Growing up Goldwine was told he'd be nothing more than a carpenter. It's what his father was. It's what his grandfather was before him. It was simply what his family had done from time immemorable and generations long lost to history. To hear his father tell it, there was no more noble work than as an artisan. Unfortunately for Goldwine, artisans weren't in great demand, or held in great esteme, in his hometown. To the energetic youth, it was dull work that was looked down upon by all. Even the peasant farmers were above them in the socail hierarchy. Goldwine, like many boys, longed to be a great warrior. To be feared and awed by all he'd come across in his adventures across the land was his life's goal. With limited social mobility though, the best he could hope for was to be conscripted as a spearman in one of the local lord's pointless squables. If that happened, he'd be lucky to see home again, let alone a sword in his hand.
That was the way of things it seemed. That is, until the moon gang moved into town. Moon gangs got their name from the afliction that every member possesed: lycanthropy. It was a disease, if one could really call that, that brought greater musculature and agression to the victim, though often at the expense of critcal thinking. Originally it needed a full moon to present, receeding back into dormancy at night's end. However, in the last few centuries a new strain has arisen. Though still needing the full moon to kickstart the process, this new breed of lycan was altogether different from their forebearers. Less brutish and animalistic in nature and mind, these were gifts given in return for beinng less built than the original lycans. It also came with remaining in lycan form permanently. When the old competed with the new, the brains, comparitivelty, would win out over pure brawn and the new would soon replace the old. The fact that they could live in a civil society, after a form, proved a significant boon for this.
The new-blood quickly began to style themselves as warriors and, when needed, were often used as shock troops to smash enemy lines with great effect. Though lacking any sort of technique or finesse, lycan "warriors" possesed as sort of brute savagery hardly matched or countered on the battlefield. They were effective, if crude, tools. Little more than packs of thugs in their off time, where many saw revultion, Goldwine saw oportunity and he chased it. This was the ticket out of a dreary life. This was the ticket ro becoming a warrior. This was the ticket to living a life of adventure.
I mentioned in my last upload that I was starting to get ideas of Goldwine's place in the universe, and here it is. Still fleshing out ideas and details on his culture, but it's a mix of inspirations from Balkan (specifically Thracian and Byzantine) and early Germanic (think Roman tribal era) sources. Expect to see more of him in the future, that's for sure.
