Fendwyr Flintridge

Tinker, scoundrel, barista. A strange combination of words to describe a person, but all of them fit Fendwyr Flintridge, known to his friends as Fen. As bright-eyed as he is bright-minded, Fen is an excitable and capable adventurer, serving up drinks as happily as he serves up beatings.

## Personality

At his core, Fen is a good man. He regrets the hurt he inflicted in his criminal youth and has taken up the adventuring job in part out of curiosity, but also in part to be able to help others. Though he does not value codes and oaths as much as his goddess, Fen is a staunch Avalonian and holds her values of justice, valor and righteousness close to his heart. He’s idealistic without naivete, benevolent without gullibility.

Despite his unassuming appearance, Fen has a broader skill set than most people twice his age. Smithing weapons, picking locks, breaking faces, unlocking the mysteries of the arcane and of course serving coffee - all these and more are part of his repertoire. Fen doesn’t like to boast, but he’s eager to help people out where he can in whatever way he can. He’s quick to make friends and quicker to roll up his sleeves if he feels like it’s the right thing to do.

Fen’s traumatic past has left its scars on him, though almost a decade of healing under Eagor’s wing has done much to heal many of them. He’s quick to dismiss laws and codes as unnecessary red tape if they get in the way of his goals, but at the same time he can’t stand to leave someone in need unprotected. While he has the skillset to make a good adventurer, he would not make a good mercenary, as his strong sense of morality will often cause him to prioritize the safety of others over the success of a mission.

## History

Fendwyr wasn’t always the happy young barista he is now. His history is a sordid one, with many details lost to the ravages of Velouvian aggression. He was born on lands that, at his birth, were Athian farmland near Velouve's border. Idyllic, green, beautiful - Fen lived in the very image of the peaceful countryside. Even as a child, though, the effects of Velouvian expansion could be felt. Sometimes people in the village simply packed up and left. Sometimes great, terrible noises could be heard rolling across the plains from the darkening north.

Disaster finally struck when Fen was a child of merely ten years old. A 'border skirmish' erupted - Velouvian troops pushing into Athian territory to test its defenses. Before anything could be done, be it by Athia's own armies or other external influences, Fen’s village had been consumed in the fires of battle.

If others escaped, Fen never saw them. His parents told him and his siblings to flee, and flee he did. Fear consumed him, and he dared not even look back at the source of the horrible sounds that soon rose behind him. Through sheer luck and tenacity he escaped whatever patrols, outriders and other beasts of Velouve's creation had swarmed the region, reaching fertile Athian land once more. It was not the end of his tribulations, though. The first village he reached had no place for him, as the remaining townsfolk were preparing to evacuate themselves. Nobody knew how far Velouve's troops would go this time. He traveled with this group of refugees for a while, who went east to the greener pastures of Al'Dina rather than the supposed safety of Athia's own cities.

While his fellow refugees pushed onward, Fen’s journey had taken both a physical and emotional toll on him. He remained in Carlerian, where his lack of practical skills soon left him yet another urchin on the streets. Of course, the criminal circuit always has need of young and quick hands, and Fen soon found himself employed by unsavory types. The local kids weren’t strangers to Athian refugees, though he never got along with them as much as he did with his fellow orphans.

Fen had been a scrappy kid, regularly getting into fights, and his good track record had meant he wasn’t going as hungry as some of his peers. He was taller and stronger than a lot of the other urchins as he went through puberty. Most notable of all, Fen had displayed a sharper mind than most of his peers, and through the right friends earned himself a place as an apprentice at a local smith. Though he provided normal smithing services, the man also worked as a locksmith for the local criminals, cracking chests and safes that your average gang of thieves couldn’t manage.

To the smith he was mostly a convenient accomplice, and the blacksmith treated him little better than a dog or indentured servant, but Fen took his opportunity to learn an honest trade seriously. He had done some bad things to survive on the Carlerian streets, and without learning a real trade he would likely have to resort to serving with one of the mercenary companies.

Fen was approaching his seventeenth year when things went south. His master’s “friends” had stolen the wrong strongbox, and its owners had found out. Hired thugs broke into the smith’s home and dragged him off to suffer punishment for assisting the thieves. Fen, who slept in a small room near the smithy rather than in a proper bedroom like the smith, was woken by the sound and escaped into the Carlerian streets.

Rather than warning the guards and implicating himself to save a man who regularly mistreated him, Fen fled the city. On the way he encountered a merchant caravan, who allowed him to join in return for performing physical labor and using his skills to take care of the horses’ shoes. He traveled with them to Zirces, heart of Al’Dina, where he told himself he would turn his life around. Of course, such a thing is easier said than done. He lacked the funds to open his own business and the credentials to prove he would be worthwhile to take on as an employee by existing blacksmiths.

After several weeks in Zirces and being reduced to another member of the city’s homeless population, Fen finally had a stroke of luck. On sheer coincidence, he recognized one of the people out on the streets of the city: a farmhand from the refugees he had traveled to Al’Dina with. While Fen had been reduced to a life of crime, the farmhand, a man named Eagor, was now a well-off entrepreneur running his own tavern. When he heard Fen’s story, he took pity on the red-headed youth who had once appeared on his doorstep with a soot-stained face and now stood before him in an almost as sorry state.

Over the next eight years, Fen finally got an opportunity to bloom. His surprisingly fast hands, naturally amicable personality and quick wit made him an excellent assistant in the tavern. Though he started as a regular waiter, he eventually earned himself a place behind Eagor’s bar. Along with the typical alcohol the tavern sold coffee and tea, foreign beverages Fen quickly took an interest in. He became proficient enough that eventually, some customers would come visit the tavern purely to get their coffee or tea made by Fen.

His experience as a blacksmith was highly convenient for Eagor; he could have his pots, pans and utensils repaired and could even have the horseshoes of his customers’ mounts looked after, all without the high costs of hiring a professional.

Fen also received an education, never losing his interest in the practice of creation. He began to tinker in his free time, spending his money on tools and raw materials. Though he eventually came to live in a cramped townhouse, he was not the kind of man who needed a lot of living space. He had enough room to have a little workshop-slash-library all to himself. Finally he had the feeling like his life belonged to himself, like he would not have to live in fear anymore.

And once his life had stabilized, Fen could finally afford to dream of more than simply living another day, of more than clawing his way up to the world even as his nails chipped and bled. Many an adventurer passed through Zirces, and the lands outside were marvelous despite their harshness. He was cautious at approaching Eagor with his new fascination, and was taken off-guard by how supportive the innkeeper had become. Fen had become something of an adopted son to him, and he wanted the young man to follow his dreams.

Strange though it may be to see an adventurer armed with a tea kettle, Fendwyr Flintridge is determined to become a household name all through Al’Dina, and maybe even all of Morisia.