#Childhood Instantly Ruined and Father/Birth
Drew was the son to a Vassal's personal retainer, who he had barely heard anything about, not even his first name, but did find out that he was a member of the Logan clan. Even with this bare information of his father, he strived to make him proud beyond the grave. What Drew did not know about his father was that many years ago he owned a ship with his young friends, and that his ship was raided by Sea Raiders when he and his friends were searching for signs of life in the waters, and in the end took a crash course for the Antarian shores. Luckily an Antarian Lord was in sight of the ship wreck minutes after it first hit land, and Drew's father was the only scavengable thing from the ship. Even the hardened Sea Raiders didn't survive. When Drew's father awoken the Antarian Lord helped the man by offering him a job in his army, with good pay and 3 daily meals, Drew's father would have been stupid not to take it as he is now stranded and lost. He quickly rose through the ranks from his spectacular performances in battle, and even earned the place as one of his right-hand men as a personal retainer after a few years, and enjoyed the perks of the job, ranging from visiting every feast to some of the finest pay in the land. He one night had too much to drink and fell harder than a rock in bed, only to wake up with an Adenian woman in his bed. He was frightened at first, but then found out they had plenty in common, and got along better than peanut butter and jam. Months later they were married and were going to have a child, and the soon-to-be father was given permission by the Lord to receive leave with no consequences, but instead with a sack of gold and an escort to Chocola, the retainer's home village. Even though the father wanted the best for Drew, he could not stop the fact that Drew's life began on a battlefield with both of his parents' blood spilled on his body, crying helplessly until the battle was over.
The battle begun mid-day, the farmers were tending the fields, the cattle were being herded, the guards were patrolling, it seemed like a normal day. What the peasants were not aware of, was that a power-hungry Lord from the Vaegirs had his eyes on the prosperity of the village, and attacked it with no remorse.
Farmers were screaming, the fields were burning, the water stream was running red, and in the crossfire of the battle, the father's wife was shot by a stray arrow. With seeing what had happened to his wife, the father had no other choice to save his only child. The father charged through the heat of battle to the dying mother laying on the grass surrounded by her own blood, and with the mother nearing death, she told the father to save the baby. When the mother died, he knew what he needed to do. He was forced to cut her stomach open and pull the baby out. (Conan ftw!) With seeing his new baby was a boy, he was distracted from the ongoing battle, and the Lord of the Vaegirs that was attacking Chocola came up from behind and put his sword through his spine, leading to the father dropping the baby. When the Lord realized what he had done, he looked shocked and his face turned paler than a ghost, but had to show no mercy so his men don't think he's getting soft, but seemed to hesitate cutting the father's head off. Both the father and the baby were laying on the grass, and with the fathers last breath, he screamed out at the top of his lungs, hoping that the remaining villagers could hear him, "Drew Logan". When the battle was over, the only thing you could hear was the echo of Drew's scream, and after a search for any remaining survivors, the remaining peasants found Drew lying next to his parents, and quickly brought him to shelter and nursed him, and then villagers thought as to what named the baby, luckily enough there was a wounded villager that had enough strength to say "Drew Logan... His father wants his name to be Drew Logan", before passing out in pain. To respect the dead father and the now bastard son, he was named Drew Logan, and the same night, he was declared Battle-born.
Peaceful Early Life
At the age of 1, some farmers heard what happened to the village of Chocola, and plenty of villagers flocked there to show their support. After the elder told the incoming peasants the story of the battle and Drew, a couple volunteered to raise him, and took Drew in as their own after they moved into one of the newly built houses. At the age of 3 he could walk and talk, and showed a particular interest in anything pointy and sharp. His first words were his own name, which is the words his guardians described to him, saying that his father wanted that to be his name, and that he should be proud he's a member of the Logan clan, who's only member is now a mix between Antarian and Adenian. they also told him about with "Hoc Majorum Virtus" and how he should take care of those words just as he does bread, as it is his family's motto. The speech sadly ended with the description of what a bastard was, as he had started hearing it said to him. With hearing that he was part of his family's clan, he carved a sword from some of the recently hacked wood his male guardian brought in and practiced his fighting skills constantly so he could live up to his family name. He was fit as a fiddle and fought with heart and courage, but was surprisingly shy and polite to his elders. He was gentle and kind and showed love to his guardians and treated everyone with respect. Drew was used as an example by his elders to describe how other children should be acting, and if half of them had the heart and courage of Drew the world would already be a safer place, even if they were all bastards. But some of the new kids were rotten, and insulted everyone in Chocola. The bad kids particularly enjoyed picking on Drew as he was much younger, but one night they went too far. When Drew was about 6 he was ambushed by the rotten kids when he was on his way to his house because he had a piece of bread a wandering merchant gave him that night, but what they weren't counting on was him carrying his wooden sword he constantly practiced with, and were shocked when they realized this child was kicking their ass. When the brutal fight was finished with Drew still standing, Drew just sat down with his battered body and started slowly eating the bread. It turns out a guard was spectating over the entire event, and carefully approached Drew and greeted himself, and offered to escort him home. The guard was actually a bandit in disguise who was part of a band of thieves, bandits, marauders, and even rogue knights. When Drew got comfortable with him, the guard blind-sided Drew and dragged him away, then giving off a signal to other bandits to come and raid and pillage Drew's home. When Drew awoke he was in a cage made out of rusted metal with men screaming and mocking him, gloating about how they came and slaughtered the inhabitants of Chocola with such ease. He thought he was just going to die there, perhaps be sold into slavery, but it turns out they had plans for him, and other kidnapped children.
Slavery and Hell
These men were not going to create the modern-day Boy Scouts, but instead were creating a living hell for anyone who was captured and brought to this God forsaken blight on Ponavosa. It was a training camp run by the bandits to create soldiers that could best the kingdom's top men, able to take down small groups of men alone. This dream that the group of bandits had was to be accomplished by the men their warband has accumulated over time, with many skilled trainers willing to do what was necessary to overthrow their past masters, and had the muscle to keep their slaves in line. These were not ordinary trainers, they were out of their minds. They used an art that they had heard of in distant land called the Agoge, something Hellenic Drew heard, which required the trainees to be from a minimum age of 7, but the trainers felt that was only a hindrance so they took any child of any age they could find. The moment you are brought in and get accustomed, the bandits make you run drill after drill, training you to become machines, training you to kill anyone in your path, or at least anyone the bandits want you to. The bandits made sure the children had no emotional connections between each other by refusing the kids to have any kind of social interaction with one another, with the exception for fights to see who the Alpha is, and this was an encouraged activity as it earned favors. Drew tried to stay out of the fights, but challenger after challenger appeared to fight him to earn the bandit's favor, but all failed. After a few years of no talking and attempted solitude, Drew forgot how to speak.
The moment you reached the age of 8, they started increasing the intensity of the drills, and they gladly provided whips to the tired and weary who couldn't do any more. At the age of 9, they put a sword in your hands and constantly forced you to spar with one another, and the victor would be let off free to continue his drills, while the loser, along with the cuts from the sparring, was whipped repeatedly. Fatal injuries and deaths were common in the camp, and Drew is the only one to date who has survived since the age of 6. The bandits destroyed your will, made you forget your past, taught you to hate everyone and to only obey them. They would destroy your humanity, and your will to live. Here, you only served one purpose.
The bandits who were running this were starting to feel like this plan was failing as the rest of the bandits were becoming anxious as to when will all these excellent soldiers that the trainers had promised were come, and were starting to wonder why spend so much of their earnings on these children that have done nothing but die, so the trainers were getting very nervous. The trainers started increasing the intensity of the drills so they could send the children out sooner, but when the trainers started this habit, they noticed a particular person at the age of 14 that constantly won his sparring sessions and was doing the drills with skill and precision the trainers had not witnessed from anyone else in the camp, and this poor soul was named Drew. As a last resort, the trainers agreed that they had to take the chance of pushing Drew even harder to see the outcome, and make the perfect soldier. The trainers put Drew into their new tier of the training. It's the most ruthless and will-destroying one yet, it was so inhuman that when bandits came back from pillaging they came and watched Drew train, giving the trainers some leverage and working space, and above all, the time they need. Besides teaching him how to just murder people efficiently, they started teaching him other things. Drew's offensive and defensive skills were already superb, so they thought they should make him and his body numb to pain. With large time-gaps in between his normal training, every week or two to be accurate, the trainers invited some of the other bandits to tie him down and beat on him. Break a few bones here, bruise and bleed him there, and then leave and let him heal, and 100% condition or not he had to train the next day. They were hoping this would teach him to be able to fight with a completely battered body. The bandits also ended up capturing a steppe peasant that knew how to track, and forced him to teach Drew all he knew. The two slaves grew a close bond, spending time in the woods learning the landscape and searching for signs of life and finding tracks together, with their bandit escort of course. After a few years the steppe man not only lost his value, but some bandits overheard him discussing an escape plan with Drew, and even though Drew put up an amazing fight knocking out 4 guys and killing 2, he was tied down, strapped to a chair, and was forced to watch as they slit the steppe man's throat, with a large beating coming soon after.
The Escape
At the age of 17, Drew overheard bandits bantering over how they went back to his home village Chocola to see if there were any other children that had a chance of becoming another soldier, but just ended up killing the inhabitants, and proceeded to start laughing about the slaughter as they felt a false sense of security. With this news, Drew unexpectedly snapped during a drill and went mad with uncontrolled anger, immediately fighting anyone in his path and cutting his way through the camp guards. He took a map and compass off a body, some new armor and a sword from a bandit's tent, and made way for his village. It took two days, but he found Chocola crumbling with only a few villagers remaining, as the rest were slaughtered. He found and buried his fellow villagers, used an inspirational speech to gather the survivors for revenge, and then used his new tracking skills from the steppe man to back-track his way to the camp and finish what the bandits started. He found the camp in a matter of hours, and just thought staring at the camp everything they have done to him. Kidnapped him, kill his family and fellow villagers, beat him, starve him, force him to train, force him to spar and kill, push him harder and harder, torture him, kill his only friend, and kill his fellow villagers again. That was enough thinking, he now had a purpose, he now had a reason to live, it was why he was the lucky one, why he was left alive over all the other children. Drew entered a crazed state, and without thinking charged into the encampment screaming "Hoc Majorum Virtus!", and he and his angry militia started killing everyone in sight, just as they did to his people. The battle lasted 36 minutes, only Drew was left standing with blood and wounds all over him, feeling satisfied with his revenge, Drew slowly started recovering from his crazed state. With knowing nearly everyone in Chocola was dead, he decided to leave to help and repair his savage village.
A New Start *WIP*
Drew took the remaining survivors of Chocola and helped rebuild and repair the scorched buildings and tarnished landscape. He was happily accepted into Chocola once more as one of their own after all these years, and volunteered to make the runs to the other villages for supplies and manpower, along with taking nearly all the night shifts to guard the village, perched in a tree awaiting the time to pounce an oncoming brigand. 2 months went by following this routine, each day becoming increasingly challenging and exhausting, each argument and dispute becoming harder to mend as time pasts, with one event in particular that provoked Drew's goodhearted nature.
One day a young woman, a harmless human being who originated from Vaegir lands came into Chocola and stayed for a few days before preparing to depart to Applegrove. She only told a few people including Drew that she was a Vaegir, and explained that she had abandoned her home due to the poor quality of life, and will live with a friend willing to share her home with her. Before she was able to leave at nightfall, word got out that she came from Vaegir land, and some of the men became rabid and violent. Things around Chocola had been quiet for a few days so Drew let someone else take the night shift so he can get some proper sleep, which is a regret that haunts Drew to this day. The day after he let someone sub in his night shift, Drew left his hut and went outside to hunt some food, but before Drew was able to go into the forest he found the girl hanging from a tree in the outskirts of town with sword wounds and blood covering her body. After cutting her down from the tree Drew carried the girl to the town center and happily called out whoever did this, saying that they were to be praised as patriots protecting Antarian land. The murderers came towards the town center looking jolly and go-lucky, preparing to be praised by the populous of Chocola, but when they all clustered and gathered close enough Drew took out his sword and crippled all their legs. Drew then gave a scolding to everyone and said this is what happens when you step out of line and perform needless murder, but the crowd demanded more. The crowd demanded both blood and their heads, refusing to disperse until justice was done. Drew knew that he alone could not calm the crowd, and he knew that he did not have the willpower to kill his neighbours and fellow Antarians, so he just left and aloud the angry pedestrians to have their way with the defenseless crippled men. Drew just keeps thinking how he could of done something to stop all the senseless killing he fought so hard to get away from.
A year past and Chocola had grown fairly large and had become a very prosperous village, and grew quite a lot of notoriety from rivaling faction's such as the Vaegir's. Chocola had some of the finest protection and a unrivaled low crime rate in Antaria, as Drew was working behind the scenes to protect his home village. Drew had turned 18 early in December, and most of the village rejoiced on Drew's birthday, including the pompous nobles of Chocola, regardless of Drew being a low-birth bastard battle-born barbarian-raised child. The last of the Logan's was praised that day. Drew found much joy from the festivity's and enjoyed the company of his friends, but the real selling point of his night was when he first laid eyes on his lover. They introduced themselves to each other and then spent the whole next year spending time together and trying to convince her father let Drew Wed and Bed her. Sadly a war broke out between the Antarian's and Vagir's once more.
It was night when the Vaegirs came. It wasn't until multiple moments after first contact that Drew awoke from his hut and realized what was happening, so Drew quickly donned his armor and made headway for the town center. He met up with the militia there and started to prepare for the imminent Vaegir attack. Drew then saw that his wife was alright, and was in hiding in the cellar. When the Vaegir's came Drew and the militia bit and clawed through the first 2 waves or Vaegir's, but wasn't strong to hold them forever. Drew was the last man left when they slit his throat, and he saw his lover run out of hiding screaming for him, she was stabbed. Drew's heart had stopped beating at the sight of it. Drew died. Despite his death, 26 minutes later Drew awoke with his neck stitched and his heart beating, and he was told from the survivors in hiding that his lover crawled to him with needle and linen in hand and stitched Drew's neck, and she then attempted CPR, but when a Vaegir saw what she was doing he threw her away and killed her, and Drew's miracle will later be known as the Lazarus Syndrome. The villagers knew that Drew should be dead, and praises their God in rejoice, but when Drew found his lover lying dead nearby, he knew that he has simply been cursed to walk Ponavosa with the weight of a dead lover. Drew then sees no reason to stay in Chocola after burying his future, and decides that he should just walk the lands of Ponavosa ridding the world of Brigands. (Player then finds Drew in a tavern)