Rhodango was a simple man with a simple story. Once upon a time, he asked a beautiful girl that he liked to marry him. She declined. He respected her decision and moved away to become a hermit in the woods. That was it. He spent the next thirty years living in a crooked little cottage he'd built beneath the roots of an enormous oak, where he studied his favorite types of magic. And his story might have easily ended there.
But it didn't. A lot has happened since then. Civilization has changed, so have the woods, and Rhodango has changed with them. Civilization has become more fast-paced and greedy than ever each time he has tried to return, driving a wedge of resentment between him and his homeland. As for the woods, they are being torn down by Metropolis, converted into lumber mills, farms, and settlements. Although the heartbeat of the forest remains unchanged, Rhodango can feel it growing faintly weaker with each passing month and year.
But the most important changes happened inside of Rhodango. Over the years, he came to realize that what drove him into the woods was not purely love for nature but an inability to handle rejection compounded by crippling social anxiety. Through meditation, came to accept these problems as part of himself, but it didn't make the task of returning to civilization any easier. Now that the forest was in danger, Rhodango realized he must leave his beloved home in order to save something worth saving. This he did with a heavy heart.
Back at home, Rhodango found a surprise waiting for him. Beautiful Annette, the girl who rejected him, was overjoyed to see him again. Though she had been married, she was now single after her husband died many years ago. One day while they were talking, Annette quietly placed her hand over his and asked him to wed. Rhodango, being Rhodango, said no emphatically several times before clearing his throat and saying yes. Annette, knowing Rhodango just quietly smiled and waited for him to say yes so she could kiss him. She was thirty years older than when he last knew her, of course, but even in her early fifties she was still attractive. Her increased age meant little to Rhodango, who had never truly stopped loving her all these years.
Annette and Rhodango are now partners in crime, working overtime to stop the Metropolitan invasion of Avalon. Even more, their struggle has expanded to protect the pristine beauty of the world, wherever it may be found and wherever it needs protection. There are places throughout the world that cannot be rebuilt once destroyed, living things that cannot be brought back from the dead, and forms of beauty whose value cannot be measured in timber, coin, or acreage. From the shadowy evergroves of Transylvania to the windswept beaches of Thalassa, Rhodango and Annette work side by side—sometimes as activists, sometimes as saboteurs, sometimes as wandering magicians, and occasionally as two middle-aged troublemakers who have become dangerously clever at making powerful people regret cutting down trees.