Grundes Darkwater was always fascinated by the human mind. Mostly how people react to fear. His own mind was a bore; he knew most of the secrets it held. His body was large, and he was taller than his own father before the age of ten, something that amused him greatly. He learned to remember, but then an obsession within him grew. He wanted to make people afraid. He abandoned the pursuit of Memory-Make, much to the disapproval of House Darkwater. It came as no surprise that he was exiled, least of all to him. As a final act of disrespect to his former family, he stripped himself of the name Darkwater, opting for Tyr instead. When asked, he claims it to be from a children’s book about a man named Tyr. His hesitation suggested otherwise, but he insisted that this was the case. Regardless, he left Darkwater with those final spite-filled words.
Free to do as he would, Grundes stopped the practice of magic altogether. Doing what he enjoyed most, practicing Horror Magic, brought only pain. He would rather not relive the memories that haunted him, still fresh in his mind. Instead, Grundes learned the art of sword-play, something that many people found redundant in the face of magic. But Grundes’s formidable size combined with his huge memory capacity, made Grundes a master with large swords. He learned at a young age to wield a large, normally two-handed blade, with one hand. He had taught himself, at first, but soon found an instructor. One who did not use the magic that Grundes had come to loathe in his exile.
Soon, the master died and it was time to move on. It was no use mourning, Grundes was a hard man. He was more stone than man, some said. But he was a man; he felt emotion just as most do. But you get good at hiding your feelings when you remember everything. Every. Single. Detail. He had mourned a lot, but eventually he snapped. No use mourning those who cannot hear you mourn. No use mourning those who don’t deserve mourning. The worst was that his only experiences with magic were bad ones. He remembered every single detail about his punishment, and associated it with magic. Grundes resents magic in all of its forms, and resents those who use it. He even resents himself for remembering how to use it. But, still, Grundes will let himself down every once in a while. It is this disappointment that drives him further into the arms of anger.
Eventually Grundes heard murmurs that another had been exiled from House Darkwater. Likely a distant cousin, but it still piqued the interest of Grundes. He put no effort into looking, for he had other matters to attend to. Such as driving his blade into the heart of a caster who was harassing the small town Grundes currently called home. He was a lightning mage, not particularly skilled. Grundes watched him fight once, remembered how he fought, and quickly put him down a few moments afterward. This memory-make was a foul magic, but Grundes could not remember how to forget, one of the few things he could not remember.
Eventually moving on, as he always does, Grundes departed. He took his long blade, which was bigger than most men, and made it his companion. It knew him, as he knew it. It was just a blade, just as he was just a man, but it was his blade. His blade and his alone. The only thing that put a smile on his face nowadays was the knowledge that it would never leave his side. As he travelled for a time, he met many casters. Each of their last meals was the cold steel of his blade. This created a problem, as many of them turned out to have done nothing wrong. So, someone sent a report to the guilds of Fiore. It was not long after that incident that Grundes came upon a burned village. No casters were in sight, and it infuriated Grundes. But among his anger filled destruction of charred tables, that he found a suit of iron armor, turned black by the flames. It fit him fine, and the shield was easy to wield for a man of Grundes’s size. And it also matched his sword quite nicely.