Squamderfold "Squam" Drazil'fwen

Squamderfold — Squam to anyone who has met him for more than a moment — is a Dragonkin raised at the far northern edge of the settled world, on a homestead called Hafod Draig. He came to it as an orphan and knows almost nothing of where he was before. What he knows, he learned from Gerald.

Gerald was a reclusive mage who never gave his true name and spoke always in hints, a man who plainly held a great deal in reserve. He took Squam in, raised him, and made of the homestead a place where threadlight was as ordinary as weather — a mill-like dwelling of enchanted tools, remote enough that a step through the air was the usual way to reach the next settlement. Squam grew up trusting mages on sight and regarding the non-magical with a wariness Gerald planted in him and never fully explained.

Gerald died of old age. He had always spoken of the Starfish as something the two of them would seek together when Squam was ready — something old, half legend, that some say never existed at all. With nearly his last breath he named the first place to look for it, and then he was gone, leaving Squam an instruction and almost none of the context that was meant to come with it. Squam has resolved to follow it through.

Squam is hopeful by nature and guarded by training. He still hears Gerald in the back of his mind — not as a voice, but as a question: what would Gerald do? He carries a pull toward protecting others and sheltering the cast-out that feels older and deeper than anything he was taught, and he cannot say where it comes from. He allows himself one indulgence, a fondness for trickery, so long as it is turned to shield someone rather than to use them. For now he is lodging at a modest inn in Halfwell, on the road to Crownhold.