Lyall

Lyall Wolfgang is a late 30 almost 40 year old man. He grew up in \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ as part of a very poor family. He took on work with the syndicate as a very low level enforcer and errand boy. He trained and worked and never seemed to make any upward movement. He learned a lot of skills including how to read and write. He was not thought much of, not the brightest kid, and was present for a lot of the doings of the syndicate.  He was called on to do the jobs others did not want to do. They thought of him as big and slow. He could do a little of almost anything and could get the job done. He did this for over a decade until not long after becoming an adult he fell in love.

    The young lady lived just outside of the main city comfortably with parents that owned and worked land. They met by chance in a market and he would often be there when she was as a lookout or drop off man and they would chat.  He worked for several more years courting her. He only dreamed of having children and raising them better than he was raised. He would spend his down time whittling toys for city kids.

    after one particularly gruesome enforcement job he was given some hush money and finally felt he had enough to be out of the life and the city. He was able to, with the help of his now fiance, buy land and begin to work it. He made friends, became established in his community, and became comfortable. His reputation as someone to be called on to get things done and to know a little about everything started to change meaning. They raised 2 young boys. Again a decade passed in bliss. His wife loved his long auburn hair and he grew it out to change his looks a little.  Every now and again he would see signs of syndicate and would even periodically be called on to do a job. He always felt like he was being watched but his wife attributed it to paranoia.  He knew he would never truly leave that life. It was what made him work so hard.

    One evening, one particularly difficult to sleep due to memories and a full bright moon, He finally had made it to sleep. He woke to find his wife already out of bed and he heard noise and rustling outside in his farmyard.Thinking it was one of his sons and being that kind of dad, he snuck out to see if he could scare one or all of them. What he found was a pile of viscera amongst tramped crops and Two large figures. He was coherent enough to recognize his kids, wife, and one large unknown figure that was still moving but seemed to have been injured by the struggle with his family. He grabbed two wood chopping axes, his and his eldest son’s, nearby and ran at the figures. He felled the first brutally barely making note of its rancid smell, the smell of death and decay. He pulled himself out of a haze and found himself kneeling, covered in the man’s and his family's blood up to the elbows. He grabbed a shining piece of metal around the remains of his wife's throat, a pendant he had gotten her for her birthday with tiny portraits of the entire family in it. He squeezed it tightly and it dug into his hand, cutting him. His blood mingled with that of the attacker and his family. In the moonlight he saw the other figure starting to run from the gruesome scene. It started to lope more like an animal than a man. Squeezing the amulet he roared and started to stand. The amulet dug in further, as he stood the drying blood flaked away but left them stained he clenched in pain, and the creature fleeing seized and stopped moving. He stalked over and made short work of whatever it was with the axes. He silently piled up everything, bodies and all, close to his home and set all of it to flame. All anyone would find that morning would be the remains of his family and two extra sets of bones.  He clenched his hair and cut it from his head, dropping it near the edge of the flame enough that it scattered and burned and he hoped one of the corpses would be mistaken for him. The locals did just that.

  He turned that night, two axes in hand, amulet around his neck, strips of his wife’s wedding dress wrapped around his arms to cover the now red stained skin and walked from the fire of the life he had worked for decades to have behind him. He walked until he came back to the city that had given him birth. His goal was to work enough to find out who had sent the creatures and get revenge or to find out if the very organization he worked for had been responsible. It was the only other life he knew. He would also cultivate this new power, he felt it related to his now stained skin, and work to help others not suffer what he has.