Before becoming a mercenary captain, Rodrigo was a wealthy farm owner during a civil war that ravaged the country-side. Desperately, Rodrigo Delmonte surveyed the ruins of his crop during the war. Previously, he had stood in the same field and admired the acres of crops ripening in the hot Tilean sun. Then however, where once had grown apples and citrus, vines and olive trees, there was nothing but charred, smouldering stumps in a ravaged landscape. The passage of El Cadavo's rampaging army left him an impoverished and broken man. The agricultural efforts of a long and hard life proved utterly and cruelly fruitless.[1a]