File this one under adventure/NPC/character inspiration.
“My book is based on the personal journal that German executioner Frantz Schmidt (aka Meister Frantz) kept during his forty-five years in the profession, from 1573-1618. During this time, he executed 394 individuals by various methods, and also flogged, disfigured, or tortured many hundreds more. This was clearly an amazingly prolific executioner, but what has been even more intriguing to me since my first encounter of this manuscript is the unexpected portrait of Meister Frantz that emerges: a man forced into an unsavory occupation, who appears to never lose his commitment to fairness, forgiveness, and other humane values.
Excerpt for non-Longreads members:
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=1854296747731744c923a33ef&id=c62c8f0b96&e=1917a06b3f
Heck, that is my next fighter!
Yeah, there’s even a built in motivation:
“The chapters that follow then trace the experiences and thoughts of Frantz Schmidt from his own perspective, largely in his own words, particularly his lifelong quest to restore his family’s honor and free his own children from his cursed profession.”
uh wait. Heirloom – talk to all the poor Souls you executed with your cleaver. Of course they are all nobles because only they are worthy of dying by the blade…
Indeed:
“Only during the past year had father considered son capable and worthy of wielding his cherished “judgment sword,” an engraved and elegantly crafted seven-pound weapon that spent most of its time hanging in an honored spot over their fireplace.”