Nord
Master Nord Ulfrikson
Nord is an old, cursed man, who carries with him a deep tragedy. He seeks to get to the root of the curse that afflicts him, and perhaps one day finally lift it, but in the meantime, he uses his magical powers to atone for his actions.
Born in 688 SE in a small village by the Bay of the Bull, Nord Ulfrikson lived a simple life. He grew up on his father's farm, fishing, herding goats, and foraging for roots, berries and mushrooms. It was sometimes a hard life; both the weather, the wildlife and the neighbouring Gorl tribes (many of whom where Baphomet worshipping raiders, and could be quite dangerous, even to their neighbours) would occationally threaten the tranquility of the small village, but most of the time, the isolated nature of Nord's home meant that most days were pleasantly calm and idyllic.
For most of his youth Nord wished for nothing but to find himself a wife and continue his father's farm, and in 712 SE he got the opportunity, while taking a cartful of goat-cheese to the market in Warrior's Landing. Here he met Brinja, daughter of a half-dwarven Huscarl of Clan Hrafnir. She was tall, handsome, and flaxenhaired, and though she was far above his station, that very night she kissed him, and from that moment he knew what he wanted. For years he pursued her, writing her letters, meeting her in secret for late night rendezvous in the forest, and working hard to make his father's farm into a home worthy of a Huscarl's daughter.
He planted potato fields, built a stable for Rygan goats that he would breed and sell, he hired extra hands, and by the time his father died in 717 SE, the farm had grown to be one of the most prosperous in the whole region. Brinja's father relented and Nord and her were married in the spring of 718 SE. When summer came, Brinja became pregnant with their first child, and it seemed as though a joyous life was ahead of them. But news of the farm's prosperity had reached the ears of a small group of raiders, who had had a bad summer with little success. One night, a dozen men showed up with the intent to pillage the farm for anything of value. Nord and Brinja woke in their bed, and Nord instructed Brinja to hide, while he snuck out and roused the farmhands. But Brinja was a proud daughter of a huscarl, and as soon as Nord was out of the room she took her shield and axe off the wall and went to confront the bandits.
When Nord and the farmhands arrived, she was already starring down the men, silhuetted against the burning barn. Nord ran to her side, but not before the first raider lunged at Brinja. She blocked his blow with her shield, but he followed up with a dagger in his left hand, a loathsome, primitive weapon made of an antler. He sunk the tip into Brinja's shoulder, and she screamed in pain, but she still held on to her axe, and finished him with a draw across his abdomen. Nord reached her, and the farmhands followed suit, and after a frantic meelee, three raiders lay dead, another two were captured, and the rest fled. The farmhands ran to douse the flames, while Nord tended to Brinja. The wound was superficial, but Brinja said she felt weak. That night she had a fever and couldn't sleep, and the next morning it was clear her wound was infected.
They called in the local healer, who was stumped. They sent for help from Warrior's Landing, and still, nobody could help. They even found a Lumerian missionary, and all he could say was that the wound was a necrotic curse, and no mundane injury. Nord went to the captured raiders, who were being kept in the prison pit in the village. Desperate, he beat them, demanding that they tell him something, anything that could help him save his wife. They finally admitted that their leader, the man who wounded Brinja, had aquired the antler-dagger from an old hermit shaman whom the raiders sometimes sought out for healing and magics, who lived by the foot of the Ironroot Mountains.
Nord packed up the now heavily pregnant and very sick Brinja on a cart drawn by their two best goats, and set off north towards where the hermit lived. Along the way Brinja would speak to Nord weakly, for the few hours she was awake at a time. She begged him to try and save the baby, and said she was ready to die if only the child could live. Nord comforted her, and insisted she didn't need to worry, he would save them both, but in his heart his desperation and despair grew deeper. After days of travel and more days of searching Nord finally found the hermit, living in a small tent deep in the forest. He brought Brinja before him and demanded he reverse the curse his weapon had caused.
The shaman was a dwarf, though tall, and he was sinewy, with sickly bruised skin. He laughed a malicious laugh and told Nord that not only could he lift the curse, but he could give Nord the power to do so himself. Nord knew there was something very wrong with this man, and he didn't trust him, but there was no turning back now: Brinja was days, maybe hours from death. He asked that only the curse by lifted, but the shaman said that both had to be done, one as payment for the other. And so, Nord agreed to receive the consecration of the shaman. With a wicked smile the shaman stepped forward, and grabbed Nord by the hair, pushing him to his knees. With a dull blade the shaman carved eldrich sigils into Nord's cheeks and forehead, and finally he placed his hand on Nord's scalp, and whispered in a strange language. A searing pain gripped Nord, and he almost passed out for a moment.
When he came to, the shaman was standing over Brinja, looking down at Nord:
"Now you choose." he said.
"Choose what? You promised you would lift the curse!" said Nord, full of fury and desperation.
"Ahh, but there are two curses here. Which one should I lift? The mother, or the child? The choice fall on you."
For a moment Nord hesitated, but he knew the choice he would make. "Her." he said: "Save her."
The shaman laughed a laugh as cruel and sadistic as any Nord had ever heard: "Wrong! You made the selfish choice! You want your price, your highborn woman, for whom you have worked so hard. You KNOW the right choice. she TOLD you! If you truly loved her, and were truly selfless, you would have chosen the child, as was her wish. Well, I suppose it falls on me to do the right thing..." and in that moment, he plunged the dull blade into Brinja's belly, and cut the child from her womb. He drew out the lifeless child and placed it, oddly gently, in Brinja's arms, and for a moment her eyes opened and she smiled at the child. Then the shaman cast some dark spells and seemed to draw Brinja's spirit from her body and consumed it, after which he blew life into the baby, who started crying. He took the child and put it in the stunned Nord's arms, and stepped back into the shadow, leaving Nord with his grief and his newborn, premature and scrawny, but alive, son.
Nord buried his wife in the clearing, and then travelled south to Brinja's family manor, where he left his son with a note saying that he was the son of Brinja of the Hrafnir and deserved to be raised as such. Then he went home, sold the farm, split the money between the farmhands, packed up a few belongings, including Brinja's shield and axe, and travelled north to find the monster who had ruined his life. But back in the clearing there was no sign of the shaman, only the stone Nord had raised on Brinja's grave. The only clue Nord had was a carving on the cursed antler-dagger, a strange sigil of a fly that looked Uluakian in style. He knew of a small Uluakian community nearby, and he went to ask them about the sigil. There they told him it was the mark of Tiris, and that Nord bore the marks of the god of Despair on his forehead.
Nord travelled north to the frozen wastes beyond the mountains in search of answers, and there he discovered that the old shaman had truly gifted him with his blessing, that made him capable of working magic, for good and ill. He learned more of the nature of Tiris, or Xarum as the southerners called him, and he did not care much for what he learned. But he used his healing skills to help where he could, to try and offset the pain he had caused his family. Eventually, he returned south of the mountains, and started working as a mercenary, having become more cynical over the years, but still, he was always searching for answers about the god that had cursed him. He had even begun to wonder if the old Shaman was Tiris himself, who had come to toy with him. The things he knew of him and Brinja, and of the darkest secrets of Nord's heart certainly meant that the shaman had been something much more than an ordinary man.
Background:
Born in 688 SE in a small village by the Bay of the Bull, Nord Ulfrikson lived a simple life. He grew up on his father's farm, fishing, herding goats, and foraging for roots, berries and mushrooms. It was sometimes a hard life; both the weather, the wildlife and the neighbouring Gorl tribes (many of whom where Baphomet worshipping raiders, and could be quite dangerous, even to their neighbours) would occationally threaten the tranquility of the small village, but most of the time, the isolated nature of Nord's home meant that most days were pleasantly calm and idyllic.
For most of his youth Nord wished for nothing but to find himself a wife and continue his father's farm, and in 712 SE he got the opportunity, while taking a cartful of goat-cheese to the market in Warrior's Landing. Here he met Brinja, daughter of a half-dwarven Huscarl of Clan Hrafnir. She was tall, handsome, and flaxenhaired, and though she was far above his station, that very night she kissed him, and from that moment he knew what he wanted. For years he pursued her, writing her letters, meeting her in secret for late night rendezvous in the forest, and working hard to make his father's farm into a home worthy of a Huscarl's daughter.
He planted potato fields, built a stable for Rygan goats that he would breed and sell, he hired extra hands, and by the time his father died in 717 SE, the farm had grown to be one of the most prosperous in the whole region. Brinja's father relented and Nord and her were married in the spring of 718 SE. When summer came, Brinja became pregnant with their first child, and it seemed as though a joyous life was ahead of them. But news of the farm's prosperity had reached the ears of a small group of raiders, who had had a bad summer with little success. One night, a dozen men showed up with the intent to pillage the farm for anything of value. Nord and Brinja woke in their bed, and Nord instructed Brinja to hide, while he snuck out and roused the farmhands. But Brinja was a proud daughter of a huscarl, and as soon as Nord was out of the room she took her shield and axe off the wall and went to confront the bandits.
When Nord and the farmhands arrived, she was already starring down the men, silhuetted against the burning barn. Nord ran to her side, but not before the first raider lunged at Brinja. She blocked his blow with her shield, but he followed up with a dagger in his left hand, a loathsome, primitive weapon made of an antler. He sunk the tip into Brinja's shoulder, and she screamed in pain, but she still held on to her axe, and finished him with a draw across his abdomen. Nord reached her, and the farmhands followed suit, and after a frantic meelee, three raiders lay dead, another two were captured, and the rest fled. The farmhands ran to douse the flames, while Nord tended to Brinja. The wound was superficial, but Brinja said she felt weak. That night she had a fever and couldn't sleep, and the next morning it was clear her wound was infected.
They called in the local healer, who was stumped. They sent for help from Warrior's Landing, and still, nobody could help. They even found a Lumerian missionary, and all he could say was that the wound was a necrotic curse, and no mundane injury. Nord went to the captured raiders, who were being kept in the prison pit in the village. Desperate, he beat them, demanding that they tell him something, anything that could help him save his wife. They finally admitted that their leader, the man who wounded Brinja, had aquired the antler-dagger from an old hermit shaman whom the raiders sometimes sought out for healing and magics, who lived by the foot of the Ironroot Mountains.
Nord packed up the now heavily pregnant and very sick Brinja on a cart drawn by their two best goats, and set off north towards where the hermit lived. Along the way Brinja would speak to Nord weakly, for the few hours she was awake at a time. She begged him to try and save the baby, and said she was ready to die if only the child could live. Nord comforted her, and insisted she didn't need to worry, he would save them both, but in his heart his desperation and despair grew deeper. After days of travel and more days of searching Nord finally found the hermit, living in a small tent deep in the forest. He brought Brinja before him and demanded he reverse the curse his weapon had caused.
The shaman was a dwarf, though tall, and he was sinewy, with sickly bruised skin. He laughed a malicious laugh and told Nord that not only could he lift the curse, but he could give Nord the power to do so himself. Nord knew there was something very wrong with this man, and he didn't trust him, but there was no turning back now: Brinja was days, maybe hours from death. He asked that only the curse by lifted, but the shaman said that both had to be done, one as payment for the other. And so, Nord agreed to receive the consecration of the shaman. With a wicked smile the shaman stepped forward, and grabbed Nord by the hair, pushing him to his knees. With a dull blade the shaman carved eldrich sigils into Nord's cheeks and forehead, and finally he placed his hand on Nord's scalp, and whispered in a strange language. A searing pain gripped Nord, and he almost passed out for a moment.
When he came to, the shaman was standing over Brinja, looking down at Nord:
"Now you choose." he said.
"Choose what? You promised you would lift the curse!" said Nord, full of fury and desperation.
"Ahh, but there are two curses here. Which one should I lift? The mother, or the child? The choice fall on you."
For a moment Nord hesitated, but he knew the choice he would make. "Her." he said: "Save her."
The shaman laughed a laugh as cruel and sadistic as any Nord had ever heard: "Wrong! You made the selfish choice! You want your price, your highborn woman, for whom you have worked so hard. You KNOW the right choice. she TOLD you! If you truly loved her, and were truly selfless, you would have chosen the child, as was her wish. Well, I suppose it falls on me to do the right thing..." and in that moment, he plunged the dull blade into Brinja's belly, and cut the child from her womb. He drew out the lifeless child and placed it, oddly gently, in Brinja's arms, and for a moment her eyes opened and she smiled at the child. Then the shaman cast some dark spells and seemed to draw Brinja's spirit from her body and consumed it, after which he blew life into the baby, who started crying. He took the child and put it in the stunned Nord's arms, and stepped back into the shadow, leaving Nord with his grief and his newborn, premature and scrawny, but alive, son.
Nord buried his wife in the clearing, and then travelled south to Brinja's family manor, where he left his son with a note saying that he was the son of Brinja of the Hrafnir and deserved to be raised as such. Then he went home, sold the farm, split the money between the farmhands, packed up a few belongings, including Brinja's shield and axe, and travelled north to find the monster who had ruined his life. But back in the clearing there was no sign of the shaman, only the stone Nord had raised on Brinja's grave. The only clue Nord had was a carving on the cursed antler-dagger, a strange sigil of a fly that looked Uluakian in style. He knew of a small Uluakian community nearby, and he went to ask them about the sigil. There they told him it was the mark of Tiris, and that Nord bore the marks of the god of Despair on his forehead.
Nord travelled north to the frozen wastes beyond the mountains in search of answers, and there he discovered that the old shaman had truly gifted him with his blessing, that made him capable of working magic, for good and ill. He learned more of the nature of Tiris, or Xarum as the southerners called him, and he did not care much for what he learned. But he used his healing skills to help where he could, to try and offset the pain he had caused his family. Eventually, he returned south of the mountains, and started working as a mercenary, having become more cynical over the years, but still, he was always searching for answers about the god that had cursed him. He had even begun to wonder if the old Shaman was Tiris himself, who had come to toy with him. The things he knew of him and Brinja, and of the darkest secrets of Nord's heart certainly meant that the shaman had been something much more than an ordinary man.
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