Garrick Emberbelly is a broad, powerfully built stout halfling with a magnificent dark beard, thick brows and the permanent ruddy complexion of someone who has spent decades beside an open fire. His heavy leather apron bears a dozen pale scorch marks, his sleeves are always rolled above his elbows, and his forearms are corded from lifting iron pots, turning spits and splitting kindling. A belt crowded with knives, hooks, sharpening steels and wooden tasting spoons hangs at his waist. Within a minute of meeting him, most people notice his breathing. Garrick breathes slowly through his nose when calm, tasting the air as though judging a stew. When rattled, his breath catches in three quick snorts, followed by a soft, involuntary whistle. He walks with a steady, rolling gait and always favors his left side when approaching a fire, leaving his right hand free to reach for a utensil or a friend’s shoulder.

Garrick is cheerful, affectionate and almost impossible to offend. He sings while working, tells terrible jokes with perfect confidence and treats feeding someone as one of the highest forms of friendship. He is observant beneath the warmth, reading a room by its smells, silences and unfinished plates. In danger, his humor remains, but his movements become precise and economical, every gesture measured like a cut through a roast.

Garrick Emberbelly learned the language of fire before he learned the language of letters. As a child, he followed feast caravans between halfling villages, carrying kindling, polishing knives and listening to old carvers argue over whether alder made poultry sweeter than pearwood. He grew into a sturdy, cheerful worker with an instinct for timing and a deep reverence for the old custom of the First Carver, who tends the flame, prepares the roast and serves every guest before claiming a portion themselves. He spent years traveling between village feasts, coaching inns and harvest celebrations, collecting recipes, arguments and scars on his apron rather than his skin. Garrick can identify twelve varieties of timber from the flavor of smoke they leave on pork, and he considers this knowledge more useful than most formal education. His travels eventually brought him to Merribelle Crumb and the Buttered Burrow. Merry gave him a trial shift. Garrick never left. Now, as First Carver, he feeds travelers, steadies frightened companions with a warm bowl and enters danger with the same solemn focus he brings to a carving table. To Garrick, every adventuring company is a feast not yet served, and every hungry soul is a responsibility waiting to be accepted.