Lyonel Sunbraid

Lyonel Sunbraid is human fighter.

## Backstory

Lyonel grew up in the streets of Whittengrove in the Farmhand’s Ward. He grew up poor and never dreamed of a grander life. Lyonel’s parents were hardworking folk, his father a fisherman aboard a vessel known as The Sunbraid  and his mother working in a garment shop. This left young Lyonel unsupervised most of the time and as a young man fell in and out of trouble. Mostly petty schemes to steal bread or fruit from a local vendor one time the boys stole a skiff from the docks to go fishing, abandoning the skiff a few miles away from town.

Lyonel knew he did not want to toil as his parents did and as such joined the City Guard. Wanting to separate himself from the troubles of his youth he gave himself the surname of Sunbraid, after the ship his father worked on. As a recruit, Lyonel developed a reputation. For his ability to fight with both hands, which his instructor Byron praised him. Byron taught him to never hold back, and Lyonel took that advice too literally at times. Lyonel did make friends in the guard. One of his former accomplices who helped steal the skiff joined with Lyonel, a lad named Petyr. The second a well to do son of a merchant who went by the name, Reyna. Throughout training Lyonel developed a reputation for being the hardest hitting recruit in the class, egged on mostly by Byron, but despite this he graduated and became a full fledged Rosehelm at age nineteen.

On a fateful night just after his twentieth birthday Lyonel and Petyr were on patrol when they were called into action breaking up a fight at a local pub. The men it seemed had gotten into a fight about a game of dragonchess. During the ensuing encounter Lyonel struck a drunken denizen with a chainmail fist. The man fell, struck his head on a chair and died nearly instantly. The angry folk in the bar quickly turned on Lyonel, calling him a murderer. Petyr shouted at him to run, the young guardsmen panicked, and fled the city north. Lyonel kept on running past empty stalls and quiet streets until he reached the northern city gate. Covered in blood and a few bruises of his own it was fate that left Reyna in command of the gate that night. Not wanting his friend to get in trouble, Reyna pushed a few gold coins his father had sent him into Lyonel’s hands and sent him north. Reyna had heard reports that some mercenaries were near Woodry Bridge and that Lyonel should go there to hide. And so the young man from Farmhand’s Ward kept running.

Less than a week later, still in his Rosehelm armour, Lyonel came across a band of mercenaries known as the Scions of the Battlemistress just north of Woodry Bridge. The recruiting sergeant, a dwarf named Vraynor knew a sad story when he saw one. The dwarf invited Lyonel into the camp to hear his story. Lyonel, not knowing what to do, retold the events of the fateful night. Vraynor helped clean the blood off Lyonel’s armour and burned the Rosehelm tunic. And like that Lyonel was recruited to their banner. Over the years he worked many contracts. Some guarding manses for Rydoonish nobility, others tracking down marauders and beasts for the Galeriders and Couatls.

After the better part of a decade, Lyonel worked his way up to a respectable rank among the men. He even led a platoon into the foothills of the Ironfangs where they slayed a Red Dragon Wyrmling that was terrifying locals. He fought against a Minotaur who cleaved three men in half with a single swing of his axe, and as an older man he helped lead a campaign against a Green Hag who had kidnapped a half dozen children.

Despite his success in the Scions he was always overlooked for more prestigious positions of command. Lyonel did not mind so much as he enjoyed spending his time among the men rather than negotiating with stuck up and stingy nobility. However, upon his fiftieth birthday Lyonel was retired by the Scions having been deemed too old to fight.

Wishing to prove his former colleagues wrong he began a career as an adventurer, but wanting to fall under the radar of his former colleagues he avoided the bigger cities and instead headed to the border towns of Atralran seeking work.