Description

Samuel is a scrawny, greasy looking young man. His face seems to be eternally coated in a thin sheen of sweat, his thin brown hair always looks greasy. He often seems to have a tiny bit of snot coming out of one of his nostrils. In posture, he has the upright, tense look of a man who spent his childhood carrying a chip on his shoulder, and only recently has discovered that he need not prove himself. Something in the rigidity of military discipline has freed him, and the faint smile always on his lips, ready to turn to a scowl at the slightest hint of mockery, suggests that he loves being a soldier.

Background:

Samuel Redwood comes from a long line of Swamp Yankees with more pride than property. His family lives in a handful of dilapidated shacks in out in the New England woods, where they survive by hunting deer, rabbits, and other animals. Sam is quite good at tanning and shaping leather, but after a childhood reeking of piss, tannin and rotting meat, he would rather never go within 30 yards of a curing hide ever again.  He spent his childhood befriending squirrels and teaching them to do tricks for him while avoiding his brothers, who were uncommonly cruel to their younger, smarter sibling.

When he was old enough, he joined the army and has never looked back. Though he grew up the smartest kid in a hundred miles, his virtues were not well suited to a Private's life, and yet he found a strange kind of sustenance within military life. Life as a Private nourishes him, though he cannot explain why.

He has since learned that the city folk have fancy names for his woodland skills, calling them Natural Sciences, and utilizing all kinds of fancy deedaws to measure and label stuff he's was taught to do with his eyes, nose and fingers. Sam don't mind none, least those city folks know ways to scrub the stink off after they're done with their experiments.