From the time he was a child in the Two Rivers, Bryn Al'Caar had heard stories of great swordsmen, especially the warders trained at Tar Valon and ... the blademasters ... like the lord dragon and the great uncrowned king (whose name was lost in the retelling)(those were his favourite heroes).

His dream, from the time he was a small boy, was to be like them. When he was 15 he decided to petition the local lord to become one of his guardsmen, but when his father found out he wouldn't allow it because he wanted Bryn to stay and work on the family's Tabac farm. During his 16th summer, Bryn decided he'd had enough, and one dark, almost moonless night, he packed a little food and ran away (having it in his mind to travel to Caemlyn to train as a Queen's guardsman). Taking only his trusty longbow and his slightly used quarterstaff, he set out on the road to Caemlyn.

However, upon reaching Four Kings and learning that Tar Valon was not much farther than the capital of Andor, Bryn decided to make the journey to the Tower instead, to train as a swordsman (and maybe achieve blademaster, or become a fabled warder) It took weeks of travel, and many nights Bryn went hungry even with all of his skill with his bow, but he finally arrived at the gates of the fabled Tower. Now, he just needed to impress the Master of Warders enough to get him to let Bryn stay and train at the Tower.

Bryn is very large for his 16 years.  Almost 6'2" tall, and an axe handle across the shoulders, his mother had been sewing extra ever-widening strips of cloth into his shirts for almost 3 years already. His beard has not yet begun to be more than a troublesome patch of fuzz on his chin, but his deep bronze hair has grown nearly to his waist and he keeps it braided in a leather cord that hangs down the center of his back. He is fairly muscular from working his father's Tabac fields for over seven years (and his secret practice with the meager sword forms that he could glean from passing merchant guardsmen).