Bio

The human known as Gwyn is a madman by any rational standard. When he was a young man a reaving band of orks attacked his home town, taking slaves and pleasure freely from among the populace before slaughtering the remainder and burning the farmsteads. He had the good fortune to escape the massacre, fleeing deep into the forest. Within that wood lay a court of the fey, dying with the old wood their magics had tended for so long. In the center of their gathering of the dying their lord stood cradling a bottle to his breast. With a sigh and a tremor, the bottle was raised and the stopper removed. He was struck blind at the sight, but strained against his dazzled and watering eyes to see the contents of the bottle. Here was a light that blazed, instead of consuming like a fire. A light that healed the ailing fey, instead of harming like the brilliant flashes of legate spells. It was a light that brought people together for a common purpose, instead of driving them away in fear. Then, in a single moment the light vanished once more, yet the bottle was still open. The tears of the fey mingled with the tears of a forest and the tears of a man. The bottle was empty and the light within gone.

The man who would be Gwyn took up his name that day and swore to dedicate himself to restoring that light, to seek it with all his days and to bring it back into the lives of man. He had heard the old legends of the Sun, but had discarded it as the wishful ramblings of a doomed people. None of the tales conveyed the majesty, the power or the fundamental purity of the Sun. Upon his hands he carved the old symbols of the Sun gleaned from legend, that he would always see upon those hands the cause they were sworn to uphold. At the end of every night, as the moon set and the world plunged into deeper darkness, Gwyn would sit and face the oncoming darkness, cursing it as he prayed for a path to restore the Sun to its rightful place in the heavens. From those wounded hands of his, miracles flowed. The dying clung to life and began to heal, tainted food became edible, things once broken became whole, pure water poured from those hands to nurture starved crops and save parched throats. This made him an enemy of the land’s dark masters, and so Gwyn stayed moving constantly, using his miracles to try to buy shelter for a night or to deal with the fey of the land to divert those chasing him. He had the power to heal, a small echo of the light of that sacred grove within himself and the wil to save his people from the brink of destruction.

That was 15 years ago. He is older now. Much older than most of the people he meets, starved and frail as they are. Even with his blessings, Gywn knows his body is slowing down and that age wills soon begin to cripple him. In those years of searching he has seen families murdered for sharing the food he purified with their neighbors. He has been betrayed for a mere loaf of bread. He has seen the fields he spent a day resuscitating burned. He has learned of other survivors from his town, who took their own lives or went catatonic and had others take it for them. His hands are mostly healed, for he has not had the will to reopen the scars in a long time. His collection of legends and rumors now lead him to Absalom. There is no hope in his heart any more, just the habits and rituals of years and the small joy of a child who will not go hungry for a night. Time has made him crafty and self reliant, but never happy. So he continues his wanderings, unable to stop for all that follows him and unwilling to yield just yet.