Eldmar/Backstory3

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The Modern Eldmar

Over the five or so years since his exaltation, Eldmar has been involved in a number of highly dangerous and occasionally high profile situations. It all began on the fateful day whilst journeying from Celeron back to his home, Eldmar came across a man being attacked by a Nemisary, the servant of an unknown Death Lord. Eldmar immediately rode in to assist the traveller, but before he could reach him, the man unleashed a torrent of arrows killing the Nemisary. In order to do what he had, Eldmar knew that he had to be some sort of supernatural being, and as the man turned to face Eldmar, the mark of a Solar Dawn caste shone dimly on his forehead. Eldmar quickly and briefly lit up his caste mark to put the stranger at his ease. There were many dark nights afterwards when Eldmar wished he had simply killed the other Exalt. If he only knew the trouble that the stranger would cause – hindsight is a wonderful thing. Instead Eldmar offered Katarn – the warriors’ name – the hospitality of his home, and so the troubles began.

Whilst travelling back to the ranch house the pair came across a wandering hermit – Kavor, dressed in the robes of the immaculate priesthood. Dragon Blooded are held in high regard in Marukan, and although the immaculate faith is not the official religion of the country, the priests are still respected. Eldmar extended the hospitality of his home to the monk because to have not done so would have been considered a social faux pas. During the night there was another attack by forces of the mysterious Death Lord, during which all three men were forced to use their Solar gifts in order to thwart the attack. This promoted a long discussion as to what they were going to do. Eventually they decided to travel around randomly to try to throw off any further pursuit before returning to the ranch. Finally they reached the ranch house and there was a small celebration for the honoured guests. They remained there for a while trying to decide what if anything they were going to do – perhaps continue their lives separately or perhaps work together as a team.

They decided to remain together for a while and began to travel the scavenger lands looking for wrongs to right, along the way they met up with a Luna Full Moon called Jax and they decided to work together as a group. They came across the remains of a caravan that had been attacked and decimated by bandits, and while searching around for clues they found an old blacksmith heading back to a nearby village. The PC’s agreed to escort him there, and when they got there found that barbarians had been attacking the village as well. They offered their services to help defend the village from another attack, and sure enough that very night the raiders came back. The fight was relatively short, a few villagers died but almost all of the raiders did, the survivors fleeing back into the forest. Eldmar, Kavor, Katarn and Jax followed them, finally they came to the bandits lair, an old deserted building deep within the trees, a Luna had made her home there, and with her humans and beast men were attacking the near by villages. Another much more fierce fight commenced, which almost went badly wrong when a wyld beast popped its head up to join the fray, but finally the PC’s were victorious and the barbarian threat was eliminated. The goods that had been taken from the village were returned and the party claimed everything else as spoils. The building appeared to be ancient – perhaps First Age but they were unable to gain access to it, and had neither the resources nor the skills to repair such a large building and so they moved on.

Whilst trying to decide what to do next, they heard news of atrocities being committed in a place called Gundersford, located within the area known as the Hundred Kingdoms. Duke Gundar had died in unusual circumstances and his son had inherited the title. He hired a large band of mercenaries, and raised the taxes to unsustainable levels. The new Duke became rich, whilst his people were starving. Those that could not pay, or broke one of his many new laws were imprisoned and tortured. Whole villages were being terrorised by the mercenary forces. Eldmar along with Katarn and Father Kavor – a Zenith caste, decided to go to Gundersford and investigate the matter further. They had many adventures along the way; several of Grey Falls militia were killed when they tried to take the three men in to the city for questioning. An earlier practical joke had gone badly wrong and had resulted in Kavor’s anima banner erupting into the night sky. Soldiers were dispatched in all directions to locate the anathema, unfortunately this particularly unprepared group ran smack bang into one of the patrols, and had to fight their way out of trouble.

Finally they arrived in Gundersford after several close calls with border guards and customs officers. They began to discretely investigate the rumours and found some substance to them. Whilst camping in a wooded copse on the outskirts of one village, they noticed that makeshift fortifications had been erected around the village. That night a large party of mercenary cavalry approached the village demanding taxes that the headman refused to pay, the mercenary leader drew his blade and killed the headman, instructing the village that they would return the following night to collect what they were owed or many more would die. The decision was made; the four of them would have to intervene. They set up an ambush on the edge of the trees; the road leading to the village was within bow shot range. The plan was simple, Eldmar would unleash Death of Obsidian Butterflies at the charging cavalry, and Katarn’s arrows would strike down any that survived. The arrows – as it turned out – were not necessary.

The villagers hailed them as hero’s, now the party now had a base to operate from in Gundersford. They began a very successful campaign of hit and run guerrilla warfare against the Duke’s men. Ultimately with over 70% of the mercenaries killed, and with no idea of who was so successfully performing the ambushes, many of the remaining mercenaries fled. Only the most loyal and elite of the troops remained. After decimating the mercenary army, the next step was to take the fight directly to the Duke. The group travelled into the capital city Gunder separately; and scouted out the area to determine where and how they were going to get access to the Duke’s castle. They eventually settled on a night attack from the roof of the castle.

They gained access to the roof by utilising climbing skills and athletics charms, once there they proceeded to the rooftop door, which they then forced open to gain entry. They fought a pitched battle through the castle against the Duke’s bodyguard – which consisted of elite beast men with heavy armour and weaponry. The fight was a close run thing because of the sheer numbers of defenders, the four of them were outnumbered more than four to one, and with only two warriors in the group things became hairy. Finally they came upon the Duke himself, he had barricaded himself within one of the castles strong rooms, Eldmar came up with the suggestion of taking oil from the many lanterns and pouring it through the crack at the bottom of the door. Hopefully with the threat of suffocation or burning alive the Duke would surrender to face justice. He didn’t so they lit the oil, unfortunately inside the strong room were a number of highly flammable objects including books, tapestries, rolls of silk etc which turned the room into a raging inferno.

The Duke had already escaped the room through a hidden passageway, emerging elsewhere within the castle but was unable to escape as Eldmar and Katarn had destroyed the mechanism for lowering the drawbridge. A cat and mouse chase ensued, finally ending with the capture and death of the Duke. The four exalts hung around long enough to help the townsfolk set up a new ruling council and restore order to the land before making their escape. Unknown to the others, Katarn had kept the decapitated head of the dead Duke and frequently abused it. Eventually he tired of it, but rather than bury it he simply threw it into some bushes. Thus was born a very angry and hungry ghost.

Around this time the party decided to move up into the north eastern forest. They received a message from a Fey Lord asking for help with a problem. They travelled to his manse to discuss the matter with him. The Lord was fairly reasonable for a Fey, he only captured and fed upon criminals, he was neighbour’s with another Lord who was not so nice however, and wished to expand his territory. A deal was struck where the party would bring down the neighbour and his forces. The first Fey would then move into the larger territory of his neighbour and the party would take over his old territory. The battle was quite fierce and involved fighting a number of wyld beasts, but the party was ultimately victorious.

The group then moved south, below the great river there were rumours of a barbarian uprising taking place, and they set forth to investigate. They visited many of the south eastern towns and cities, hearing much in the way of rumour pointing blame at the Arkzecki but little fact; so after Eldmar found someone to teach him the language of the barbarians, they set out into the wilderness. It was not long before they found the proof they needed. They were attacked by a group of Arkzecki raiders, which proved no difficulty for the exalts – until the shaman set loose a pack of blood apes which made things much less enjoyable for the hero’s. The battle ended in victory and a thorough search revealed some interesting information about the Arkzecki such as they sacrificed people to summon demons and that they were a cannibalistic people.

Moving deeper into their territory, the exalts found an Arkzecki caravan which they attacked and through questioning the captives discovered their immanent plans to march on the southern towns and cities. The group returned with haste to Largyn and then on to the Scavenger Land council at Great Falls to pass on the information. The signed parchment on which everything was written was supposed to be taken into the council chambers but was somehow found on the floor by a care taker. Thankfully he had enough intelligence to realise its importance and pass the parchment onto the council which then acted on it. Military units were dispatched to the south, including detachments from Lookshy, Meleville, Marukan, Great Falls, Grey Forks and Thorns. Some how along the way, several members of the group managed to get themselves indebted to an official from Meleville called Sir Remus Aurelius. In order to pay off this debt the group signed on as his aides and thus the anathema went to war alongside the dragon blooded of Lookshy. To say that Eldmar was unimpressed when he found out is an understatement (I missed several sessions at this time). They were stationed in Largyn, Sir Remus was in charge of the south East wall. Eldmar a cavalryman of Marukan, stuck in a walled city surrounded by miles of plains and not a cavalry unit in sight, how frustrating!

The Arkzecki siege was long and drawn out. They made several frontal assaults on the walls that cost them dearly. Eldmar used Death of Obsidian butterflies to great effect on the advancing lines of the enemy. Then they tried tunnelling in under the walls but the use of summoned Earth elementals soon put them off. Finally they tried to use elemental magic to cause lightning storms to keep the defenders of the walls, but again Air elementals soon brought that to an end. Finally they dug nice long lines of trenches and put little wooden roofs over them to keep out the arrows, but it didn’t stop a few unstoppable fountain of the depths spells’ from reeking havoc on their forces. This is when things began to get really interesting.

There was a major clash of interests and personalities between Eldmar and Sir Remus, resulting in Eldmar leaving the walls and retiring to the cities main hospital with the rank of surgeon captain. Things were much busier on the hospital wards, much more so than on the walls, at least there you had an off duty period. Things came to a head when Eldmar diagnosed an outbreak of cholera. It spread fairly quickly but thankfully due to the early discovery of the disease, its effects were limited by a number of countermeasures. Sir Remus along with Katarn and Kavor investigated the matter and tracked the origin of the disease to a large water well. The Arkzecki had summoned a spirit of disease, which had entered into the city and proceeded to poison the well. They fought and killed the spirit, and thankfully the epidemic burned itself out, shortly afterwards Eldmar returned to defend the wall. During one attack Katarn activated an obvious Solar charm fighting multiple attackers who had breached the outer wall. This caused many problems but was finally dealt with by explaining him away as being God blooded.

General Parmenion, who lead the massed armies defending Largyn, requested a private meeting to discuss the fact that Sir Remus had 2 Godblooded (one a powerful sorcerer) in his party. He was informed that the party was actually Solar Exalts, and that they were there to defend the city. The final offensive when it came was costly to both sides, the wall defended by Sir Remus was intentionally allowed to be breached. A second defensive wall had been built for the defenders to fall back to, and when a large number of the barbarians were between the walls, several stockpiles of strategically placed fire dust were ignited causing massive devastation. There were many casualties on both sides but finally the Arkzecki were driven off, their numbers decimated. The mixed force of soldiers remained within Largyn for a short while to ensure its safety, but the units soon began to return to their own countries.

Eldmar and the others left Largyn and moved back to the scavenger lands. During this time Katarn went Crazy and suggested they sell Eldmar’s children into prostitution to ease the parties money problems. Obviously Eldmar was not overly happy with this and demanded an apology or else, the apology was not forthcoming and Katarn paid the ultimate price. They decided to separate for a while, Sir Reemus went off on a private mission which ended up with him gaining a whole load of new artefacts for the party, whist Eldmar and Kavor went into the mountains to explore. They found an abandoned building that turned out to be a manse owned by Eldmar’s first incarnation Salamar.