Solo. Continued from this thread!
Barton! News of that name spread through Lothiaan like a wildfire, carried home by patrons leaving Vaka's tavern. It was a wildfire fueled by history, and fanned into a blaze by years of questioning intrigue. To the casual observer it might have seemed very strange indeed, all these people running home through the streets with this one name hanging on their ragged breaths. To lifelong residents of this small Salvic fief, however, the commotion wrought by a simple name, that particular name, wasn't strange at all - it was expected.

"He's back!" They whispered in hushed tones, almost as if saying it too loudly would reveal the news to be a lie; a dream forgotten after waking. There was no need to clarify who he was, as most instinctively knew. To the news came a variety of reactions running the gamut from exhilaration to anger - but a poll would have revealed a general sense of excitement spreading through Lothiaan with the heralded name. It's at this juncture that the casual observer, curious and perhaps a bit bewildered, would be forced to confront someone in the know with the obvious question: "What's so important about that name, Barton?" They would ask - and in reply they would be sure to get a history lesson in Lothiaan lore...

"The first Bartons, it's said, were hedge knights - free men of a long forgotten lineage. They roamed the wild places of Salvar in the days of old, pledging fealty to no one but offering their services to many in the forming decades of the nation. It's said that Barton ancestors manned the defenses that kept Berevaran hordes from ransacking a young Salvar. As bastions of Church and Government struggled to rise to their feet in the face of a wary populace, Bartons are said to have quelled the unrest and helped usher in a time of stability in the North. The deeds of the Barton family, and the legendary skill of their warriors, was said to have made the bleeding rose on their coat of arms an unmistakable emblem across all of Salvar."

"Sounds to be more fiction than truth." Would say the casual observer. "A tale embellished in the telling."

"Fair enough. True, even... perhaps." The people of Lothiaan are not a dull sort of folk. "Stories are made to entertain, to be sure, but even the farthest stretch of fact can still contain some manner of truth. In more recent history the Barton family were stewards - protectors and governors appointed to Lothiaan and its surrounding fief by the King of Salvar. Seven generations of Barton blood led Lothiaan to prosperity and kept its people safe. Times were good, and the future bright, but as many ancient lineages are wont to do, the Barton roots started to wither and die. It was said that Bartons had poured so much of their blood into the land, that the blood left in the line was weak. Each successive generation yielded fewer and fewer Bartons to assume their family's mantle - until only two remained. A brother and a sister, two last hopes for Lothiaan's continued prosperity."

"So what happened?" The observer will have by now keyed in on the melancholy in the teller's voice. A deep, smoldering sadness that tinges the story as it’s told.

"One, the daughter, was married away - taken off to Knife's Edge to live a life of privilege. She died there of childbirth. A cruel fate, ironic almost, that she should perish trying to bring the future of her line into the world."

"And the son? The male heir?"

"He left us." That melancholy was strong here. "It was almost as if he decided the Barton name was better lost to the annals of history - for he shed his title and vanished into a seedy underworld. Rumors said that he sold himself as a mercenary, throwing himself into every battle he could find as if hoping to die anonymously on the battlefield."

"I see," says the observer, "why everyone is so excited now. Their hero, this Barton, isn't dead after all."

"No, not dead at all. He is alive, and what's more, he's returned..."