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 Post subject: Aywols I
PostPosted: October 26th, 2017, 9:13 pm 
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Aywols I


I, Aywols V, have begun compiling all existing records regarding the history of Killoch. Our town began with a man known only as Aywols. His history is known little to us, only relayed via story and official documents. The following are accounts by Aywols II and his mother Maidie. What little official documentation exists of Aywols is also presented. The interviews of Aywols II (birth given name Coinneach) and Maidie were done by Aywols III as part of a hope to preserve and gain insight into the history of Killoch.


From Aywols II interview in 499 A.I.

“Aywols the first, the man I consider my true father came ashore from a far-off land, far to the west. He told me he escaped “the apocalypse”, what he cryptically told me when I was little was something he hoped no one else would ever have to see again. It was a horror, he said the demon of the under itself came from cracks in the land, burning and destroying. I could never quite understand what he meant when he talked of it, whether he meant it literal or if there was something more. And when back then I would try to ask him to explain it but his eyes always became glassy and his voice distant.

“Perhaps another time.” He always said to me excusing himself from whatever we were doing to take some time alone.

I learned to stop asking after a certain age, and of course he disappeared from my life all together soon after. I was so bitter then…”


Selected from official Empire records regarding Serf Aywols:

455 A.I. The refugee Aywols has been resettled in Duke Ferris’ lands after swearing fealty. Stated intentions are that he is a devout man seeking a place to live out his days. No known criminal record, DOB undetermined, next of kin undetermined, other alias unknown. Due to uncertainty of previous record, Duke Ferris is advised to keep Serf Aywols under constant surveillance.

466 A.I. Serf Aywols is hereby granted the request to resettle and homestead on Loch Aberdeene. No other settlers have been requested to accompany him.

473 A.I. The serf Aywols was found deceased in his homestead on the north-western shores of Loch Aberdeene. Tax collectors had come to collect but no response was given to repeated door knocks and notice of payment due. Forced to enter the home, they found no sign of recent activity and the serf in question deceased in bed. A search for next of kin proved fruitless. Serf Aywols was buried near his homestead in an unmarked grave.”



From Maidie, mother of Aywols II in an interview conducted in 499 A.I.

“He came into our lives by pure chance. It must have been the winter of 457 and I had come down horribly ill and my son was still a baby then. I was on the street, out of work, winter was coming on and I had nothing. My ribs showed through and the little one was so weak he could not even cry, what little he could muster was quelled by sickness. We dressed in rags and ate scraps scrounging to survive. But I was too weak and I had brought my son and myself to death’s doorstep.

I had grown so weak I could no longer feed my son and could barely move. I simply gasped “Please… help… help us…” and my words fell on deaf ears to the godless people of the city. I can barely remember it anymore, but I recall him coming by and hearing Coinneach try to cry because he was so hungry. He said something but I cannot remember it, I don’t think I even understood what he asked at the time I was so sick. I think I just said please and tried to give him Coinneach. I just wanted to save him.

He picked me and my son up, but I was so weak I went limp in his arms. He took us to a hospital and there we stayed for what must have been months. The bill must have been unimaginably high but, and I still cannot believe it to this day, we never paid a penny. Aywols, that kind stranger, paid for everything.

I remember conversations, really arguments more so, between Aywols and the doctor. I recall hearing the doctor saying I couldn’t be treated, I would not make it, that I was already condemned. Others were of the Coinneach’s stagnant condition, that he was not putting on weight and the cough was not going away. But one dialogue is clear in my mind.

I remember the doctor pulled Aywols aside early in my treatment. The doctor said “Mister, you don’t understand who this girl is. She’s of the gutter sir, she is not like you or me. She is sick not with anything she caught from bad air, it’s something only women of a certain profession get…” The doctor then trailed off, surprised because Aywols’s face had not changed.

That kind stranger, bless his heart, responded “Doctor, if you believe I give a damn where she is from and if you want to assume who and what I am then I will take her and my coin elsewhere.” Aywols said unfazed, steadfast in his belief. When he spoke his words came forth like that of god given truth. “You will treat her and you will give this woman, this human being, the proper care she deserves.”

So now you see why I was so sick. I had caught it in my line of work, and I know that working in a brothel is not the sort of job you’d see a pious woman normally in but at the time I was trying to survive. A plague had swept through the city in 556 A.I. and taken my parents with it. I was only 16 and had no parents, no husband, and no family to turn to. I didn’t go to school either, you think we had money for that? I grew up poor and after that I was even worse off. I worked a few years in that damn whorehouse before I became pregnant and that’s where Coinneach came from. Not long after I gave birth to him I became sick.

I still do not know why he felt compelled to help us. I learned over time that he was a jack of all trades. He could fight apparently but never took joy in it. He worked in a blacksmith shop where they said he swung the hammer like he was twenty years younger. He worked as a ship hand too and spent a lot of time out on logging trips around the Loch. He even seemed to be able to work on clothes because he knew a tailor quite well and seemed to know a thing or two.

The best clue I have to him however is the book he always had with him. It was his journal but the inside was reserved solely for religious writing. He gave us quotes and taught us ideals about his faith and I took them to heart, after all, they saved me and my son’s life. After he left town I visited the local church and asked if they knew him but all they said he came in often, arrived early, and left late.

After I became healthy again he found me work with that tailor he knew mending clothes, though I had to learn on the job. But after I could support myself he stopped coming to see us as often, in fact he only came once or twice a year towards the end of our time together. Coinneach would ask me, “When’s dad coming back?” and I couldn’t ever answer him. It shocked me the first time he called Aywols dad but looking back I’m not surprised, he was the closest Coinneach ever had to one.

I don’t think Aywols ever knew how Coinneach regarded him and he left town in 467. That’s the last time either of us saw him, but what he did for us I have never forgotten. We weren’t related at all, but I think we were the closest thing he ever had to family…”

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 Post subject: Re: Aywols I
PostPosted: October 27th, 2017, 12:56 am 
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Joined: May 30th, 2015, 10:17 am
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A hardship that thousands of denizens of the Empire go through all too often. One such tale as this with a positive ending is always welcome.

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 Post subject: Re: Aywols I
PostPosted: October 30th, 2017, 3:26 am 
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Joined: May 31st, 2015, 3:32 am
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Very interesting recap of historical events of your characters development. I like the detail that was placed in this for sure!

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Scrios V
King of Perth, Brother of Valyria


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