![[old_man.jpg]] Old Man is a multi-bodied entity of unknown boundary. He was known in one of his bodies–that of an elderly, hunched man–as an accomplished imperial mycologist of the [[Lion Lands]]. After resigning from his tenured sinecure there, he was recruited by the administration of the military science academy of [[3rd Winter]] to develop a new kind of [[mushroom]] whose powers could be defined at the time of consumption rather than being inherent to the strain. After finishing his research, he took the mushrooms he developed and left the academy with them, taking up secret residence in a small cabin on the east of the island and occupied himself with bound booklets of pornographic illustrations from [[Awast]]. This is where nationless bounty hunters [[Yuzu]] and [[Eithan]] discovered him, after they were hired by the academy administration to track him down. He persuaded these two to flee the island with him, instead of turning him over. He educated them in the use of the complex mushroom and sacrificed his elderly body to save them, Yuzu and Eithan and Bemo of the [[Elders]] party, in the train debacle of [[elder's path 4]].