He is friendly enough, though is quick to anger, and will easily revoke those who he deems have deserved his wrath. Generally of good morals, though he has a burning ambition to be better, and that has led him astray once or twice. He will treat his friends well, and come to their aid whenever they ask for him, even abandoning his own pursuits. In short if you can earn his trust, you can count on him.

On the flipside his ire, when provoked, will burn steady and bright like the forge where he earned his title back home. He does not forgive and forget lightly, and will treat any who do provoke him with anything from gruff contempt to outright verbal abuse, depending on how bad he deems their actions. Despite this it is possible to become a friend to him again, though one might wish to brave the nether first, for it is a simpler option.

Family/Brethren
Good Friend
Friend
Liked
Indifferent
Suspicious
Dislike
Hate
Dead/Gone
[rule]

The Apprentice: Mitty continues to work and study under my in the forge. She's not doing badly, and listens well. I watched her work on her own though once... It hurt to watch iron be worked so crudely. Hopefully I can get rid of that method.

The Old Warrior: He isn't with the group in Ravenna, so I assume he passed away on the journer. A shame, Mordecai was a good man, and asked for good weapons.

The town of Greycrag was a small town built on a large plateau high up in the folds of the Grey Mountains. The town itself was not the largest town, for its people toiled far too much for survival, and so were unable to focus too much attention on expanding and building great works. Every child born was put to use, taught a trade, and found a way to aid the townsfolk, else the town would struggle to support that child. There were no bards, no authors, save for those who stole away and practised in their quiet moments, or late at night. Greycrag was a town founded on purpose, and so had little time for luxury.

One might ask why such a town was even founded. It sits so high that crops do not grow well, and livestock grow strong and lithe, as opposed to fat and lazy. The answer, as it is with most things, was riches. Greycrag was founded to mine the rarest metal ore found in the Northern side of the Mainland. This metal, known as Drymaterite, could be smelted into tools and weapons stronger and lighter than any steel found anywhere else. You and I would know this metal as Titanium.

Luck did not aid the Greymen, the inhabitants of Greycrag, for though the of Drymaterite was steady, and seemingly endless; there was no easy way of getting it away to be sold, not since a landslide destroyed the main road out. You might think that a repair would be a good idea, and though unfortunate, this was not unlucky. The unlucky part was just to come. For once the road was cleared, and the great slabs repaved, the Xitians marched up the mountain and into Greycrag, having heard of its metal.

The townsfolk, though hardy and adaptable people, could not withstand the might of the Xitian Legion that took the town. They crushed the resistance, decimated the men of Greycrag and made everyone who was not yet dead into slaves. The men were forced to mine, smelt, or till the fields, whilst the women tended the Xitian slavers. This was how it would be for another forty-two years.

Let us now look on, twenty-two years since the Xitians took Greycrag. There had been a whole generation that had lived and grew up in that time, and a young Xitian man, named Turik, had done the unthinkable. He had taken fancy of one of the lowly Mesalian girls who served his older brother, Zurill. He spoke softly to her, and she rejected him. Angry and dejected he stole out into the night and reflected on what his people had done to the Mesalians.

He returned to the girl, sweet Alyssa, with more words of kindness and food. She continued to reject him, but he had a renewed effort, and though it took many months, she finally accepted his kindness and they began to see each other as was taboo in that time. They fell in love, and Turik promised to find a way to save the people, for he had rejected his fellow Xitians for their tyranny.

They consummated their love soon after, and then Turik snuck into his brother's bedchambers, and left his own flesh and blood with a knife in his throat. He was caught, and was held prisoner by his people. They looked on him with fascination. Siblings killing each other was not uncommon in Xitian families, especially not when those that died were in charge of whole settlements. They decided to release him, but would not pass onto him his brother's responsibilities.

Or they would have, were Alyssa's pregnancy not discovered. The Xitians beat her to find out who had fathered her child without consent. They would've have killed her, had Turik not come forth. His unspeakable actions changed his fate, and he was killed for what he had done. As such Alyssa was forced to bear child alone. The Xitians, though heartless as they could be, did not make her work whilst she was pregnant, else she produce a less than able child.

Nine months later and Alyssa's child was born. She named him Blake, a name that derived from black, as was the colour of what little hair he had on the day he was born. Most of the Greymen were or blonde or tawny brown hair colours. Alyssa was allowed to care for the boy until he could work. The Xitians allowed this since they now had a slave.

As Blake reached the age of seven he had been put to work as a quarry-rat for nigh on two years. It was his job, and the job of many other young children, to ferry supplies and resources to and fro, as fast as they could manage. Heavy picks and shovels. Sacks of stone and Drymaterite. Despite the crimson colour in his eyes, and the short black-tinged-red hair he had inherited from his Xitian father; he was offered no aid from them, and no dejection from his fellow slaves. They all knew how he had come to be, and how he could not be to blame for their situation.

Blake showed no skill in the Xitian art of manipulating the elements, despite having passed an age where it has usually occurred. Instead he discovered something else. For it was on the eve of when news of the Lucin forces reaching the Middle Realm, and of the war beginning, that Blake did discover that smithing was to be his life's trade. He had followed the town's smith, Torolf Iron-Hand, to his forge and watched as the man smelted and worked the pure Drymaterite. The Xitians took what he produced, and he looked saddened as he knew his only comfort was that his good work made the lives of his fellow townsfolk easier.

Blake crept into the forge, and asked Torolf to teach him. Torolf, though reluctant, saw the burning passion in those crimson eyes, and so took Blake as his apprentice, teaching him in every spare moment the trade that had been passed down since the first Greymen settled on the lonely plateau.

News of the war reached the Xitian Slavers and was received at first with great arrogance. They felt it humourous that the Lucins thought it possible to remove the Xitians. They did however work the slaves harder, driving them to dig out more stone and drymaterite. Even the lowest of the Xitians were seen inside the quarry itself, drawing the ore from the stone itself in order to speed up production.

Torolf found himself relieved at having taken Blake on, as the amount of work nearly tripled. The Xitians began to bolster Greycrag's defence, setting rockfall traps and building battlements around the edge of the plateau. Half of what Torolf produced became sword and armour and arrowheads for the Xitian Legion who had come at the slavers bequest. Blake learnt quickly, taking on a greater amount of work as the months passed.

The Xitians waited for the first signs of the Lucin battalions, but they never came. The first year went past and not a single soul travelled the mountain road to Greycrag. Each year rolled into the next, and though the town's defences stood strong, they did not see use. After four years of waiting, the slavers relaxed, and the Xitian Earth-workers retreated from the quarry to return to their lavish homes.

Blake however had stopped working in the quarry completely, becoming a full apprentice to the now ageing Torolf. Now a young teenager Blake worked the bellows, pounded the metal, and cooled it in the water whilst Torolf barked orders and instructions. It never sounded like a happy place, but the two were firm friends, and there was not a hint of disdain in the words that Torolf shouted.

Finally ten years of war passed, and the war itself ended. Yet the Xitians had not been sieged, nor had they left. Greycrag, it seemed, had been forgotten. The Xitians, now on edge, worked their slaves as hard as they every had. They were ready, it appeared, to hold Greycrag no matter what.

It took two more years for the Xitians to be shown how wrong they were.

One night, under cover of darkness, a battalion formed outside Greycrag. The Lucins had finally heard of the town of Greycrag, and had come to see what could be done. The Xitians were awoken to the sound of cheering from their slaves as the Greymen saw the blue eyes of their saviours. They readied themselves atop the battlements. The Lucins outnumbered them 3-1, but the Xitians had the high ground, and their defences. Yet they had not fought a real enemy in over forty-two years. The Xitians who had been born and had lived in Greycrag had only trained against their peers. Learning how to fight, disarm, and kill each other. Yet they had never put it to the test, and it was to be their undoing.

The Lucins stormed the gate and the Xitians released their rockfalls. At least twenty Lucins fell in those first ten minutes. The Xitians atop the battlements rained arrows upon their foes, and the archers at the rear of the battalion returned in kind. The gate was finally broken, and the battalion moved into the town as they had done countless other times. This then, was the final stand of the Xitians of Greycrag, and they never stood a chance. For though the odds had now been evened by the arrows, the experience of the Lucins far outweighed the familiarity the Xitians had with the terrain. Within two hours the battle was dead, and Greycrag finally freed.

The Lucins found Blake, and brought him forth to die for his blood, but there was a resurgence from the now freed townsfolk, as they moved to protect the young man, now aged nineteen. The Lucins, realising now that he was not like those who had held the town, released him, and set about cleaning up.

Blake continued to work the forge, earning the name of 'Crimson Hammer' from Torolf for his strong strokes in forging, and his crimson eyes. The townsfolk, on his twenty-first birthday bestowed upon him his surname. He became Blake Heart-Fire, the Crimson Hammer of Greycrag. A year later his greatest friend and mentor Torolf passed from this world, and Blake personally saw to his burial.

He forged a great many tools for his townsfolk, and took on an apprentice of his own. Three years later a traveller met with Blake, after having heard of the Crimson-eyed smith of Greycrag. He himself was a Xitian, one of the last, and he came to see if Blake, now twenty-four, was like himself.

Blake and his elderly mother explained of his father, and of his birth, and the Xitian, who had introduced himself as Rig, offered to find the talent of Blake, and train him to master it. Blake, still working the forge, now had himself a new mentor. After a month of work Rig discovered that Blake could manipulate fire, and so worked on teaching him how to wield and bend it to his will.

As the years passed once more Blake continued to train with Rig, as well as train Hafgar, the apprentice who now learnt the trade as eagerly as Blake once did. The fires of the forge grew ever brighter, and the works Blake produced ever greater, as he manipulated the fires of the forge to aid in his work. Rig, though personally seeing little worth in this, could not deny how far he had come to one learning so late in life. Blake's hunger for knowledge was still there.

At the age of thirty-two Blake's mother Alyssa finally passed away. She had been suffering from some disease that the town doctor could not fathom, and one night, as Blake held her hand, she passed, saying how proud she was of her darling son, and how proud his father would have been.

The fires of the forge smouldered for a week with Blake's mourning, as once again he buried those closest to him. Now he saw little reason to remain in Greycrag, as he was either reminded of his mother, or his friend.

Rig and Blake departed two weeks later, setting out to make a name for themselves, as Rig was what Blake would have called an Earth-worker. Together they headed North after finally reaching the base of the Grey mountains, and began crossing a great plain.

It was but two weeks after that they finally beheld Chrysaor, now sitting in the midst of civil war. Neither man wished to be part of fighting again, and so passed great Chrysaor by as they headed further North. They eventually came to a small port town called Nautali, and set up shop on the Southern side of town. Together they lived and worked, Blake in the forge that Rig raised from the ground itself, and Rig aiding those in the mines, for though he was now a man as old as fifty-five, the work was not hard as he drew what he needed from the cold, stony embrace of the ground herself.

They were happy, and the war passed Nautali by, save for the odd tale of battle that came with the traveller's seeking passage to the Forbidden Lands. Both Rig and Blake entertained the idea of going, but neither had the heart to leave what they built for themselves there. Instead they occupied themselves with their work, and Blake took to hunting with a bow in his spare time, learning from Nautali's master hunter.

Until one night, eight years since they arrived in Nautali, fate was to take Blake's friend from him once more. Insurrectionists, looking for weapons, broke into the forge, and the house which adjoined it, and took captive both Rig and Blake. They tried to force Blake to give them everything, at first through tempting him with talk of glory, then moving on to threatening to kill Rig.

It was at the point where the blade of one of their knives touched Rig's skin that the stone shot up through the floor and killed two of the men outright. The other five, now scared, attacked both men, and Rig was cut down, unable to truly defend himself. Blake watched as his elderly friend fell bleeding to the floor.

And then the forge erupted.

Fire spewed forth from the smouldering ashes, and whipped through the house, snaking their way to gently caress everything wooden. The house was soon aflame, and Blake carried his friend, diverting the raging fires around them. The screams of the five men echoed into the night and the rest of the townsfolk watched as Blake steadily carried Rig's form from the burning building.

After the burial Blake asked for passage to the Forbidden Lands. He had lost all he owned in the fire, save for the clothes on his back. The people he had known for so many years gave him plenty of food for the journey, and wished him luck. His only other close friend in Nautali, the ship's first mate, made sure he travelled in absolute comfort.

The journey lasted many months, and ended as he awoke once more to the smell of the sea, and something else. A fresh, moist smell. It was then he realised that the waves no longer rolled along the boat, but lapped gently at the sides. He had made land, and the crew saw him off, wishing him all the best in his endeavours.

He stood on the stone dock, looking out at the town before him. The place seemed gentle enough, and so he took the first steps, reading the sign as he passed.

"Auria"