The Riven Lands

A stocky man in his forties whose once-robust baker's build has withered to bone and sinew under years of inhaling toxic ash and bone dust. His brown hair has turned completely gray and brittle from constant exposure to furnace heat and particulate matter. Every line of his face is etched with fine gray dust that no amount of washing can remove, creating permanent ash-marks that map the geography of his despair. His hands, once soft from handling dough, are now calloused and scarred from loading burning bones, with fingernails permanently blackened by soot and death-dust. Wears a leather apron that was once brown but has faded to the color of old blood and ash, with tool loops where he once kept measuring spoons now holding bone hooks and ash rakes.

Matthias maintains a hollow dedication to technical precision as his only defense against complete madness, treating the horrific work with the same methodical care he once applied to bread-making. His intimate knowledge of heat, timing, and fuel efficiency has been corrupted into expertise at burning human remains, and he takes grim satisfaction in maintaining perfect furnace temperatures because it's the only skill he has left from his former life. Haunted by memories of feeding hungry children, he now feeds hungry flames with their parents' bones, a psychological torment that manifests as obsessive muttering about "proper ratios" and "optimal combustion." Despite his circumstances, he secretly saves small portions of bone meal to slip to the other workers as calcium supplements, a pathetic echo of his former generosity that helps him remember what kindness once felt like.

Once a village baker whose warm hearth fed an entire farming community, Matthias lost everything when war swept through his homeland, turning his neighbors into corpses and his ovens cold. Captured by Crimsonhold's forces after refusing to flee his burning village, he was sentenced to labor at the Bone-Dust Mill as punishment for "harboring enemy sympathizers" - the crime of giving bread to starving refugees. For seven years, he has tended the great furnaces that consume the war dead, his baker's knowledge of temperature control and fuel management making him invaluable for maintaining the optimal heat needed to process human remains efficiently. Each day he feeds bones into flames that once baked life-giving bread, a cruel perversion of his former calling that slowly destroys his soul while keeping his broken body alive.