Hiraeth yr Hynafiad
In life a soldier and mercenary of many campaigns. A Royal Huntsman, or Ambuscadier (foreign title for a commissioned Ranger-class soldier) of the Royal Landsknecht of Gran Albionne, in death a sailor on the seas of fate and far-ranging expatriate.
In the course of his military adventurism, he was brought low by a misfortunately timed fusilade of enemy musket-fire, his rescue from the field where he had fallen, by the beautiful maid Cunégonde, daughter of the renowned Physic and Chirurgeon, The Baron Falkenstein, precipitated a fantastic chain of events.
Aswoon at the very door of death, the doughty footman of Lady Cunégonde made away with him from the battlefield, at the behest of his mistress, and carried him to the castle laboratorium. Whereat wondrous and terrible chymistries and galvanic stimulations of bodily humours, undertaken only at the tearful behest of fair Cunégonde, imploring her father most persuasively, did revitalize him.
Alive no longer, but possessed of singular animation, he bid chaste Cunégonde and the ingenious Baron, her father, regretful farewells amid many true-hearted promises to return, and rode forth to rejoin his fellows-in-arms in their campaign lest he be named a treasonous deserter.
Upon tracking his glorious unit, he discovered to his great regret that to a man, the entire regiment had been slaughtered to a man, and the battlefront carried on several leagues distant. In the course of seeking any survivors, he discovered a fantastic trove of gold and silver in the form of the Regiment's payroll. An amount of several thousands of gold pieces.
Joyfull at his fortunes of War, and intent on the hand of the beautiful Cunégonde in marriage, now that he had acquired means, he packed all the chests into a heavy ox-wagon and made his way back to the castle, only to find that in the days he was away, the castle had been besieged, breeched, and the Baron and his peerless daughter daughter slaughtered and their remains raised upon Catherine Wheels, without the castle gates, by the wicked brigands of the enemy army.
Bereft and mad from grief and the progressive loss of all memories of his previous life, he roamed for a time, masterless, without aim or direction, as he slowly lost his recollection of all his life. This blessed oblivion finally resulted in the loss of his memories of his beloved Cunégonde and her father and the circumstances of his resurrection save for vague glimpses and half-memories.
Freed finally from his grief and morose malaise, he set about the resumption of the practice of his trade. That being a man-at-arms, sell-sword, and low knight-errant. Now in possession of fabulous means, his treasure safely entrusted to the Royal Guildbanks, he armed and caparisoned himself in the finest harness and gear. Bought a grand frigate of the line. A vessel of forty cannon and triple-mast. Hired a stalwart crew and set sail, his heart no longer true to his homeland, and desirous of new sights and places that would not nag him with the ghosts of memories and agonies of longing and emotion whose cause he could not recall.
Upon the great seas of Alcott, a titanic storm swept up his frigate, driving it madly across the vast ocean to finally meet its end in shipwreck on the shores of North Morley.
The ordeal of 53 days at sea assailed by tremendous storms had once more taxed his mind near to breaking. Washing ashore among the bodies of all his crew, he remembered neither his own name, nor his great wealth across the sea. From the hulk of his ship, he retrieved a brace of fine and expensive pistols. Three in all. Of perfect working order. And a quatro of undamaged muskets still safe in their crate and packing. From the ship there were to be saved 3000 musket shot, and a dozen pressurized air reservoirs for small arms. A handful of smaller musket-ball molds of the kind for going-ashore, and five serviceable ingots of pure lead for creating further musket balls.
Burying what he was unable to carry safe on high and dry land, he set out across the seaside barrens in search of civilization and was soon rewarded with the discovery of [seaside town Barron comes from] and introduction to the language and customs of North Morley.
Two years later, he roams the kingdom with a fair command of the land's foreign tongue and plies his trade as a Huntsman and Forrester for such lords and townships as have need of such services.
He is remarkable for his possession and knowledge of pistol and musket as well as a doughty and reliable command of swordsmanship. None of which he can remember where or how he learned. He lives now under the name of Hiraeth yr Hynafiad, Graaf von Gran Albionne. A name and title pieced together from scraps that remained legible of his journal from his ship.