Thanhold

The lean, aged (~70s) ex-warrior nobleman raising the loyalist settlement of New Halfwood — "the purveyor of this settlement to be constructed," land-title owner of the rebuild. Carefully fluffed mustache, slicked receding hair, a nobleman's long coat over a labourer's leather pants and old militia marching boots; to the martially-trained he plainly read as a capable fighter in his prime. He fought in the original battle of Old Halfwood ~40 years ago (in his early 30s then) and carries its memory hard.

(Name heard as both "Thanhol" and "Thanhold"; spelling unsettled.)

Session 45

• Welcomes the party to the New Halfwood camp with a regal Orathi bow, after his blue-jacket scouts (the leader Hollander among them) escort them in; asks how he may help.
• At the words "Old Halfwood," every soldier in earshot bares their head — and a vein tenses in Thanhold's neck. He fought there four decades ago, when Laewendas's soldiers razed the village.
• The corpsewalkers. Hearing of the undead in the woods, he compliments the party for pyring the dead rather than leaving them to rot, and offers to send men to clean up. His full aims for New Halfwood are unstated.

Session 46

• The camp tour. Acting as the camp's organiser, he lays out New Halfwood's factions for the party — rival blue-jacket knots, a guerrilla detail, supply-guards, scouts — and points them to its key figures: the "esteemed leader" drilling troops, the mage Humphrey (and the food crisis), and the cliffside undead-killers (Golgain, the Grey Man).

Session 48

• The settlement's future. As the party passes back through, he lays out New Halfwood's road ahead: first "build something worth protecting," then the politics of which church domains get to settle (reps who "don't get along") — musing about dropping the Church of the Witches for the "newfangled fire religion." Frets a rival might build on the land the party claimed up north; floats a future trade/correspondence pact between the two towns.
• The traitor question. Raises the unanswered riddle of who betrayed King Aethelric to Laewendas 40+ years ago — a traitor who'd be ~60 now, "Thanhold's age" — unknowingly pointing the party's suspicion at Eldrich the Elder ("we only know one old man"). See Canon Questions.