The Riven Lands

A tall, lean Elf whose once-noble bearing has been bent by years of grim labor, his pointed ears scarred from close encounters with snapping monster jaws and thrashing claws. His silver hair is kept in warrior braids decorated with small bones from every type of creature he's butchered, creating a macabre catalog of his work. Deep lines around his green eyes speak to constant exposure to sights that violate natural law. His hands and forearms are covered in a complex network of scars from handling razored monster parts, each mark telling the story of a different abomination he's processed. Wears practical leather apron and work clothes dyed dark brown to hide bloodstains, with a bandolier of bone-carved tools across his chest like a ranger's quiver repurposed for butchery. Most unsettling is his smile - when discussing particularly dangerous raids or describing the anatomy of nightmare creatures.

Grendel masks profound grief and self-loathing behind a facade of grim professionalism and dark humor about death and dismemberment. His intimate knowledge of natural anatomy has been perverted into expertise at efficiently butchering creatures that shouldn't exist, a skill that both disgusts and fascinates him. He takes perverse pride in his ability to identify the most valuable parts of any monster while simultaneously hating himself for becoming so adept at desecrating what were once living beings. When recruiting for dangerous raids, he's brutally honest about survival odds, viewing it as a twisted form of mercy to warn volunteers about the horrors they'll face, though he continues sending them to likely death because the town's survival depends on harvesting the resources these expeditions provide.

Once a proud forest ranger who protected sacred groves from poachers and monsters, Grendel's world collapsed when a corrupted druid's ritual turned his entire woodland domain into a festering blight that spawned twisted abominations. He watched helplessly as the creatures he'd once protected became nightmarish parodies of nature, forcing him to hunt and kill the very beasts he'd sworn to guard. Driven from his homeland by the spreading corruption, he arrived at Bone-Hook Anchorage with nothing but his hunting skills and a soul-deep hatred for the unnatural. His expertise in tracking and killing blighted creatures made him invaluable to the butchery, where his ranger knowledge of anatomy helps maximize the yield from each monstrous carcass, though every cut he makes feels like another betrayal of his former oath to protect nature.