Gnasher

Collector of teeth. Keeper of the mountains.

Recorded history

They call him Gnasher, and no one remembers his real name.

He grew up in the north Welsh mountains after the Fall, when the seas rose and the cities drowned. Orphaned young, he learned survival across winters that split trees and turned neighbours into threats: an education with no adult supervision in it at any stage.

When his father vanished, Gnasher found three teeth in the mud and kept one.

He has collected them ever since: from the dead, human and animal and, by his own account, stranger things. He cleans them, catalogues them and keeps them, and describes the practice as keeping the bite of the world safe. The archive has recorded the phrase exactly as given and offers no interpretation of it.

In the field

He roams broken farms and skeletal forests under a torn black umbrella, which does more work than it appears to: it sheds ash rain, breaks up his outline while scouting, and has on multiple occasions convinced raiders at distance that they were looking at something harmless.

In his pack he carries Idris, a battered pink teddy bear, his silent confidant. This is noted without comment. Several people who found it funny have been corrected on the point.

Traders leave offerings at the edge of his range for safe passage, and the arrangement is honoured. Raiders avoid his trails, which is a decision rather than a preference. The alternative has been demonstrated.

Assessment

Gnasher kills only to protect the mountains. That is the whole of his rule, and every incident on file is consistent with it.

He holds no ground in the factional sense, claims nothing, trades little and wants nothing that anyone is currently fighting over. The Remnants' checkpoints do not extend to the high ground and no serious attempt has been made to change that.

They say that when he falls, his own teeth will remain untouched, his bite still his own.

Archive notes

• Orphaned in the post-Fall mountains; no pre-Fall record exists.
• His account of the seas rising is corroborated by the Low Harbour ballad.
• Collects, cleans and catalogues teeth from the dead.
• Identifiable by torn black umbrella used for concealment and weather.
• Safe passage is available and reliably honoured. Offerings are customary.