Edith Checkovitch

General (a.k.a. "The Corpse General")

A halfling general of the Empire, infamous for her brutal efficiency in warfare, and for the bloody nature of her campaigns. She is publicly known as the "Corpse General" for two reasons: having died and been resurrected 7 times, and for the vast numbers of bodies she leaves in the wake of her battles. Having committed numerous war crimes for the sake of her mission and her country, Edith had been sentenced to several death sentences by the Imperial Military Court, yet her great tactical skill as a general, and her history of winning wars in record time, has led to the Empire judging valuable enough to keep around and keep alive until the unification is complete.



Campaign 1 Epilogue Notes: After waiting in the Astral Plane for Ira's judgement, rather than the Raven Queen's, Ira decided she should be reincarnated. She agreed, with a tearful smile, to give life one more try, and was reincarnated as a halfling again, far away from the Empire.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Edith Checkovitch grew up in the Grattenmar capital of Grattenburg, to two loving parents, small business owners. Though barred from schooling due to her race, her parents spent much of their savings on private tutalage for Edith, and she repayed them by studying hard, gaining an extremely intelligent, analytical and mathematically mind. Having gained an almost fanatic fascination with soldiers and militaries, Edith attempted to become an officer, but then came face-to-face with the discrimination of Grattenmar herself. Non-humans were completely barred from military service. Reluctantly, she did the next best thing, and joined the beuracracy, of which she quickly climbed ranks due to her intelligence, and became the King's treasurer, the highest position ever held by a halfling in Grattenmar. But Edith never got to command troops, and her opinions were always tossed aside when it came to military matters, despite her expert management of national finances. Thus, when the Empire was founded, and word spread that it was a place of racial equality, Edith couldn't deny the desires of her heart. And so she defected, betraying her parents, whom she never saw again.
Upon joining the Imperial military, Edith served in the campaign against the hobgoblins of Kuravale. Her intelligence and knowledge of military theory were quickly recognized, and she was continuously promoted to higher and higher leadership positions within the army. After winning a battle thought to be unwinnable (and dying in the process), Edith was made into a colonel in charge of the main invasion force after her first resurrection. She eventually died again within the same conflict, but her victories were so decisive and quick compared to the length of the war, that just before the end of it, she was promoted to general, and given command of the entire hobgoblin campaign. It is said that if not for the devastating losses and general terror inflicted by Edith's battles, the hobgoblins would not have been willing to surrender.

Deaths

        Hobgoblin War

1. Edith first died after being promoted to sergeant during the Hobgoblin campaign. She was given a squad of soldiers and sent on a covert mission. During the mission, they were ambushed by hobgoblin forces, and Checkovitch died during the fighting. However, due to her quick-thinking and leadership, her soldiers still succeeded an otherwise impossible task. Because of this, and her body having been recovered, she was ordered to be resurrected by the general leading the campaign and further promoted.
2. Edith's second death was after being promoted to colonel and leading a large-scale battle. Her plan won a major battle, the first real turning point of the war, but involved what would become a trademark of her command: sacrificing a significant force, with herself among the most dangerous fighting. She was injured in the battle, and separated from her forces, and managed to survive several days in the wilderness before being killed by feral wolves. Her bones were picked clean, but the leading general at the time ordered her resurrected regardless, as the war had begun to tip back in the hobgoblin's favor and she believed only Checkovitch could push their advantage. She was proved correct as Checkovitch was responsible for all the victories in the conflict. As the general at the time proved more and more incompetent, even causing her own death, she was not resurrected, and the Emperor instead promoted Checkovitch to general and allowed her to take full command of the war. Checkovitch led the Empire to victory, eventually forcing the Hobgoblins to surrender through Hrexen, whom Edith made join the Empire as a general in exchange for letting the Hobgoblins off easy in their transition to the Empire. Many of her fellow generals thought Edith should go on to become the governor of the territory, but Edith believed a native would be a better choice, and wanted to continue her military career. After a few months of occupation, a governor was appointed, and Edith left having learned to respect the hobgoblin people and their logical approach to warfare, and learned much about their culture and customs. It was here that she first experimented with the ritual cannibalism that hobgoblins partake.
Overall, she left the hobgoblin campain happy and proud of her accomplishments.Brekor War
3. Edith's third death occurred after being put in charge of the Brekor Campaign. Several generals had failed to make progress before her, due to the harsh mountain climate and extreme defensive strategies of the dwarves in their mountain fortresses. The greatest of these fortresses, considered impenetrable and halting all military progress into the region, was Kur-Karok, the Iron Belly. Since Edith had gained a reputation for pulling off impossible victories, she was re-assigned to this conflict. She encountered the same difficulties at first, and became increasingly frustrated with the irrational zealotry of the dwarves, and extreme defensive tactics they used. She didn't slight them; they were trying to win; but, it forced her to resort to extreme methods of her own. Seeing no other way to avoid years of war, countless casualties, and near-certain defeat, she decided that the Kur-Karok was uncapturable after all, and ordered that it be collapsed instead. She led this mission herself, once again placing herself in the front of a suicide mission to run a bomb into a structurally integral part of the mountain, where her troops were certain to be surrounded and slaughtered. And they were, Edith herself dying just before her soldiers managed to set off the blast, collapsing the fortress and killing tens of thousands of soldiers and citizens alike, who of course had refused to evacuate after she'd threatened her plan. This was the first of many war crimes for Checkovitch, but she was ressurected regardless since no one else could think of a way to take the dwarven nation. She awoke to a death sentence rather than thanks, which would be carried out after the Empire's mission was complete. Bitter and resentful that she'd been forced into this path, she committed this same war crime many more times on Brekor to force them to fight directly, figuring her life would be over after her career anyway. It was here that she first gained her nickname: The Corpse General, a triple meaning about her frequent ressurections, the soldiers who died in the aggressive and almost-sacrificial tactics she employed, and the many lives she'd ended on her enemy's side. It was during this conflict that she began using the hobgoblin's custom of ritual cannibalism as a scare tactic, often eating the flesh of an enemy general in front of the next one to intimidate them.
4. Edith's fourth death came after the end of Brekor Campaign. Her brutal tactics of collapsing underground mountain fortresses had convinced the dwarves to open the gates of their capitol, Karout, to direct invasion. Edith led the battle inside, and beheaded the king with her own hands, ending the conflict and finally bringing Brekor to heel, the impossible task she'd been assigned. The Imperial Council once more tried to make her governor of the region, out of fear of its instability, but Checkovitch pushed back, insisting that her presence would only further raise the tension of the region. She was proven right when she was assassinated by Brekorian insurgents, ambushed after refusing to cease public appearances, and killed with a knife to the gut. Eyewitnesses said she signed in annoyance at her own death, giving her killer a deadpan expression before shooting him in the face. When she was resurrected, she was informed that another governor had been found and her involvement would no longer be requested in the region.
Overall, she left the Brekor campaign bitter and frustrated. She felt that the reality of the war was lost on most of her critics, who condemned her tactics without offering any solutions of their own. Though she had the respect of her soldiers, who could see that she used her brutal tactics to ensure that, overall, fewer of them would die, most people could not see this bigger-picture number-crunching outlook, and it was in this conflict that she began to have a bad reputation in the Empire itself, and among her peers. Though she knew the Brekorians were trying to win, she still resented the dwarves there for their seeming desire to draw out conflicts as long as possible, and fight to the last man, contrasting them to the logical hobgoblins she'd learned to respect. It was in the later parts of the war with Brekor that she was approached to begin prototyping firearms, due to her reckless nature, and she brought them with her for her next conflict. Grattenmar War
5.  Edith's fifth death was her most terrible. Due to her history, Edith was assigned to conquer Grattenmar, and accepted the assignment readily, seeing it as a chance to liberate the nation that had rejected her. She led the war and made massive progress immediately, combining her sacrificial tactics with her own bad reputation to truly frighten her enemies. Eventually, King Aranor Runs heard of her involvement, and ordered her captured. She was, having put herself in the thick of things again, and was reunited with her king. She mocked him at first, taunting that she'd just keep conquering his country after he executed her, but he declared her a traitor rather than a prisoner of war, and committed a war crime against her by ordering her kept alive and tortured. There she was given to the King's torturer, Arundek, who did just that, torturing her in all sorts of horrific ways for months on end. She tried to kill herself, starving, refusing water, strangling herself on her own chains, biting her tongue, but every attempt was stopped. She was forced food and water, and slowly restrained more and more. Eventually, through sheer will, she managed to stop herself from breathing. It was this death that truly shattered her mind. Even after being resurrected, she couldn't shake the trauma, and the nagging feeling that she was dreaming, and that she was really still in that dungeon. She spent a few more months recovering. In any other nation, she would not have been allowed to return to active duty, but the Emperor insisted, and with a dozen death sentences hanging over her head, Edith had no choice but to return to the battlefield.
6. Edith's sixth death was by her own hands. After her death and return to the battlefield, the King was enraged and ordered her recaptured sot he torture could continue. He named Arundek a lord and made him general of his army. Arundek himself had become obsessed with Edith and sought to recapture her for his own sick pleasure. Though they did not meet on the battlefield for some time, Edith found herself both dreading his presence, and itching to find him and take her revenge. She refused to stop fighting on battlefields herself though, as it was the main cornerstone of her relationship with her soldiers. Once, she was almost recaptured, but managed to wrestle her gun away from her captors and shoot herself in the head. After being ressurected, she managed to capture all the way to Fort Tremaul, securing all the land south of the Eldas River.
Clashes with Opal, Ira, and Raina
7. Edith's seventh death was at the hands of the three heroes who ultimately stopped the Empire's expansion. Edith had snuck forces along the Axe Blade Mountains to launch a sneak attack on the Axe's Edge region, and ultimately Grattenburg, skipping the heavily defended Sordale. Along the way, however, her troops ran into the reinforcements led by Zachary Bernaldt. Despite her once friendship with David Bernaldt, she weighed the success of the sneak attack, and ordered the reinforcements slaughtered. Her troops overtook them easily, and after Zachary refused to surrender, she killed him and his wife, and their young son after he jumped out of hiding and tried to attack one of her troops. Though she'd shot him on reflex, she justified it that she valued the lives of her lieutenants. Ultimately, she fell back on her brutal habits, and they betrayed her. When she met with David Bernaldt and the three heroes, she ate Zachary's flesh in front of him to try and intimidate him into surrendering. Instead, it only strengthened their resolve against her, and Ira got her mother, Fir, to help fortify the castle with elemental and magic. Edith dropped into the castle to take it herself during the battle, but she was killed by Raina's arrows and ultimately failed. Her last sight was Fir slaughtering her retreating soldiers to the last man with wild animals, which she woke up furious about after getting ressurected a week later.
8. Edith's eight death was at the Tower of Stars, which she went to personally with Emperor Leonidus, Rathillion, and Julliana Voss. For once, her calculating nature was overtaken by her anger and thirst for revenge; she didn't know the story of Fir's manipulation by Harlequinn, or her subsequent desire for redemption. When Leonidas was rejected by Opal, Raina, and Ira, and things turned violent, she attacked Fir with everything she had, ultimately killing her in the snow. She was killed, in turn, by Opal and a summoned Earth Elemental, who talked her down as they fought one another. Edith spent some time dead after that, reflecting, and by the time she was ressurected again, the rage was gone, replaced by tiredness and pessimism. Opal's words had sunk deep, and she had lost her desire for vengeance, her drive, everything, instead merely questing the point of the entire path she had taken. Feeling that she would die for the last time in the upcoming battle with Issilidor, Edith closed her affairs, sold her mortal possessions, and purchased a great number of diamonds.
9. Edith's final death was during the Siege of Casal Issilideth. She was given the task of taking down the force field that protected the city, which of course she did by dropping in herself and attempting to blow it up. This inevitably led to a confrontation with Opal, Ira, and Raina, during which she fought back, but without her heart in it. She was killed by Ira this time, burned to death after saying she was sorry, and giving the bag of diamonds, intended to bring back the Bernaldts she had killed. Later, the three heroes found Edith's soul in the Astral Plane, where she'd requested to be judged by Ira instead of the Raven Queen. She talked to Ira, apologizing again and saying that she'd accept whatever fate she deserved, and only wished that she'd met the three of them earlier so things could've turned out differently. But, instead of condemning her, Ira offered her a chance at redemption: Reincarnation. In tears, Edith accepted this chance, asking only that she could be a halfling again, she she could show people that she could still do things even if she was small. She was reborn, to a loving halfling family, on a far off continent that had never heard of the Empire.

Mental Trauma

Edith Checkovith, while fiercly intelligent and level-headed in her decision, comes across as mentally unhinged to most people she's met. In truth, she suffers from severe mental and emotional trauma caused by both her numerous painful deaths, and the horrifying torture she suffered while a prisoner of Grattenmar. Those who've known her for a long time recognize that she is far less sane than she once was, and seems to lose a part of herself every time she's brought back.

Intellectual Characteristics

Edith is still a treasurer at heart. She sees the world in terms of mathematics and numbers, and that mindset expresses itself in her as a general as well. She sees war as a cold numbers game, a calculation of ensuring your army is greater than the other, and inflicting greater losses on the enemy, until resistance is an impossibility. This attitude is seen as heartless by the general people, but the soldiers under her command have come to appreciate the simple fairness of her leadership. Her goal is always overall victory with the fewest number of losses, no matter how brutal or cruel the battles along the way.

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Aligned Organization

The Empire of All