Whelan "Mad" Wrynn

Half-Orc Haunted One Barbarian

Whelan was born to strife in the mud and muck of the hill town of Cwym. Amongst the hill people, strength was respected, might made right, and a good scrap was just how you said hello.

Whelan flourished in the mud, growing like a weed, tall and lithe. The residents of Cwym quickly learned his lack of bulk did not mean a lack of strength. And his skill with a sword was a match for men twice his age.

Whelan spent his years like many hill youth, banding up every spring to skirmish in the hopes some nearby noble needed bodies to wage war through the warm months. It was during one of these skirmishes, pursuing a member of Rikard's Marauders deep within the Blackwood, that Whelan suddenly found himself lost and alone.

He wandered for hours before coming across a strange home. It looked rickety and run down and the angles never seemed to match up, but a thin wisp of smoke spiraled up from the chimney. Whelan knocked and no sooner did he touch the door as he suddenly stood inside, facing an old crone. His heart jumped into his throat from the shock and then skipped a beat when he realized the old woman was Muireann, the Witch of the Blackwood. She scowled, shuffling forward to grip him by the jaw (her grasp was as cold and solid as iron) and pulled his head down to her level. Her beady black eyes stared into his soul and she ... laughed? She shuffled across the cottage and pulled an immense sword off the wall. "This is the Father of Blades. It has been waiting for you." She handed him the sword (he felt his hand reach out and grasp the hilt of its own accord). Then the witch pulled his head even lower and twisted him to the side to whisper a dark secret in his ear - the time and manner of his death. "Leave now. The Father thirsts."

In a blink, Whelan now stood outside Cwym. Shaken, he turned his back on the town and set off down the road, wondering what The Father wanted. Since then, he has earned the name Whelan Mad from the people of the north for his ferocious, offensive fighting style, disregarding all thought of defense or self-preservation in pursuit of the blood and souls that briefly slake The Father's thirst.