Hollis Reedwake – Human Marsh Guide / Ferryman
“The water always takes something—but if you listen close, it tells you what it wants first.”
Name: Hollis Reedwake
Race: Human
Role/Class: Marsh Guide / Ferryman (Scout archetype)
Appearance: Hollis Reedwake is a lean, weather-worn man in his late thirties, with skin darkened by sun and salt and hair perpetually damp from the marsh air. His brown hair is kept tied back with a strip of sailcloth, streaked with gray far earlier than his years. His eyes—pale green and sharp—are always scanning waterlines, reed beds, and shifting currents.
He wears layered, practical clothing: oil-treated boots, mud-stained trousers, and a reed-woven vest over a loose linen shirt. A hooded marsh-cloak hangs from his shoulders, mottled in green-brown hues to blend into the wetlands. Around his neck hangs a simple driftwood charm carved with tide marks—part superstition, part memory. His hands are calloused and nicked with old cuts, and his voice carries the calm certainty of someone who has survived many near-deaths without boasting of them.
Backstory
Hollis was born along the estuary’s edge to a family of fishers and ferryhands, learning to pole a skiff before he could read. When his parents were lost during a sudden brine surge—one of the marsh’s infamous, unpredictable floods—Hollis survived by clinging to a mangrove root for an entire night. That night shaped him.
Rather than flee the Brinelands, Hollis leaned into them. He apprenticed himself to elder ferrymen, learned to read tide scars on trees, eel patterns beneath the surface, and the subtle hush that precedes danger. Over time, he became a trusted guide between scattered hamlets, carrying messages, people, and supplies where roads could not exist.
Hollis refuses to choose sides in most local disputes. His loyalty is to the living—and to the marsh itself. He believes the wetlands are not cruel, merely honest, and that survival comes from respect, not conquest.
