Golgain

A weathered, burned-faced blue-jacket war veteran of the cliffside camp above New Halfwood — ring-hooped ears, long hair he brushes aside to show the neck X-tattoo the bitten wear. He fought at the original burning of Old Halfwood ~40 years ago, when "the bitch queen Laewendas came to kill us all," and has spent the years since cutting down the woods' undead. Grim, practical, and sharp with the maths of war.

(Spelling heard as "Golgain"/"Golgaine"/"Gulgain"; open.)

Session 46

• The veteran's account. Tells the party he survived Old Halfwood's massacre by scattering into the woods; the queen's soldiers burned everything but the church, which he believes still stands (and is "a bit creepy"). The undead, he stresses, began only ~1 year ago and have nothing to do with Old Halfwood — a necromancer-type in the woods, north and west, is the likely cause.
• The maths of war. Computes his own kill-count aloud — ~10 a day, 6 days a week, ~50 weeks — to ~2,500 undead, and explains numbers are a soldier's trade (arrows left, men to flank). Reckons he could kill 4,000–8,000 more before one finally bites him.
• The X-tattoo. Shows the neck X inked on every vet who's been bitten: a standing order to burn the body on death, even over a grieving family's objection. The fresh-faced recruits below mostly refuse it.
• Sword reground. Lash sharpens and resizes his ill-fitting looted longsword (4 inches too long for its scabbard) to +1 damage. Golgain joins the party for the march on the Druid's Grove (with Andross and Privet; Borgish hauls the great-berries home instead).