HammerOne/BeastOfWar

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Beast of War

The Beast of War is a death knight of the Day caste in the service of the enigmatic Deathlord known as the Widow of the Red Path. Once an agent of the realm, the beast was left behind to die and has now sworn to bring any agent of the realm, he can get his hands on.

Description

The Beast of War appears to be a massive man, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. Most often he is clad in a black leather and soul steel body suit, with his lower arms and legs protected by soul steel bands, with a large number of weapons, mostly knives and small throwing weapons all over him. His right hand and forearm is covered by an oversized soul steel gauntlet, a smash fist like edifice, he uses to control his preferred weapon, the soul steel fighting chain known as the Hungry Legion’s March, which is usually wrapped across his chest. The Beast of War almost never removes his white jade mask, depicting the face of a bestial demon with traits reminiscent of a roaring tiger and a sneering dragon, his bloodshot eyes seen through the eyeholes of the bestial mask. Underneath the mask, the true face of the Beast of War is a broken ruin, most of the skin and a great deal of the flesh missing and the skull showing through at several places. The nose and most of the lips are gone and the scars that have been left behind looks like some thing ate them right of the death knight’s face.

Biography

Born into the Marek household of the Great house of Tepet, the man who would one day become the Beast of War was from an early age expected to join the ranks of the Dragon blooded. Springing from the union of two exalted dragon blooded officers and showing his pedigree and connection to the Air Dragon in his snow white hair and bluish white skin, the young dynast’s natural aptitude toward stealth and clandestine actions, made all believe that he would exalt and become a great strategist and commando. He studied and learned but instead of learning the craft of the battlefield fighter and commando, who strides directly into combat, the dynast learned of the less obvious and some times more vicious ways of combat, that of the secret invaded, the saboteur and the assassin.

Soon, the young dynast would be send of to the Threshold and the hundred kingdoms as an “advisor” or “instructor” to various secret groups who were “friendly” toward the realm, especially in areas where “uncooperative locals” made it difficult for the realm to manouver. The dynast’s mission would range from simply “retiring” some obstinate civil leader to “advising” rebel groups, teaching them to fight and to do as much damage as possible. Several of his family members objected to him and his valuable blood being risked away from the blessed Isle, but the dynast brushed them of, completely confident that his employers in the Realms shadowy intelligence community depend so much in his as to always bail him out.

In the end, he was, of course, wrong. While training a group of rebels against the despotic ruler of some irrelevant principality of the Hundred Kingdoms, the dynast was convinced by his superiors into leading the rebels’ final charge himself. This was a devious ploy on the part of his superiors, since they intended to use the rebel attack as bait for the despot drawing him put and then killing both the rebels and the despot in one swift strike, killing two birds with one stone and opening the path to power for their own puppet ruler. Making the dynast lead the rebels himself was simply to persuade the rebels to make the almost certainly suicidal attack.

When the artillery began to pelt the forces of both the dynast and the despot, the dynast desperately tried to get word to his master to stop their bombardment of his forces, easily recognizing the fires of the weapons of his realm masters. But his cries were ignored and the realm artillery continued to rain fire down on the battlefield, maiming and killing every single warrior on the field.

Realizing that he had been betrayed and not wanting to give up his life for the sake of the rebel cause, the dynast ran, scrambling for the protective shade of the dark jungle nearby. One missile, a huge flying iron sphere, filled with sharp metal shrapnel hit the ground just few feet from there the dynast was running, exploding in a cloud of fire and flying metal, tearing and ripping the dynast’s flesh and propelling him for many meters until he landed in a jungle trench, partially filled with stale, stinking swamp water.

He lay in that trench for what seemed like an eternity, barely managing to keep the upper part of his mangled body above the dark filthy water. As the days crept on and became humid nights he felt the pests and carrion feeders crawl across his torn skin and felt them slowly start to consume his body. At first he weakly showed them of, but his strength was fading fast and soon they came back and this time he was too weak to fight them. Though he was numb from fatigue and blood loss, the pain was never the less excruciating when a group of carrion beetles nestled on his upper body and slowly began to eat his face. As one large and particularly vicious beetle suddenly gouge out his left eye and his face exploded in even more pain, he felt consciousness fade and he slowly slipped into darkness.

As darkness descended on him, the dying Dynast's remaining good eye spotted movement on the edge of the clearing and saw what appeared to be an ancient womam stepping out of the trees.

Backgrounds

• Hungry Legion's March (Artefact 4+) Few, apart from the widow herself, realize that this the same Soul steel and star metal weapon, wielded by the legendary sidereal known as Dark Iron Centipede.