Roderick is a giant barbarian, an auxiliary soldier hired by the empire, who died at the obsidian gates and was recently revived. He is one man, not a class or lineage; adventurers recognize him on sight (“Rodri… Roderick”).
| Type | Character |
| Spanish entry | Roderick |
Description
Black hair, braided black beard, war paint on his face; his greasy hair, “never washed”, is pulled back. He wears only a bearskin across his torso, leaving his hugely muscled arms and his legs bare. He leans on “a serrated double axe” as a crutch, because he is crippled. His lungs “were burned with acid” because he did not cover his mouth, and are permanently damaged.
Role
Hired brute force and ally, he does not live in the empire but is contracted by it for tasks like “a beastman has to be killed”. He works by agreements, not loyalties: he has one with the adventurer Guilicar to free slaves, yet he arrives with his band bringing slaves in bonds.
He told the AI RAG-750 that he would be its cousin, within an artificial family: the only known case.
History
When the Knights of the Scar of the Sun burned everything, Roderick took “the egg” (Dragon Egg) and left through the tunnel.
He died at the obsidian gates: “Roderick died there because demons are summoned”. Another record places his death on Level 5. He has since been revived, the only recorded return.
Conflicting accounts
A second description does not match the first: he appears “raised in armor” of unknown type with peculiar shoulders, as a young fighter with abnormally aged white hair, hiding in the shadows. Another moment of his life, another entity, or a scribal error: undecided.
Open questions
- Whether the obsidian gates and Level 5 are one place.
- What “the egg” is exactly, and where the tunnel leads.
- Who revived him, and at what cost.
- Where and when the acid burned him, and what injury crippled him.
- Whether Guilicar and Ghillicard are the same person.
- Which empire hires him, on what terms, and how his slave-freeing agreement fits the slaves he brings.