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Dashing young Prince Gareth Grayson was another bright royal scion, a rising knight looking to make his mark in the most prestigious House in all the realm. Bold and reckless, Prince Gareth was eager to take the fight to enemies of House Grayson, to remind everyone just why House Grayson was the greatest house. He felt immortal as many young soldiers do, and took to patrolling the barely civilized borderlands with a relish, fighting back against the shavs attempting to prey on distant vassals of House Grayson. Initially he found great success, was wildly popular with the men under him, and couldn't even see why so many helpless peasants were so terrified of the hardscrabble Abandoned that turned to brigandry and would melt back into the Gray Forest after their raids. And one fateful day, responding to a minor raid, he lead his detachment into the heart of the Gray Forest to ride down the raiders... and found himself and his twenty men surrounded by hundreds of Gray Forest Reapers. It was a massacre, and Gareth himself was only spared because apparently the Reapers knew 'an idiotic prince' was headstrong enough to run right into a trap. He was beaten, tortured, and in the end had the humiliation of being ransomed after a captivity that saw the bright and bold optimist die and something far harder be reborn in its place. Gareth was left scarred and broken, his constitution never quite recovering, and his dreams of being a great knight forever shattered. In its place, the sickly and infirm Prince Gareth surprised his relatives in House Grayson by deciding he would pursue a different calling that traditionally no Grayson had embraced- the Inquisition. His body might have been shattered, but his mind was far sharper and more dangerous than it had ever been before his captivity, and he showed an alarming eagerness to turn that mind against the enemies of the Compact. As far as Gareth is concerned, no bards will ever compose songs about the jobs he now chooses to do, and there might be stories, but they'll be the ones children are told to get them to behave. Someone has to do the dark work for the Compact.

Like the shade of a hero from the stories, Gareth is not the man he was born to be. Hints of that attractive glory still remain in the hard set of his jaw, the deep rich blue-violet of his eyes. His blonde hair is almost always kept shorn to stubble on his head, and his eyes are more cold, hard, and foreboding than filled with joy. He moves stiffly, his hard body showing the suffering he has gone through. An ugly, formless burn scar covers half of his face, like someone pressed it down onto a hot brazier for fun. Other scars from cuts, burns, and all manner of cruel torment criss cross his arms and shoulders, only a few faded into obscurity. There's a sharp intelligence in his features, however, and a force of will that keep him short of being a monster.

Gareth is a man who has little time or energy for beating around a bush. Well, unless a person is tied to that bush and under suspicion of consorting with demons. He is relentless in the pursuit of truth, and to wipe the scourge of darkness from the face of Arvum. For all his fierce and sometimes violent acts in the name of the Inquisition, he gets no joy out of it. It is a duty, a necessity, and not one to revel in. He sees people on the street and catalogues them in their minds, how he would extract information, and what their sins may be. Most people stay away, simply because his scarred body is intimidating. He uses their fear when he must, and hardens his heart to keep him strong. Perhaps saddest of all, he does feel joy, he can still laugh, but it takes a rare person to bring that out of the places he's buried it.