Airrin Underwood

Zenxon's Master Carpenter

Our story begins with a young woman named Meg. We could, perhaps, begin with Underwood himself, but to do that, we would have to know his beginnings. There is little documentation of Underwood before being adopted by Tourney, most of it Underwood's own writings. These letters and diaries only speak of vague memories of his origins, suggesting that Underwood himself could not have pointed a finger toward his parents or the circumstances that left him in the streets
— Yellow by Hermes Swift and Olive Newell

Airrin Underwood was a carpenter-mage from Stonewall, most famous for creating ten unique and powerful staves, which have survived and been used for mages for nearly a millennium.

Early Years

As a child, Airrin was homeless, living on the streets of Stonewall and stealing or begging for food. It is unclear who his parents were, though it was likely they were from Stonewall. Even Airrin's surname, Underwood, is not a clue, as he adopted this later.

Apprenticeship

Around age ten, Underwood was found by a local carpenter, James Tourney, who recognized the boy had a gift for wood carving, and took him on as an apprentice. It was during his apprenticeship that he took on the surname Underwood, as a symbol of being the adopted child and apprentice of a carpenter.

The Staffs

Underwood's most famous accomplishment was, without a doubt, the creation of ten powerful staffs that have remained in use to this day. The first staff was created for a shapeshifter who agreed to marry a merchant in Ethion to improve trade between the two countries during a time of drought and famine. Underwood, who had only been apprenticed to Tourney for a year, had remembered the young woman from his time surviving on the streets. Knowing that she would likely never return to Zenxon, he presented to her, as a parting gift a staff, intricately carved with interlocking images of animals.

Over the course of his lifetime, Underwood went on to make nine more unique staffs as gifts for people who had shown him kindness. These staffs later proved to hold magic within them and disappear upon the death of the owner, only reappearing when they found a new owner they deemed worthy. Most of the staffs are still in use today, and those which are not may merely be waiting on their new owner to find them. It is likely that not even Underwood himself understood the full magical capacity of his creations. Underwood and his staffs were the subject of a series of historical fiction books written by Hermes Swift and Olive Newell, each named after the color associated with one of the staffs and tracing the history of that staff in particular. Due to the popularity of the story, a film adaptation is now underway.