Garian is a hunter by trade and by obsession. For him, everything else in life is secondary to the hunt. He has spent his life ranging the Great Wood maintaining the balance between predator and prey. However, over the past decade he's become restless. He doesn't feel challenged by the work anymore and since there are many other Wood Elves doing the same job not needed either.
When he was younger he associated for a time with the Hands of Ithrael. At the time it seemed like a good fit. A chance to protect the woods and rid the world of a few of the people trying to destroy it. He'd naively assumed that they would be meeting their for in open battle or at least engaging with actual warriors. The slaughter of innocent woodsmen and settlers that the hand actually engaged in was repugnant to him and he left the organization in disgust.
Garian felt so strongly that what the Hands was doing was wrong that he traveled to Morskaya in secret to meet with the Boyar and gave him the names of everyone he knew to be part of the organization. He knows that if anyone from the Hands finds out that he betrayed them that he will be marked by death by the organization and probably shunned by many of his Wood Elf kin. Most of the Wood Elves may not condone the Hands methods but they do approve of their goals.
(The Hands of Ithrael suffered a devastating blow when the Boyar's forces swooped in to capture many of their members but they are far from defeated. Worse for Garian they do know that he betrayed them and they are biding their time before they exact revenge.)
It's been years since the last time he talked with the Boyar so it came as a surprise to him when he was summoned to Morskaya after his death. He found it hard to believe that Boyar would have remembered him after all this time let alone his successor. Although the idea of attending a city party was repugnant, in the end the offer of a job was intriguing enough to convince him to return to Morskaya.
