For generations, the Wurzels have plied the canals, rivers, and waterways of Peithris, selling their assorted wares to villagers and towns-folks. There is little that they do not sell, whether it be sturdy iron pots and pans from Hep, fine tree-spun linens from Tre’burale, waxed string and fur hats from the Northern Highlands, ingenious mousetraps of improbable design, dresses or shovels or even the odd trained ferret.
Arnold Wurzel—the third eldest son of Wilbur and Willowmena Wurzel—was as gifted a salesman as any halfling afloat, despite his junior years. With the rapid patter of a barge merchant and the implausibly trustworthy grin of one’s innocent young nephew, he sold whatever there was to sell, to whomever there was to buy it, often regardless of whether the buyer had much real need for more waxed string or yet another trained ferret.
Arnold also had a gift for throwing things, whether by hand or sling—a skill honed through many hours of skipping rocks along the canal waters on a summer day, or entertaining village children with feats of accuracy. His manual dexterity soon developed to the point of performing small acts of legerdemain as well—producing balls from ears of surprised clients, or quail from the vestment robes of a visiting cleric.
These small tricks often earned him a free ale or two in village pubs, a welcome refreshment as he indulged his passion for games of skill and chance, whether it be Four-Cornered Queens, Bugbears-in-a-Teapot, or a round of Dwarven darts (the latter being a contest that he rarely lost). While certainly skilled enough to cheat, he rarely did so—unless, that is, his opponent had it coming. Woe betide the lecherous traveller who harassed the buxom barmaids in the Dancing Duck, or bellowed rudely at the elderly bartender in the Pig-and-Spring. More often than not, these crass individuals would find themselves lured into a game of cards that would leave them much poorer than they started, as knowing locals looked on with barely-concealed bemusement. Indeed, in the small hamlet of Greentickle the story of the Right Honourable Augustine Thistlewhick (who lost his horse to the halfling in a game of Bluff-me-Mother after shouting at a stableboy) is still told by the locals with considerable laughter—not least by the stableboy who received the mare as a gift after the churlish jurist had departed the village on foot.
Yet there was, amidst the generally profitable and often idyllic life of a halfing bargemerchant, something of a problem. Arnold, you see, wanted more.
Later his parents would attribute this to far too much reading as a child, and far too much listening to exotic tales by mysterious strangers around the hearth of this pub or that. Arnold dreamed of doing something different, of something exciting, of seeing the world beyond the restricting confines of the rivers, waterways and marshes of Ward Kaloni.
And so it was that, one day, Arnold packed up his belongs, slipped his favourite ferret into his pocket, set off in search of adventure. The next few years he spent in and around the city of Tracer, where he had hoped to join the College of Bards. When an unexpected government decree closed the College—something about bards no longer being a core character class—he tried his hand instead at being a thief. Yet, while the dexterous halfling certainly had the skills to lift gold from pockets or open strongboxes, he lacked the lack of moral conviction to do the job well. Arnold, you see, liked the thieving, but didn’t like the stealing. Moreover, while stealing from the rich and evil raised rather fewer qualms, it did encounter the formidable challenge that the rich and evil tend to have the largest, and altogether nastiest, thugs in their employ.
This lesson was brought home to Arnold one day after an unfortunate series of events involving a demon-worshipping Sultorean noble, a missing ruby, and a half dozen of his tiefling retainers. Arnold quickly had to find a quick way out of Tracer. The solution was to sign on as a crewman aboard a soon-to-be-departing merchant ship, the Laughing Skua.
The Skua, captained by the grizzled but warm-hearted Finius Stormfroth, was typical of the merchants that ply the dangerous waters of Ellil, carrying wares across the Turest and Copper Seas. Some of the crew had been sailors all of their lives. Others—like Arnold—were variously seeking adventure or fleeing adventures-gone-wrong. The bond between them was strong, however (and to this date Arnold bears a small black tattoo of a skua upon his back as a sign of that brotherhood).
It was while serving aboard the Skua that he had first met Vigyori Estergom in a dingy bar in the port of Yasa, in western Demarackis. Arnold had disliked the place from the start: Empress Tavore ruled her Harael Empire with an iron-fist, as the bristling fortifications and many stern guards of the port indicated. The locals had a fearful, and suspicious, response to visitors. Informers, it seemed, were everywhere.
It was in this context that what started as a ordinary card game with a group of Haraelian sailors grew rather more confrontational after Arnold caught one of the group attempting (with the limited skill of a big folk) to secretly deal himself cards from the bottom of the deck. When Arnold commented on the fact, he had rapidly found himself confronted with a scimitar and several large clubs: it seems his fellow players had been attempting to play not the traditional sailor’s game of Jacks-in-the-Hole, but rather a rather unfriendly game of “fleece the halfling.” A melee quickly ensued.
The sight of the small halfling confronting a half dozen burly sailors quickly caught Viggo’s eye. At first it hadn’t been quite enough to move him from his large ale. Indeed, even when Arnold felled first one, then a second of his opponents with well-aimed bottles, Viggo had been only slightly distracted from his efforts to impress a wide-hipped barmaid with tales of caribou-wrestling during the Solstice Festival back in his native Festung.
That all changed, however, when the ranger was hit in the head by a chair thrown by the largest of the sailors—an angry-looking albino with a ragged scar across his bare, brawny chest. Truth be told, Arnold had quite deliberately leapt on Viggo’s table in the hopes of attracting furniture in his direction, with the precise aim of finding himself an ally. The Haraelian sailor had little chance to explain this, however, for Viggo’s very first blow knocked him out cold.
Over the next several minutes, the ranger from Kuz Valley and the halfling from the south Peithras fought back to back, until finally all six of the foe lay battered and bleeding at their feet. Viggo had wanted to take the battle on to the several dozen guards who, aroused by the commotion, were now rushing towards the tavern. Arnold convinced him otherwise, however, and the two slipped out the back way—carrying a half dozen more purses than they had entered with. Told of the event, Captain Stormfroth set sail immediately, abandoning a lucrative cargo of exotic oils that he had been bargaining to purchase. With speed, guile, and a great deal of luck the Skua slipped out of port, and made it to the safety of the open seas.
From this time on, the burly ranger and diminutive halfling became fast friends—to the point of Arnold renaming his ferret “Little Viggo” in honour of his rescuer at Yasa. The two served together as crew on the Skua for two more months, sailing across the Turest Sea to Tols and then on to Quirim. There, at (big) Viggo’s insistence, they left the ship at Tamarin, traveling on first to Issus (where the two met the redoubtable Grendel twins, Cynthia and Clarissa), and then west (where, several days later, they caught up to the sisters and reclaimed their missing gold).
Finally, Arnold and his ranger friend found themselves in Phirul. This, it turns out, had been Viggo’s intended destination: an inn called the Golden Gryphon, a woman called Aniia Toll, and Arnold’s first introduction to the Legion of Frontiersmen.
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