Elfrod

Efrod was born to his widowed mother on
their quaint little house in the hills of Dale.
His father died by when he attempted to run from thieves.  As he was fleeing from them, he tripped, fell
off a bridge and drowned in the river.  He never was a good swimmer.  Around a year after his birth, Elfrod was
still unnamed, so his mother took him to an elven settlement and have their
lord name him.  She thought elven names
sounded interesting, but couldn’t think of any.
As his mother and lord were discussing names, Elfrod noticed a roaring
fire in the fireplace.  Half poking out
of the fire was a metallic rod used to stoke the fire.  Because the curious child he was, Elfrod
crawled over to examine the rod.  When he
pulled the rod out, the half that was in the fire was glowing red hot.  He then took the rod and crawled over to
where the elven lord was sitting, and whacked him in the leg.  The heat from the rod engulfed the lord's
cloak in flames.  The lord than screamed
in terror and ran into a nearby lake in panic.
After the fire was doused, the lord banished Elfrod and his mother from
every coming into their village again.
He also enchanted a curse upon the rod that Elfrod was holding so that
it burned forever and he had to carry it for as long as he lived.  Thus granting his name, Elfrod.  Around a year later, his mother grew an
exponential love for sheep, so she decided to start a sheep farm.   They lived fairly normal lives for a while.

When Elfrod became the age of 14, his
mother went out to feed the sheep one morning as usual, but one of the sheep
grew rabid.  When his mother entered the
pen, the rabid sheep pounced on her and ripped her to shreds and consumed her,
bones and all.  Elfrod, absolutely
mortified by this, went on an angered rampage and slaughtered every single
sheep in the pen.  He furiously hacked
away at the sheep with his cursed rod, combusting every single one.  Once the dust settled, he vowed to kill every
single sheep he was to come across in his mother’s name.  Ever since then, whenever Elfrod was bored,
he would practice his combat skills with his cursed rod.  During the rampage, he realized it makes for
quite a good weapon.  He became quite
fluent in this new-found form of combat.
By the time Elfrod was 19, he had run out of his reserve money that used
to be his mother’s.  He wasn’t too fond
of working, so Elfrod sold his cottage and used the money to try and gamble his
way through life.  About a month later,
he was broke, so he decided it was time to actually take up a profession.  He tried being a farmer’s hand, but he hated
this line of work.  He tried being a
courier, but he very often got jumped and just willingly handed over the parcels,
so he was fired.  He tried pretty much
every job available in Dale, with no success.
Elfrod then resorted to begging on the streets.  In a couple of days, he managed to obtain a
couple of scraps and a few pieces of coin, which he used to buy more
scraps.  He was starving.  Then, a stranger came by and, instead of
giving him coin or food, he gave Elfrod a lute and taught him how to play
it.  Elfrod became quite decent at
playing, which nearly doubled his income.

A couple of days later, an edgy looking
guy came by Elfrod.  He looked down at
Elfrod and said nothing.  Elfrod looked
back up at him.  They stared at each
other for about five minutes.  The guy
finally introduced himself as Kinith the Monster Hunter.  He told Elfrod he was on his way to form a
new town and asked him if he wanted to join.
Before he could even finish, Elfrod was on his feet and ready to
go.  They traveled together to find
suitable land for their new town.  On the
way, they met a maiden whose name was Reya, who excelled in making
alcohol.  She decided to join them on their
quest for new lands.  The three of them
became the best friends.  Elfrod decided
that once they found suitable land, he would build his own tavern.  He made a business deal with Reya in which
she would brew the alcohol and he would sell it in his tavern.  Elfrod finally found his passion.

Once they found a decent place, Elfrod
immediately began working on his tavern, while Kinith began building a farm.  They founded their new town near the border
of Mirkwood.  They were close enough so
that Kinith could easily go out and hunt, but just far enough so the spiders
wouldn’t bother them.  They named their
new town *Dirthavaren*, meaning “The
Promise”.  Pretty soon, Elfrod had his
tavern, *The TopKeg Tavern*, up and
running.  He had a fair amount of
business, but people adored the alcohol that Reya had brewed.  Elfrod was loving his newfound purpose.  Their lives went on as usual for quite a
while.

A few months went by without a hinge, but
all was not well elsewhere.  Tension was
growing between Dale and The Gundabad and eventually the two factions broke out
in war.  Elfrod and Kinith fought in a
couple of battles, but Reya was so sick and tired of the war, she left their
town to live on her own.  Kinith soon
after realized he was bored with just farming and decided to leave as well,
leaving Elfrod completely alone.  Elfrod
was alright with being alone for a little while, but eventually he grew
incredibly lonely.  He even considered
suicide.  His personality completely turned
around.  He wasn’t the fun-loving
sarcastic idiot he used to be.  As each
day passed by he grew more and more depressed.
Eventually, he grew so tired of being alone, he decided to close down
his tavern and wander alone.

Elfrod followed the river going south for
a few weeks and soon arrived to a small port town.  He snuck onto a cargo ship headed to Rhûn and stowed
away.  The ship traveled about a week until
the crew finally found Elfrod.  They told
him that they would drop him off in the nearest port with no penalty if he were
to work as a crewmember.  Elfrod, with absolutely
no experience with any kind of boat, said yes.
Luckily, they only assigned him as a swabbie, so no experience was
needed.  Around a week later they reached
the mouth of a river that flows from the Sea of Rhûn to the Ash Mountains.  There was a port town where Elfrod was
dropped off.  He lived and begged in the
streets of that town for a couple of weeks.
He got a bit of déjà vu.  One
morning, he was walking down the streets like normal when he saw a little girl
crying.  Elfrod went to her and asked
what was wrong.  She said that both her
parents were killed when their home was robbed and that she was starving.  Elfrod couldn’t help but empathize for her.  He went to a nearby fruit vender and asked
for an apple.  Unfortunately, Elfrod didn’t
have enough coin, so he just stole the apple.
He ran about 10 feet until the vendor yelled “Theif!” and the guards
were on his tail.  He ran passed the
little girl and tossed her the apple as he sped by.  Luckily the guards didn’t catch this and kept
running after Elfrod.  As he was running,
he noticed off to the side a stack of barrels wrapped together by a rope
mesh.  With a swift flick of arm, Elfrod’s
cursed rod emerged out of his sleeve into his hand.  As he was running by the barrels, he swung
the rod at the mesh net, causing it to burn and the barrels to fall on top of
the pursuing guards.  Elfrod quickly clambered
up a building onto a balcony and looked below to see the guards struggling to
recover. He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.
He turned around and immediately was eye to eye with a woman in silk
robes and a very disgruntled look on her face.
He only caught a glimpse of her until she slapped him in the face, knocking him out cold.

Elfrod slowly came to in a
small black metal room with just a bit of hay for bedding and a singular door
with a small barred window.  He then
realized the room was bobbing.  He shot
up to the door and saw a road moving forward.
He was in a prison carriage.  He
yelled for help but his only response was a bang on the door that echoed
throughout the cage.  Elfrod looked out the
window to the left and noticed a guard leaning on a rail for support.  Elfrod asked the guard how long he had been
out.  The guard didn’t say a word.  Elfrod sat in silence for what felt like
weeks with scarce rations.  Eventually,
the carriage came to a sudden halt.  The door
swung open and two guards entered.  They
each grabbed one of Elfrod’s arms and escorted him out of the carriage.  When Elfrod got his bearings, he looked
around and found himself to be in a rather large city.  “Welcome to the Capital of Palisor, your new permeant
home.” one the guards said with a devilish grin on his face.  The guards escorted Elfrod through the city
and came to a large palace.  They entered
the palace and went through a series of hallways until they a large room with a
throne in the middle.  Seated in the
throne was a woman in silk robes and a very disgruntled look on her face.  It didn’t take Elfrod to figure out this was
the woman that slapped him.  It didn’t
take much longer for Elfrod to figure out that this woman sitting upon a throne
was the empress of Palisor.  She went on
to explain all the infractions that Elfrod committed and sentenced him to be a
slave of the empress for the rest of his life.