Lo the Incautious's page

1st: fighter (armour master);
2nd; fighter (armour master);

The manse of Grifo the Broadblade should have been prosperous, should have been fertile. The soil was good, the stream fresh and exuberant, flowing strong even through the hottest days of summer. The hills were full of game, and wild damsons and blackberries flourished in the thickets come autumn.

Yet Grifo did nothing but struggle in the Vale of Hawks. His crops failed, his livestock died, and what little produce his manse could produce was spurned by the people of Clermont. They said the Vale of Hawks was a cursed place, and indeed, the stones of an ancient pagan temple could still be seen on the bald dome of the mountain beyond Grifo’s manse. People said tunnels ran down from its strangely sunken peak to the very realm of Satan, and on moonless nights the Devil himself would ride out and pass by Grifo’s door, the poisonous steps of his fiery charger bringing ruin to the Freeman’s lands.

Grifo didn’t put much stock in such tales, figuring the Devil had better things to do than spoil his cow’s milk, but ill luck clung to him as tenaciously as the sicknesses that blighted his wife Odelia’s health. Their firstborn child was a girl, as was the second to Grifo’s irritation. The third was the son he’d prayed for, but the babe perished after less than a year. Lo was next, and whilst Grifo’s second son did survive, Odelia life was overcome by the trauma of bringing him into the world.

Though he mourned his wife, he cherished his son, and it seemed that though his manse struggled still, the ill fortune no longer plagued him as it had. Lo grew up to be the son he had hoped for, Grifo’s pride, joy and, as Lo turned from young child to young lad, closest companion. Lo shared his father’s rough honesty and optimism, calm faith in the Lord and healthy doubt in the forces of wizardry and witchcraft.

It was this scepticism that earned Lo his local fame, his misplaced name and eventually his place in Charlemagne’s army. At the age of seventeen, it was Grifo’s young boy who slew the notorious Satanic Swine of Ceyssat. This massive wild boar won its infamy in the goring of two nobles, one the son of the local graf, and the killing of at least two other commoners and a half dozen hounds! The fanciful story emerged that spears shattered on contact with its hide, that arrows fired at it would never find their mark, no matter how true the aim, and that the fearsome beast had emerged from the very hellish pit above the Vale of Hawks where Lo had been raised.

Now it prowled the woods around the small village of Ceyssat, its reputation so terrible that none who lived there dared to enter the forest to hunt or forage.

Whilst everyone else quailed in their houses, young Lo declared he would hunt the boar. The priest of Ceyssat endeavoured to stop him, deeming the ‘Almighty would consider it most Incautious!’, but Lo did not heed his words. He was anything but incautious, and together with his father had hunted many a boar within the Vale of Hawks. He’d seen angry boars, belligerent boars, cunning boars, boar which had still come after him with a yard of spear in their belly, but never a Devilish boar, and he did not believe Ceyssat’s swine to be such a thing. He ventured into the woods with a plan.

He tracked and trailed the malicious beast, marking its favoured haunts, keeping a careful distance and a cunning eye on its habits. He noted its love of truffles and the four broken arrow shafts festering in its guts, no doubt the cause of its continual irritation.

For the Satanic Swine of Ceyssat, Lo set a simple trap, digging a deep, stake-lined pit in a part of the forest where the truffles grew in profusion. He waited for the boar’s inevitable arrival, and when the great snorting creature hove into view after four days of waiting, shot an arrow into its nose to provoke it.

And so the boar charged, and plunged, and impaled itself upon the wickedly sharped points Lo had prepared for it. It took Lo nearly an hour to hack off the swine’s head and trotters, which he hauled back to Ceyssat as indelible proof of his victory.

Henceforth, Lo ‘the Incautious’ was treated as a hero in Ceyssat, the Vale of Hawks and the manses and villages around Clermont. Thus, when Charlemagne called for more knights, there was no doubt as to who should be sent. Grifo was distraught, and Lo decidedly circumspect, but the decrees of King or God were not to be questioned, so he readied his arms, his horse and his mule, and rode off to war.

God made men, but a man must make himself: Lo is a good Christian, but he’s follows his father Grifo's conviction that the divine autonomy God granted to his children is of utmost importance. Despite his faith, he spends little time in prayer or penance, trusting instead that the Almighty is watching him and judging him by his deeds.

A blade struck truly will slay the very Devil in its tracks: Lo is not as superstitious as most of his kin. Although he certainly believes that Satan’s creatures stalk the world, he does not consider such monsters beyond the abilities of mortal men. A true Christian can slay any of Hell’s terrors if his faith and swordcraft are sufficient.

Tomorrow is a better day to die: Lo’s popular moniker is really quite inaccurate. The truth is quite the opposite; Lo treats life with caution, and does not take heed of accepted notion that dying gloriously in battle is the best way to meet one's Saviour. Lo would rather like to survive the Saxon Wars and live out the rest of his days tending his father’s farm. That being said; Lo is fiercely loyal to his companions and will put his life on the line to defend them.

The finest armour is but the flesh of a babe if a knight does not gird himself with providence: As mentioned above, Lo the Incautious is actually a very prudent lad. He won’t even peel an apple until he’s decided he’s found the best knife for the job, sharpened it adequately, chosen the juiciest apple, washed it carefully and selected a suitably comfortable place to sit as he commits himself to the task. He maintains himself, his armour and his weapons as meticulously as possible, and does his best to manage when the eternal uncertainties of war force him into dangerous situations before he’s sufficiently prepared.