Brethir Anthorin

[Lorloth]

PC Name: Brethir Anthorin
Login: Grarstigandr

Born in the Illuskan and Dwarven mining town of Mirabar on the 5th of Uktar, some 26 years ago, young Brethir was brought into Toril as the eldest son of Caederic, a formerly adventuring priest of Kelemvor, and Anah, a half-elven hedge wizard. Named for his deceased grandfather, Brethir was raised along with his several siblings in the relative comfort of their family’s small manse.

While growing up as the son of a powerful cleric might have given a child a very different life further to the south, his father’s relatively low station in the formal hierarchy of his faith and his church’s only minor importance to the local Illuskans meant that, their family’s wealth and social standing aside, the young Brethir was little elevated above his peers compared to most any other young man his age. Such was befitting to growing up in Mirabar aside the sons of Illuskan and Dwarven miners, soldiers, and merchants, however, as it is an accepted element of the local culture that every man – and every boy – must earn his own place rather than live upon the accomplishments of his father. In fact, while Brethir’s lord father had once earned a noble title in lands much further to the east, the office it was tied to had been relinquished several years before Brethir’s birth and foreign titles have little bearing or importance upon a man’s standing on the Savage Frontier.

The young Brethir both excelled in and relished a variety of athletic pursuits courtesy of the natural dexterity he inherited from both of his parents, but the boy found his true passion in books – a pursuit that both parents were eager to encourage when he was young. But while his mother might have wished he’d taken more of a liking to studying magic and his father might have wished he’d taken more of a liking to studying theology, his own interests were primarily attuned to works of geography, history, and general cosmology supplied by his father. While he might have once considered the possibility of exploring life as a skald, he never particularly had the patience to practice any instrument when other activities – scholarly or physical – were at hand, wasn’t nearly as enamored of performance as study, and ultimately only studied rhetoric and linguistics, not any of the many performance arts.

In time, his parents helped Brethir explore his interest in hunting and travelling in the wilds along the River Mirar – and the young Brethir was able to greatly expand on these lessons when he came of age and joined the local militia, the Axe of Mirabar, to train as a scout. With a natural affinity for careful movement as well as being naturally blessed with keen senses, Brethir’s talents were quickly honed under the tutelage of his mentors to become an asset to his community and give Brethir at least the faint beginnings of a life of his own. Training to become a warden for the republic, in no small measure with the help of his father’s connections and wealth, Brethir was afforded a position as a young junior officer in the militia’s scout corps after several years of training.

And, while the young Brethir had been mostly shielded from the necessity of facing the occasional orc raids that plague the north as a child and an adolescent, he was compelled to serve his community in dangerous roles sometimes beyond his martial abilities when several tribes of gnolls from the surrounding wilderness began a concerted and unusually organized campaign to raid shipments of raw ore from Mirabar and Mithril Hall as well as raid incoming caravans and trade vessels on the River Mirar from Luskan and other ports carrying finished goods and other supplies. Waging a guerilla campaign characterized by sneak attacks, ambushes, and lightning raids, the gnolls proved a difficult foe to combat over hundreds of leagues of difficult terrain in the northern wilds. While the Axe of Mirabar provided several detachments as escorts to caravans travelling to and from the city, the scouting corps was assigned the difficult task of tracking down gnoll raiding parties and assisting militia detachments with engaging the foe on their own turf. Brethir, for his part, primarily avoided direct confrontation with the gnolls – not yet being sufficiently trained to fight gnolls on his own without significant backup – but performed admirable and dangerous work in tracking enemy raiding parties, studying the enemy’s language and culture, and using his knowledge to assist his compatriots.

While Brethir was not able to assist the militia with the final battle against the gnolls’ unusually powerful chieftan and his tribe in the crags to the south of the River Mirar, he had done his part – in conjunction with many others – to help the militia find and defeat the raiding parties as well as track the enemy back to their hold. In the process, he had gained at least some measure more skill at tracking, stealth, observation, and martial prowess – as well as goblinkin language and culture – as a result of his experience and study. Seeking to leverage these skills into a valuable niche for his services, Brethir followed the campaign with a more extensive study of goblinkin language, culture, and history – which is what has afforded him to now sell his services more specifically as a goblin hunter (if a neophyte one) beyond his basic service as a scout.

The end of the campaign – and the lack of further military activity in the following year – did cause Brethir to grow increasingly restless, however, and began to divert him toward leisure pursuits as well as a growing desire to travel Faerun as his parents had once done (frankly the sort of dream only a young man born to wealth could really afford to indulge so pointlessly). In time, out of a mixture of spiritual unrest, thirst for new places to experience and study, and simple boredom, Brethir relinquished (if for now) his commission with the Axe of Mirabar, obtained his parents’ assent to help fund his journey, and set out to cross the continent.

In time, Brethir had seen much, studied more, and travelled relatively far from home, but – of course – was running low on funding and in need of actually selling his services to make his keep (not to mention in need of again proving himself as a man of value). As his thoughts began to turn from pilgrimage and spiritual seeking to more practical concerns such as finances and service to his fellow man, he started paying significantly more attention to word passed in taverns, temples, and public squares of the need for individuals of sufficient training to handle odd jobs, dangerous work, and travels in the wilds. And, while travelling through Impiltur as a caravan guard (as it afforded him the opportunity to continue his journeys), word of a goblinkin invasion in the far-flung Nars territories to the north piqued his interest.

While armed with little more than basic martial and stealth training, a single (if lengthy) campaign of actual military experience, and a collection of book knowledge, incidental research, and travel experience collected in bits and pieces from across half of Faerun (as well as his actual, if meager, weapons and armor), Brethir figures he might be of enough use in the Nars to afford him a bit of coin as well as a chance to hone his skills before continuing his journeys. He is far, as yet, from wedded to the idea of staying for terribly long in Narfell, though experience could well change his mind.

((Note: Brethir’s parents are both retired PC’s from beyond the Narfell server environment – and I’ve previously obtained permission from the other player to mention her character’s role in the child’s backstory. I’m keeping elements of the parents’ histories here intentionally vague so as to avoid making anything either too special or creating any problems with adaptation to Narfell. Nevertheless, I'll withhold having the character exit the starting area until I get approval on the story above.))

((It also looks like I’ll need a DM to help me purchase a language - Chondathan - with 2 skill points from my initial level 1-2 skill point pile. If someone can help me out with that as well, that’d be awesome.))

[Black Rider]

Reviewed, XP Pending!