Played by:Tim Bollig
Name: Tobias Del’green
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Race: Ulven
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Green or Deep Brown (depending on mood)
Character Website: None
Occupation: Head Ranger
Known Skills: Dual wielder, alchemist, and lore seeker.
Birthplace: Unknown to him.
Appearance:
Notable Traits: Scar going down the left eye
My earliest memory is being carried out of a burnt village, covered in soot, by a man dressed in a green hood. I still to this day don’t know what happened or even if that was my home. To try and think that far back was painful and over time I learned to stop trying. That was 11 years ago and that man became my father. His name was Captain Ben Del’green of the Vandregon Rangers.
My father took me into a human settlement a few days’ ride from that place. The place had a weird smell to it and everyone was unhappy to see me. I didn’t know it at the time but there was a war going on between the humans and my people. It was because of that fact I was hated among them. The kids my age were especially hard on me, making daily life a pain. I had more than my fair share of fights with the kids there. Some they started and many more I started. I didn’t like the names they called me. “Fox eyes” and “dog boy” were the most common of the names they used to get a rise out of me. My father told me not to let it get to me, but I didn’t listen to him. Most of the fights I was out numbered and on more than one occasion I went home with a few bruises. One kid in particular made my life hell. He was the son of the mayor and a lot of the bigger kids listened to him. He would use the bigger kids to fight for him. My father told me not to do anything rash, and I had no real reason to fight them. He would always say, “Fight smart. Run fast.” I thought about what he told me and one day I found the mayor’s son on his own. I jumped him, beat him senseless, and ran before anyone saw me or knew what happened. After it was done I went home with the biggest of smiles on my face. My father asked me why I was more chipper than normal. I told him an easy lie, finished my chores, and got ready for dinner. About one hour after that there was a pounding at the door. My father answered the door and was punched in the face by a man. The unexpected blow knocked him to the ground. I jumped out of my chair, grabbed a knife, and faced the man at the door. It turned out that there was more than one: three in fact. They came into the house, two were guards, and the last one was the mayor himself. The mayor told my father what I had done. I looked down to where my father had fallen, but he had already gotten up. He looked over to me with a disappointed look on his face. The mayor told us we were no longer welcomed in the town and we had to leave that night. I had stayed in that town for little less than 4 months.
We loaded up the wagon with all we owned, hooked up the oxen and then we left. My father wouldn’t even look at me. The ride out of town was unbearable. My father was the first to break the silence. On the second day he asked me what was it that he told me before I left the house. At first I didn’t know what he meant, but it came to me. “Fight smart. Run fast.” I told him this, and he asked me if I did either of them. I told him yes. I was smart. I had found him alone, I beat him senseless, and had run off before anyone saw me. He waited a bit after that, sighed, and told me how I was wrong on all accounts. I didn’t fight smart because I didn’t think of what happens after. He was right: though I did find him alone and ran off before anyone saw me. He was the mayor’s son so I was going to get caught no matter if no one saw me. I had failed the first rule and it had cost us our home.
After that we found a plot of land in the woods to call our own. It was here that my training began. The training that made me the man I am today. First, though, I needed to prove myself.
We got kicked out of the village at a bad time, as winter was fast approaching and we needed to make shelter. We had four months to build a home. Four very hard months. We didn’t have the money to hire laborers so we did the work all by ourselves. We still had a strain on father son relationship and our talks amounted to “Hand me that tool”, “Give me a hand here”, and “Get up its time for work”. I was beginning to think he was regretting picking me up from the ashes of my village. In the first month we managed to get the foundation done and most of the walls up by the end of the second. By the end of the third month we had all but the roof done. It was in the last month that I had my first encounter with mordok.
It was almost my first and last. My father and I were still tense around each other so for the most part we kept distance from one another. On that day I was getting fire wood for the upcoming weather. He was putting the last of the nails in the roof as I was cutting up a log of oak into smaller peaces when I heard a snapping of a twig. It was the snap that saved my life. As I turned to see what made the sound my foot slipped and I fell just avoiding most of the sword swing. The sword cut down the left side of my head blinding that eye with blood. Through my right eye I saw two of them. Their skin was black as night. They had on bits of hide armor and thick cloaks. The one that had attacked me first was smaller than the other. I had heard tales of them; things like their spit is poisonous, they eat people, and the females have magic. I rolled over the log trying to see were my ax had gotten to. As I did the bigger one attacked me stabbing his sword at me. Thankfully he missed and got his sword stuck in the oak log I was cutting. I was just getting to my feet when the other threw out her hand and a gust of wind threw me fifteen feet away into a smaller tree. From the ground as I was caching my breath a breeze blew by. The cloak the smaller had on parted a little and show me a that this one was female not male. I tried again to get to my feet and she hit me with another gust of wind, throwing me hard against the small tree. It knocked all the air from my body. I truly believed my life to be over in that moment when I heard a cry of pain. As both the female mordok and I looked over, we saw my father. He had sneaked up on the mordok and with an ax cut it’s arm clean off. It was busy trying to get his sword out of the log and never saw my father coming. Before he could finish the wounded mordok the female took action, preparing to throw a gust of wind at him. Noticing the movements of her hands out of the corner of his eye, my father leapt away from his position, his foot clipped by the spell before he landed. His feet thrown wide by the force, he landed hard on his side, but was up again in an instant. He charged her. She then threw a blue orb of magic at him, caching him in the chest and stopping his charge. I tried to get up again to help my father but I was in a lot of pain from being slammed into that tree twice. My father got to his feet and ran again at her. She threw another blue orb at him, missing this time, and he swung his ax at her. I thought for sure that he hit her but the ax bounced back harmlessly. She then swung her sword at him just barely hitting him in the side. He swung his ax again only this time she blocked with her sword. That ax sadly was in bad shape from months of over work. It also wasn’t meant for battle so when the two meet the ax head broke off. She then pressed her attack forcing my father back as he blocked with ax shaft. As she forced him back he jumped to the side of her and rolled away from her. As he did this he threw two knives at her, hitting her leg and torso. He then ran for my ax. Before he got there the wounded mordok ran at him and tackled him to the ground. It was trying to bite him. My father was trying to throw him off when the female came up and stabbed the sword at my father. It cut deep into his upper arm. Things weren’t looking good for my father and I had no idea how he was going to get out of this. It was in that moment that with a yell of rage he threw off the mordok and stood up. I have never seen my father like this. He was always so relaxed so to see him fighting like this…..it scared me. My father then picked up the ax and attacked them with a vengeance. The wounded mordok never had a chance. It had already lost a lot of blood and no longer had a weapon, so he really couldn’t fight back. My father ended his life with two swings of the ax. He then tackled the female to the ground and before she could do much he brutally smashed her face in with the ax. When he was done he fell over and stopped moving. I forced myself to stand up and slowly made my way to him, fearing the worst. I rolled his body over and saw that he was still breathing but only just. I saw two deep cuts on his body. One was on his upper arm the other was on his leg. I ripped my shirt and used it as a bandage. After this was done I made the trip home half carrying half dragging my father.
When I got him home I put him on the bed and tried to heal him as best I could. My father woke up and told me to go to the chest in his room. Inside would be fae leaf. I went to the chest and found the leaf. It was small and golden in color. I brought it to him and asked him what to do next. He told me to chew it, put it on the wound, and put on new bandages. He gave out a sigh of pain when I put the herb in the wound on his leg. I then put the rest in the wound on his upper arm. I used up all of his fae leaf. He told me we were going to need more. I then ran into the woods and looked for more. It took me most of the night but I got what my father said would be 5 days’ worth. We needed more or a healer. The town we came from had some but we weren’t welcomed in. He told me that he had a friend who could help. I loaded him in the cart and made my way to town. Since it had no walls or a gate sneaking in was easy. No one looked at the cart twice. My father then told me where to go. I found the house and almost beat the door down pounding on it. As it was late at night when his friend answered the door he wasn’t happy. When he saw what was going on, however, his anger turned into worry. He started to cast spells on my father asking me what happened. I told him about the attack. He then got to the wound on my father’s arm. He and I gasped at what we saw: the arm was turning black. He quickly started to cast another spell, when the door busted open, and standing there was the last person I wanted to see. Blocking the firelight from the street was the mayor himself, and he wasn’t happy. He and the guards ordered the healer to stop. The healer started to ask that we be allowed to stay until he was done. The mayor said no and we needed to leave now. The healer then said he would go with us. The mayor said that if he did he wasn’t welcome back. The healer was about to say something, but before he could my father stood up and said, “Don’t bother. We’re leaving”. The healer tried to tell him no, but my father said this wasn’t his problem, and he left. My father was better but the poison was still in him and would kill him. The healer gave me a hug before I left saying stay strong. As he let go I felt something in my pocket. He then winked and we were shown out of the city by the guards. The mayor told us if we ever came back we would be killed. We left with out saying a word. On the way out I checked what he put in my pocket. It was a red potion. My father said it was a healing potion. I asked if it would heal him. He said no but he had another idea for it. When we got home he put a sword in the fire, picked up a stick, and told me to cut his arm off. I couldn’t believe what he was asking me. He told me it was the only way, put the stick in his mouth, and bit down hard. I then picked up the now red hot blade, lined up the blow, and with a deep breath I brought it down with all my strength. In that one blow I cut the arm clean off. My father then removed the stick from his mouth and drank the potion. The blood flow stopped. He the went to the house and fell onto the bed. I went to him and saw that he was asleep. I had many questions to ask him like where the hell he learned to fight like that, but I let him sleep. Two days later he woke up and I asked him all the questions that I had.
He told me about where he was from. About the Rangers, Vandregon, and the undead threat. It was the undead that had forced the humans and the Syndar from their homes. As I listened to him I had trouble believing him. The dead rising from the grave and killing everything. Where it not for the look of horror in his eyes as he told me of them I would have thought he was pulling my leg. He then told me the first rule of the rangers, fight smart run fast. I asked him how many there were. He told me there were five:
- Fight smart run fast
- Always have a plan
- No plan survives contact with the enemy
- Leave no ranger behind, and
- …..he told me he would tell me five latter.
I then spent the next ten years learning all he had for me to learn. Every day was a day of training whether it was training with the sword, first aid, potions, or reading up on lore my days where long and hard. As my twentieth year came my father grew ill. His strength was fading, he had trouble breathing, and his heart hurt. He was never the same after the mordok attack. If only the healer was able finish healing him he might have have years ahead of him, but the poison robbed him of his strength and made his heart weak. He was on he death bed and there was nothing I could do for him. He asked me to not to train that day and just sit with him. As I sat next to his bed, in between coughs of blood he told me of how proud of me he was. I wanted to tell him to stay here with me but we both knew his time was at an end. He asked me to come closer so he could tell me the last rule. I got in close and with the last of his breath he whispered the last rule to me. He then died with a smile on his face. It’s that smile that I’ll never forget no matter how much time passes.
I burnt his body and buried his ashes. I did this to to mix our two cultures. I went to the chest in the house where he kept his belongings. Inside the chest was a green tunic, two short swords, and leather breastplate. All were from his home back when he was a ranger. I put the ranger garb on and walked back to the what remand of the fire. It was dying out and the wind was blowing the ashes high into the sky. It brought back my first memory of him taking me out of the ashes of my village. As his ashes fell up into the sky I walked away knowing that I needed to bring back the Rangers and one day see his home freed of the undead. In this way I would honor him. I have a long way to go but I know my path.