Shrike

Shrike was the Geit Saint of the wind and skies. He was the patron to those who explored and wandered and is even venerated by the White Druids to this day. However, most of Shrike's legacy was tainted by his betrayal of the other Saints--an act of pride and sedition that created the Shrikevind and decimated the ancient Geit.

Early Life and the Saints' War

In life, Shrike led a clan of hunters in Jotun's south sea. For the patriarch of a stone-age society, he was cunning and intellectual, preferring to use his environment and strategy as opposed to brute force. While Shrike's true passion was exploration, he found his efforts curtailed by the Shapers from the north who exterminated any Geit they came across.
He often came into conflict with his rival, Tyr, and his clan of berserkers and barbarians. During one confrontation, Tyr and Shrike dueled over a felled fire giant. While Shrike won the duel using clever tactics, the proceedings were interrupted when a third clan leader, Raina arrived on her longships. Shrike found himself and his rival clans among a stranger named Olaf, who had eerie blue skin and wielded a giant axe made of pure energy that glowed as bright as the sun.
Olaf was gathering the leaders of the Geit Clans to lead an army north and put an end to the Shaper threat. As the constructs were far more powerful than the stone age Geit clans, many believed the notion foolish. However, Olaf quickly inspired them to join his cause by displaying his prowess in battle.
Together, Olaf led Shrike and the other clan leaders agains the Shapers in a conflict known as The Saints' War. Under his leadership, he developed a respect for his fellow clan leaders-even the brutish Tyr. Together, they formed a force powerful enough to take the Shapers on, and eventually they captured The Forge on the north pole.

Ascension to Godhood

Emerging victorious against their anceint enemy, Olaf and the Saints proceeded to set terms with the defeated Forger. To much of the Saints' surprise, Olaf did not envision the pillage and conquest that traditionally followed when one Geit clan conquered another. Rather, the Geit would call upon the conquered Shapers abilities by offering sacrificial rites in purportion to the boon they sought.
The Saints would also oversee these rites in perpetuity by taking on mechanical shaper bodies, making them de facto gods of the ancient Geit. Shrike chose th wind as his domain, since the winds travelled further than any of the elements created by The Forge. He took on the body of a giant steel bird, allowing him to ride the winds and once again indulge his love of exploration--but this time to the shores of even worlds beyond his own.
However, Shrike recognized a death within this new life. Unlike the other Saints, he prepared a tomb for his physical body. As a chieftain, he was duty bound to care for his clan, but as a god, he would wander once more.

Betrayal and Defeat

As the Saint of the Winds, Shrike explored for many centuries. He encountered early Illithid settlers on Io and even an ancient Tyrant wandering the spheres. However, eventually he found limits to how far he could travel under even The Forge's powers. He eventually felt trapped and grew dissatisfied with Olaf's measured rule of The Forge.
Shrike launched an attack against his fellow Saints and Olaf himself in a bid to take control of The Forge and free the Forger. He sent windstorms to the clans of the other Saints to distract them while he flew to the top of The Forge.
However, once Shrike took control of the winds, the mysteries which Shrike had long pursued began to unravel. He saw horrors beyond the sun's reach and realized the flow of time was nothing more than a forced perspective trick. With the insight of a God, he came to understand that the threads that held the cosmos together were bare and haphazard.
Losing control of his godly powers, Shrike blew a wind so powerful that it tore asunder a crack in time. It snaked the planet, destroying Geit citiis and killing most it touched. Some, however, clung to life, tumbling across time like a handful of seeds in the wind, until what remained landed in the present era--where Shrike and the other Saints had faded to little more than legend. The fould wind itself however, very much remained, becoming the vaunted Shrikevind whose howling gales still buffet Jotun's seas today.
Tyr and his armies approached The Forge. Just as in their mortal lives, the two chieftains dueled once again. Tyr ended Shrike's rebellion by impaling him to the top of The Forge with a giant sword. And with that, the age of the Saints ended.

A Whisper on the Wind

Ever the schemer, Shrike's end was not as final as his comrades believed. At the last moment, he slipped out of his giant body to inhabit that of one of his lesser sentries. While wielding only a fraction of his power and lacking any authority to command his former subjects, Shrike held onto his wits and found himself with plenty of time to plan.
With their followers gone the other Saints fell to madness, providing Shrike an opportunity to scout their domains and gather intelligence for how to accomplish his goal of freeing the Forger. In his travels he managed to steel The Forge Hammer that controlled The Forge. However, its power had been divided between the other Saints, Raina and Tormund, as well as Shrike himself.
Posing as a simple wind construct named Vethyr, Shrike crept into Raina's domain. However, her rebelling subjects captured him and stored him in a frozen brig. He awoke centuries or maybe millenia later when the Party ascended The Forge. Sensing their strength and determination, Shrike concocted a plan to obtain his desires. He loosened Raina's bonds on the throne she had chained herself to and enticed Tormund with news of a fire giant baby they traveled with whose heart could grow the size of his garden tenfold.
These subtle proddings ensured the Party encountered the other Saints on their journey up the spheres, and one by one the decayed forms of Shrikes old enemies fell to the Party and their essences returned to the Forge Hammer. While possessed of hubris and a machinating mind, none could say Shrike was not dedicated to his aims. When he revelaed his plot to the Party, he ended his own life so that his own essences of the wind could return to the Forge Hammer--giving them everything they needed to free the Forger and restore The Forge to its true power.