🔐 Hanlar's Letter to Sophia¶
Spoilers Ahead!
This entire page is meant as DM information. If you're not the DM, you should probably not be reading this!
Sophia,
If you are reading this letter, it means that you have found it at the bottom of the chest in my office and I must be dead. That, or I forgot to burn it, in which case, please stop reading now!
You finding this letter means that we never reconciled our differences and I want you to know that I have regretted it since the day that you left. My stubborn pride prevents me from saying any of this to you in person, and I am ashamed to admit that even writing this has taken me back to the bottom of several bottles in order to find the courage to put ink to paper. I know that I am a soft and flawed creature hiding underneath a hard veneer of cold iron.
And like bending cold iron, losing your mother broke me. I know it was my fault for pushing her. I also know that she couldn't possibly give me what I wanted. Yet, I pushed her anyway. The fates had a daughter planned for Ingrid and me, not a son as I wanted like the Hanlars before me. You should have been good enough. You are more than good enough. I should have recognized everything that you tried to do to please me after her death. You even followed directly in my footsteps and I took it as an insult to my manhood.
My actions have been unforgivable, and I do not ask you to do so. I will willingly spend an eternity being chewed between Dhoutr's teeth for the pain I caused. The irony is that after I lost my wife, my daughter, and my dignity, I did get what I always wanted.
I am ashamed to write this, but you need to know. You have a half brother. He doesn't know he's an Ironstone, and legally he isn't. He's a bastard, mothered by a prostitute in whose arms I cried myself to sleep for years. Yet, he's a good hard working boy and lives here in town. His name is Kolwyn and he works at the stables at Jonah's Denn. I leave it up to you if you want to meet him, but I see much of you reflected in him and it has comforted me in a way. At least, give him the bag of coins I left in this chest. At least, give him the pouch of coins I left in this chest. You don't owe me anything and if you don't want to do so, you're not obligated.
Dauriel has told me that you have a son named Tiran. I know I will never meet him, but if he's anything like you, he has to be a great kid.
Your father,
Hanlar.