Hardsy

*Depending on player choice, the name of this character may be changed to either **Manny** or **Garth**.*

## Hardsy

### Aliases

Manny
Garth

## Physical Description

### Text Color

Text colorbox placeholder

**Hardsy** is the default name for the protagonist of the fantasy tabletop campaign in A Role to Play. He is a Warrior, and a member of an order of royal guardsmen known as the Owl Guard.

He is played by Danny.

## Appearance

Hardsy is clad entirely in a suit of plate armor, including a distinctive helmet that covers his face. His helmet is designed to look like a stylized owl head, and identical ones are worn by all members of the Owl Guard. Hardsy also wears a red scarf and carries a sword and shield.

## Story

### Backstory

Nothing is yet known about Hardsy's past, including how he first came to be a member of the Owl Guard. The castle where Hardsy serves as a guard is located in Valten by the Sea, the capital city of a small kingdom.

The month before the story begins, the death of the previous king sent the castle into a period of mourning.

### Campaign

Hardsy is awoken very early one morning and directed to receive new orders from his superior, Captain Saud Antous. Antous emerges from a secretive meeting, which Hardsy may choose to interrupt by attempting to eavesdrop even though his heavy, noisy armor immediately gives him away.

Antous introduces Gwenhilda, who Hardsy who has been assigned to guard while she journeys to a neighboring kingdom. Antous joins as well, per the orders of the new king, and the three depart the castle, sticking to discreet alleys and backroads for safety. Hardsy begins to notice, however, that the city is unusually quiet, and a nearby watchman of the guard approaches to urgently whisper something to Antous. The captain reveals that there is a demonstration of angry peasants taking place downtown, but seems unconcerned and urges the party onward.

If Hardsy opts to move steadily through the streets, he sees that the city has been papered with flyers that depict a lizard ruling over several cowering humans on leashes, but does not know what to make of them. A rope across their path suddenly halts Antous' horse and throws him to the ground, and rioters with swords ambush the party. Hardsy must choose to either run, which seemingly dooms Antous to unwinnable odds, or to stay and fight, in which case he and Gwenhilda are able to help the Captain hold off the attackers until they more guardsmen arrive to aid them. In either case, Antous remains behind and Hardsy and Gwenhilda escape together.

Before long they begin to hear a humming sound, and Hardsy investigates it to find a group of masked cultists engaged in some kind of ritual near an abandoned fort. They summon Kthambr’xu from another dimension but are apparently unsatisfied with this outcome and quickly turn on him, attacking not only him but one of their own members, Dagbat, who they single out for being runty and somehow sabotaging the spell. After it becomes clear that Dagbat and Kthambr’xu are badly outnumbered, Hardsy aids Gwenhilda in defending them and together the four unlikely allies swiftly dispatch all the cultists.

## Trivia

* Hardsy is based on a pre-existing starter character template within the tabletop game that Danny and the others play, instead of being an original creation like the other player characters.