Meslin Adfoda

Meslin Adfoda, the founder of the Meslin Map Company and the first patron of the Longstrider's Rest, was born in a small Bristian village called Croesafon located a day's walk north of the Hag's Mouth and two days ride from Hession's Wedge. 
Meslin was raised in a small wooden house by his mother, Carys, after his father was sent to mind the Gnarled Wall at the edge of the Bandit Lands. Carys and Meslin's father, Iwan, met during Iwan's time in the Canopy learning to become a Wallshaper. Carys was the niece of a Boughman (a member of the government in Brist) and so she was educated in the Understory, a non-magical education system that operated in parallel to the Druidic Path. During any student's education on the Druidic Path, they take classes in the Understory to ensure that they are not isolated from the rest of their society (and to prevent needing fully twice as many teachers). Iwan and Carys did not really interact with each other until their later years, but their love burned bright and they were married before Iwan was given his assignment. Though Carys knew that Iwan would be posted to the Gnarled Wall, she had no interest in exposing Meslin to that "curse" (as she called it) and so she decided to remain at the house they took in Croesafon.
Though Iwan returned permanently to Croesafon when Meslin was ten years old, he always cherished his early memories with his mother. Carys was passionate about the forests of Brist and that Meslin be raised without any extra privileged. Though he could have been enrolled at the Understory, Meslin was instead schooled with all the other local children, and his mother even became the communal teacher for a few of Meslin's younger years. When he wasn't at school, Meslin helped his mother maintain an odd garden of plants that she had collected through her family, a few of whom were guides. These plants eventually became part of the reason Meslin himself decided to become a Strider after he was finally enrolled in the Canopies. He always wanted to see where these plants grew in their own natural habitat, and he wanted to see the great wall that his father had tended for all those years.
As a student in the Canopies, Meslin was unremarkable and largely forgotten by his educators. But he managed to make it through without any major incidents, and he even developed two close friendships: one with a druid named Osian and the other a student of the Understory named Nia. When they all finished at the Canopies, Osian decided to move to Phesunlay to become a herbalist and doctor, and Nia opted to go with him to pursue her dream of one day seeing the Strait of Aloc. Despite his drive to leave home, Meslin was reticent to depart from Croesafon so quickly, and so he returned home to his parents while his friends moved away. But Iwan and Carys knew that Meslin would not be happy in Croesafon forever, and so his mother began to gently prod him to go with his friends and at least live in Phesunlay for a time. 
Meslin decided that he would put himself to work as a guide, both as a way to get money while travelling to Phesunlay and to ensure that he had a reason to come home frequently. He found work easily enough (thanks to his family name, even if he did not want work solely because of it) and he helped guide a merchant caravan through the Southern Glade and eventually down to Upper Preschwall (using maps his father had kept from his years at the Gnarled Wall). Even though another guide has also been hired, one who claimed to know the route well, the caravan got mired in a swamp just across the Phesunlay border and it took them three days to right and repair everything so that they could travel again. One the caravan reached its destination, Meslin continued on to where his friends had settled. 
Several days later, Meslin saw his friends once again and they told him the tale of how they had been attacked by creatures on their travels, though they had fended them off without any major issue. This was the first time (Meslin would later claim) that he considered how valuable more accurate and detailed maps would be if they were available to everyone. Meslin stayed with them for a few deochs, exploring the land around where they had settled and making small maps on scraps of paper to help him find interesting plants or features when he next explored. Eventually, Meslin decided to go "back to work" and found a few jobs that, strung together, took him back to Croesafon. Critically, on his journey back, he came across one of the plants his mother had in her garden that did not grow anywhere within Brist. 
When Meslin returned home, the wheels had started to turn in his head. But, he still did not know what he wanted to do with his life, aside from travel and explore. So Meslin began to pick up more regular and longer guide jobs, taking him beyond Phesunlay and out to Anwer and Daendar. When he finally got a job (with a large mercenary company) to take someone to try to reach Langhir, he also brought Nia along so that she could finally see the Strait of Aloc. Though the party was beset by Xzonic warriors more than once, they nearly made it to the base of the Matipenguns before the explorer lost their nerve and took them all back to Phesunlay. But Nia had seen the Strait (if from further away than she would like), and Meslin had once again found a plant from his mother's collection.
Meslin realized that, like Nia, he needed to pursue his goal of seeing more of all his mother's plants in their natural habitat, and so Meslin began to explore more after his contracts ended, travelling many corners of Laerdt'nah on foot and sometimes with little care for his own safety. Over the next thirty eoch, Meslin managed to find every plant his mother had except one, and in the process, he had walked in nearly every nation in the land. Confirmed a Strider by his guide brethren, Meslin began to ask other guides if they had seen a plant like the one his mother had (he had sketched a version of it years before). After asking every guide he knew, Meslin began to ask other people if they knew where the plant was from, but even his mother was unaware of exactly where it came from. Then, one day when he was visiting Osian, Meslin happened to ask a local alchemist if he had seen the plant before. The alchemist gave Meslin a strange look before stating that he had, but he had only ever seen the plant on the edges of Tupdes in Freole. 
From that point on, Meslin made it his goal to travel to Freole and find one of these plants. And, ten eoch later, he finally got his wish, escorting a retired Freman back home to live out the rest of their days in peace and surrounded by their grandchildren. When Meslin returned home, he was surprised to find several Striders waiting at his mother's house, and they asked him to come with them. That night, Meslin was named an Emiger and a party was held in his honour. Osian and Nia even came home for the occasion, because Emigers were very few and far between in those days. To help decorate for the party, Carys had tried to find old drawings that Meslin had done and she ended up hanging up many maps and diagrams that Meslin had drawn in all his years travelling. The other Striders began to study the detail and precision of his maps, and soon Striders asked him if they could have copies of what he had done.
Though Meslin did make a few copies by hand from time to time, he largely continued on as a guide, a Strider, and an Emiger for a few more eochs. But, when Iwan died (peacefully and of old age) while Meslin was in Endref, he began to wonder if he should still travel so far from home. He worked his way back to Brist, missing the planting but knowing his father would understand, and by the time he returned, his mother had taken ill. He nursed her for a time, but eventually she too passed and Meslin returned to the road. Yet, he could not get his mother's garden out of his mind and so he went back to Croesafon and took cuttings of his mother's plants and began a new garden at his home in the Southern Glade. At this time, he also began to produce more of his maps and the Meslin Map Company was founded not long after his retirement as a guide.
Meslin would go on to build a thriving business and develop maps, guides, and other papers that were in high demand throughout Laerdt'nah. The detail and clarity of his work was beyond what people had seen before, and Meslin soon became a well-known name in many nations (but especially among guides, guards, and merchants). Meslin's company boomed for years, but Meslin himself eventually retired to the Longstrider's Rest to write about his life and to support the Strider community. When he passed, after a short illness, Meslin's planting was placed in the wild beyond the Rest, next to the planting of Nia (who had died some eoch before but who had come home and begun dating Meslin at that time).