Garrett Twig-Gnawer

On a simple job gone wrong, he was attacked by a lycanthrope and left for dead on a path in the woods. A young girl came across him and raced to retrieve her mother to help. The woman, Lolia, nursed him back to health over the next few weeks. A shifter by nature, he thought himself immune to the sickness that was ravaging his blood.

In the few weeks in each others company a passionate evening or two occurred. The girl, no older than five, chirped and prattled constantly about all manner of childish nonsense. Garrett, having no love or patience for children, not even his own, did his best to simply ignore her. Nearing late evening, in the middle of his third week with them he started feeling ill and headed out into the night for fresh air. Unknown to him the little one had followed along.

As the moon reached it's fullest measure he was overtaken by pain and a need for violence, he crumpled, feeling as if his body were being snapped into pieces and put back together in a different shape. A scent, a gasp and his thoughts faded.

Come morning he awoke, back in his halfling form, body tacky with drying blood. He was nauseous and disoriented. The next few moments would be burned into his mind forever as his eyes began to make sense of the scene around him. The young girl's body was hardly discernible in the churned earth and bloodstained grass. He panicked.

He willed himself to shift into his natural form, that of a Climbdog, but it seemed that the lycanthropy had taken that from him. Tears streaming down his face, he ran. It was not very long before a vision of Loleah's face shimmered into existence before his eyes. Her face was taut with rage and grief, eyes red and swollen, "Death is too good for you after such an act dog, but you will never harm another child again!" And as swiftly as the image had come, it was gone.

He thought nothing of her words, until he began to travel back towards his home in Hound's Hills. He found himself veering away from his path, ending up peering through the windows of young children whose parents had scolded them too sternly or had woken in the night from a nightmare, compelled to stay and act as a guardian until the little one was calm again and at ease. Words of his deeds reached his home before he did. His wife guarded his sons against him. The townsfolk sneered at the scent in him that was other. They called him Wolf-Blood to his face and Young-Seeker behind his back. The Alphas issued no formal exile, but it was clear that he was not wanted.

His hound, a climbdog by the name of Shoe-Thief, whom he had been bond to since he had come of age would have nothing to do with him. Their bond shattered by the wolf's blood coursing through him. He gathered his gear and a supply of clothing and rations and set off, bidding the world he was raised in goodbye.

And this is where the many adventures of Garrett Twig-Gnawer begin.

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Is now considered an outsider and ageless, because reasons.