Cain

Cain's Family

Cain was born in September of the year 1341, during the shared and sacred festival (Runemeet) of the Grey Wolf and Black Raven barbarian clans, in a mountainous region called Raven Rock. Raven Rock is located on Faerûn's northwestern coast, in the middle of a mountain range called The Spine of the World.

At the moment of his birth, Cain received, along with membership in the Grey Wolf clan, a lycanthropic (werewolf) trait as a family and clan inheritance, the mastery of which — and living with its nature — will be his challenge throughout his life.

Cain's father, Gyleon Greystone, is a close military friend of clan chief Alrik Tenstone and serves as head of the Greystone family. Cain's mother, Lyne Greystone, takes care of the family. Cain has four younger siblings, two brothers and two sisters.

Cain's actual home is located in the great forest of Lurkwood, south of the mountains of the Kingdom of Many Arrows.

Cain's Military Background

At 16, as part of a rite of manhood, Cain joined the military brotherhood led by clan chief Alrik Tenstone, whose task is to protect and serve both their own clan and the whole of the Uthgardt as the situation demands.

Everlund's guard captain, Orlan Tardiff, knows Gyleon from a younger age, from their earlier shared military ventures and operations. Orlan and Gyleon became friends and stay in loose contact even in adulthood. Gyleon advised Cain to seek out Orlan and look for work that would give Cain more experience and knowledge for any coming orc wars.

The barbarians' most hated enemy is the orc king Obould, who is reportedly active somewhere further north, in the realm of the Kingdom of Many Arrows.

Description of Cain

Cain is 25 years old, 193cm tall, and a hundred-kilo barbarian warrior.

Cain has long black hair, blue eyes, and pale, fair skin. Cain's build is very muscular and imposing. Departing from the traditionally lighter barbarian style of dress, Cain wears a military-style black solid breastplate protecting the chest/upper body while leaving the arms bare, with leather-edged padding. Metal-and-leather vambraces protect his hands and wrists. Cain wears black fur and darker clothing made of animal hides and cloth, and leather boots suited to the season. Resting on Cain's shoulders is a half-length cloak made of black wolf pelt and fur.

Cain's appearance — his harsh features, staring gaze, cold, grim expression combined with a powerful physical build — doesn't easily evoke a pleasant impression, but rather uncertainty and fear.

On Cain's Character

The quick and easy first impression one gets of Cain is that he is harsh, grandiose, simple, uncivilized, off-putting, grim, and brutal and crude in values, as well as gruff. This first impression is fed and sustained not only by his tendency toward aggression and blunt language, but also by Cain's animalistically cold, calculating, staring gaze. Cain's body language and behavior come across as a universal indifference to social relationships and a restraint from normative abandon and fun. Cain is a figure people don't like to invite to parties, since he resonates with uncertain people through fear and menace.

As a person, Cain is serious and introverted. He's comfortable in his own privacy, obedient to his culture's and tribe's traditions and values. In social situations Cain is present, but filters out part of the interaction. This stems from his own kind of bluntness and worldview, which is clear and which he's strongly in touch with. Cain is strongly in touch with his own aggression, shaped by his clan and military training background.

Cain is at times unpredictable, guarded, and impulsive, which shows in new relationships and in combat situations. Cain's positive traits are unconditional loyalty and reliability in situations demanding exceptional courage and the defense of the weaker. Cain defines through his own moral code who he judges to be in the role of "weaker."

Cain's "fatal flaw" can be considered his eagerness for combat, his warlike nature, and his obsession with seeing enemies' blood and severed limbs as the outcome of battle. Cain doesn't aim merely for the total subjugation of an opponent, but for a practical and as brutal as possible, final elimination. Cain enjoys the adrenaline afforded by combat situations, the "creative" use of his own brutality, and bringing about total destruction in his opponents. In combat situations, Cain enters a kind of flow-like, transcendent state of ecstasy. To his friends Cain is the best possible support and backbone; to his enemies, a nightmare.

Cain can be characterized as a tragic and dramatic figure, though he does have a fair dose of crude humor, bluntness, and fairness. Very deep down, Cain is at bottom good-natured, loyal to his friends, warm and loving. In practice, he finds it difficult to show and express this in social interaction.

On Barbarian Culture

The barbarians are known by the general name Uthgardt, a name derived from the legendary founder of the barbarian tribes, Uthgar. The barbarians are known for their strength, their aggressive nature, the aggressive strikes they carry out against magic-users, orcs, and certain enemy groups, as well as for hunting, gathering, and farming. Men hunt and make war, women gather and care for the family's needs. The Uthgardt are divided into fewer than ten different clans, of which the Grey Wolf is not the largest in number, but is considered the most feared clan, due to their cruel nature and brutality in battle.

The barbarians are also known as a wandering people, their communities moving across harsh lands and spending part of the year in their sacred territories. The boundaries of the barbarians' influence and range of movement are considered to be the Spine of the World mountains to the northwest, the Stone Bridge to the south, Cold Wood to the east, and the forest region of Neverwinter to the west. The barbarians have a few villages where they live regularly, though most of the tribes wander around in smaller clan and family groups. The barbarians have no written language, but value ornamentation, artistry, for example in their attire. The barbarians' religiosity and philosophy center on warfare, raiding, and survival.

The barbarians' shamanism-based religion is close to nature and tied to the seasons. The holiest month of barbarian culture is September. During the autumn festivals, the barbarians gather and celebrate, arrange marriages, worship their gods, and enjoy communal life through primitive and even aggressive festival rites. The barbarians' religion (Uthgardt) and philosophy center on warfare, raiding, and survival in harsh lands. Every four years, the Grey Wolf and Black Raven clans hold a sacred, shared festival in the Spine of the World mountains (Raven Rock).

Beorunna's Well is the holiest place of all the barbarian clans. The well's story relates to Uthgar's mother, Beorunna's battle against the demon Zukothoth, whom she cast into the depths of the earth. The Black Lion barbarian clan dwells in the forest of Druarwood.

Barbarians value strength and consider civilizations weak. If it's revealed to a barbarian that a person is a magic-user, the barbarian is stirred with a desire to kill them. This stems from the barbarians' paranoid distrust of magic. Barbarian culture values strength, and the weakness of civilizations is not tolerated.

Although the barbarians are nomadic in type and move separately, they can quickly gather the necessary force when needed. The Uthgardt generally have little to do with city-dwellers, but representatives of some clans have formed alliances with them.