• silas, mossthorn

Silas Mossthorn. (most just call him “Old Grim” or “that miserable bastard behind the desk”).

Silas Mossthorn looks like the world has been trying to kill him for sixty-odd years and has only managed to make him meaner. His face is a roadmap of scars and deep lines, tanned to the color of old saddle leather. A jagged white scar runs from his left temple down across his cheek and disappears into a thick, iron-gray beard that looks like it could stop an arrow. One eye is a sharp, suspicious blue; the other is milky and sightless, the result of a wyvern’s claw he claims “the lizard didn’t live long enough to brag about.” He wears a faded green cloak (the color of old moss) over a chain shirt that has clearly seen better decades, and a notched shortsword leans against the desk within easy reach of his gnarled right hand. A long-stemmed pipe carved from what he swears is dragon bone smolders constantly, wreathing his head in fragrant smoke. He sits on a high stool like a king on a throne he never asked for, one boot propped on an open drawer, watching the room with the weary contempt of a man who has seen too many heroes leave and not enough return.

He almost never smiles. When he does, it’s usually because someone just got themselves killed in an especially stupid way and he’s telling the story to the next fresh-faced idiot who walks through the door.

Things Silas is known to say, on occasion (triggered by greeting, taking a quest, returning alive, or just when he feels like being a bastard):

• “Another bright-eyed idiot come to throw their life away for shiny rocks and stories. Hmph. At least you’ll make the gravediggers’ quota this month.”
• “That quest on the board? The one with the ‘moderate danger’ and ‘handsome reward’? Last three fools who took it came back in a sack. The fourth never came back at all. Your choice.”
• “Back in my day we didn’t have fancy quest boards. We had a drunk in a tavern who said ‘there’s a thing in the woods what ate my goats.’ Same result, less paperwork.”
• “You think the world owes you glory? The world owes you nothing but a hole in the ground and a marker that says ‘here lies another fool who thought he was different.’”
• “Dragons don’t care about your tragic backstory. Neither do the things that live under the moss. Remember that when you’re bleeding out in the dark.”
• (If the player returns from a successful quest) “Well, well. Color me surprised. You didn’t die. Yet. * Don’t let it go to your head — the next thing that crawls out of a hole will be happy to correct that mistake.”
• (If the player brags) “You killed a few goblins? Come back when you’ve got a real scar and a story that doesn’t end with ‘and then I ran away.’”
• (Quietly, almost to himself) “Used to be there were orders that stood for something… knights, lances, all that rot. Now it’s just us lot and the moss, waiting to see which one swallows the other first.”