Last updated
Last updated
The infamous "King of Thieves", Ardwynn is an Awoken that finds himself often in wild situations of his own making. He leads the syndicate "The Magpies", a crime organization that operates more like a thieves' guild than anything else. He claims his intentions are always, ultimately, altruistic, aiming to help the common man when no one else will, but many question those intentions, especially given his cocky demeanor, sharp tongue, and very sticky fingers.
Fun Facts!
Absolutely loves music and has a hard time sitting still when he hears a good tune. Or staying quiet, as he's a chronic "sing along" sort of man. Luckily, he has a good voice for it.
Ardwynn is actually quite the handyman. He helps maintain a lot of the mechanical stuff in possession of The Magpies, be it Sparrows, ships, or anything in between.
To that end, he is in possession of a kitbashed Sparrow that's the product of smashing together an Eliksni Pike and a Sparrow. Like Scorn Pikes, it does have the capability of leaving a fire trail.
Despite popular belief, he is actually quite the intellectual, and enjoys reading.
Born to a kindly but hardheaded mother via in vitro, Ardwynn was born in The Distributary, and thus the basis of much of his early life is very different to that of many humans and Exos. He never experienced The Collapse, only hearing about humans, humanity, Earth, and the Sol System in textbooks. He was also born shortly after The Theodicy War. As such, he developed into a very bright-eyed, bushy tailed youth, thirsty for adventure, but blind to the horrors and dangers of the universe.
He was mostly kept in check by his elder brother, Kieran, who was regarded as the wiser and more prudent of the two brothers, especially given that Kieran had a full ten years on his brother in age difference. They were often regarded as being the perfect example of siblings that are polar opposites. Where Kieran was quiet and observant, Ardwynn was loud and reckless. Where Kieran was well-behaved, Ardwynn often broke rules -- and noses. In spite of his feisty energy, Ardwynn was often driven by a strong sense of justice, believing in the fact that doing good deeds were in themselves their own reward, and always worth it, no matter the cost nor consequence.
Kieran would blame Uldren Sov for that notion, knowing all too well that his brother revered the man and his stories. As a small boy, Ardwynn would be enthralled by the Sov brother, even in passing. Wide orange eyes would be transfixed on his birds of prey, his majestic looks, and most importantly, his tales. Whenever Uldren did stop to entertain Distributary children, young Ardwynn made a point to be among them. This continued well into even his teenage years, though then he would hang off to the side, listening from afar. Childish fascination swiftly turned into a young crush and ardent adoration, an adoration that held well into adulthood. Still, he admired from afar. The Sovs were... a bit out of his league.
It was this same loyal adoration that fueled him to hang on Uldren's every word when he spread Mara's message about the expedition out of the Distributary. Ardwynn had missed Mara's address to the Awoken people, uninterested in secrets or Eccaleists or any some such philosophy. But hearing Uldren retell and paraphrase such words... his head filled with wild adventure and hope. All he heard was that there were a people out there -- their ancestors no less -- and they were in trouble. His concept of a cosmic debt was a debt to help people less fortunate than them.
Grabbing three of his childhood friends, he joined his brother (who was at Mara's address) on the ships, and left The Distributary.
Arriving in The Sol System, Ardwynn was awed by the footage brought back by Uldren. It stoked a fire in him, and his friends, whom shared similar ideas to him. The situation was worse than they could've imagined. Esila's exclamation was exactly what they were thinking.
"What are we waiting for?" she calls. "That's everything we came to find! They need us, and that's where we belong! ... We have to go to them! Our ships, our technology—we could make all the difference."
It was exactly how Ardwynn felt, perhaps even more deeply than the historian speaking up to Mara. It was exactly why Ardwynn's ire for the Sov sister festered and burned when she said no. What were they there for if not that? Isn't this their entire purpose?
When the riot happened, Ardwynn and his friends (Johannes, Tian Yu, and Yulia) were among them. Kieran intercepted, attempting to stop them, but was talked down by a smiling Ardwynn, left with a promise.
"I promise I won't die on that pretty little rock. Wouldn't be very heroic of me to die, now would it?"
The four Awoken would crash land on Earth and be immediately beset by danger and doubts. Ardwynn had the delusion that the Sovs would split. Mara remaining in The Reef, and Uldren, who had seen everything first hand, would join them on Earth. He also noted that many of their compatriots also agreed with the sentiment to leave. There had to be so many of them down there now! It'd only be a matter of time. They'd meet up, and everything would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
It would be a few weeks of dodging Fallen patrols, hunting, and scraping by before they'd wander into a fortress settlement. By sheer dumb luck, they wandered into the territory of Warlord Shaxx. They were met with gawking eyes and confusion. They looked human, but... not. After a lengthy discussion with the locals, and the Warlord himself, they agreed to stay and aid them in return for shelter. In time, they would grow antsy, especially when they heard tales of refugees falling prey to bandits and Fallen alike out in the wilds.
They would decide to go and act as escorts for these people, help ensure they got to safety. Yulia was well trained, and despite the unfamiliar terrain, was still an expert tracker. Johannes was handy and a skilled scavenger, he'd at least help them stay alive and fed out there. They had plenty of firepower between both Ardwynn and Tian Yu. They had a few successful missions, generally escorting people back to Shaxx's own territory, as they were warned to be leery of other Warlords. Not all of them were as understanding and fair as Shaxx. Their lucky streak hit a hitch when they passed through an area marked as "The Cosmodrome". Hidden, but surrounded down by Fallen, they had to make a choice. Run and potentially lead them back to camp, or stand their ground, and most likely die valiantly.
It was at this time that Ardwynn earned what is now in modern day his most notable feature -- the scar running down his face. He made the split second decision to bolt out and act as bait to lead the Fallen on a merry goosechase, away from the scouting party and the camp. He got the scar in the fight that followed when a spear wielding dreg slashed his face. He doesn't recall fully the events that followed, other than the high of adrenaline that fueled him during the encounter, and the act of nearly being shot the night he caught up with the rest of the caravan.
Upon returning home, a woman that had taken a shine to Ardwynn promptly pulled him aside and asked him to marry her when she saw the bandages on his face. "Since you seem to keen on dyin' out there, I better snatch you up now before I lose the opportunity."
She was a human woman named "Grace". She had arrived as a child, and was largely raised by those that lived in the fortress territory of Shaxx. She grew into a strong woman with hard, but kind dark eyes and a whip sharp mind. She ran the tavern that had been the site of the rounds of questions people had for the four Awoken when they arrived. Ardwynn had wasted no time in tossing compliments her way, an act his friends admonished him for. Grace was used to it, though she heard it a touch less now that gray hair was starting to show in her brown hair.
Though... none of the men that hit on her were 6'3 with blue skin and hair, and glowing orange eyes, or from outer space. Those were all fairly novel.
Over time, she was moved by his unwavering sense of humor and bright demeanor. He was like sunshine, ever unyielding in his hopeful smile. She didn't mind that he seemed to be a little bit of a naive airhead. His hope and love and wonder and tenacity were all a lovely breath of fresh air amidst the misery of the situation of the world.
Ardwynn happily said yes to marriage, rather taken by her, too.
The pack remained for a while, returning to simply living and guarding the fortress, as Ardwynn settled into married life.
But again, they got antsy.
Ardwynn was surprised when Grace did not, in fact, try to stop him. The opposite happened: she encouraged him. She knew well enough by now that his compass strongly pointed towards helping people, and holing up there, helping her run a tavern, wasn't going to satisfy him.
She'd be there when he returned. Her only mission for him was to do exactly that, return to her.
Little did she realize she'd need to be his guiding light, his shelter to keep his fire of hope burning.
The hiccup of a mission would've been a turning point in the missions of the pack, as after that, things became rocky. Fallen ambushes, bandit ambushes, getting lost... They had one where they had to learn how to dodge and deal with Lightbearers that did not have their best intentions in mind. (They learned that they could bury or trap Ghosts to delay them reviving their respective Risen.)
Then they started to drop like flies.
Johannes was the first. They were ambushed by Fallen and forced into a shoot out. Johannes and Ardwynn were pinned behind a ruined bit of building. They didn't see the Vandal that had flanked them.
"I still remember the crackling sound, and the smell of burnt flesh after it hit him."
Ardwynn would bear witness a moment too late to Johannes being headshot.
The rest of them made it out, but at what cost. Ardwynn would be reluctant to return out beyond the safety of the fortress. It was Grace that talked him into it. She soon regretted it.
The answered a radio transmission. There were some people fleeing another territory of a tyrannical Warlord and needed safe passage. It wasn't entirely untrue. There were people in need of help.
But there were more that were using them as bait.
Tian Yu perished in the ensuing skirmish, sacrificing himself with a grenade, as the three of them were otherwise far too outnumbered. The surprised blast would wipe out a good number of the bandits, and buy Yulia and Ardwynn time to flee with those that were innocent.
Ardwynn and Yulia would settle in to life guarding the fortress and helping Grace run the bar after that. It would be at least five years before they headed out again. This time, Grace protested. She could see the light starting to go out in her husband's eyes. The hopeful boy she married was losing that hope. They rarely encountered other Awoken, and if they did, they were just as ramshackle as them. The Awoken tech they came to Earth with had long since broken and been repaired multiple times to the point of being kitbashed. They were rough. Beaten down.
"We could make all the difference."
They weren't making a difference. They were just dying out there.
But... they were making a difference there, in that fortress, and the area surrounding it. Sometimes people smiled, children played. People felt safe here. It... was something. It was a small hope. And Ardwynn still had Yulia, too. She was like a sister to him.
Grace was afraid of him losing what he had left, and losing hope. She wanted him to be happy with what he had.
His stubborn inner voice telling him he wasn't doing enough won out. Yulia wasn't a fan of the idea of trying this business again, either. Not when it was just the two of them. Ardwynn and his hard head wouldn't listen. They could still accomplish something, even if it's just the two of them.
He eventually wore Yulia down, and a few months later they set out. They found a caravan that already had some folk that were armed. They were happy for the assistance, given that they already had a destination in mind. A settlement elsewhere, not Shaxx's territory, but further northeast. Yulia and Ardwynn weren't actually familiar with the area, but they agreed all the same.
Scouting ahead, they encountered a small detachment of bandits. Four total. It was Ardwynn's idea to dispatch them rather than avoid them. Better yet, take their guns and munitions, and whatever else they had from their corpses. Yulia wasn't sure she liked this newly developed side of Ardwynn, the side he'd been hiding from Grace, but she couldn't argue with the pragmatism. The caravan was running low on supplies and bullets as it was when they joined up with them. They could use a leg up, and the bandits wouldn't be missed.
So they ambushed them.
Dispatching them in such a manner proved fruitful as they rifled through their corpses. Ardwynn finished up and started to head onwards as Yulia called back that she was almost done. Ardwynn was only clued into something being wrong when he heard Yulia shrieking in pain as a Solar grenade was thrust into her chest by the Risen as she turned back around when she heard a noise behind her. The man's Ghost had been smart enough to wait until they were leaving to revive him.
Ardwynn's fight or flight senses kicked in upon realizing the very real danger he was in as Yulia went down in smoldering Solar Light, and he bolted. He learned that day just how badly Solar Light burns as the Risen nailed him in the back with something burning bright with Solar Light, burning through his clothing, the bit of armor he had, and melting skin.
Through the haze of shock and pain, he eventually registered the the gunshot that took the Risen out, and the woman that approached him, her armor bearing the decorations of trees and leaves, as did the cape that billowed out behind her. She would ultimately carry him back to the caravan, and successfully guide them to their destination.
She would insist he stay there, as he was badly wounded, not to mention what got burned the worst was his dominant side. He could barely use his right arm, let alone aim a gun. During the six months he was laid up, he'd learn this woman was an Iron Lord. She would reappear on occasion, checking in on the settlement, and him. On one of these visits he would get her name, in exchange for why he was so eager to leave, despite being unable to protect himself now.
Her name was Lady Efrideet.
Ardwynn eventually made it back to Shaxx's fortress, and to Grace, via Efrideet, though she herself didn't approach. She only made sure he got back safely. He never went on any more outings, not while Grace was alive. Instead he spent the time helping her, especially as the years wore on, and learning to make his left hand his dominant hand for everything. He at least had the luck of being able to (mostly) peacefully live out the remaining years of Grace's life with her, doing his best to put on a smile for her, even if his heart hurt, even if deep down, he'd lost hope. She ultimately succumbed to a combination of illness and old age. Due to her condition prior to her passing, he failed to notice the visits of another Iron Lord to see his lord.
When Shaxx led his people away to join the rest under The Traveler, Ardwynn declined to follow, going his own way. He wanted no part of taking refuge under something that seemed to hinder more than help, in his eyes.
With a bitter and lonely heart, he became a wanderer -- a very lucky wanderer. No matter the scrape, he managed to live through the ordeal. Physically, anyway. Mentally... that was a different story.
Sometimes, Ardwynn was a source of aid to people. He still tried to help people where he could, bouncing from settlement to settlement, though they started drying up as more and more people journeyed to take shelter beneath The Traveler.
When push came to shove, however, when his stomach rumbled and he felt exhaustion tug at him, sometimes... Ardwynn was also a knife in the back.
Hope. Justice. Heroes. What good were they now? His friends were dead. His people refused to help, dragged here by a lie, and his hero, his inspiration, ended up being a sycophant to the one that told the lie, as he eventually learned in a chance meeting with Uldren. He spent a great many years mentally wrestling with bitterness and a growing sense of nihilism.
And regret. If he hadn't fallen for those words, those false hopes, he would still be in The Distributary, with his friends no less. They'd all be there. Happy.
Too late now.
A decades later run in with his old lord in the beginnings of The Last City, and the tail end of the Dark Ages, resulted in a change of perspective. Shaxx had a way with words, and it seemed to have some effect on Ardwynn. While The Speaker's words fell on deaf ears, Shaxx's didn't. Still, Ardwynn did not join him there. He only aided the peoples of the burgeoning city before doing as always, wandering elsewhere.
The Halcyon Split
Just like how Uldren is to Crow, Ardwynn is to The Young Wolf, "Hal" (Halcyon to those he's close to). In another timeline, it is in The Dark Ages that Ardwynn meets his end, and is later raised by Ghost during the canonical events of Destiny 1. The specific "butterfly divergence" event is when Ardwynn made himself bait to save the scouting party and the caravan. In this timeline, Ardwynn's face is scarred, but he survives.
In Hal's timeline, Ardwynn fails to dodge in time, and is ran through by a different pike. He ultimately bleeds out due to internal injuries.
Ardwynn remained a wanderer and outsider by choice, making new friends that also dwelled beyond The Wall that went up, separating ("protecting" as Ardwynn would put it, quotations and all) The Last City from everyone else.
And then he saw the smoke. It was hard not to. Ardwynn took up residence at The Farm during The Red War, aiding refugees and Guardians bereft of their Light alike. He may not have been fond of Lightbearers (whom he still called "Risen"), but a hand in need he would aid all the same.
Still, he was disgruntled by the sheer amount of people, and the logistics of it all. He'd been around long enough to have a good idea when a bad thing got going, and he saw the writing on the wall. If The Last City was lost, truly, these people weren't going to be able to manage at The Farm alone.
This disgruntled feeling caught the eye of another refugee, an Exo by the name of Kenta-2. Together, the two cooked up the idea to get more supplies, at least to keep The Farm going a while longer, and ease the strain on Suraya and her people to find supplies and refugees alike.
Thus started the beginnings of "The Magpies", as Kenta-2 managed to round up an old associate, Billy, and an ex-Shipwright that showed interest in the operation, Eurydice. With a rag tag team of a few more refugees willing to get their hands dirty, and filled with enough fire that if they couldn't kick The Cabal, they might as well put the energy towards something else, they proceeded to raid The Reef, unaware of its plundered state due to Uldren and his Barons, Spider, and various other issues plaguing it.
While the raid was successful (though it nearly wasn't), something Ardwynn saw that day sat with him, unbeknownst to almost anyone for a while.
He saw The Watchtower. The architecture was like an old dream, similar to home, and too perfect and ivory against the purple sky of The Reef.
It was literally an "Ivory Tower".
While "Earthborn" (or in his case, "Earthbound") Awoken suffered, The Reefborn built a kingdom.
It was salt rubbed directly into almost healed wounds.
Later on, when Ghaul had been beaten, Kenta-2 posited the idea to continue the raids, for the rag tag team to become something official. They did a good thing, afterall, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. Ardwynn agreed. The part he didn't tell anyone was the old rage that festered in him.
"I gave up everything -- my home, my family, my friends, my life -- for a hope, for a debt that I was told we would repay, as a people. [laugh] For a lie. So yeah. Yeah I planned to raid The Reef. I wanted to take, and take, and take, until the "Reefborn" had nothing left. Then they'd know how it felt to have nothing. Not even hope."
He wanted so badly to kick The Reef, and keep kicking it. The Magpies may have been born to perform "altruistic piracy and theft", but the reality was that it was also a perfect excuse for angry, petty vengeance. A fact he wouldn't admit to until much, much later.
Ardwynn found his niche, his calling as the leader of the outfit. They had hiccups and growing pains, but eventually they got into a groove, robbing anyone and everyone they deemed a worthy target, and redistributing the stolen goods among people outside The Wall. It didn't matter who you were or what your story was. If you had a need, The Magpies were willing to be your thief. They eventually expanded operations to include locations within The Last City, mainly the weapons foundries. This swiftly earned them a spot on Wanted Lists throughout The City, with Ardwynn's face front and center.
That was by design.
If they were focused on him, with him being the only known Magpie, then it meant they weren't focused on anyone else. That was his logic, anyway.
Though The Vanguard wasn't officially on "The List", Ardwynn would begin building his reputation as "The King of Thieves", successfully raiding Vanguard vaults by himself. His crowning gem was stealing the gun that didn't exist -- Crimson.
Wild and free, Ardwynn made it a point to be everyone's problem while running his Magpies, taking some solace in the good that they did for those that he felt were all but nearly forgotten. And he was content to live that way until The Darkness came back and killed them all. The Traveler was dead and useless, and all of its little toy soldiers were useless, so might as well be as comfortable as one can be until the end.
At least, until Uldren Sov fell into his path once more, wearing the name "The Crow". Slowly, he started feeling a little conflicted about his planned trajectory for his life.
For a man that lives his life taking other's people's stuff, Ardwynn is a man that is powerfully sentimental. He puts great weight in the power of memory and mementos. He's developed, over time, the strong belief that immortality lies not in actual eternal life, but in being remembered.
"Immortality doesn't mean shit if no one remembers you. The REAL you."
To this end, Ardwynn's greatest possession isn't his best theft ever (Crimson), but his one and only memento of those he's loved and lost, the necklace around his neck. The concept he originally created upon losing his best friend, Johannes, using a bit of scrap, almost in honor of how Johannes would create all sorts of things from scraps he'd salvage. In time, he would tie tiny new treasures to it, to symbolize the loss of his friends Tian Yu and Yulia, as well. He had, at one time, pondered adding a fourth item to the ring, symbolizing his brother, Kieran, though he knew not if the man was alive or dead, though he thought better of it. When his wife passed away, he buried her with his ring, and took hers, putting it on the cord that held the crafted memento, essentially adding the ring to it.
Much later on, when The Magpies would begin raiding The Reef, they would find a crate of Dreaming City amethyst, and not know what to do with it. Feeling a certain reminder of home (The Distributary), Ardwynn would take some of that amethyst and flake off shards. He'd then remake his pendant with them. It was only fitting that a material unique to The Awoken be used to memorialize dead Awoken.
The necklace is his one and only possession he is ferociously protective of.
As far as he's concerned, it's all he has left of the people that mattered in his life.
