Reegar earned his nickname because of an event early in his life. His father, a notorious gambler (actually, a notoriously BAD gambler) lost one too many bets, and his major creditor came calling. The creditor said that he knew Reegar's father had no money, so he requires the services of one of his children. So, the children drew lots, and Reegar drew the red stick.
Young Reegar cursed the fates for making him draw the stick, but he kept it with him, as the dark captor led him through the wilderness to one of the Warding Stones. There, he was held and brought past the stones into the lands of the Worldwound to be used in some ceremony... he wasn't sure what. He was brought forth, and there was an image in his mind of a kind of violent peace... a calmness in character as suffering erupted around him. He felt the voices of demons speaking to him about the ways to blithely walk past forces arranged against him.
And then, a mammoth burst into the clearing, tore into the cultists, picked little Reegar up and carried him off into the forest, breaking the connection and saving his existence. He spent the next month under the care of the mammoth as they traveled back to town. He has no idea what the red stick means to him, just what the nature of its luck is, but, perhaps out of superstition, he kept it to this day.
He returned to his family to great celebration, and was nicknamed "Red Stick" Reegar from that day forward. Life went back to the way it was, but Red Stick noticed a couple changes in his personality.
First, he found it much easier to perform acts of cruelty without notice. Through a combination of calm bravado and curious happenstance, Red Stick saw all the chances to debilitate those around him. Step on a foot here, an unfortunate elbow there, and not only could he incapacitate someone, he could make it look like an accident. Deep down, this ability worried him. It was so easy, he felt, so wrong.
In fact, the only way he felt he could calm himself from these dark urges was to be with animals. Ever since the mammoth saved him, he felt a kinship to animals and loved their company. He quickly found work as a stable hand, and has begun caring for the horses of the nobles. That's where he finds himself at the start of the Fifth Crusade: grooming the horses of noble knights.
