художници на икони

I‘m unsure if this will be a regular feature just yet, however I’ve wanted to start cataloging some of the known (and lesser known) characters of Felwroth.

First in the series is a much lesser known character who went from just a minor third tier character, to one who ended up with his own back story and official place in the world.

Bersig DeRothas

Ex-Orthinian Herdculler

During the Age of Prophets, the Lorrnath nation in southern Valhadruune were a force of control for much of the continent.  Their power seemed to be limitless, and with an opportunistic nation like Orthane as neighbors, it was only a matter of time before the two empires joined forces.

Unfortunate as that was for the surrounding nations, and the Lorrnathi themselves.

When Orthane’s prince was falsely found to have been murdered by members of the ‘wild herdsmen’ whom the Lorrnath had an open conflict with, Orthane sent their best trackers and warriors into the Lorrnath empire.  These squads operated with the permission of the Lorrnathi governments, and were tasked with one thing:  Annihilating the wild herds opposing the empire.

These squads became a driving force for oppression.  They were dubbed ‘Herdcullers’ or “Hell’s Bloodhounds” for their uncanny ability to find and either capture, or more often than not, kill anyone of the wild herd heritage.

Bersig was one such agent.  His start was as a regular soldier in the Orthinian army, though his skills as a tracker and with the blade soon saw him rise in rank to officer status.  Though he soon found being an officer let his skills dull over time, and requested to be sent to one of the elite squads operating in the vast reaches of the Lorrnathi empire.

Bersig soon learned the harsh realities of what being a Herdculler was.  The agents infiltrated every un-aligned clan of Lorrnath in the lands.  Even the most remote herds would soon be located and ‘brought into the light of the empire’.  Bersig proved to be incredibly adept at finding remote herds, usually taking on the role of a mercenary for hire, or wandering merchant, or in some cases a pilgrim to gain the trust of wildsman herd leaders, enough to allow the herd to be captured, forced into serving the Lorrnath empire, or ultimately destroyed.

The turning point that drove Bersig away from life as a black-hearted mercenary was amidst the flames and chaos of one such herd.  Months were spent among them, befriending leaders, learning their customs and hopes and desires.  Unknown to Bersig at the time, this started to have an influence on him.  He began to genuinely care about the people he had been assigned to betray.

Meeting with his superiors, he got into heated arguments when they would confront him on his apparent softening for these ‘animals’ as they were known.  He swore he would carry out his orders and set the signal to if the herd was to be destroyed, or brought to one of the Lorrnathi internment centers.

Bersig further became enamored with the herd when he was given an honorary position as a member of one of the families within it.  He was seen as Lorrnathi soon, and became a beloved uncle to one young Lorrnathi named Amnenka.

Soon, Bersig was teaching the young girl the basics of tracking, pathfinding, and even would practice swordplay with her using wooden swords.  For the first time in his life, he began to have a family tie outside of a military setting, and from that he began to openly ponder how he could ensure the herd’s safety and freedom without bringing the wrath of his superiors on him.

Sensing Bersig was starting to become to close to the herd, the order was given to annihilate them, burn the bodies, and bring Bersig to an Oracle to be re-indoctrinated.  And thus a pitched night assault was brought down on the peaceful herd.

Realizing what was happening Bersig’s training struggled with his new-found love for his Lorrnathi family.  It wasn’t until he saw Amnenka standing amidst flames and silhouetted by the fighting warriors and cullers, that he knew where his loyalty lie.  He was able to scoop his niece up and fight his way clear of his former allies.

He was now a wanted man.

He was also still one of the best pathfinders in the Orthinian forces.  He used every trick to evade his ex-comrades for seven years.  He raised Amnenka as best he could along the way.  Not trusting many of the Lorrnathi nationalist families to take her in, as many would sooner turn her over to an internment camp, and finding a wildsman herd that would trust him enough to take them in was, at that point of the war, out of the question.

The pair’s luck finally ran out after years of evading trackers and Lorrnathi patrols however.  It was in the fringes of the Lorrnathi lands after the empire had finally collapsed into itself, and civil war broke out.  Refugees of ex-nationalists and recently freed, or escaped, wildsman streamed across the lands.  Mass looting, riots, uprisings and brutality soon overtook a land once known for its oppressive and near complete lawfulness.

Near an old manor, in the forgotten primordial swamplands in the western area of the old empire, Bersig fell prey to an arcane trap that left him paralyzed.  Amnenka tried desperately to free her uncle, but the pair were soon found by those who set the trap in the first place.  A mad group of isolated, old-empire nationalists.  Inbred and near fully insane, they planned on simply using the pair for sport, until the patriarch of the family recognized the emblems that Bersig bore on his old armor.

The patriarch questioned Bersig on what a herdculler would be doing this far west in the middle of nowhere, and when he refused to answer, the answers were torn from him with magic.  The patriarch decided the pair weren’t worth the trouble, planned to execute Bersig and turn the girl over to his leering sons, until Bersig pleaded to make a deal.  He would use his skills to be a protector of the family, a house tracker, and an agent for the family, as long as Amnenka wasn’t harmed, and was given a safe place to stay.

Having an ex-herdculler as an agent was a deal the patriarch couldn’t pass up.  While his mad sons were disappointed that their prey was taken from them, Amnenka was taken on as a servant of the house, and indeed never harmed by the family.  And Bersig began his servitude to the dark-minded patriarch.

What the future holds?  That is yet to be seen.

-T.J.

I’m morbidly curious if people still stumble across this space.

I really, really need to update more often than three times a year. Lets see if I can fix that this time.

свети минаImage of Anders

Recent sketches from the week.  Mild nudity on a few.  You’ve been warned.

A rough, unadorned image of characters from the new story-arc. Ahani and Anders, sibling Lorrnath, two of Berrand and Cinders’ kids.

 
Just a test of one of the new banners I’ll be using for future posts about Felwroth.

матрациCinders as a wolf thing.

There may be some posts here that seem a bit disjointed to anyone reading. I’ll mark them as ‘random’ in some way. That’s not to say people might not find this stuff interesting, but I’m posting these things to remember some details for various storylines (not just Felwroth ones) that I have going on, in which I hope to recall later.

..I mean, why else have a website if not to post random confusing things!

Interview with Raven ‘Jatvirta’.

Interviewer: So, are Prophets officially done?
Raven: (laughs) Not.. No. Not in the sense your thinking.
Interviewer: But you’ve decided to part with that project and go into a new venture.
Raven: Yes. Prophets is a strange being. Its not like a normal group. After the third album it was unanimously decided that we’d let Prophets take an organic path. If we had other albums in us, we would gather again, write again, and produce again.
Interviewer: Which resulted in two more albums.
Raven: It did.
Interviewer: So really, there could be another Prophets album in the future?
Raven: Of course. But don’t expect it to be the same thing as say, the first or second album. When I said I didn’t have any plans to do any more writing in Prophets, its just where my heart is right now. My creative voice has changed so much since those days.
Interviewer: I can imagine, since you’ve been at this for what.. 10 years now?
Raven: Twelve years. Two years to get the first album done.
Interviewer: What do you thing of the ‘uproar’ about your walking away from Prophets to do such different music.
Raven: Honestly? I don’t want to sound cliche by saying I don’t f*cking care anymore, but I don’t f*cking care anymore. People have this strange sense of compression when it comes to your work. They don’t seem to realize that I’m old (laughs). I’m older than that 18 year old, or that 20 year old or that 25 year old I once was. You find that you aren’t angry about the same things anymore, you find that your much less self involved and want to look at different things in the world. You find yourself getting more spiritual or being angry at things going on that you see in the world at that moment.
Interviewer: I imagine it could get dull singing the same thing or writing in the same way for so long.
Raven: Exactly. Think of it like a story. This is the part where the furious beginning has passed and we get more into the meat of a thing larger than just one character’s voice. If you keep doing the same damn music, especially the music we did, you become ridiculous. You become these old guys still trying to pose as these ‘really pissed off kids’ and just become so absurd. I see a lot of old bands trying to ‘get back into that angry mode’ and It rarely works. They all just sorta have their heads up their own asses after a while and are embarassing.
Interviewer: I can think of three bands right now that are like that.
Raven: (laughs) I’m probably thinking of the same ones.
Interviewer: The new music is such a departure for you. Its not exactly ‘lighter’ but..
Raven: Richer? Varied?
Interviewer: Yeah!
Raven: Its why I was so stoked to help Jal. (edit-Halmen Jaalpakket, guitars, Prophets of Dust). This had so many people involved with it. It had music I’ve always loved, from my roots, done from so many different voices. Its NUTS, and its beautiful, and its such a riot to work on.
Interviewer: I imagine having to learn different instruments is a big change.
Raven: Yes. But not just that. Learning a new voice. After I injured my vocal chords after the ‘Withering’ tour, I had to relearn how to sing without really f*cking up my voice again. And suddenly I’m doing vastly different, harsher vocals for this.
Interviewer: Hopefully without re-injuring yourself.
Raven: Well, Jal came to me and asked me to do this, and I thought “Yeah! I can do melodic stuff, this is awesome”. He just laughed and said “I want you to scream. I want you to scream so f*cking hard on parts that your lungs give out. I want you to hate that God-Damned mic like it was trying to kill you”. I sort of had this moment of “Shit.. I dunno if I can do this.” (laughs).
Interviewer: It comes across as much more raw than the tighter transitions you used in Prophets.
Raven: It’s hard to explain. I took Jal’s advice. I just swallowed that fear and let it all out. I read the lyrics I was given and while half of it is in f*cking Helvetic, so much of it just pulled at that really primal part of me. I saw my roots in this.
Interviewer: Barbaric in a way.
Raven: (laughs) Yes. Sort of like that. There was so much power to those lyrics, and a great deal of them aren’t about anger, in fact, most songs are about hope, and family, and longing for those places we’re from that were swallowed up by the f*cking Facebook society we’ve become.

–Edit: Finish

First in the series of places of Felwroth is a seemingly innocuous little temple to the Dwarven god of smiths and runes in a small fishing port on the southern continent.

While the temple itself doesn’t seem extraordinary, it was the staging place for one of the most successful bands of explorers since the time of the Indorai.  To this day it is known as one of the few landmarks amongst the Dwarven people that is above ground, given its grand history.

Korrune, The Forgefather

Known as the creator of the dwarves and their skills at the forge, Korrune is one of the few old gods still worshipped from well before the time of the rise of the Indorillian empire.  Korrune and his three children, Kaulgren, Dvalla, and Mardune, are the keepers of the dwarven ancestors, the forge of creation, and the first flame that was handed down to the forge ancestors in ages now forgotten.

Korrune’s worshippers typically used to be those of the Runepriest castes, before the Runepriest arts were forgotten around the time of the Exodus, when the Indorai gave the secrets of communing with gods to mortals.  These days its more typical to find not only clergy and invokers amongst the ranks of worshippers, but to a greater degree the warrior castes, due to their almost symbiotic ties to their weaponry and armor.

Despite being an ancient god, a good deal of the rituals of the church were lost over time.  The remaining rituals all tie into the art of forging and are closely guarded amongst the Dwarven people.  They are passed down to those who show almost divine inspiration at crafting stone and metal alike.  The rituals themselves are complex and written in the forgotten text of Dwarven runes, which very few living dwarves these days can translate.

The Kivesk Temple

Kivesk was little more than a sodden outpost far from most Dwarven civilizations back when the first and only temple to Korrune was founded in the town during the time of Dwarven expansion.  The Kivesk temple was founded more as an outpost for trade relations between the Javarran and human settlements in the area, than as a proper temple.  Despite it being an important hub for relations with other races, it was still seen as ‘bog duty’ amongst those assigned to oversee the temple, and rarely had more than one caretaker at a time due this.

When the Dwarven expansionist era ended, many of their above ground outposts were soon abandoned.  The Thanes pulling their people back into the strongholds, and many diplomatic ties disappeared with them.  The Temple of Korrune in Kivesk avoided this fate, as the Whiterook academy of the Arcane had made Kivesk a nearly international hub on the Aarinkonnen continent.  It was seen as prudent to keep a diplomatic center in a crossroads of culture that Kivesk was becoming, but still few amongst the Dwarves were willing to be caretakers in a town so far away from any dwarven center.

At this time the first non-dwarven caretaker was assigned.  A human named Rolley Clonrichert was given the post, though he was only a minor member of Korrune’s followers in the surface world.  Rolley decided the free room and board afforded by the post were worth taking the post.

1. Temple Proper – Sermons, though unofficial under Father Rolley, would take here.

2. Kitchen.

3. Dining and living area.

4. Hall library.

5. Bedchambers.

6. Bathroom.

Rolley Clonrichert

Father Rolley Clonrichert has only light ties to the worship of Korrune.  He used to be the official groundskeeper around the temple in Kivesk until the last Dwarven keeper of the temple grew homesick and fed up with life in the wilds.  The Dwarven keeper swore Rolley in as an official ‘Keeper of the Flame’ until the time another Dwarven keeper could be found to fill in with diplomatic duties in Kivesk.

Over 2 decades have passed since then, and the temple in Kivesk has all but been forgotten.  It wasn’t until recently that another keeper was appointed.  Dougan of Ravenstone Hall was sent to look over the temple, though the circumstances surrounding his being appointed to such a remote outpost were very sketchy at best, and was seen as more a punishment to the Dwarf than a necessity of keeping the Kivesk temple in working order.

Father Rolley had let the building fall into bad disrepair by this point, so much so that he had to bear the brunt of a tirade Dougan unleashed on him, and is now little more than a groundskeeper again.

To this day, Father Rolley still objects to many of the reforms Dougan brought into the temple, including the position of ‘keeper of the collections’ given to a scantily clad Lorrnath woman, despite the fact donations have gone up nearly quadruple in a very short time.