I grew up outside Edgewater.

My wife Etamy left me for Pitsmark.

I met Tamra

I left her when she returned home to be heir to her tribe

When the rivers stopped, I led a force with Tobren to save his son.

The end.

Roland wrote out his backstory in the more boring Roland fashion of all. I’m going to fix it. This is Trish, by the way.

In the summer of 685 A.F., a woodsman fell in love with a herbalist. They built themselves a small cottage in the forest north of Edgewater, and together started a family. They had a single child, Roland, and from a young age, he loved Assuine’s creations.

As this boy grew, so did his abilities. Even at a young age, he displayed Blessings from Assuine, befriending local wildlife. His love of nature saved him, but not his family. At the age of twelve, while ranging far from home, a group of feralkin found and destroyed his home, killing his parents in the process. His parents had long been friends with the proprietor of the town’s inn. Their son Tobren was like a brother to Roland—but he was also his only friend without feather or scale. After his parents’ death, Roland went to stay there. The rules of society quickly began to chafe the young woodsman. After only a month, he fled back to his home to repair and rebuild.

In his short time in town, he’d gained the eye of one Etamy Thatcher, the local beauty. Intrigued by the reclusive youth, she began to travel out into the wilderness in search of his home. It was during one of these ill-advised outings that Roland came to her rescue as she unadvisedly walked into dryad’s grove. The pair began to meet regularly, until one day, they fell in love. Roland’s second love, for nature would always be his first.

They married in secret, and Etamy ran away from home to be with him. But, the life of a recluse was not all the young girl dreamed it to be, and eventually, she began to venture back to town for a taste of society. After two years of marriage, Etamy became pregnant. The child was born in the wilderness, Roland and his animal friends serving as midwives and nurses. A day that ought to have been joyous, became one of betrayal when the young child was born with a distinct birthmark. A port-wine stain birthmark filled the armpit of the child—a birthmark that was the namesake of the Mayor Pitsmark’s family—which by the way is a terrible thing to name your noble house after. Right?

Anyway, Roland made no mention of the betrayal, but the possibility of escaping the forest weighed heavily on her. One night, she took the babe and fled into the woods, returning to the town she’d once fled. Unbeknownst to her, Roland followed her on her ill-advised nighttime exodus, and saved her from many unseen perils of the dark wood so that she could ‘flee’ him in safety.

After that, Roland shunned humanity, for it had only ever let him down. For eight years he lived in solitude, speaking to none but the animals he befriended. It was during this time he saved a local wolf pack from a troll, and they became like a family to him. One day, while hunting with his pack, he came across a group of orc adventurers being harassed by goblins. The ranger and wolves made quick work, saving the trio of orcs, but one of the orcs was gravely wounded before he even arrived. The other orcs left her in his care, for they had urgent business that could not wait. He brought her to his home and nursed her back to health. When she had healed, she elected to stay, and slowly, once more, Roland began to open his heart.

Tamra and Roland were never officially married, but orcs did not do such things. They declared themselves married, and that was that. She had been traveling with her brothers at the time of his encounter. No mention of her siblings was ever made—until her cousin came to retrieve her. For, it turned out that Tamra was the last born of her clan’s chieftain. Her brothers had died in a battle, and she had been called home to be the heir.

Roland—as you might know by now—has very strong views on authority and was heartbroken once more when his wife chose to return home out of some sense of ‘honor.’

And so, he lived alone, wandering the woods and saving any villagers who found themselves in danger. When the wood began to grow corrupted, it was Roland who first discovered it. His pack of wolves went mad—infected with some spore that drove them into feral rages. The dryads too grew insane, as their trees began to rot.

Roland was forced to flee the woods with Maple, the only member of his pack to remain free of the taint. In town, he learned that the son of his old friend Tobren was stuck out in the lumber mill. Together, Tobren and Roland led a band of villagers to rescue the trapped workers. Mayor Pitsmark—the father of the child born to his wife—forbade any to leave.

They fought their way through the corrupted wood, battling friends and fae that Roland had once called friend. When they found the lumberjacks and freed them, Roland spotted the cause of the corruption. High about the treetops rose a great oak tree that had not been there before. This tree towered over the forest, but its growth was sickly and uncontrolled. Roland took volunteers, and together they charged the monstrous growth. A Blessed of Billieth—a blight druid—had come and corrupted the forest. She’d grown a great tree, drawing on Assuine’s power, twisting it to her own needs to cover the mountainside waterfall with vines. Corrupted Dryads, mad wolves, and foul fungi stood between them and the tree, but Roland and his band persevered. They slew the evil druid, and with her death, the tree collapsed under its own weight, and the vines blocking the water quickly followed.

He returned to town a hero and punched Pitsmark right in the face.

The end.

Also, he saved a dwarven fortress, and now he's stuck in an endless time prison, but Tal’s writing about that.