Willy Makeit

Willy Makeit, of Autumn Grove a Shire of Rising Winds

"Shall we dance?"

"If catapults were outlawed then only outlaws will have catapults"

Biography

Willy is the real-life father of Sage and Target. He is also the husband of Teach. Willy was one of the founding members of Autumn Grove. He was the first Champion of Autumn Grove and is now serving as Monarch. He went to his first Kingdom level event on June 20th. He was the driver for the majority of AG. Good job Willy.

Character History

                                 The Life of a Misfit

                             The autobiography of Willy Makit
                                 Life as I know it so far

My birth right is unknown to me. I was left at the gate to a monastery when I was 1 year old. The master monk (Abbot Bud) found me wrapped in a blue blanket of high quality, and a stipend of coins to assist in the needs of raising a child. I keep a small portion of my blue blanket with me at all times. I find it comforts me in times of stress. I could give it up at any time I want...but I don't want to. Childhood with the monks was filled with learning and work. I had chores just like the other monks. I always worked hard and tried to do my best,...but I also tried to make life better. I did seem to have a knack of coming up with ideas. I guess the muses took pity on me being left like I was, and always would strike me with inspiration. Early on they had me start working in the kitchen. Mostly manual work like cleaning the dishes...thankfully they were wooden and did not break (most of the time) when they were dropped. I also cleaned out the ashes, the floors, brought in wood, you know that kind of stuff. My enthusiasm to please the head cook Frier French kept getting me in trouble. Nothing bad, just under foot, standing in the way, trying to carry a full bag of flour too heavy for a small tyke. Usually when something like that occurred, they ask me to fetch wood or water. I had a very small bucket for getting water, and it usually took a very long time to fill the water tubs,.. at the back of the kitchen,..near the door,...away from the rest of the..O well. I really thought the fire wood would be better stored close to the stove and ovens. It would keep it handy when more was needed, instead of crossing the kitchen to get it. Who would have thought the wood would get hot enough to spontaneously combust. Nearly burning down the kitchen. And Abbot Bud agreed the water tubs would have been fuller if they had given me a bigger container to fill them with. As I grew older they had me working in the garden. They thought the fresh air and the growing of plants would be good for me. Besides it kept me outside. While at a very young age I designed and built a double head hoe. My thoughts were this hoe would do a better job of removing weeds while saving time for other work. The theory was the first blade would partially cut and pull the weed up from the ground while the second blade would cut the weed off below the ground level. The hoe worked remarkably well. I might mention the blades of the hoe needed to be kept very sharp. I would sharpen the hoe at the end of every other day. Brother Hobbs was amazed and used the hoe vigorously. Which might be the reason he cut two of his toes off. After that I think he lost interest in using it...actually he lost it. Someone later said they thought it may have been given to a peasant outside the monastery. His exact phrasing of it was a bit odd...something about going over the wall.

When I was old enough, Abbot Bud decided It was time for me to study. My education was quite varied. They started with teaching me to read and write, and learning my numbers. The hope was expressed that may be I could help make copies of the books. A very important job..requiring lots of solitude...in a small quiet room...undisturbed by anyone else...but my penmanship was not quite up to the requirement...something about, on level with the art work of the birds on the roof. And paper and ink is very expensive. I was very good with numbers. They then thought I could help with the bookkeeping. Monk adders praised my use of modern math constantly, but thought I had other talents I should explore. I also was schooled in physics, botany, metallurgy, engineering, animal husbandry, and a host of other fields of study. Each of which was thought to me by a different monk...for brief periods of time...O well it was the best education I could get.

I still had the desire to constantly design and build helpful gadgets. For Brother Stew, one of the cooks, I made a multi-bladed knife for chopping fruits and vegetables. He thought it was a great time saver. Then one day he was cutting through some meat and hit a bone (in the meat not his). The knife slid side ways and he did cut the tips of three fingers off ( only the very tips). They did eventually heal with no loss of use of the hand. And brother Artie did not choke to death when he found Stew's finger tips later..in the stew.. in a bowl... that he had been eating out of...he did become a vegetarian afterwards. I hear too much meat is bad for you anyway.

There was a very hot summer. And with wearing those heavy dark robes everyone was starting to become rather pungent. The solution was frequent bathing. Filling and draining the bathing tubs was not only requiring a lot of time but also a lot of water. So my idea was to make a simple device to rain water down onto a person standing near a drain. This would 1) reduce the amount of water being used. 2)reduce the need to carry as much water. 3) reduce the amount of time each person required for bathing. When I pointed this out I was given the opportunity to make the device. It required two buckets suspended from the roof above a drain. Walls surrounding the area for modesty of course. The higher bucket had a rope attached to the rim, that when pulled poured the water into the second bucket. The first design only had this bucket, and the water all came down at once..brother Agua did not actually drown, he only thought he could have. Anyway, the bottom of the second bucket was full of little holes. The water would trickle out of the holes and fall like rain. The bather could then control how much water was used. A rule was shortly instated that when you finished bathing you had to refill the first bucket. The device worked so well, that Abbot Bud agreed I could try a few other ideas.

The most massive of these was inside water. This was done by pumping water to the roof where a large water storage unit was built. The storage unit was made like a barrel but 15 times larger. The water pump was originally powered by the monastery's mule hooked up to a capstan. The mule would walk in a circle turning the capstan. But one day he was bitten by a horse fly and ran so fast around that he over filled the storage tank and flooded several floors before being stopped. After that it was thought best to be controlled by man power. The water from the storage well was only channeled into the bathing areas and the kitchen.

We had a very cold winter the next year. And when Brother Amnesia tried to use the bathing area and pulled on the rope..well the water had froze.. and it fell on his head.. in one lump..leaving two lumps..but he seems fine now..most of the time..when he is not twitching. Then the water storage..you guessed it... it froze too and came crashing through the roof..nobody was hurt though. Shortly after that Abbot Bud decided they had taught me all they could, and I should go out into the world to learn more. With this in mind they gave me instruction on self-defense mostly with a quarter staff, as that could also double as a walking staff

Early the next spring I bid my fellow monks farewell. It was sad occasion for everyone. Three of the brothers broke their vows of silence to bid me good bye. Odd they were the only ones I can recall that had taken that vow...shortly after I began lessons...that they never taught because of... O well it was nice of them to bid me good bye..and to voice their concerns for my backside being hit by the gate on the way out. Funny I don't remember there being a wind that day.

I traveled from villages to towns all over. In a hill country, I built a flying machine. I got my design from watching rather large birds that lived in the area. And to be sure of flight I made the machine even look like the birds. Most of the local villagers just laughed at the contraption, but Sparrow and Red, the Haulk brothers were happy to work with me. Red even volunteered to test it. He jumped off the cliff and started to drop away towards the rocks below when he started to soar upwards... and he turned around and flew over our heads... and he was laughing with delight as he dove downwards and soared up again. I would have called it a great success..then the birds I copied from attacked the machine and ripped it to pieces. Red saw them coming and tried to flee towards the river... which was good as it gave him a soft landing..relatively speaking...and it was a crash.. But he escaped the birds mostly unhurt..relatively speaking..although neither of them would speak to me again. I followed the river downstream to a fishing village on the sea shore. It was here that I designed a underwater ship. It would hold 4 men and could stay underwater for about 6 hours. It was propelled by a series of gears and shafts that when cranked would move little oars on the outside of the ship. On the day it was launched, I realized my mistake. The people of the village could not be trusted. Four of them volunteered to take the Mermaid (that was what I named the ship, and a beautiful thing it was) out for a test run. The Mermaid left it's berth and moved a few hundred cubits out to sea. Then it did a marvelous dive underwater, with the spray and bubbles braking the surface of the sea in a great spout. Then while we waited on the shore for their return... and waited...and waited... I realized that these four men had stolen my ship and were not returning with it. However when the relatives of the men started to start rumors I thought it best to move on to another town. A few months later I herd that my ship had been destroyed when these same men turned to piracy. They were obviously good thieves, not fighters.

I continued my travels until I came to Autumn Grove. There I heard of the lady of the freehold (Lady Teach) who was looking for help in destroying a group of bandits. The bandit had taken refuge in an abandoned tower. While she could obtain men at arms they could not broach the tower. I volunteered my services in designing and operating a catapult. I recruited a couple of the locals (Target and Sage) to help me build and fire a catapult and trebucket to knock down the walls. The walls came down around the bandits, and were destroyed without any battle needed. For my services Lady Teach bestowed upon me the title of freehold Champion. One of the prominent citizens of the area requested to display the catapult in the town square, not realizing that the wood would rot...when left in the weather..so the catapult crumbled.

Affiliated Groups

• Blood Guard (Lieutenant)

Notable Accomplishments

• Designed and built a catapult
• Destroyed said catapult
• Sixth level monk

Other Information

• Turns amazing wooden bowls

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