Characters/Greg Butkus

# Greg Butkus, the Shield of Raeran

## Greg Butkus

**Greg Butkus**, also known as Grog, - is a 33-year-old human soldier who was born in 1256 A.C. in a small village in the Holy State of Akkalat close to its border with Easter Raeran to the West. He is currently traveling with the party in Fayers Cove. His best friend is Dalerion Korr.

As a player character, Greg is a *Lv. 3 Fighter*. He first joined the story of the campaign in Session 0, making him a member of the original party.

## Backstory

### The culling of Halensmite

\* *This section partially mirrors Dalerion Korr's backstory segment "The culling of Halensmite".*

Born in a small village of Halensmite in the Holy State of Akkalat, Greg Butkus lived a humbled but peaceful life amidst the sea-wide shores of Western parts of the realm, just paces away from the Eastern Raeran border lands. Being that far away from the Akkalat's Capital the village of Halensmite was not influenced by the state's religion and hardly ever opened its gates to Faith Keepers emissaries. Be it luck, be it the fact that the village was located on the shore of the Narrow Sea, the Faith Keepers armed with maces, torches, and the golden waves banners - the symbol of Umely, the Goddess of the sea - never took interest in Halensmite's doings, nor its faithfulness to The Drowned Church. Yet, when they did, the locals were careful to hide all the tokens of their devotion to the deity that was not the "chosen".

That was until one fateful day, when a platoon of soldiers with an emissary of Faith Keepers was passing by, aiming to strengthen the borders to the West, noticed two children by the shore, drawing and scribbling in the sand. When approached by the curious emissary, they were quick to stand up and show respect to the armed figure, but too slow to realize that the waves did not wash away the eyes they had been drawing in the sand. And so they were the first to witness the anger of the state. They and Ioun, the Goddess of knowledge, to whom the children devoted their drawings of her symbol - the eye.

The quietness within the walls of the village quickly dried out, and with it the chaos and mayhem breached the gates and flooded the streets. Greg heard of the cullings before, everybody did, - the show of force and anger of the Faith Keepers supported by the radical soldiers of the state. They would execute, torture, and bleed the souls that dared to oppose the faith, to oppose The Drowned Church. But never could Greg think that it would one day come knocking on the doors. Not so soon, not here.

The young boy rushed to his family - to the house that was just around the cliffs. He avoided the main street and the mayhem and, instead, ran past the walls that did not hide the sounds of steel rendering flesh, past the fishnets and hauled boat bellies. When he finally reached the stones leading to his house - one of very few on the Western Side of the village - Greg looked up and realized he was too late. The fires have already started and the culling has begun. Rage filled his young pure heart, as he jumped onto the first stone leading to the wide-open doors, but before he could make it any closer, he was grabbed by his elbow and pulled back. A strong grip would not let the boy act on instincts and anger, as one of the villagers kept pushing him away.

His neighbor kept dragging him back to the shores below, - away from the slaughter. "*They are here, boy, they are here. Run. Run to the West, do not stop. Keep following the shoreline and hide. Hide if you need to, hide behind the rocks. I need to find the others*," - he barked and left the boy standing by the footsteps on the sand of those who ran for their lives.

Just above them, the emissary stood with a soldier who held a tome in his hands, curiously inspecting the now blood-soaked leathery cover. A tome that once had been a symbol of knowledge and now a testament to the cruel and brutal reality that Greg Butkus had to first witness and with years to come live with. "*Should we pursue them*," - the solder asked. The emissary waved his hand in a dismissive manner. “*Leave them. The culling waves shall take all the unfaithful. Be it they drown in their own heretic blood or the salty waters, I care not. Leave them, kill the rest*." That day Halensmite was burned to the ground and erased from the history of The Holy State of Akkalat, but not from the memories of those who managed to escape.

## External links

* DNDBeyond character sheet: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/107344265.