Pryn Wōd of the Northfields

• Born: 604 DR
• Died: Alive

Krāden is a bent and angry-looking little man with a wild gray beard, browned pate and an over-sized lower lip that jiggles when he turns his head. He walks with the aid of a slender white staff which leaves odd three-mark footprints across the Kre Dùlnar sands. The club-footed druid leaves his home in the Northfields of Oð before dawn each morning, walking down a set series of alleys and channels to the city harbor. There, he carefully picks his way down a rickety wooden staircase that switchbacks down the sheer stone wall until his rag-bound feet touch the beach. As the dimmest dawn’s light filters down into the harbor’s rocky maw, the old man begins his morning beachcombing; collecting all manner of small shells and other flotsam left by the retreating tide. When inspired, Krāden leaves cryptic messages in the sand before the sun rises. When morning comes and the water grows foamy with breaking waves, Krāden works slowly back to his staircase and returns along the long path home.

He is fond of other people, but when forced to interact introduces himself as Meren. Like many that reside in Oð, Krāden is a transplant from another place. Where that might be, he does not know. His earliest memory is laying atop a plank of wood watching seagulls standing at the timber’s end as they floated in the sea. His next memory is of fisherman hauling him into their boat and asking questions with words he did not understand. He knows his name to be Krāden, but invented the name Meren at an early time feeling his true identity was something he needed to protect. Years later, he could only surmise that his family had been lost in a shipwreck along the rocky coastline and that he alone survived. He was raised by several fishing families, being moved around much of his childhood for none could easily support an extra mouth to feed. Though he never gained a trust of boats he remained fascinated by the sea and its shores. His unwillingness to help on the fishing boats earned him shame and ridicule from those that thought him ungrateful.

At the age of fifteen, he left the families of Bōttòn Liçe behind and wandered the Northfields and western lands beyond the City. In the town of Anspar, Krāden met a mountain woman who’d hiked down to trade pelts and crystals for supplies before returning to her retreat somewhere high in the Tor’n Evalshat. She spoke very little and met Krāden’s glance only once. Krāden felt an attraction to this woman and followed her into the mountains, making no attempt to conceal himself. Days later she entered a small cave opening, started a fire and made a meal for them both. Tikea spent the next six years teaching Krāden the ways of Woad. At the end of this period he was taken to the high plateau and introduced to other mountain people that gathered there. Standing among them he told his story. The druids listened carefully, beneath the massive stones they believed to be incarnation of their primeval god. When he had finished, the eldest stonewatcher among them (for no-one could guess her age) stood and placed his hands on Krāden’s shoulders. He explained that the Knerl was no place for the young man and that he must return to the sea that gave birth to him. Only there, the woman explained, would he learn his purpose. The others agreed to this and so Krāden thanked them and left the high plateau, returning to the land beneath the sickening black pall. Since that time he has searched the shores for answers to his past and future, leaving messages in the sand that are read and swallowed by the sea in the hopes that one day, it will answer him.

Krāden is not known to have any permanent possessions other than a white walking-staff and the leather pouch of findings that hangs about his neck. Other than the treasures he collects from the harbor beach, he keeps small shell talismans and mistletoe in the large pouch.

male Yrūn Drd3 (Wōd); CR 3; Medium Humanoid; HD 3d8+3; hp 22; Init +0; Spd 30 ft.; AC 10; DR –/–; Atks +2 melee (Unarmed); Face/Reach 5 ft. x 5 ft.; Special Abilities: Animal Companion, Nature Sense, Trackless Step, Woodland Stride; AL N; Fort +4; Ref +1; Wil +6; Str 10; Dex 10; Con 13; Int 13; Wis 16; Cha 12; Height 5 ft. 6 in.; Weight 126 lb; Feats: Enlarge Spell, Expertise, Improved Disarm; Skills: Speak Language (Oðic), Speak Language (Druidic), Speak Language (Urdàric), Read/Scribe 1, Animal Empathy 4, Handle Animal 4, Heal 7, Search 3, Spellcraft 5, Spot 4, Survival 9, Swim 6; Spells (4/3/2); Possessions: Driftwood Staff, Large Pouch