Collected Character Backgrounds
Andric Vogel, Initiate of Sigmar
Born in Altdorf, 10th Kaldezeit, 2503
You were born under the sign of Mammit the Wise, and your mother always wished for you to be a priest of Sigmar.
You know this as it was the last thing she told you on your tenth birthday as she walked you from the temple of Morr to the temple of Sigmar in Altdorf.
There she left you to learn what the Cult of Sigmar would teach you. Long did you labor, copying texts and learning the basics of a priestly education. Your superiors were ever distant figures, handing down punishments and sermons in equal measure.
Stronger, and more naturally a fighter than most of your brethren, you were marked from an early age to join The Order of the Silver Hammer, and your training has continued in that direction.
You were assigned to a priest of that Order for training as an Initiate. He was an older Priest named Calvin. Calvin preferred the company of coarse fighting men and their ilk to the Order of the Torch Priests you had trained with, and he looked on you as a product of their school, rather than a fighter.
That changed on the journey north. You were beset by beastmen on the road to Untergard. Calvin fought like a bear, as you did. You accounted for two of the foul mutants, and Calvin for three, but the last snuck a mighty spear blow through the chain hauberk Calvin wore even as his hammer opened the beast's skull to the elements.
You carried Calvin the last three miles to the town, his groaning weight a burden on your soul, his looped intestines dragging the ground behind you. He died some time during that long dark time.
His body was given over to Morr's keeping the night before the attack on Untergard.
You fought alongside the army, only to be nearly killed when the club of a beastman clipped your skull, sending you down into darkness. You woke several days later, still dizzy and unable to walk without the aid of a cane.
Your recovery slow, you have been working the infirmary in an effort to help those less fortunate than yourself . The army pulled out several days ago, and you have only recently been able to walk without the cane you feared might be needed for the rest of your days.
Now you are at loose ends, Altdorf lies hundreds of miles behind, and the Cult of Sigmar is not as popular in Middenhiem as it might be, but that is where you will find the closest superiors of your order.
Meanwhile the Sigmarite Order of the Torch Priest, Deitrich has been kind and helpful to you.
Rudiger Kuhn, Thief
True Birth Date Unknown, Exciseman of Middenheim assigned Hexenstag 2506
The long drop to the short stop, the knife in the back, the chop, these are the things the Storm of Chaos saved you from.
You grew up a gutter rat in the old town area of Middenhiem, never knowing your parents, scrabbling for life amongst the other beggars, thieves and urchins. Always one step ahead of the watch, one step away from 'the big score'. Then you joined the Southgate protective society, gaining their protection.
Life was not all that difficult, just one rule: Doan git caught!. Caught by the watch, caught by the rival gangs, caught making 'unsanctioned' moves, or caught by the powerful merchants with thugs on the payroll.
Then the number one rule got broken... Middenhiem is a big city, and the politics are convoluted, but you did not know the merchant was brother-in-law to a watchman who was on the take from others on the dodgy path.
Had you known, you would never have copped a feel of his daughter, regardless of whether she made eyes at you when you stole through her chambers. You certainly would not have lingered long enough for her to memorize your face.
Soon there was a warrant for your arrest in the works. A warrant which was actually followed up on by some people who knew where to look. 25 Gold crowns!
Discretion the better part of valour, you left Middenhiem for the first time, fleeing south stowed away in a caravan of trade goods bound for Nuln.
You were discovered in Untergard as the merhant planned to tranship his goods from wagon to boat. The merchant had sent for the watch when someone came screaming into the plaza saying the village walls were under attack.
The merchant fled immediately in panic forgetting about you in his haste to get away, only to be slain outside the walls to the town. You could not watch as the horrid beastmen ripped him limb from limb.
You have been dodging from one spot of comparative safety to another in the east side of town since then, Ranald's own luck must have been with you, as you survived the nine days it took for the army of the Empire to take back the east half of the village.
Only when it was safe did you make it back to the west side of town.
The army says the seige of Middenhiem has been broken, and that many of the people of South Gate are no longer among the living, which could mean that you can go back and be free and clear. But there are a few miles between here and there, you have no provisions, and the army has left.
Diebold Konigsamen, Squire
Born the 10th of Jardrung, 2504 in Grimmenhagen
Born the second son of a squire to one of the Sigmarite knights of Middenland, you have lived your life in the hopes that you would be knighted and elevated into one of the knightly orders of the Empire.
Training constantly from the time you were old enough to hold a practice blade, carrying the heaviest of weights in order to become stronger. Whether it was well-water or firewood for the hearth, you always took the heaviest of loads. Riding, fighting or even studying, you were no slouch, and the knight your father served never had reason to question your value to the small village he held in fealty.
Your diligence paid off, and during the Feast of Ulric in your 13th year, your father brought a strange knight to the village festival. Sir Gorbin was an unruly looking knight, with unkempt hair and a huge bristling beard. Certainly a son of Ulric, a knight of the Old School. Gorbin took you to Squire him, despite your differing faiths.
Sir Gorbin was a fair knight to squire under. Unstinting in his discipline, but thorough in his teaching of the proper way to approach the nobles of Middenland. Always leading by example. Gorbin was possessed of a huge appetite for life, drinking eating, fighting, whoring, but always ready to leap to serve his lord and his oath.
When Sir Gorbin had heard of stirrings in the forest of the Drakwald, he had taken you and a few trusted men with him. In Untergard, events caught up with him and a few of his fellow knights.
A hunter ran into the small town, a horde of Beastmen on his trail. The Beastmen quickly overcame the poor excuse for the wall on the East side of the river, rampaging through the town and setting the eastern shore alight.
Sir Gorbin, his henchmen and a few other knights held the bridge seperating the two sides with the assistance of a Wizard. For two days they held as the host of Kharzak the Bestial slammed against the dwindling numbers of Sir Gorbin and his men. At the last, Gorbin threw himself against the line of Bestigors protecting Kharzak himself as he exhorted his remaining men and the Wizard to aid him in last push to kill the leader.
The Wizard cast his last spell, somehow ending his own life in a shower of blood. Gorbin soon followed him in death, and you made ready to sell you life as dearly as he when a deafening explosion knocked you flat on the ground and darkness took you.
You woke to discover that the Army had arrived, and it was one of the emperor's cannon which had laid you low. As you recovered, the army began to pull out. You were unable to fnd any other survivors of Sir Gorbin's men.
You woke in time to stop some other knight's squire from taking your horse and gear, but Sir Gorbin's was long taken, having been of much higher quality. The Priest of Morr with the army has already seen to it that Gorbin be interred properly and you dictated a letter to his wife to tell her her husband died a true knight..
You are at loose ends and unsure what it is you should do. The army has already left and the few people remaining are beginning to rebuild the west side of the river.
Oldric Oberholzer, Wizard's Apprentice
Born on Geheimnistag, 2504 on the road between Talabheim and Altdorf
You were born in the back of your father's trade wagon under the sign of the Witching Star, a sure sign of magical influence on your life. Your mother was killed by beastmen when you were three, in an attack that awakened the power within you.
At twelve you began to show signs of the 'taint', as your ignorant father called it. Said you were just like your mother while in his cups, slurring that he would drown you himself were he not so sure you'd curse him even further.
That year he went too far, beating you along the road to Middenheim, damaging your leg, giving you a permanant limp. Always during the beatings, your sight would change and you would see the darkness and blood in his mind.
Months later, a man in strange dress riding a tall horse interrupted your father's drunken nightly entertainment, asking him, "Could you part with the greatest blessing Shallya has seen fit to give mortals?"
Your father, well into his cups was typically witty, "Huh?"
The tall man pointed at you and said in a sonorous voice, "I see the power lying in him, and would keep it from the darkness you would feed with your daily beatings."
Still the brilliant wit, your father asked, "Huh?"
"Twenty crowns for your son, man! I shall pay for him and take him to apprentice."
"Apprentice?" Your father slurred, his meaty fist slowly lowering to his side.
The next day you walked beside the tal horse of your new master, Oderic Mannheim, beyond happy to know you would not be beaten that day.
Over the next days and weeks you learned that Oderic was a Light Wizard who had homes in several places in the Empire and travelled between them. As a member of the College of Light, Oderic often took his leave of you on the outskirts of some benighted village, only to return the next day. Once you saw the results of his actions: The people of the village came forth and whipered tearful thanks to Oderic. The village graveyard had erupted with the results of some foul necromantic magic. The remains your master left behind were not much to look at, but the villagers had heard the frightful noises and seen the flashes of light as your Master fought with the creatures.
Over the course of the next years he trained you in the danger and majesty that is magic. Thus far you have only learned to access the most petty of arcane arts.
Your master had been travelling from the Imperial Capital, Altdorf, to Middenhiem. That is, until the Storm of Chaos erupted from the North. The creatures of evil Chaos that came howling from the North overran much of Middenland, and their allies erupted from the Drakwald and the other dark places in the northern Empire.
Caught south and east of the City of The White Wolf when word reached you, Oderic lifted you up on his stallion, Roland, and rode hell for leather for the nearest town.
Untergard was a small town at the northernmost navigable reach of the river Delbin, the eastern tributary to the River Delb. When the army of Kharzak the Beastial erupted from the wood and over-ran the Eastern half of the town in an attempt to secure the bridge, your master assisted a small party of knights and their retainers in holding the bridge until the regular Imperial Army arrived.
Oderic held them, with his will and his might, only to fall when the winds of Magic betrayed him and a Daemon of darkest chaos erupted from the Aethyr beside him and ate his head from his shoulders.
The Army was victorious, but at such huge cost. Quickly they were pulled from the town to assist in the defence of the rest of the province, leaving some eighty-odd survivors behind.
Now you know not what to do, you are hundreds of dangerous miles from your master's last home, and alone. Wizarding is dangerous, with the common folk fearful and the Witch Hunters ever ready to take those who practice magic without the protection of a guild.
Throngor Snorlickson, Dwarf Miner
Born in Grungi's Tower, 19th of Ulriczeit 2481 IC
Miners. Mining is what defines you, your clan and your family. The sound of steel breaking stone seeking ore a prayerful hymn to Grungi, the Great God of the Mine. The Gor clan has long been in service to the Elders of Karak Grazhyak (The Tower Hold). You just reached your majority last year, and were outfitted and sent out to prospect the Middle Mountains, as countless generations of Dwarfs have done before you.
For nearly a year you have been in the Middle Mountains seeking your fortune. You succeeded in finding a nice vein of silver, not too deep, not to impure, and set about mining some ore before returning to your kin and hearth.
You were returning home when you were ambushed by a few Gors, who quickly regretted their decision to waylay you. Of course, the scent of them drove your mules mad, and they ran off. A year prospecting in the Middle Mountains and your mule has to decide it wants to run when it smells some wild beastmen. You could not get the damn mindless mule to walk, let alone run! Ran straight off the cliff and into the waters of the Delbin. You followed that treacherous river south, and ran right into a Beastmen army trying to take the small town of Untergard.
You pitched in and tried to help at the battle of the bridge, and the regular army arrived and quickly took over.
At loose ends after the battle, you set out to return to Karak Grazhyak alone and learn what has come to pass with your kin. One of the Dwarfs you had fought with at the bridge gave you his dead cousin's chain shirt in part payment of a debt owed you for saving his life.
The return to your home hold was interesting in the ancient sense, proving quite dangerous. Another group of foul beastmen tried ambushing you by the side of the road, and suffered a quick death for it. Still, it was a near thing, as you had little food to sustain you and you suffered a good wound in facing down a number of other stragglers from the dark armies of the remnants of the Storm of Chaos.
Stories of the stout fight you put up in Untergard and the solo march north from that broken ruin have done much to expunge the embarassment of losing your kit and the clan's investment in your prospecting. Then again, you still recall the location of the silver vein and once things settle, you'll set out again. This time having purchased the supplies yourself.
You have lately been spending a bit of time with a priest of Sigmar, Father Morten, who had come to your clan humbly begging for assistance in researching some early records of the Sigmarites, as he has just aquired a relic of Sigmar.
Chosen by your elders to bring him several histories and copies of folios from the earliest records of the clan, you found him a sharp sort for a human, who spoke Khazalid without accent and accorded you respect and honor.
Nicodemus Krebs, Watchman of Middenheim
Born in Middenheim, 32nd of Vorhexen, 2503:
Your mother died giving birth to you, the youngest of three sons. Your father, Barnabus Krebs was a retired soldier become watchman who taught you how to search a building, watch the street for the pouch-pickers, never take coin you had not earned, and track the hours of the night with knot and glass.
Your older brothers ended up in the army, but the Watch was for you. The City of the Wolf would be overrun by unrestrained criminal activity were it not for the Watch. Sure, there are thieves and rackets and all manner of bad things go on in many of the darker corners of the city, but none of it gets out of hand or entirely avoids taxation because the good men of the watch are always ready to bash a few heads and bust a few chops should the thieving get too aggressive or prey too heavily on the many pilgrims to the temple of Ulric.
Your father was one of those who trained Commander Ulrich Shutzmann to his duty as commander of the City Watch. You have not asked for any favors from him, but you suspect that this relationship is why you were assigned the Palast District as your first watch assignment, and were part of the reserves that barely saw any fighting during the siege of the City, just two weeks past.
When the Storm of Chaos erupted from the north, overruning Kislev and the Northern part of the Empire in a few months, your brothers were deployed with the army and sent against them. Karl died in some nameless skirmish before the forces of Chaos invested the city. Once the hordes of chaos invested the city, you were kept busy patrolling the streets when not standing reserve duty.
Your father was slain when he discovered a vile plot by an organization calling itself The Cult of the Jade Scepter. The cult attempted to assist the forces outside the city by summoning many demons of their dark pleasure goddess Slatteesh. Your father and his squad of the watch interrupted the summoners and killed their evil preistess, breaking their control of the foul creatures they had brought into our world. Still the Storm of Chaos' toll on your family had not ended. Once the siege was broken by the emperor and the Alliance of Light, news that your eldest brother Ulrich had died in the heroic defence of a bridge in the Town of Untergard reached you.
Things have calmed down somewhat since the Army, Militia, and the forces of the Emperor's Alliance of Light have left in pursuit of the broken enemy, but not by much. Droves of refugees have overrun the city's once-quiet parks, living in squalor. New gangs have cropped up, and new criminals appear on a daily basis. The wanted postings grow longer day by day, and now there is no backup from the militia or the garrison. Shutzmann has told the Watch to ignore most petty crime and even some major crimes in order to preserve manpower for any unrest or revolt. Food is beginning to trickle into the city, but murder over a fresh peach is not unknown. Just the other day some desperate fools attacked a young woman, but a Sigmarite Initiate interrupted their foul act, with poor results for the young men.
You have been working closer to the offices of the watch, under Shutzmann's direct command, doing odd assignments for him. There are few of the old hands left, and Shutzmann needs every able body he can trust working. You have been so busy, you have not had time to make offering at the Temple of Ulric in the name of your father and brothers.
You have been sent to get several men and a Dwarf in for an interview with the watch commander regarding their experiences along the road from Untergarde:
Luther, called fleet of foot, Mohr
Andric Vogel, the same initiate of Sigmar who slew the two would-be robbers
Diebold Konigsamen, a squire
and a Dwarf named Throngor Snorlikson
Imrak, Dwarven Trollslayer
Born in Karaz-a-Karak, the 1st of Erntezeit, 2451 IC
Born in Karaz a Karak, your clan was powerful, your family prominent leaders within your clan. Your youth was spent learning the ways of your forefathers, smithing, mining, working in the footsteps of your ancestors, preparing to take up the honorable mantle of your Clan. As you entered your thirties, still an unproven youth in the eyes of your people, the day of days came.
A Cult of Daemon-worshippers were discovered within the greatest of Dwarf holds. A cult whose leadership was discovered to not only hold sway over your clan, but your family as well. This discovery was made in the wake of a plot sprung by that cult to kill the High King. With fire and axe did the other clans fall on the remaining cultists within your clan's section of the hold.
You still do not know if your parents were involved in the cult, but they paid the price nontheless. Dying in front of your eyes as they refused to submit to the judgement of the Lawgivers.
The case agianst those of your clansmen taken alive or deemed not to have been directly involved took over five years. In the end, the Clan was found to harbor no more cultists, and the remaining leaders allowed to take their own lives to expunge the shame. The clan was broken, the damage done by the betrayers to great. Like many of the few that were left, the shame of your tainted Clan led you to shave your hair and dye the remains orange. You emerged from the temple to Grungi, God of the People, a Trollslayer seeking your Doom. Hearing of the great Chaos incursion in the human Empire causing great difficulties for those of the People in that place, you travelled North seeking a Doom that would expunge the great shame of your people.
You no longer keep the name of your forebears, simply using the name given you by your mother.
You do not speak of what has made you as you are. You drink a lot, possibly too much, and you have not found much fighting, let alone the doom you seek on the roads and rivers north.
You have only just made your way into Middenhiem, and at the Temple to Grungi learned that there is a group of Men and a Dwarf of the Engineer's guild who have recently been engaged in much dangerous labor, gaining a name for themsleves in the City of Middenhiem as destroyers of several chaos cults and numerous unsavory beasts. Amongst these beasts were the ratmen, said to inhabit the great mountain of Grungi's Tower, the mountain that supports the great Human city.
Luther Mohr, Human Hunter
Born just outside Untergarde, 3rd of Brauzeit 2502
Born in a hovel outside Untergard to a charcoal burner and a hunter, you grew up under your father's stern but fair hand. Learning the arts of survival and the longbow, much as he was taught by his father. Never much in Untergard, a small town at the northernmost navigable reach of the river Delbin, the eastern tributary to the River Delb, some 90 miles South and east of Middenhiem.
Mother died when you were 15, killed by raiding goblins, despite all your father could do. After you had buried your mother, your father left to track them.
He tracked the greenskin scum and killed them all, but was sore wounded in the process. Father never fully recovered from the wound, and died a year and a day later, leaving you his longbow and other possessions to make your own way in the world.
For four years you have been successful, keeping alive and ahead of the seasons with food and shelter.
You were hunting when you came across the skulking scouts of the Beastmen army that marched on Untergard.
You ran ahead of them for a day and a half, alerting the town watch to what approached, unaware that the army behind you was but one element of the Storm of Chaos erupting across the North of the Empire.
When the army of Kharzak the Beastial erupted from the wood and over-ran the Eastern half of the town in an attempt to secure the bridge, you assisted a small party of knights and their retainers, along with a Wizard in holding the bridge until the regular Imperial Army arrived, sending arrow after arrow into the creatures of Chaos on the far bank.
The Army fought for seven days, finally breaking the beasts. The town quickly became quiet again, as the Army was pulled out and moved North to help clear the rest of Middenland, the 80 odd survivors now try to rebuild.
Pippa Darkwater, Halfling Huntress
Born on the River Aver, 29th of Nachgeheim, 2494
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You were born to a Halfling couple who trace their forebears to the original settlers to first appear in Imperial history. Your great grandsire some forty three times over provided scouting for Sigmar's Own Army. In every generation someone of the Darkwater clan has been a hunter and scout.
Of course, that proclivity towards leaving the Moot and adventuring has meant that the Clan has remained small, as many have passed into history, their deaths unrecorded, their fates unknown.
In the last few generations, your clan has become tightly entwined with that of the Hornblowers, becoming a cog in the machine that Lady Hornblower has built in her attempts to drag her clan and her people into the future.
A year ago Lady Hornblower had sent for you on the Aver in order that you be a part of her escort as she determined to leave the Moot. You resented the order at first, but grew to feel proud of your service to her. During the Storm of Chaos, Lady Hornblower provided much to the city's poor folk and Halflings, securing the Little Moot's future in the City of the White Wolf.
You have been asked to provide an escort for The Seven by Lady Hornblower herself, and provided with provisions and Mootmules for all of the group.
Born in Altdorf, 10th Kaldezeit, 2503
You were born under the sign of Mammit the Wise, and your mother always wished for you to be a priest of Sigmar.
You know this as it was the last thing she told you on your tenth birthday as she walked you from the temple of Morr to the temple of Sigmar in Altdorf.
There she left you to learn what the Cult of Sigmar would teach you. Long did you labor, copying texts and learning the basics of a priestly education. Your superiors were ever distant figures, handing down punishments and sermons in equal measure.
Stronger, and more naturally a fighter than most of your brethren, you were marked from an early age to join The Order of the Silver Hammer, and your training has continued in that direction.
You were assigned to a priest of that Order for training as an Initiate. He was an older Priest named Calvin. Calvin preferred the company of coarse fighting men and their ilk to the Order of the Torch Priests you had trained with, and he looked on you as a product of their school, rather than a fighter.
That changed on the journey north. You were beset by beastmen on the road to Untergard. Calvin fought like a bear, as you did. You accounted for two of the foul mutants, and Calvin for three, but the last snuck a mighty spear blow through the chain hauberk Calvin wore even as his hammer opened the beast's skull to the elements.
You carried Calvin the last three miles to the town, his groaning weight a burden on your soul, his looped intestines dragging the ground behind you. He died some time during that long dark time.
His body was given over to Morr's keeping the night before the attack on Untergard.
You fought alongside the army, only to be nearly killed when the club of a beastman clipped your skull, sending you down into darkness. You woke several days later, still dizzy and unable to walk without the aid of a cane.
Your recovery slow, you have been working the infirmary in an effort to help those less fortunate than yourself . The army pulled out several days ago, and you have only recently been able to walk without the cane you feared might be needed for the rest of your days.
Now you are at loose ends, Altdorf lies hundreds of miles behind, and the Cult of Sigmar is not as popular in Middenhiem as it might be, but that is where you will find the closest superiors of your order.
Meanwhile the Sigmarite Order of the Torch Priest, Deitrich has been kind and helpful to you.
Rudiger Kuhn, Thief
True Birth Date Unknown, Exciseman of Middenheim assigned Hexenstag 2506
The long drop to the short stop, the knife in the back, the chop, these are the things the Storm of Chaos saved you from.
You grew up a gutter rat in the old town area of Middenhiem, never knowing your parents, scrabbling for life amongst the other beggars, thieves and urchins. Always one step ahead of the watch, one step away from 'the big score'. Then you joined the Southgate protective society, gaining their protection.
Life was not all that difficult, just one rule: Doan git caught!. Caught by the watch, caught by the rival gangs, caught making 'unsanctioned' moves, or caught by the powerful merchants with thugs on the payroll.
Then the number one rule got broken... Middenhiem is a big city, and the politics are convoluted, but you did not know the merchant was brother-in-law to a watchman who was on the take from others on the dodgy path.
Had you known, you would never have copped a feel of his daughter, regardless of whether she made eyes at you when you stole through her chambers. You certainly would not have lingered long enough for her to memorize your face.
Soon there was a warrant for your arrest in the works. A warrant which was actually followed up on by some people who knew where to look. 25 Gold crowns!
Discretion the better part of valour, you left Middenhiem for the first time, fleeing south stowed away in a caravan of trade goods bound for Nuln.
You were discovered in Untergard as the merhant planned to tranship his goods from wagon to boat. The merchant had sent for the watch when someone came screaming into the plaza saying the village walls were under attack.
The merchant fled immediately in panic forgetting about you in his haste to get away, only to be slain outside the walls to the town. You could not watch as the horrid beastmen ripped him limb from limb.
You have been dodging from one spot of comparative safety to another in the east side of town since then, Ranald's own luck must have been with you, as you survived the nine days it took for the army of the Empire to take back the east half of the village.
Only when it was safe did you make it back to the west side of town.
The army says the seige of Middenhiem has been broken, and that many of the people of South Gate are no longer among the living, which could mean that you can go back and be free and clear. But there are a few miles between here and there, you have no provisions, and the army has left.
Diebold Konigsamen, Squire
Born the 10th of Jardrung, 2504 in Grimmenhagen
Born the second son of a squire to one of the Sigmarite knights of Middenland, you have lived your life in the hopes that you would be knighted and elevated into one of the knightly orders of the Empire.
Training constantly from the time you were old enough to hold a practice blade, carrying the heaviest of weights in order to become stronger. Whether it was well-water or firewood for the hearth, you always took the heaviest of loads. Riding, fighting or even studying, you were no slouch, and the knight your father served never had reason to question your value to the small village he held in fealty.
Your diligence paid off, and during the Feast of Ulric in your 13th year, your father brought a strange knight to the village festival. Sir Gorbin was an unruly looking knight, with unkempt hair and a huge bristling beard. Certainly a son of Ulric, a knight of the Old School. Gorbin took you to Squire him, despite your differing faiths.
Sir Gorbin was a fair knight to squire under. Unstinting in his discipline, but thorough in his teaching of the proper way to approach the nobles of Middenland. Always leading by example. Gorbin was possessed of a huge appetite for life, drinking eating, fighting, whoring, but always ready to leap to serve his lord and his oath.
When Sir Gorbin had heard of stirrings in the forest of the Drakwald, he had taken you and a few trusted men with him. In Untergard, events caught up with him and a few of his fellow knights.
A hunter ran into the small town, a horde of Beastmen on his trail. The Beastmen quickly overcame the poor excuse for the wall on the East side of the river, rampaging through the town and setting the eastern shore alight.
Sir Gorbin, his henchmen and a few other knights held the bridge seperating the two sides with the assistance of a Wizard. For two days they held as the host of Kharzak the Bestial slammed against the dwindling numbers of Sir Gorbin and his men. At the last, Gorbin threw himself against the line of Bestigors protecting Kharzak himself as he exhorted his remaining men and the Wizard to aid him in last push to kill the leader.
The Wizard cast his last spell, somehow ending his own life in a shower of blood. Gorbin soon followed him in death, and you made ready to sell you life as dearly as he when a deafening explosion knocked you flat on the ground and darkness took you.
You woke to discover that the Army had arrived, and it was one of the emperor's cannon which had laid you low. As you recovered, the army began to pull out. You were unable to fnd any other survivors of Sir Gorbin's men.
You woke in time to stop some other knight's squire from taking your horse and gear, but Sir Gorbin's was long taken, having been of much higher quality. The Priest of Morr with the army has already seen to it that Gorbin be interred properly and you dictated a letter to his wife to tell her her husband died a true knight..
You are at loose ends and unsure what it is you should do. The army has already left and the few people remaining are beginning to rebuild the west side of the river.
Oldric Oberholzer, Wizard's Apprentice
Born on Geheimnistag, 2504 on the road between Talabheim and Altdorf
You were born in the back of your father's trade wagon under the sign of the Witching Star, a sure sign of magical influence on your life. Your mother was killed by beastmen when you were three, in an attack that awakened the power within you.
At twelve you began to show signs of the 'taint', as your ignorant father called it. Said you were just like your mother while in his cups, slurring that he would drown you himself were he not so sure you'd curse him even further.
That year he went too far, beating you along the road to Middenheim, damaging your leg, giving you a permanant limp. Always during the beatings, your sight would change and you would see the darkness and blood in his mind.
Months later, a man in strange dress riding a tall horse interrupted your father's drunken nightly entertainment, asking him, "Could you part with the greatest blessing Shallya has seen fit to give mortals?"
Your father, well into his cups was typically witty, "Huh?"
The tall man pointed at you and said in a sonorous voice, "I see the power lying in him, and would keep it from the darkness you would feed with your daily beatings."
Still the brilliant wit, your father asked, "Huh?"
"Twenty crowns for your son, man! I shall pay for him and take him to apprentice."
"Apprentice?" Your father slurred, his meaty fist slowly lowering to his side.
The next day you walked beside the tal horse of your new master, Oderic Mannheim, beyond happy to know you would not be beaten that day.
Over the next days and weeks you learned that Oderic was a Light Wizard who had homes in several places in the Empire and travelled between them. As a member of the College of Light, Oderic often took his leave of you on the outskirts of some benighted village, only to return the next day. Once you saw the results of his actions: The people of the village came forth and whipered tearful thanks to Oderic. The village graveyard had erupted with the results of some foul necromantic magic. The remains your master left behind were not much to look at, but the villagers had heard the frightful noises and seen the flashes of light as your Master fought with the creatures.
Over the course of the next years he trained you in the danger and majesty that is magic. Thus far you have only learned to access the most petty of arcane arts.
Your master had been travelling from the Imperial Capital, Altdorf, to Middenhiem. That is, until the Storm of Chaos erupted from the North. The creatures of evil Chaos that came howling from the North overran much of Middenland, and their allies erupted from the Drakwald and the other dark places in the northern Empire.
Caught south and east of the City of The White Wolf when word reached you, Oderic lifted you up on his stallion, Roland, and rode hell for leather for the nearest town.
Untergard was a small town at the northernmost navigable reach of the river Delbin, the eastern tributary to the River Delb. When the army of Kharzak the Beastial erupted from the wood and over-ran the Eastern half of the town in an attempt to secure the bridge, your master assisted a small party of knights and their retainers in holding the bridge until the regular Imperial Army arrived.
Oderic held them, with his will and his might, only to fall when the winds of Magic betrayed him and a Daemon of darkest chaos erupted from the Aethyr beside him and ate his head from his shoulders.
The Army was victorious, but at such huge cost. Quickly they were pulled from the town to assist in the defence of the rest of the province, leaving some eighty-odd survivors behind.
Now you know not what to do, you are hundreds of dangerous miles from your master's last home, and alone. Wizarding is dangerous, with the common folk fearful and the Witch Hunters ever ready to take those who practice magic without the protection of a guild.
Throngor Snorlickson, Dwarf Miner
Born in Grungi's Tower, 19th of Ulriczeit 2481 IC
Miners. Mining is what defines you, your clan and your family. The sound of steel breaking stone seeking ore a prayerful hymn to Grungi, the Great God of the Mine. The Gor clan has long been in service to the Elders of Karak Grazhyak (The Tower Hold). You just reached your majority last year, and were outfitted and sent out to prospect the Middle Mountains, as countless generations of Dwarfs have done before you.
For nearly a year you have been in the Middle Mountains seeking your fortune. You succeeded in finding a nice vein of silver, not too deep, not to impure, and set about mining some ore before returning to your kin and hearth.
You were returning home when you were ambushed by a few Gors, who quickly regretted their decision to waylay you. Of course, the scent of them drove your mules mad, and they ran off. A year prospecting in the Middle Mountains and your mule has to decide it wants to run when it smells some wild beastmen. You could not get the damn mindless mule to walk, let alone run! Ran straight off the cliff and into the waters of the Delbin. You followed that treacherous river south, and ran right into a Beastmen army trying to take the small town of Untergard.
You pitched in and tried to help at the battle of the bridge, and the regular army arrived and quickly took over.
At loose ends after the battle, you set out to return to Karak Grazhyak alone and learn what has come to pass with your kin. One of the Dwarfs you had fought with at the bridge gave you his dead cousin's chain shirt in part payment of a debt owed you for saving his life.
The return to your home hold was interesting in the ancient sense, proving quite dangerous. Another group of foul beastmen tried ambushing you by the side of the road, and suffered a quick death for it. Still, it was a near thing, as you had little food to sustain you and you suffered a good wound in facing down a number of other stragglers from the dark armies of the remnants of the Storm of Chaos.
Stories of the stout fight you put up in Untergard and the solo march north from that broken ruin have done much to expunge the embarassment of losing your kit and the clan's investment in your prospecting. Then again, you still recall the location of the silver vein and once things settle, you'll set out again. This time having purchased the supplies yourself.
You have lately been spending a bit of time with a priest of Sigmar, Father Morten, who had come to your clan humbly begging for assistance in researching some early records of the Sigmarites, as he has just aquired a relic of Sigmar.
Chosen by your elders to bring him several histories and copies of folios from the earliest records of the clan, you found him a sharp sort for a human, who spoke Khazalid without accent and accorded you respect and honor.
Nicodemus Krebs, Watchman of Middenheim
Born in Middenheim, 32nd of Vorhexen, 2503:
Your mother died giving birth to you, the youngest of three sons. Your father, Barnabus Krebs was a retired soldier become watchman who taught you how to search a building, watch the street for the pouch-pickers, never take coin you had not earned, and track the hours of the night with knot and glass.
Your older brothers ended up in the army, but the Watch was for you. The City of the Wolf would be overrun by unrestrained criminal activity were it not for the Watch. Sure, there are thieves and rackets and all manner of bad things go on in many of the darker corners of the city, but none of it gets out of hand or entirely avoids taxation because the good men of the watch are always ready to bash a few heads and bust a few chops should the thieving get too aggressive or prey too heavily on the many pilgrims to the temple of Ulric.
Your father was one of those who trained Commander Ulrich Shutzmann to his duty as commander of the City Watch. You have not asked for any favors from him, but you suspect that this relationship is why you were assigned the Palast District as your first watch assignment, and were part of the reserves that barely saw any fighting during the siege of the City, just two weeks past.
When the Storm of Chaos erupted from the north, overruning Kislev and the Northern part of the Empire in a few months, your brothers were deployed with the army and sent against them. Karl died in some nameless skirmish before the forces of Chaos invested the city. Once the hordes of chaos invested the city, you were kept busy patrolling the streets when not standing reserve duty.
Your father was slain when he discovered a vile plot by an organization calling itself The Cult of the Jade Scepter. The cult attempted to assist the forces outside the city by summoning many demons of their dark pleasure goddess Slatteesh. Your father and his squad of the watch interrupted the summoners and killed their evil preistess, breaking their control of the foul creatures they had brought into our world. Still the Storm of Chaos' toll on your family had not ended. Once the siege was broken by the emperor and the Alliance of Light, news that your eldest brother Ulrich had died in the heroic defence of a bridge in the Town of Untergard reached you.
Things have calmed down somewhat since the Army, Militia, and the forces of the Emperor's Alliance of Light have left in pursuit of the broken enemy, but not by much. Droves of refugees have overrun the city's once-quiet parks, living in squalor. New gangs have cropped up, and new criminals appear on a daily basis. The wanted postings grow longer day by day, and now there is no backup from the militia or the garrison. Shutzmann has told the Watch to ignore most petty crime and even some major crimes in order to preserve manpower for any unrest or revolt. Food is beginning to trickle into the city, but murder over a fresh peach is not unknown. Just the other day some desperate fools attacked a young woman, but a Sigmarite Initiate interrupted their foul act, with poor results for the young men.
You have been working closer to the offices of the watch, under Shutzmann's direct command, doing odd assignments for him. There are few of the old hands left, and Shutzmann needs every able body he can trust working. You have been so busy, you have not had time to make offering at the Temple of Ulric in the name of your father and brothers.
You have been sent to get several men and a Dwarf in for an interview with the watch commander regarding their experiences along the road from Untergarde:
Luther, called fleet of foot, Mohr
Andric Vogel, the same initiate of Sigmar who slew the two would-be robbers
Diebold Konigsamen, a squire
and a Dwarf named Throngor Snorlikson
Imrak, Dwarven Trollslayer
Born in Karaz-a-Karak, the 1st of Erntezeit, 2451 IC
Born in Karaz a Karak, your clan was powerful, your family prominent leaders within your clan. Your youth was spent learning the ways of your forefathers, smithing, mining, working in the footsteps of your ancestors, preparing to take up the honorable mantle of your Clan. As you entered your thirties, still an unproven youth in the eyes of your people, the day of days came.
A Cult of Daemon-worshippers were discovered within the greatest of Dwarf holds. A cult whose leadership was discovered to not only hold sway over your clan, but your family as well. This discovery was made in the wake of a plot sprung by that cult to kill the High King. With fire and axe did the other clans fall on the remaining cultists within your clan's section of the hold.
You still do not know if your parents were involved in the cult, but they paid the price nontheless. Dying in front of your eyes as they refused to submit to the judgement of the Lawgivers.
The case agianst those of your clansmen taken alive or deemed not to have been directly involved took over five years. In the end, the Clan was found to harbor no more cultists, and the remaining leaders allowed to take their own lives to expunge the shame. The clan was broken, the damage done by the betrayers to great. Like many of the few that were left, the shame of your tainted Clan led you to shave your hair and dye the remains orange. You emerged from the temple to Grungi, God of the People, a Trollslayer seeking your Doom. Hearing of the great Chaos incursion in the human Empire causing great difficulties for those of the People in that place, you travelled North seeking a Doom that would expunge the great shame of your people.
You no longer keep the name of your forebears, simply using the name given you by your mother.
You do not speak of what has made you as you are. You drink a lot, possibly too much, and you have not found much fighting, let alone the doom you seek on the roads and rivers north.
You have only just made your way into Middenhiem, and at the Temple to Grungi learned that there is a group of Men and a Dwarf of the Engineer's guild who have recently been engaged in much dangerous labor, gaining a name for themsleves in the City of Middenhiem as destroyers of several chaos cults and numerous unsavory beasts. Amongst these beasts were the ratmen, said to inhabit the great mountain of Grungi's Tower, the mountain that supports the great Human city.
Luther Mohr, Human Hunter
Born just outside Untergarde, 3rd of Brauzeit 2502
Born in a hovel outside Untergard to a charcoal burner and a hunter, you grew up under your father's stern but fair hand. Learning the arts of survival and the longbow, much as he was taught by his father. Never much in Untergard, a small town at the northernmost navigable reach of the river Delbin, the eastern tributary to the River Delb, some 90 miles South and east of Middenhiem.
Mother died when you were 15, killed by raiding goblins, despite all your father could do. After you had buried your mother, your father left to track them.
He tracked the greenskin scum and killed them all, but was sore wounded in the process. Father never fully recovered from the wound, and died a year and a day later, leaving you his longbow and other possessions to make your own way in the world.
For four years you have been successful, keeping alive and ahead of the seasons with food and shelter.
You were hunting when you came across the skulking scouts of the Beastmen army that marched on Untergard.
You ran ahead of them for a day and a half, alerting the town watch to what approached, unaware that the army behind you was but one element of the Storm of Chaos erupting across the North of the Empire.
When the army of Kharzak the Beastial erupted from the wood and over-ran the Eastern half of the town in an attempt to secure the bridge, you assisted a small party of knights and their retainers, along with a Wizard in holding the bridge until the regular Imperial Army arrived, sending arrow after arrow into the creatures of Chaos on the far bank.
The Army fought for seven days, finally breaking the beasts. The town quickly became quiet again, as the Army was pulled out and moved North to help clear the rest of Middenland, the 80 odd survivors now try to rebuild.
Pippa Darkwater, Halfling Huntress
Born on the River Aver, 29th of Nachgeheim, 2494
You were born to a Halfling couple who trace their forebears to the original settlers to first appear in Imperial history. Your great grandsire some forty three times over provided scouting for Sigmar's Own Army. In every generation someone of the Darkwater clan has been a hunter and scout.
Of course, that proclivity towards leaving the Moot and adventuring has meant that the Clan has remained small, as many have passed into history, their deaths unrecorded, their fates unknown.
In the last few generations, your clan has become tightly entwined with that of the Hornblowers, becoming a cog in the machine that Lady Hornblower has built in her attempts to drag her clan and her people into the future.
A year ago Lady Hornblower had sent for you on the Aver in order that you be a part of her escort as she determined to leave the Moot. You resented the order at first, but grew to feel proud of your service to her. During the Storm of Chaos, Lady Hornblower provided much to the city's poor folk and Halflings, securing the Little Moot's future in the City of the White Wolf.
You have been asked to provide an escort for The Seven by Lady Hornblower herself, and provided with provisions and Mootmules for all of the group.
posted by Semper Septum at 22:17
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