the Weeper

Who is the Weeper?

The Weeper is the name given to the leader of one of the more fearsome Retrievers' crews of the City. The Weeper's real name is Valerian Goodmead, but few now remember this name.

Valerian was at the start an Elven ranger who plied his trade as a hunter in the beautiful forests of Frencal before murdering his rival. 
Being found guilty, he was thrown into the Well and landed in the City of the One Prince, still a young elf, 80 years ago. 

Being more at ease in the wilderness, Valerian became straight away attracted by the dangerous but lucrative life of a Retriever.
Being keen eyed and good with a bow and a dagger, he got an entry into one of the many Retrievers' teams of the City. 

At first, all was well and he enjoyed the life on the Wastes.
He was even able to put some coins away in order to buy a property on the shores of Loch Blu, which reminded him of the beauty of his parents' homeland.

Disaster struck the day he contracted Retrievers' Sore.
Valerian had been out in the Wastes for less than two years when his crew one night was forced to deem their lights to conserve the precious energy for a few more days.
Valerian's boss, a rapacious dwarf by the name of Baldin Moortongue, had pushed the crew to its limits in a bid to make good on a white tree they had felled for wood, and now the crew might not have enough light to return safely home.

The Retrievers set camp in dim lights and Valerian realised only too late that he had been sleeping on contaminated grounds.
Within the hour of laying down among the rubble for the night, his body started to swell and his skin to open up.

Valerian pleaded with Baldin for a quick way home, but the dwarf was unwilling to leave the booty his crew had gathered up to go to waste or worse, being picked up by a rival crew.

Valerian decided to make his way home by himself but was accompanied at the last minute by a female tiefling, called Mercuria, who had formed an attachment to him. 

With the help of Mercuria, Valerian made it back to the City and was able to use his savings to buy the services of a local healer.
The spread of the illness was stopped but not before severe lesions had affected his face and part of his bodies. Valerian retained the full use of his arms and hand, but now walked with a limp.
His beautiful face had been ravaged and the monstrous open sores it now sported continuously weeped a blood infected yellow ooze.

the Weeper's Organisation

it was not in Valerian's make up to forgive and forget, not when his painful and monstrous body, daily reminded him of what he had lost and why.

Valerian put the blame for his present condition squarely on his former boss, Baldin Moortongue.
Valerian worked tirelessly to ruin and ultimately kill the dwarf. However, he had learned his lessons, and would show spider-like skills in setting up his demise.

After being cared for by Mercuria, who Valerian would stay loyal to all his life, the now monstrous looking elf used the last of his money to set up his own Retriever crew.
Valerian was many thing but also a good judge of character: he patiently assembled his team, recruiting mainly within the dissatified former crew members of Baldin Moortongue' s Retriever's Team.

His crew, known as the Weepers - named from the nickname Valerian had garnered from his constantly seeping wounds - became successful nearly overnight.
Valerian's extraordinary rangers skills as well as his uncanny leadership made for an effective team.
They specialised in finding iron and other metals, Valerian being quite adept at spotting metals wherever they went.
Some wondered if the illness had created an affinity in him with the minerals as he seemed, according to witnesses, to 'smell' iron fragments from a few meters away.

It was not long before Valerian could enact his vengeance over Baldin. He just had to time one of his crew's forays into the Wastes to coincide with Baldin's one.
To be on the safe side, the Weepers left the City a day later and by a different gate than Baldin's crew, and returned weeks after the news of Baldin's demise had been spread throughout the town.

When the Weepers came back from the Wastes, they learned that Baldin and his crew had fallen victim to  a band of Night Wolves - the story goes that Baldin had again asked his crew members to dim the lights for the night and the Wolves took this opportunity for a snack.

Only a few of the Weepers knew the truth: how Valerian, Mercuria and a few others had set out camp just a mile from Baldin's crew, downed some crudely made up masks, and murdered Baldin and his men in their sleep.
The scene was later staged to look like a wolf attack and no one ever questioned the Retrievers' fate.

Legacy

The Weeper still runs the most effective Retriever crew on the Wastes.
Some says that he is a fair and decent task master.
Other thinks that the Sores has slowly but surely driven him mad with pain and that he can be uncommonly cruel with rivals or crew members he deemed  traitors.