N A M E / A L I A S
Markiel Harrir and his owl Boreas
Nature’s Arbiter



M Y T H O L O G Y



From here the myths began.

In the midst of night a stranger would walk into town a black falchion used as a walking stick. Above him soared a massive owl ever silent. He’d call out to the people that Nature had come for it’s kingdom, and that all who joined it would harvest it’s bounties. This is how the crusade started. Every King sought to expand his land into the wilds while Mark pushed them back. The forces of nature consuming cities in his wake. The lowly people that followed his teachings took to the land living in peace.

His acts did not go unnoticed. Kings sent legions after him knights and soldiers by the hundreds. All marched into the wilds never to return. After decades of campaigns to take territory back Mark decided that the Wilds were again at balance in the north. There was a short peace before Mark was needed again.

The kings always wanted to try and disturb the balance. Though the wilds were a kingdom for nature it was not the only place it’s power was great. Long ago when the earth was shaped gifts were given to the world for all men to use in times of need. Now corrupted by greed they sought to use them for selfish gains.

The legends are numerous. One of his first stories comes from the western coasts. A massive ironwood forest grew there the trees thousands of years old. When the kingdom began to chop them down to build an even larger navy Mark traveled there. Hundreds of men used steel axes to slowly chop away at the ancient woods. It had stood for ages to protect the land keeping it from falling into the sea. The fools didn’t even realize what they did, but for coin they didn’t care. Men began to vanish. When found again they were mauled and their axes gone. One morning all the axes were discovered piled up in the center of the lumber camp and a man standing before them in a long cloak.

“You have one chance to leave this land.” He warned, but none took head.

A flame fell from the sky and the pile exploded with fire. The man vanished into the smoke as the fire spread and consumed the men and their camp. The Ironwoods ever strong stood while everything else burned.

Mark would always return to the wilds. The people there needed him as much as the world did beyond. He was sage and sentinel. A guardian for the people always there to help. He would wander the wilds tending to all his people Boreas’ shadow a blessing rather than an omen. Stories tell of him carrying herbs for all ailments, hunting monsters that plagued the people, and how he was larger than life.

None could ever capture Nature’s Arbiter. He plagued kings foolish enough to cross him. In time some accepted his presence and lived in begrudging harmony. Not all accepted the peace though. A cruel warlord came up with a plan to take the wilds and their great bounty for himself. He began to clear forests and dam rivers throughout the lands he ruled and this gained Mark’s attention. The arbiter spent months fighting in the the warlord’s lands. All the while in the north the warlord marched troops into the wilds. When Mark returned he found a grand castle city. The people of the wild were enslaved to work the land around it. Mark refused to let the castle stand. He called to his people and the beasts of the wilds. All sieged the city, but could not break it. It fell to Mark and Boreas alone. The two took to the skies and infiltrated the palace at the center and massacred the warlord’s forces. Soon he came face to face with the bloodthirsty monarch. The two did battle, but neither could take the upper hands. It would not be long before Mark was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the warlord’s forces.

“You seek glory through blood. Then let me grant you the greatest memorial.”

Mark thrust his sword into the ground and summoned all the strength his god gave him. The hill upon which the castle was built shook violently. The stones began to crack and fire pour from them. The people of the wilds were safe outside of the city, but all who followed the warlord were trapped inside their impenetrable fort. The sky was black with smoke and all watched as fire poured out and filled the castle. Mark knelt before his sword knowing he had given his very life force to awaken the volcano. Boreas landed besides him and the two were sealed in ash their final vision that of the warlord burning with his empire. The volcano grew into a great mountain and is memorialized not to the warlord, but to Markiel. A man of nature and a man of the people. Hero to the humble, plague to the proud.

The wilds have never been the same life is dangerous up there and they find themselves pushed farther north to stay free from the other nations. None forget the arbiter. His presence is always seen in the open free lands, his voice heard in the calls of birds, and his hope in the hearts of all his kin.



A P P E A R A N C E

Mark stands at six foot three and maintains a posture like his trained owl leaning forward, but keeping his head up and scanning the area. Unlike his bird his amber eyes are kept as slits focused on one point rather than taking everything in. Mark’s face has particularly sharp features and a rather short bent down nose, possibly caused by a good punch to the face. Adorning his head is a mop of rich brown hair, which he puts into a ponytail when working and leaves be when not. Mark allows facial hair to grow around his chin, but does not maintain a mustache.

Mark is built decently well from his multiple career paths. Many a long day spent training his birds as a child gave a great endurance in running after them and an appreciation for being able to climb the trees they’d rest in. His right arm has a large number of scars and scratches on it from all the many birds who decided to test his arm guard’s thickness, as well as a few more from other incidents.

Mark wears rather plain clothes most of the time as he’s rarely ever the one to be in close quarters combat if any. Just a Dark brown tunic, pants, and boots. When he’s expecting combat to be involved he will don a simple set of studded leather. What you will almost always see Mark wearing is his falconry gear. Most obvious is the large leather glove on his right arm that extends past his elbow to supply enough area for Boreas’ talons. He keeps anything else he needs in either his satchel, or his bandoleer.

Boreas has a mostly white and gray plumage with his wing tips being the darkests and it fading to white as it gets closer to his center. Boreas is a semi-rare species of owl known as a White Rends Owl. They aren’t too uncommon, but live in the more remote areas of the north or atop mountains. They earned their name through their claws terrible ability to rend flesh of anything is pleases. Unlike normal owls who catch a lot of small prey the White Rend Owl is a big game hunter killing deer, caribou, and even moose. It will even take on wolves, cougars, and bears if it thinks it has a chance. With a ten foot wingspan and feet around the size of a human hand, not counting the four inch talons on each of its four toes per foot, the White Rends Owl is highly capable of surprising prey in the dark of night with eight deep incision to the back of the neck in an attempt to grab the spine and break it.

Another key evolution of the Rend owl is its ability to fly with wings only out half way. The massive wingspan allows much faster flight, but harms it’s maneuverability in tight quarters. To counter this the Owl has four joints in its wing instead of three. By holding the first section of its limb in it can use the other three like a normal bird would reducing its wingspan to about six foot. All of this is set on a body about the size of a three foot tall barrel. As strange as it seems though Boreas only weighs about twenty five pounds. A normal great horned is only about three for scale.

The Myths would have you believe Mark was a beast of a man able to push a tree over with a breath and breaking stones with one hand. Some even made him older and a sort of sage, but they couldn’t be farther from the truth. Boreas is sometimes exaggerated to be the size of a Roc, but again the owl is only about four feet tall. More often than not Mark is depicted as some mysterious man who would arrive from the woods and drive off the wicked before vanishing again.



A B I L I T I E S / E Q U I P M E N T

Mark is a master of hunters. He has hunted some of the greatest beasts using only his skill and partner. With this comes a great knowledge of monsters: how to fight them and what can be done with them afterwards being the core of his insight. Many of his belongings are trophies of his hunts.

Mark main weapon is his falchion. a long black blade with the elegance of a sword and brute power of an axe. On occasion he has even used it with only one hand, but prefers to use both for the five foot blade.

He is trained with many kinds of bows and crossbows as well as knives, but he has not retained any. (He’ll probably pick some up as soon as he can).

Receiving the old god’s blessing gave him two main gifts. First was an extended life so that he could not die to the passing of time. This vitality has locked Mark into his prime keeping him as an apex predator among men.

The second was to control nature. Through rituals he can commune with nature and command it to his will. Each act has a ritual to scale with it. He can commune with beasts, especially birds, with almost no effort. At the same time he could command a tidal wave, but would require special totems and signs to cause such a thing. The greater the act the harder it is to cause, the rarer the ingredients needed, and the more energy it saps from Mark. As the conduit of the old gods power Mark must channel all the energy needed to cause these events. He can only hold oh so much safely. At great cost to himself, either horrible injury and pain up to death, he can call forth the power without rituals, but the only time used this was at his end when he caused the tremor that awoke the volcano under him.



A G E O F L E G E N D

40,067

"For centuries my sacrifices brought peace to this land. Now only my shadow remains."


Volkimir Sturmkirk

The Mortifier
Dark Angel
The Shadow King


As a nation both vast and ancient, Ansus has a history at once both lengthy and profound. Among its many colorful legends of triumphant heroes, there are just as many tales of misery and despair. Onesuch tale regards the tragedy of House Sturmkirk, one among the many royal bloodlines descended from the venerable Forefather and his compatriots. In times long past, when the land of Ansus was divided amongst petty kingdoms and fractious empires, there were few who could called themselves nobility that held true to the honor of their ancestors. Sturmkirk was one of these few noble households; reverent to the gods, benevolent to their vassals, and merciless to their enemies. Great fortresses and cathedrals were erected in the Eastern Reaches at their command: baroque towers of stone and iron rising among the mighty trees and mountain peaks as tributes to the achievements both mortal and divine. Their territory, the Stormlands, held fast against rival kingdoms and barbarian hordes alike, and the Sturmkirk name became synonymous with power and majesty.

It is said that the glory of Sturmkirk died with their last true king, a mighty warrior and crusader. Killed in battle against one of the many barbarian tribes so deeply entrenched in the Stormlands, the crown was passed onto his son, marking the beginning of a dark new era in the legacy of that ancient breed, and indeed for all of Ansus. The newly-crowned king was not a warrior as his father was; rather, he was a scholar and alchemist, as well as a wizard if rumors were to be believed. Rather than rule by the sword, he sought to uphold the strength of his nation through more enlightened legislation, and educating his subjects. A civilized man in uncivilized times, the king's thoughtfulness was seen as weakness by both neighboring kingdoms and the barbarians plaguing his kingdom. Conflicts erupted throughout the Stormlands, as well as widely across its borders. The might of their military was enough to keep the peace, but not without cost. The stability of his kingdom lessened, the peasantry grew fearful, and the king's court began to question him.

The decline of House Sturmkirk was slow, yet gradual, and felt more strongly year by year. Border engagements became mounting defeats, and territory was lost to the Stormlands' greedy neighbors. Barbarians won out against guards and soldiers, and raids on common villages became increasingly frequent. The king grew older, and dissent grew in his court. His bannermen mocked him in their cups, and rumors circulated of dark and disturbing experiments carried out in the laboratories carried out beneath Castle Sturmkirk. His perceived failings reached their peak as the royal keep itself was assaulted by a barbarian horde. The royal guard's numbers depleted by years of conflict, the king's sons took to the walls to bring courage and inspiration to those that remained. The castle was held, but at a dire cost; the king's only sons had been killed in battle. Those closest to the king knew then that the pressure of leadership had finally come to break him, and that he was not the same man since those days.

His territory shrinking, his homeland sacked and plundered by bandits and tribesmen, and his heirs dead, the king grew desperate to restore honor and glory to his household. At first he tried what he knew best, logic and science. Logistics and law were planned and written out to revitalize the kingdom, but to no avail. Propaganda next, to stir the common folk into fighting back against the despair that had settled in their country. As even this failed, the king turned to darker arts; sorcery and enchantment were delved into, to restore the fortune and power of the Stormlands. These forbidden forays seemed to drain what was left of the king's sanity, and so he resorted to the foulest heresy of all: he procured a deal with a demon.

The demon Shilgengar was summoned from the depths of the infinite hells, promises of power and prestige on its lips and malice in its heart. The immortality and might of the divine were offered to the mad king, and were eagerly accepted. In exchange, the demon demanded that he forsake the gods of his ancestors, and offer up the very life of his family's patron angel. Without a second thought, the king cast off the gods of old, and callously lured the sacred angel Marycz to a cruel and gruesome death. The demon took the holy blood of the slaughtered angel, and after mixing it with his own foul ichor, offered it to the king and his few remaining loyalists. They partook eagerly, but were all-too-predictably fooled by the malevolent beast. Rather than bless them with divine strength, they were cursed to endure their sins eternally; they had become immortal, half-living fiends of night, Vampires.

A curse though it was, power had been restored to Sturmkirk all the same. With their newfound strength of flesh and magic, their homeland was "purified," first quickly by removing all of those who had dissented against the king. Later was the long war against the barbarians that had been a curse upon the land for time immeasurable. However, they were a blessing in comparison to what had now befallen the Stormlands. Madness of the mind and sins of the soul twisted the nobility of the Stormlands into monsters, and the entire region devolved into a cesspit of debauchery and corruption. Commoners were slaughtered in droves, and they were the lucky ones. Others became human cattle to the vampiric nobility, or were subject to the king's depraved experiments. A miasma of darkness settled over the Stormlands, as though the gods themselves had forsaken this land and everyone within it. The kingdoms of the age no longer dared to venture within its borders, and monsters and heretics from lands far and wide sought asylum in this locus of evil. Generations passed, and the black forests and looming peaks eventually became known as the Shadowlands. In a way, the mad king succeeded in returning power to Sturmkirk, as no family became more fear or hated in all of Ansus.

However, as the ages passed and the powers of the land grew fewer and mightier, a man emerged from the Shadowlands' unholy depths, bearing a forsaken name. He was Volkimir Sturmkirk, and he had come to restore honor to his name. Filled to sickening of the depravity of the vampire courts of his homeland, his personal quest had been one to return the pride of House Sturmkirk. For years untold he wandered the length and breadth of the world. In distant lands, where men spoke strange tongues and had never heard the name Sturmkirk, he learned to be a sorcerer, a swordsman and a statesman. Across the myriad kingdoms of Ansus, he delved ancient tombs and ruins, uncovering secret arts and lost artifacts. He sought out the great masters of combat and the clever craft, and upon defeating them demanded that they remember his name. With treasure and triumph, he crafted his own legend, though one spoken of only in whispers. Despite his efforts, Sturmkirk was still a cursed name, and for all of his power and prestige, he was still the same unholy monster that had bespoiled a great noble house: a vampire.

A centuries wore on, Volkimir adjusted his goals and methods, taking on a subtler approach to restoring the pride of his ancestry. Where he saw useful allies, he lent his strength to create immortal dynasties. Where rivals or antagonist could emerge, he brought destruction and ruin. From the short-sighted perspectives of men, this mysterious figure seemed to be a capricious agent of fortune, more an unreadable omen than a man. However, as he grew older, Volkimir could feel himself growing cold and distant. He felt more detached from mortal men with each passing decade, and found their ephemeral ideas and motivations increasingly unconscionable.

However, darkness loomed elsewhere than the immortal heart of the Shadowlands' outcast prince. Having finally exhausted the lives of their cursed homeland, the vampires of Volkimir's former royal lineage turned their attentions outward for the first time in many centuries. With hordes of undead, immortal warriors, and the blackest sorceries imaginable, they took to the fields of battle against the kingdoms of the age. Like a plague they spread through the continent, bringing death and despair to Ansus like the land had never seen before. These were considered the end times by many, and became known as the Horror Wars. The defending empires were ill-prepared against this unholy onslaught, and it seemed that none could stand against them. However, there was one man who could fight such monsters, as he was one of their very blood.

Volkimir beseeched the nations that still had strength to stand against the powers of the Shadowlands. He brought them his power and expertise, his wisdom and experience. Many nations turned him away at first, thinking him to be an agent of corruption or insurrection, but some were desperate enough to trust in him, and they were enough at first. The few key victories he won against the dark hordes earned him the loyalty of the greater powers, and they were enough to turn the tide of the Horror Wars. The Shadowlands' forces were legion, their ranks filled with demons and other unspeakable monstrosities, but for every monster they wielded, Volkimir had a new trick or strategy. He turned their undead against them, lured them to their holy banes, or deceived demons into accepting self-defeating contracts, among many other unorthodox tactics.

The wars ended within a year, the monsters beaten back to their unholy hive, and peace had returned to Ansus. The vampires spurned Volkimir, calling him a betrayer of his kind, and branding him as "Mortifier." Some common folk and clergy saw him as a secret blessing of the gods, silently paying tribute to this "Dark Angel." Many of the nations who fought in the wars had united in face of a common enemy and become a single state, or merely absorbed lesser, defeated nations. In sight of this united Ansus, which he had commanded to victory, Volkimir saw his perfect opportunity to achieve ultimate honor and glory. He attempted to appoint himself as king over the united kingdoms of Ansus. However, this was far from a successful ploy; though he knew the minds of his enemy, he had grown too detached from men to know their minds. Commoners viewed him as yet another monster attempting to conquer them through underhanded means. The church saw him as demonspawn, utterly unfit to rule the lands the Forefather had conquered in the name of the gods. Indeed, the Grand Ecclesiarch himself claimed that his bronze cane would sooner blossom with flowers than the gods permit such a monstrosity to rule over their people. The myriad nations that had allowed Volkimir to save them and their people washed their hands of him, seeing him as a deniable asset not expended of use.

Rage and despair overcame Volkimir. He had given everything he had to these people, and yet they still spurned him. Only then, he realized, he had not truly given them everything. With a small host of loyal soldiers, Volkimir marched back into the Shadowlands, and was never seen again. It is said on that same day, the cane of the Ecclesiarch bloomed with beautiful, bronze flowers. In years after his disappearance, monsters ceased to emerge from the tainted forests, and the aura of darkness slowly faded from the land. Gradually the peasantry returned, and the land was resettled, its dark past was forgotten to the passage of time; merely a black page in the history of Ansus.


As an ageless vampire, Volkimir is considered to be an avatar of dark and forbidden beauty. Seen usually as a tallish man with the well-balanced build of an experienced warrior, Volkimir Sturmkirk is a striking figure to behold. His features are sharp and angular, balanced by his masculine brow and strong jawline. His eyes are the most distinctive feature of his face; their black sclera and icy, luminous irises are distinctly inhuman, and Volkimir's gaze is piercing and predatory. Sharp, white fangs are revealed whenever he smiles or speaks, and his incisor teeth seem unnaturally sharp and jagged. His hair hangs to the top of his shoulderblades, and is so fair that in most lighting it seems completely white. Volkimir's skin, while usually so pale as to seem translucent, takes on a sickly, ashen hue when exposed to sunlight, stripping away his last disguise of humanity.


As a vampire, Volkimir is at once much more and much less than a normal man. His strength and speed are both mythic; far greater than what can be attained by common men. He can see in darkness just as well as in light, can hear a heartbeat from across a full feasting hall, and can smell a living bloodscent from a league away. If he so chooses, he can move in complete silence, become invisible, or fly through the air like a phantom of night. Neither age nor disease blights him, and his half-living flesh is greatly resistant to cold and poison. However, he is cursed to feed upon the lifeblood of mortals, requiring at least a human body's worth of blood every turn of the moon. Sunlight is his bane, searing his skin and punishing him with migraines should he come in direct contact with it. Silver nauseates him, and the sight of his own reflection fills him with delirium. Moonlight reflected in water or by a silver mirror inflicts Volkimir with temporary blindness, should it meet his eyes. Though he can recover from wounds faster than most mortal men, any wound inflicted by silver or living wood festers rather than heal cleanly.

Most mortals have but a few decades to practice their skills, whereas Volkimir has had thousands of years to perfect his own. He is a swordsman par excellence, wielding a bastard sword with inhuman power and grace. His skill as a statesman and general are both profound, and he speaks many tongues both living and dead. A master manipulator, Volkimir is able to turn both common men and entire nations to his will. These are merely his mortal skills, as his magical arts are far more profound. By plumbing ancient ruins in distant corners of the world, Volkimir is master of many magical practices forgotten by mankind. His favored spells fall under the domain of "sangromancy," a rare and secretive school of black magic that specializes in manipulating flesh, bones and blood. Volkimir's most infamous techniques are to painfully disintegrate flesh to ash, or to manipulate the matter of still-living bodies, turning his enemies and prey into puppets.

Almost as famous as the man himself is his legendary sword, Elbrus, the Bound Blade. While ornate in design and flawless in construction, Elbrus is quite unusual in having been forged of a metal not known to earthly smiths. The blade is seemingly unbreakable, with an edge as sharp as winter, and so dark in color that it appears to consume light rather than reflect it. Intensely magical, the sword absorbs the life-force of those it wounds, giving Volkimir a considerable advantage in lengthy duels. However, this is not a mere enchantment; Elbrus has bound within it a powerful demon, sealed within the sword countless ages ago by a holy warrior that gave his own life to contain the monster. The sword has an unspeakably unholy aura to those sensitive to such matters, and the demon whispers foul promises and fouler threats to anyone weak of will that comes to wield Elbrus.

In his travels Volkimir acquired many other trappings and trinkets, relics of bygone eras. Remarkable is that the man left behind almost no artifacts of his own; having "borrowed" his material strength from more ancient heroes, his ancestors and forebears. Such "reappropriated" relics include the Helvault, a mysterious meteorite said to imprison 108 different demons, and the spear Encarmine, said to have been wielded by a dragon-slaying angel of ages past.


The Horror Wars were roughly 2,000 years ago, though Volkimir was born an indeterminate number of millennia before.