Linton Rye: Backstory

	The Duchy of Coast-of-Hereburn, in Central-East Emries, is one of the most prosperous and powerful of the Southern Emriesian duchies. It’s been around in some form or another for a very long time, and though it’s not necessarily the single largest of the duchies it is not small by any means. The real strength of Coast-of-Hereburn, though, is that it has a great number of excellent natural harbors at its disposal (especially the one where its capital, Great Hereburn, sits), and its presence on the eastern side of Emries, letting a bustling volume of trade come to it.
	Because the Duchy of Coast-of-Hereburn is large, and prosperous, it is a very powerful duchy and the nobles, merchants, and military classes of the duchy feel that power very keenly. They’ve insisted on having an important role in Southern Emries, and in the civil war thirty years ago they even insisted on fulfilling their own claim. Coast-of-Hereburn borders the Northern Emriesian sub-polities, and the duchy/daimyo to their northeast had very long ago essentially repossessed a county through one of the kings, with a relatively northeastern port city now known as Minamihama.
	Well, when war broke out Coast-of-Hereburn leveraged its wealth not only to contribute impressively to Southern Emries’ forces, but to levy a large quantity of mercenaries in order to bolster their manpower, as much of their levy had gone to the king. With these mercenaries, the Duchy of Coast-of-Hereburn did better in the civil war then many of the king’s actual armies did, and while the king had to agree to rotate the next monarchy to the north, the duchy managed to take the county with Minamihama (re-renamed to Byronsport, after the long-dead count who had created the town) in it and did quite well for itself.
	In one of these mercenary companies was one Jepson Rye, swordsman famed specifically for his reflexes and quick movement, nicknamed “Jepson Fleet-of-Foot”. Jepson had already had some experience as a mercenary dealing with low-level banditry and piracy, but this was for obvious reasons an entirely new and dynamic kind of fighting for Jepson, and he made good use of it to sharpen his skills. Jepson became a renowned sight on the battlefield, and the company he was in (Gus’s Greens) made decisive blows in many a skirmish and even some proper battles, with Jepson darting in and out of the lines to make quick, unexpected kills that shook the northern units.
	When the war ended, Coast-of-Hereburn had won Byronsport, and Gus’s Greens and the mercenaries within it had made it out quite rich at the end of it – and after only a couple of months of bandit-hunting, so many of its members decided that they were basically just more or less set for life that the company disbanded. Jepson settled down in Great Hereburn, and around three years later he and his new wife had a son, one Linton Rye, and a few years later another son, Colby Rye.
	As Jepson could afford it, he made sure that his sons received thorough schooling, in grammar, basic mathematics, and in history, and in such things as military tactics, and though Linton didn’t highly intend to become a commander himself, the training turned him into an erudite man. It also turned him into something of a massive neurotic: insistent on getting things right and on always being on time, Linton grew to harbor an insistence that everything always be properly scheduled, timed, and precise if it could be helped. But it couldn’t always be helped: At a point in his childhood, Linton became twitchy, jerking his arms or shoulders or twitching in place, and prone to letting out sounds and syllables without being able to control it, something that proved to be a huge frustration to Linton in particular.
	Linton grew up not only with his father and mother but surrounded by several of Jepson’s other friends and comrades from Gus’s Greens who’d also made quite comfortable lives, and so he was raised more or less by a bunch of grizzled ex-military men who could probably still pick up their weapons and only have to work off the flab and the rust. So, it’s perhaps not much of a surprise that in adulthood, at around twenty-two, after stints in various individual (and around Great Hereburn, nearly always completely uneventful) positions as ship guard or such, Linton would make the decision to join a mercenary group.
	He joined the Balfour’s Blades, another mercenary group that had been in the civil war… but under the original Balfour, now dead and replaced by his son. He joined them for a pair of three-year contracts in Kahla fighting Pax raids, with a year between them, and though he had some good times with the mercenaries there, he found himself sorely, sorely disappointed in Balfour’s Blades. Their leadership and organization were, to put it lightly, worthless. Balfour Jr. couldn’t strategize to save his life, and despite the fact that Linton’s increasing insistence on timing and planning led to him getting the half-mocking and half-affectionate nickname of “The Minute Hand” (after a clock, of course), casualties over time were far higher than they had any right to be.
	Eventually, six months into the second of these contracts, Balfour Jr. LITERALLY couldn’t plan to strategize to save his life, and he was struck down in the middle of a skirmish by a Pax lieutenant. He was replaced by his lieutenant, Joshua Darrell, who was perhaps somewhat less inept than Balfour but had rather less integrity, and who despite his greater competence had never got along with Linton – he preferred a chaotic, more raid-like form of command, and he directed some mockery in the direction of Linton’s unfortunate twitchiness whenever Linton argued with him about this. Darrell considered things such looting, leaving allies in the lurch, and even mulled over taking contracts for Pax, and it was at that point (a year into the second contract) that Linton threw his hands up and decided that he would not be party to this any longer.
	He has since left Kahla altogether, looking for work in regions such as Opus that are a little bit closer to home.