Helix back, I know I'm a little late coming in with a final submission but hopefully my staying in contact through Discord helps explain things. I only have the most basic of equipment finished--still need to buy mundane stuff and potentially some consumer scrolls/wands--but the important bits are there, including a brief background. I'm happy to expand on it as I learn more about the setting; I was going to write up a scene of the outing as a trainee, but realized I'd have to make a lot of assumptions about things to do that. So, reposted below for convenience, the background as it currently stands.
They called him the Headsman.
It was born originally from his preference for a heavy axe during weapons drills and training fights in the halls. Most recruits--most full members of the See--preferred more modern and well-respected weapons, or at least those more associated with their duties. Swords were common, as were maces and hammers. Even a flail might have received only a curious eye. But while Lienhardt, the ophan boy, the yggdrian, the already outcast, hefted a massive axe in his hand, it was just another reason for the others to see him as different. Savage. A seeming paradox in this place.
Lienhardt bore it all in stride. Being given a name was nothing new to him; his formal name was equally thrust upon him, although when he was much younger. A good old-fashioned proper name, better to shape him from savagery, he thought they'd said. Supposedly some old knight or hero had gone by the name, and so it was chosen for him by the wards who took in a squawling yggdrian infant, left in the wreckage after a raid on rebellious, shamanic Hedgers. The Watchman leading that mission had heard of yggdrians' proclivity for violence, their naturally tuned senses, and their resistance to dangerous magics. So the child had been cared for, nurtured, raised into a fine young recruit for the Watch--if an unorthodox one, in some ways.
Lienhardt met and exceeded those expectations, growing tall and broad-shouldered, capable and menacing. He wasn't the quickest study, but he was talented, and the hand of Parcivald did touch him. On an early mission, with other initiates, he showed his capacity for meting divine justice in the field, when a rogue mage tried to cast the young Watch members into an eldritch slumber. His three fellows succumbed to the magic, but Lienhardt--watched by their sergeant from outside the door--pushed forward with grim determination. As he neared the mage, they tried to cast a spell, but Lienhardt struck them across the jaw with one gauntleted hand. They fell to the floor, Lienhardt set one heavy boot on their chest, and that heavy axe rose and came down, decisive.
They called him the Headsman before then. But afterwards, it was usually whispered by his fellows. It's a fitting name, one that doesn't seem to bother him, and his loyalty to the Watch is without question; he would never strike a fellow for such a trivial reason.
But all the same, they whisper. Because like any Headsman, Lienhardt is regarded by his peers with respect and no small measure of healthy fear.