Corentin was born with no surname, similarly to many other "commoners" of Oren's peasantry. Naturally, as he matured, the man took on the name of the town in which he was whelped, calling himself "Corentin of Acre". Corentin was born to parents both as low-born as he: a Heartlander mother and a father of apparent Adunian extraction. Neither mother nor father held any significance in the Barony of Acre, their status purely as wheat sowers in a position of near-serfdom. The youngest of 3 sons, between his brothers Philip and Rivallon, Corentin stood little chance of inheriting this meager "estate" if it could be called such. Corentin's very early youth saw the great upheaval known as the War of the Wigs, in which the old Imperial institutions fell to be replaced by the current Royalist regime. For people like Corentin's family, this meant little. Agriculture needed to be maintained, to feed vast populations and armies. In the process of turning boy to man, Corentin sowed the fields of the Baron of Acre to which his own family had been allotted partial proprietorship, planting various cereals including of course wheat, barley, and rye in the winter months.
Within a few growing seasons of Corentin's taking up of the "family trade", the Baron of Acre himself was in open rebellion against the new Kingdom of Oren - a revolt ironically styled the "Farmer Uprising". Much of the wheat sowed by Corentin and his two elder brothers would go on to be mashed into bread for Acre's footsoldiers, and the barley, un-mashed, to the horses. As soon as Corentin's father, Hoel, had bid him permission, Corentin took up drinking ale. At first this was done because then-17 year old Corentin had observed Acre's soldiery doing such, and the young man thought it an "intriguing activity". But little if any reward from this working of the fields would come to enrich Corentin or his family. Further, such a rebellion could only endanger the agricultural workers in Acre, whose properties or very lives might well be the first targets for royal authorities. This led to more and continuous consumption of whatever ale was available in Acre, increasingly less for the aforementioned reason and increasingly more due to longer days of work and the looming threat of the family's fields being subjected to burning like others in the surrounding locale. In search of safety and perhaps greater coin than a rural farmer could hope to engain, Corentin packed his things, saluted his father, kissed his darling mother, and set off to Vienne, capital of the nascent Royal monarchy of Oren. There he hoped to find a greater lot in life, and perhaps at last to learn the art of the written word.
