now. I get out, look, find, get back, sell, live for a bit, then it’s all over again. The better you get at it, the deeper you can go into the old places. The edges’re barely any good, I’m not the first one to think like this, but if you keep going further in, there’s things all right. Not just things you can take, sometimes just seeing them’s enough to make you think a real turn. I’ve been through some stuff in them places now, got enough stories to keep us here ‘til next harvest time. Here, I’ll show you something I got of late. Big one, innit? Got to be a crown or something, you see the sharp bits on the edge here. Course, you can’t tell under all this grime, but if you look at it this way, see how this little spot shines? It’s got to be a right kingly one.


Wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out like that, with where I found it. Was the second time I’d gone that far into any broken place, huge one, was one of their old castles or palaces or something. About half of it’s still standing, walls, rooms, all. Got the usual weeds growing in, and puddles of some kind of scum all around, but no live Filth anywhere, that’s why I went further in. Even got down some stairs under the ground, which isn’t a good thought usually, but this time I sort of knew there had to be something good in the end, you know? Them walls kept standing all this time, it’s got to be worth something. Underground, place’s not that big, though rubble’s closed up a lot of doorways, so you can’t really tell. Kept almost shitting myself thinking it’d start crawling with Filth suddenly, but nothing like that happens. So, deep at the end, there’s a place like one of those grave rooms, and on a carved stone that’s tipped over in some of that dirt, there’s this. Was damn wary about it, but there wasn’t anything else to take, so I nab it up and get out.


And I’ve had the thing since. Weird, but nobody’s cared to bargain for it so far. Why don’t I scrub off the grime? Damn, if it was shining like this all over the whole time, I’d have a crown less and a knife more somewhere in no time. ‘Sides, I’ll tell you, it just doesn’t come off. Tried knife, stones, water, fire, nothing gets it. Strange, you think?


That’s how things are in the trade, lad.[/i]


[h3]Numera[/h3]


[b][u]Physical[/u][/b]


[list]

[b]Might:[/b] 2

[b]Coordination:[/b] 2

[b]Fortitude:[/b] 3

[/list]


[b][u]Psycho[/u][/b]


[list]

[b]Intellect:[/b] 2

[b]Wisdom:[/b] 3

[b]Willpower:[/b] 3

[/list]


[h3]Craft[/h3]


Much of Rodrick’s practical knowledge comes from his early years, when he was one of many pairs of hands always needed somewhere. Then, he learned carpentry and mending torn cloth, tending to some meagre crops and fighting off the Filth and other threats. He never came to excel in any of these, but can still do a serviceable job at whichever if called upon. Later, as he settled into his new life, he had to learn skills like living off the land for days or weeks at a time, navigating his way through the most nondescript and labyrinthine of ancient ruins, discern what salvageable objects might be of value, selling them for a price that would satisfy him (if not what they really might be worth) and watching out for menaces to his purse and life, be they human or less so. His simple curiosity and observant spirit have led to him gathering a few tales about how people might have lived in the past, and hazard a few educated guesses of his own thanks to what knowledge he gathers in the field. Frequent talks with his surviving siblings have also given him a smattering of Jornoston’s religious lore, though that is not something he speaks of eagerly, claiming he never could make much of these matters.



[h3]Memory[/h3]


[i]The story I remember the best? That’s a good one, I’ll tell you why. Most every time I’m talking about this, folks’ll think it’s when I got out of the place I lived. Giving farewell to your mother like that, leaving her, they say, that’s got to be something you don’t forget. Well, they’re right, you don’t forget that easy.


But I’ll tell you this. You get what I do to get along? If you’re thinking like that, you don’t. When you go in the old places, you better forget the stuff you think’s that matters out here. Inside, you see the things of a world that’s not there anymore, and if you’re there a long time like me, you start to think a bit like that. What’s it matter how good or bad things are? There was people like you around there, and now they’re dead as good as the stones you’re walking on. If you’re not careful, it gets to you, this thinking. I’d know.


So what’s the worst thing that can happen to you when you get thinking like that? Well, what’s the worst thing out there, plain and simple? That’s right, the Filth. So you know what’d happen if you was thinking like that and you find them? You can’t, you’d need to do it yourself to, but you get the drift.


And still what’s worse, I seen where they come from. Sure, we all know they come from their rings. But how’d you think we know? Cause some folks seen it a few times, and some of them got back to tell. Well, you're looking at one of 'em.


Was the furthest I've ever gone into one of the old places, 'fore then and since. It was big, not the way you usually hear big about. I mean more as right big. Place could've fit the whole Kendles into it and still got room left, and that's just the part as was still upright. Couldn't guess what it must've been like that long ago. I'd gotten there early round noon, and I'd been walking through stone houses bigger than anything in the countryside till it got dark. Not much luck finding things there. Maybe the place was just too big, couldn't've searched the whole of it in a day.


I'm thinking, I'll go a little further, then I'll stop for the night, no good to be abroad when it's dark. I turn around a wall, and it's there I see it. The houses end suddenly like they're cut off, the woods don't start until a good deal further, and about halfway to them, there's it standing, one of those rings. Big one, I don't know how a bunch of rocks this tall shaped like that keeps standing at all. Can't see it clearly from where I'm at, and damn sure I'm not getting closer, but the ground round it looks sick, barely anything growing there.


I stand there, looking like I can't pull a step back to get behind the house again, and that's when I see there's a kind of, I don't know, smoke, fog inside it. Nowhere it can be coming from but the ground, and it's just there, nowhere else around. Then they start coming.


They're not coming out of anywhere, 'cause they weren't inside a thing before. They're getting through the ring, but I can see a bit past it, and damn sure there wasn't anything behind it afore. It's a thing I can't really tell how it is, 'cause stuff like that don't happen, but I see it just like that.


They're coming through, little ones, big ones, I think some weren't even walking but in the air like huge flies. It's like a muddy river, only tall as you are, and with waves, see that roof? Bigger than that. Well, and I'd been walking through the old place all day, remember, and those thoughts I'd told you about, they were getting to me. So, I'm there and can't even look away, and I think, we can't even stop a plain river, how the fuck's anyone think we can keep away something like this? Walls aren't no good, doesn't matter how big, they're so many and they come through a spot what was empty like this. I start getting more of these thoughts. You know if there was a time before the Filth? Must've been? Well, I don't know, I right don't know.


They must've known I was there, I think, that way they know what's around them. They just plain didn't care. You know me, I'm worth two coins to anyone, and for them? I must've been like one of them pebbles I'd been walking over the whole day. Didn't matter, that's that.


I don't remember how I got out of there. Didn't sleep for days afterwards, barely ate, just kept walking. Never gone that place again. Sure, I'm an idiot to get out there at all, but some things get through even to me. It's not just the ring, I know they're everywhere, but the old place's before it. And that one, I've seen them come through it.


That, lad, that's a thing you don't forget.[/i]


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