Frank Winston was born in a dry creek bed outside Dustwater Gulch — a runt born to scavenger goblins who lived off the scraps of boomtowns and battlefields. Most of his kin didn’t make it past their first winter, but Frank was too stubborn to die.
He learned early that folks don’t hand you nothin’ unless they aim to take twice as much back. By the time he was big enough to hold a blade, Frank had already been a scout, a caravan guard, and a hired hand for more crooks and cowards than he could count.
They started callin’ him “Dustbite” after a skirmish out by the Salt Flats. Frank got thrown from his horse, face-first in the sand, with three men standin’ over him. He bit one’s leg, cut the other’s hamstring, and crawled up from the dust swingin’ like a wild dog. When the fight was done, he was the only one still breathing. The name stuck.
The Black Pike Outfit took him in soon after — a band of mercenaries that worked where the law didn’t reach. They weren’t heroes, but they were fair. Frank found a kind of peace among them — folk who didn’t care what he looked like, only whether he could hold the line.
But peace don’t last in the frontier. One job went wrong — a siege that turned into a bloodbath. The client skipped town with the gold, and the Black Pikes were branded raiders. Frank slipped away into the wastelands, taking whatever work kept him fed: bounty runs, guard duty, debt collecting for backroom bosses.
Then came the nobleman — a rich land baron who thought he could cheat a goblin out of his pay. Frank reminded him otherwise. Next thing he knew, he was waking up in a cell in Dustveil jail, his blades confiscated and his name blacklisted from every job board.
Now he spends his days staring through iron bars, chewing on the same thoughts over and over. Somebody sold him out. He just doesn’t know who yet. But when he finds out… the desert’ll drink deep again.