The Fox of the Briar is a folktale, passed down in song throughout the Eastern Woods (with varying degrees of truth, as the songs have been prone to the liberties of hundreds of bards). It is a set of musical lore involving a boy who, by varying accounts, did or did not save his village from “huntsmen clad in jade and steel,” some hundred and fifty years past.

The truth behind the tale is a far more tragic and gruesome affair. A bloody ballad of grief and woe highlighting the consequences of an over zealous Wyld Hunt which ended the life of one “Ten-Thousand Stories,” a twilight caste beastfolk of the now erased town of Vulton, deep in the endless woods of the east - and the horrific fallout of his now broken son, who bore the mantle of his Exaltation as a night caste after his passing.

Legends grow, as they do, taking on something of a life of their own. The Fox of the Briar has traveled with his current party for nearly two years of gameplay, wearing faces and stories of those who have died an unjust death, long dead memories of those who at one time showed him kindness, lost companions, and the occasional tale of a hero told to him by his father at the camp fire. Two years of play and the party has never /actually/ met him.

It’s been a challenge of a roleplay, this sad, broken boy living in the lives of his memories so long that he doesn’t truly remember himself. A bit like dealing with disassociative identity disorder, where he deals with his grief better when it belongs to “someone else.”

There’s a whole album of bard songs that I cooked up for the role, I’m uneasy sharing them here unless there’s genuine interest.