In a time when outlaws and mercenaries serve as justice, and law and order is but a dream in a kingdom that hasn't seen peace in half of a lifetime, a shadowy figure enters a keep whose inhabitants have given themselves to the life of violence and debauchery that encompasses the desperate and evil alike. Wielding a massive iron sword, the figure persuades the miscreants to abide his dilemma, and leaves with a skin of water and bottle of spirits, freeing a sprightly fairy as passively as he would seemingly free his bladder. Rumors that he is known as the Black Swordsman circle, though in another lifetime was called Guts, and his legend is far from its end.
—tbosephus