King (Drayton Honeysong)
King is one of the founding members of the Ring & Wren adventuring party.
Personal History
Youth
Drayton was born to Lannering and Euphresia Honeysong in the town of Norbrough. He proved to be a restless and even mischievous child, darting out of his parents’ arms and out into the countryside at every chance. He became fast friends with two other halfling boys his age, Milio Lowspade and Borra Brooks. The three soon developed a reputation as the most incorrigible rascals that Norbrough had seen in years, much to the disapproval of their relatives and neighbors. Though the smallest and most slim of the three, Drayton was undoubtedly a fighter, even from his youngest years. Although violence certainly wasn’t in his nature, his friends knew, Drayton possessed an unnatural knack for it. Armed with a long stick, he bloodied the nose of any halfling child that chose to pick a fight with the group. Soon, even the most fearsome bullies of Norbrough knew well enough to stay out of Drayton’s way. Over the years, the trio’s practical jokes and prankish acts of vandalism eventually gave way to more adult schemes. They cut their teeth on petty theft from the trade carts and wagons that traveled through Norbrough from Felstadt, and pulled many a con on an unsuspecting merchant. Drayton’s parents only ever knew the least serious of his crimes.Career as a Smuggler
At the age of twenty, a rebellious Drayton and his friends made the decision to leave Norbrough and move to Felstadt for good, dreaming of easy pickings and bigger payoffs. There, they soon fell in with other halflings from other villages, who similarly moved to Felstadt with less than noble career plans. Within a year, the halflings had formed a small band of nine, with Milio at its head. Drayton soon changed his last name from the much less criminal Honeysong to simply “King” and introduced himself as such to all he met. The band, however, soon found that pickings in Felstadt weren’t as easy as they first thought. The Jawbones and other criminal organizations held a tight grip on the city’s rackets, and easily forced out any competition. Frustrated, Milio and his friends came up with a plan: if they were denied the pursuit of crime on land, they would find it at sea. It was this way that the nine halflings became a crew of sailing smugglers. They together spent the last of their meager savings on a small schooner and took to the seas around Felstadt. For three years, the halflings moved illicit goods and other questionable cargo from one dock to another, making tidy profits along the way. Milio, King, and Borra, at the head of the group, named their beloved ship the Crown of Norbrough: for all its boredom, the little hamlet never really left their hearts or minds. The nine halflings made for fast friends aboard their ship. Smuggling and swashbuckling became King’s daily life, and to commemorate their unity aboard the ship, every member of the group had a crimson tattoo of a crown inked onto his forearm, in honor of their vessel’s name. Things took a turn for the worse soon enough. The halflings easily staved off competition from other pirates and independent ships, but soon, the Jawbones and other organizations began expanding their operations into the seas. Jobs became scarce, and their income ran dry. Forced into more and more desperate and low-paying contracts, tensions rose aboard the Crown as their tight-knit friendships began to fray. Milio, aware of his crew’s resentment, managed to land them one last job that promised an enormous payoff: moving a shipment of dangerous and mysterious magical goods from a small island off the coast of Felstadt to a foreign land. As the Crown prepared to make land to pick up the goods, its crew was ambushed by a towering frigate from around the bay. King and his friends would later learn that the frigate belonged to none other than the Jawbones—the same contract that Milio had secured had apparently also found its way into their hands. Intolerant of any competition, the Jawbone ship decided to make an example of the perceived interlopers. It opened fire on the Crown, its crew barely managing to leap overboard before their beloved ship was summarily destroyed by cannon fire. The bedraggled survivors made their way to the tiny island, soaking wet, utterly defeated, and bitterly disillusioned. The calamity spelled the end of the crew. King had already begun to blame Milio for their increasingly meager living at sea, and the mixup with the Jawbones sealed his position. Borra, in the meantime, had pointed the finger more and more often at King’s temper for souring their business relationships. Conflicts among the other halflings finally came to a head, and all nine decided to break up their syndicate for good. Left without the friends he had known his whole life, King returned to Felstadt bitter and broke. Over the the course of several months, he searched for any job he could get his hands on to stay alive, but it seemed like someone had it out for Drayton King. He found himself turned away without explanation from most organized crime, and often wonders if the Jawbones somehow knew his name and played a part in his unemployment. Even the crews that might have considered him turned him away with a laugh. Though a skilled fighter, the humans and other races continually wrote King off as nothing but a sneaky halfling, and the idea of a lightfoot halfling as muscle threw many a gang into fits of laughter. Stories of a vicious streetfighting halfling began to filter through the alleys and taverns of Felstadt. King wandered Felstadt with a chip on his shoulder, eager to prove himself and fighting mad until one fateful day…The Ring & Wren
King was contacted by Festiv Fullsprout to help uncover the fate of Andrick the Potioneer.Recent Events
King was gifted the Sixth Shard of the Astral Diamond by Ratcatcher Roger.Trivia
Accomplishments & Achievements
King became the Felstadt Archery Champion at the carnival with a miraculous, out-of-range skill shot which quickly gained him some renown.Personality Quirks
As a habit, King often flips his lucky coin, a gold doubloon found at sea during one of his crew’s early adventures.Social
Family Ties
From village bully to upstart smuggler to local hero to legendary warrior. An original member of the Ring and Wren, King was once determined to leave his mark on an unfriendly world. Now, he lives to fight those who would destroy it.
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