Garrin "Mouse" Thistlemoor
From Sewer Shadows to Wildway Warden: The Scrappy Legend of Garrin "Mouse" Thistlemoor
by Quillis Greypenn, Correspondent-at-Large, Greyhawk Echoes
You don’t need a forest to be a ranger—just ask Garrin “Mouse” Thistlemoor, the River Quarter’s least likely wilderness expert.
Garrin grew up without much. No parents, no prospects, and certainly no pastures. His world was the tangled arteries of Greyhawk’s underbelly—grimy alleys, crumbling rooftops, and the stink of rain-slick cobblestones. But what the city took in comfort, it gave back in instinct. Mouse learned to track more than just stray coin; he followed people, patterns, and predators—alley cats, sewer crocs, and the kind of rat that walks on two legs.
Why “Mouse”? Locals say he could squeeze through a coin slot if there was a crust of bread on the other side. Always silent. Always watching. The kind of kid who knew which floorboard would creak before you stepped on it.
These days, Mouse calls himself a “Warden of the Wildways,” though he’s never been more than a day’s walk from a lamp post. His armor? Pieced together from market scraps and guard cast-offs. His weapon of choice? A shortbow so worn it probably remembers a real forest better than he does. And then there’s Pepperjack—his ferret, his friend, his “animal companion” (as he insists). Don’t try telling him it’s not official. He’ll just nod solemnly and ask Pepperjack what you smell like.
He carries with him a tattered page from a book on forest rangers—half a diagram of trap-making, a quote about the silence of pine needles, and someone’s penciled-in notes on how to identify bear scat. It’s his gospel. He reads it nightly like a knight reciting a prayer.
But here’s the kicker—he thinks he’s being tested.
When DiGiorno put out a call for delivery escorts bound for Hommlet, with rumors of “mysterious creatures in the night,” Mouse didn’t hesitate. He signed up like a man answering a sacred rite. This, he believes, is the proving ground. The exam. The final trial that earns him real rangerhood. And woe to any beast, brigand, or basilisk that tries to fail him.
So next time you see a scrawny teen in a ratty green hood talking strategy with a ferret from atop a pile of barrels, show some respect. That’s Garrin Thistlemoor. He’s not lost—he’s on patrol. And somewhere out there, the Wildways are waiting.
