Only the Brewmage and the Hoptographer know where he came from. Neither has ever put the name of that realm on record.

After many years honing his craft here in Fermenta, he rode back through the Gate and hasn't been seen since.

A Stranger from Parts Unknown

The Western Warlock stepped through the Gate one morning during the Order's middle years and didn't say much about it. He was in traveling clothes… long duster, wide-brimmed hat, riding gloves and road a beast unknown to the realm of Fermenta. This beast would later be known as a “horse” and the Warlock had named her Juniper. He carried a satchel and a small case of instruments the Brewmage didn't recognize. He didn't give a name or a realm. He asked, in phrasing that felt a little off, whether the Order allowed independent study.

The Brewmage allowed it. The Hoptographer was there for the arrival and made a single note in his field journal. He filed it apart from the rest. Neither he nor the Brewmage has ever said what it says.

The Warlock stayed the night in Brewfall, thanked them, and rode west the next morning. He wanted to see, he said, what the Gate had done to land far from Hopreach Grove and how it changed things at the edges of the realm.

The Centennial Coast

He settled on the Centennial Coast, a stretch of rugged shoreline on the western edge of Fermenta shaped by salt air, dry winds, and hard-edged growth. Nothing lazy survives out there. Ingredients favor bitterness and clarity, and excess doesn't last long.

The Warlock spent years on the coast. He built a small stone workshop against a cliff face and worked out in the open most days, with the wind carrying sea spray up from below. He kept his own hops, growing them in tight rows on the side of the cliff where they had to hold their ground against the wind. The ones that survived were the ones he wanted… resinous, sharp, dense with pine and dry citrus. Everything the coast had made them into.

While the rest of the Order was refining toward softness and haze, the Warlock went the other way.

The Rank of Master

When the Brewmage saw what the Warlock had built on the coast, he offered him the formal rank of Master and a permanent seat in the Order's records.

The Warlock refused.

He explained that he worked better as a consultant, that a rank would tie him to Brewfall in a way he wasn't ready for, and that he had more to see before he'd take a title. He asked the Brewmage to leave the rank open. The Brewmage did.

The Order still calls him Master when they need to. He doesn't push back on it. He also doesn't use it himself.

Into the Maltiverse

Before he left, the CitruSmyth made him a special amulet… a hop-form pendant sized for travel, built to hold its bearer's craft steady across whatever conditions the realms beyond the Gate throw at him.

The Warlock took the amulet, thanked her, and packed up the rest of his things.

He rode back to Brewfall on Juniper in the late fall. He spent a night with the Brewmage and the Hoptographer, handed over a bound stack of field notes from his years on the coast, and told them he was going to explore what he called the Maltiverse… the wider web of realms the Gate connects. He didn't give a return date. He didn't ask for one either.

He rode Juniper through the Gate at dawn and hasn't been seen in Fermenta since.

His methods are preserved in the Order's records, kept by the Hoptographer from the notes he left behind.

This beer is his contribution.