Durwyn the Burnt

"It's not gambling if you win." - Durwyn

Orphaned by his birth parents and abandoned in a merchant community on the coasts of Wolfshore, Durwyn accepted the last name of his adopted parents. The Yorhns took him in and raised him as a merchant, teaching him the art of persuasion and the morals he would grow to take to heart. Being raised around pirates and merchants alike, he learned to con, gamble, and fight at a very young age, and grew to be a notable profiler. He moved north with his parents to the plains of Southwestern Moorhaven when they had amassed enough wealth to see them through to the end and decided to retire. They ended up having a daughter not long after and lived there peacefully under the rule of a local Lord Keph for a number of cycles.

During this time, Keph's mental state was slowly declining until the winter of C 7642 where, in a fit of paranoia, he ordered his militia to eradicate a number of local homes for fear of a rebellion. Durwyn's home was one of those targeted, and after a long day of hunting for a trinket to give his younger sister for her birthday, he returned to find his home already burning. He rushed inside to aid his family, dragging their bodies, engulfed in flames, out in front of the house, severely burning and permanently scarring his hands and forearms in the process. Kneeling before everything he'd ever known, face lit by the still-roaring flames, he wept. The thought of vengeance for his family still fresh in his mind, Durwyn went to the local town of Stagstorm to seek the location of Keph's manor, only to be met with rumors that the town ruler, Vitraal, had already mobilized his militia to take care of the crazed lord. Durwyn raced to the manor as quickly as possible only to find it already burned to ash, along with the man who murdered his family. He became extremely bitter and began offering his services as a sellsword to get by, often flitting between cities as to keep from being recognized as a regular at any particular location. This continued for two years until he came across a mercenary named Leonid in a tavern in the city of Darkwell within Havensmead.

After cheating Leonid out of some coin during a card game and subsequently being caught, Leonid took a liking to Durwyn and took him in under his wing as an apprentice, helping him hone the skills he'd begun to learn on his own. Over the next 6 cycles they eventually became as close as brothers, but the happiness couldn't last forever. Shortly after a new Lord was put in place over Darkwell, there was a serious crackdown on crime in the city. Against the wishes of Durwyn, Leonid took a job with a few colleagues to raid the Lord's manor, attempting to make a point. It soon turned sour, however, and as the rest of the crew told Durwyn later, Leonid remained behind to stave off the guards so the others could cleanly escape, thus masking their identities. Later that week, Durwyn watched the final member of his family be executed in the town square, yet another example to the people that the lifestyle so many had enjoyed for so long was being threatened. This man worked directly for the self-proclaimed King of Alimaea, Aldin. Durwyn knew his way of life had to be defended at all costs, and so set out for Bellmere.