Skarvi Eightfingers
Leader of Skarvi's Hammers
Skarvi Eightfingers is the last living son of the last rik of Rotskjoldland. He is a lord of Ostland, pirate, mercenary, smuggler and the most determined enemy of the Kalmasan Samraj. With his private navy, Skarvi's Hammers, he has waged a decades long guerilla campaign by both land and sea against the Samraj. Skarvi has done more than anyone in convincing the rulers of Heimval that any one of them could be the next land to fall to Kalmasa after Rotskjoldland. He has formed alliances with Kalmasa's enemies throughout Torvalen and has carefully grown his power and influence. In Rotskjoldland, taxed sorely by the war with Volenar like all the Kalmasan provinces, whispers grow stronger that Skarvi is the rightful ruler, last living son of old Rik Torvald.
HistorySkarvi was born into the cut-throat world of the Skjoldir nobility. He was born third son of Rik Torvald af Rotskjold, the popular and powerful ruler of Rotskjoldland. As was tradition for third-sons, he was bound to his eldest brother Einar as his retainer, little more than a bodyguard and go-between. Many such extra sons resented the role and became angry, sullen drunks. But Skarvi embraced it, taking full advantage of the position. His middle brother Halvar roamed the lands, sleeping rough and risking his life fighting Vandir raiders from land or Thalkunir raids from the sea. Skarvi saw that though Halvar gained much honor, much of that honor was attributed to their father Torvald.
Instead of gaining honor on the battlefield, he won it through shrewedness. Einar had more interest in women and hunting than politics and was more than willing to allow his younger brother to represent him in moots and deal with the many visitors to their hall. Skarvi soon became indispensible and gained a reputation as a sober, wise young man and was careful to never act above his station or treat Einar with anything but brotherly deference.
He was only 19 when the Kalmasan forces landed in the marshlands of southern Rotskjoldland. Like all Jolnir, he was shocked at the terrible losses suffered at the hands of the foreigners and disgusted by the stories of the male battlemages of the Kalmasans. He asked his brother leave to join the fighting, but Einar refused him, unwilling to do without his aid. Then the news came that that Halvar had been slain and Skarvi's wishes became his father's command when he was made war leader. Though he lacked experience, he learned quickly and heeded the advice of the old battlemasters. Under his leadership, the advances of the Kalmasan forces were stopped and the stalemate gave Rik Torvald much needed breathing room.
When Skarvi returned to his father's hall, he was greeted as a hero and Einar did nothing to disguise his jealousy. A young, charismatic theotan, Mjolkar Mjolkarsen, played on Einar's resentment and soon wheedled himself into the position of trust and companionship Skarvi had once held. As the stalemate held, Einar and Mjolkar played on the restlessness and impatience of many of the theotans who believed it was time to drive the little foreigners back into the sea. Their whisper campaign was successful enough to cause Torvald, fearing a rikmoot that would replace him as ruler, to go against his own better judgement and mount a new campaign against the invaders.
Einar was left to rule in his absence and Skarvi was happy to join him and leave the viper's nest that Gulnhol had become. His father gave Skarvi control of his elite warriors and told him the role he was to play, acting as a desperate guerilla force attacking as skirmishers. Skarvi was successful and his army, split up into small cohorts, did extensive damage to the supply lines of the enemy with the helpful spying of local peasants. When Torvald believed that the Kalmasan forces were scattered over the land like an upset ant nest, he met Skarvi's forces at the appointed time in the Aar forest. He was annoyed to find Mjolkar with his father, leading a force of his own.
They waited until all three moons had risen above the trees and charged out of the forest to take the city of Udvala and change the momentum of the war. The high priestess of the Daenir herself led her handmaidens of Ragna to use their power to undermine the glyph-warded stone walls of Udvala. As they emerged from the treeline though, they were greeted by a surrounding army. The scouts and reported the area clear only an hour earlier, and Skarvi felt the cold certainty that they had been betrayed.
Darmati battlemages rained fire and lightning on them from above, targeting the Daenir. The priestesses withstood the onslaught at first with the power of earthen shields and summoned stone guardians to reek havoc among the Kalmasans, but the were eventually scattered or destroyed. Skarvi and his father fought side by side, protected by their bronze runic armor from the spells of the hated battlemages and slaughtered all in their reach. Torvald then commanded his son to retreat back into the forest and report to his brother what had happened this day. Skarvi, filled with fury and shame, obeyed.
Skarvi, hungry and wounded, returned to Gulnhol to receive a cold reception from his brother. Einar told him he already knew of the loss and gave Skarvi the news that their father was dead of an arrow. An envoy of the Kalmasan Samraj was camped nearby and had told all. The surviving theotans called a moot. Most had decided to treat with the envoy. Others theotans refused, including Einar, who realized now that he had been duped by Mjolkar and had been turned into the tool of his family's and kingdom's demise.
Knowing their lives were forfeit, they fled north into Ostland with their families. From there, they mounted a rebellion with those Skjoldir freeholders and theotans who refused to bow to foreign rule. Warriors and Saedir priestesses of Ostland also joined their ranks and the lords of Ostland lent them warships. Their fleet scored initial victories, capturing supplies and ships, but the initial ardor of their supporters, even in Ostland, waned as the Treaty of Udvala held. The Kalmasans were delivering much needed supplies of food to the war ravaged lands they had conquered. The land was enjoying peace and prosperity and Einar's support ebbed.
Then, while camping on a beach, their small remaining force was ambushed in the night. Skarvi and two other men barely escaped to one of the row boats as the rest were slaughtered or captured and their ships burned to the waterline. Skarvi and his companions rowed north, traveling by night and hiding in coves during the day until they reached Ostland. They were taken in by an Ostir lord, Skarvi's second cousin on his mother's side, where is mother, Einar's widow and his younger sister then lived.
They received news that Einar was hung as a traitor. Skarvi was tormented by grief and anger. He blamed himself for the death of his father and brother and brooded endlessly over things he could have done differently. Then he reached a decision. Skarvi came before Brenna Darksky, Saedir high priestess of Ostland. Surrounded by witnesses, he made a blood oath to the gottir, aetir and vultir. With an axe he cut off the smallest finger on each hand. These were burned in sacrifice to the gottir. He let the blood flow freely into a bowl of sea water and Brenna concecrated it in the name of Holy Thera. He vowed to see his family avenged and the Kalmasans driven out of Rotskjoldland then drunk deeply.
Skarvi began building a fearsome name as a smuggler and pirate of Kalmasan shipping and customs boats. He slowly amassed an extensive fleet and developed hidden shipyards throughout Heimval and trained eager young men and women to man the ships. Over the years, Skarvi had become more aware of the world outside of Heimval and the other colonies that Kalmasa established around Torvalen and the enemies they made. He became their instrument of revenge and thus his own. Skarvi's Hammers were born.
In the following decades, Skarvi's Hammers would be instrumental in smuggling weapons and goods to Kalmasa's enemies and rebels. Half of the goods of any ship he captured, he used to enrich the Saedir and Daenir sisterhoods as well as the people of Ostland. The rest he used to strengthen his own rugged lands on the southern border of Ostland, given to him by his second cousin. He made alliances in Volenar, Neztlalpan, Yngheim, and with other rebels and pirates, such as Tikrit the Bloody, overcoming the racial hatred most Jolnir had for the native keratoplexan peoples of Torvalen.
With the loss of the Volenaran colonies and his spies learning of rebellious murmurings among the noble Eshtem houses, Skarvi believes that the Samraj has finally spread itself too thin and too quickly and that with the death of Rik Mjolkar in Rotskjoldland and his son, a 'half-breed' by an Eshtem mother sitting in Gulnhol as rik, now is the time to see his oath fulfilled.
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