Axel Heiberg

### Relatives

Abi Eodauga (father), Gwynnestri (mother), Ulrik Heiberg (adopted father), Mary Malone (wife), Axel Heiberg the Younger (son), Abraham Mistmoor (distant descendent)

## Physical description

### Eye color

Blue

*“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”*

-Axel Heiberg

## History

Axel was the illegitimate child of the sorcerer Abi Eodauga and an elven woman, Gwynnestri. He was raised in a pitiful village in the Reich Nördlich, where he learned to hunt and forage from the rangers who served as father figures to him. His mother did not hide the story of his birth from him, and when Abi Eodauga became the Marshal of Nadezhda, she would tell her son that he was destined for great things.

The war against the Windwalker was a harsh time for the Reich, and many young boys starved or froze. Curiously, young Axel survived the harshest conditions, seeming invulnerable to the elements, and always able to find food. It was not long before Gwynnestri identified the tell-tale signs of sorcery - Axel had inherited his father's wintry blood. No frost will harm him, and he had the ability to find life in the tundra, no matter how well-hidden.

Terrified that the Hexenjägers would discover her son, Gwynnestri took him and fled to neighboring Nadezhda. Many times, she feared that he would succumb, but the cold fazed him not at all. Gwynnestri took Axel to the capital of Torzhestvo, where she presented the boy to his father, Marshal Abi Eodauga. The philosopher-king, who was at that time consolidating his power, found his son a great source of consternation. He had no interest in raising him, and had all but forgotten Gwynnestri. An idea - a brutal yet intriguing idea - was presented to him by his chief general, Dolom Tkerekin. At his general's urging, Abi Eodauga declared to his followers that no mage was exempt from the collars - not even his own son. Ignoring Gwynnestri's cries, Abi Eodauga latched the collar his Axel's neck himself, leaving enough room for him to grow, but not so much that he could lift it off. His decision was met with roars of approval, and all Nadezhdans knew that the Marshal's harsh justice would never be tempered by favoritism and sentimentality.

At Eodauga's order, Gwynnestri was secretly married to one of a trusted officer in the Nadezhdan Armed Forces named Ulrik Heiberg, and sent to a small village in Nadezhda. Heiberg would protect Gwynnestri and raise Axel as his son. He would teach Axel mathematics and history, and how to read and write. He would keep and eye on the boy, and report back to the Marshal about his son's progress. Axel knew nothing of this, and harbored deep hatred for his adoptive father, who he saw as his jailer. He became a melancholy young man, living with the threat of death hanging over him. Deeply influenced by the rangers of his home village, Axel Heiberg chose to become an explorer, and when he reached the age of majority, his adoptive father let him go, as Abi Eodauga had ordered him to.

In the years preceding the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Axel Heiberg went on a few expeditions with others, but eventually struck out on his own. His compatriots slowed him down, for he was obliged to hide his sorcerous powers from them. When he began exploring alone, he was free to master his powers in secret, talking to beasts and predicting the weather, shrugging off the elements and felling his prey with untapped arcane energies. He became the only man currently alive to reach the peak of Mt. Voormithadreth, and traveled further north still. He became the first human outside the Final Empire to set foot in the petrified forest of the Yuan-Ti that now bears his name. He spent a short time in the Northern Dome, where he met Emperor Brennen, before returning to Nadezhda. His reports about the northern Final Empire were some of the most detailed anyone had ever heard about Brennen's mysterious kingdom.

In the forest of the Yuan-Ti, Axel Heiberg made a bargain with Sertrous to free himself from the collar. Sertrous agreed to do so, but vowed that he would be back for him.

Axel Heiberg would meet his father one more time, during the Northern Arcane Symposium.

## Personality

Axel Heiberg is consumed by restlessness, by a need to outrun his past and outrun death. He is remarkably fearless, and never stays in one place for terribly long. He has the habit of not telling anyone where he is going, and can disappear for months if not years on end. Years of wearing a Nadezhdan kill-collar have left him prepared to die at any moment, and he obsessively chronicles his explorations in case his own testimony is cut short.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

The War of the Philosopher-Kings was a fraught time for Axel Heiberg, who grew up in the Reich Nördlich yet had blood in Nadezhda. No matter how much he hated him, his adoptive father Ulrik was still on active duty in the Nadezhdan Armed Forces, and his true father was Nadezhda's leader. And yet some of the old rangers who taught him their ways were fighting in Franz Forrawyn's army; he would sooner die than raise a blade against them. Knowing that there might be those who would seek to use him as a hostage against his father, Axel Heiberg spent the war on the move in the wilderness, refusing to take part.

After the destruction of the Throne of Atlantis, Sertrous would return to Axel Heiberg and wind himself around his neck.

## After the War

A known sorcerer and son of a slain philosopher-king, Axel Heiberg was wanted by the Hexenjägers, but he had little trouble evading them. He intended to live in and map the expanse of the former Final Empire, but was forced to retreat southward as the creeping madness of the Northern Dome spread its influence. He spent time in Rhomduil and the former Empire of Celymnaia, and went as far south as World's End and Ragnarok, being careful never to overstay his welcome.

At some point during this time, Axel encountered the ex-Hexenjäger and panserbjorne, Torvald Jonsson. Jonsson recognized him as a mage and tried to kill him, but after their fight, Axel emerged triumphant. He nonetheless spared his foe's life, seeing in him an exile's desperation. When they next crossed paths, Axel found Jonsson in grave danger and saved his life, a favor Jonsson was able to grudgingly repay years later.

Axel Heiberg also came into conflict with Immanuel Kalbfleisch, at that time a Constable within the Hunter-Killer Auxiliary.

During Axel Heiberg's sojourns in northern Nadezhda, he came across the fledgling nation of Ostoria, led by Queen Damaris Tkerekin. When she learned that he was the son of Abi Eodauga and the bearer of his sorcerous lineage, she proposed marriage to him and offered him kingship of Ostoria as a co-equal monarch. Axel was taken aback and wrestled for a while with his heritage, but ended up firmly turning her town, saying that he wanted nothing to do with his father's legacy, and that kingship would preclude on his explorations. Queen Damaris never forgave him the slight.

## Great Awakening

Axel Heiberg would accompany the Third Northern Expedition from Brøndgård to Valusia. On Valusia, he was attacked by Sertrous, leaving his mind shattered. He would be taken for shelter to the Northern Administrative Zone, where he would be partially nursed back to health by Dr. Malone. He would serve King Knil for a time, scouting for the Kingdom of the Naz by traveling distances that none of the King's other subjects could match.

After the Awakening itself, Axel Heiberg was the first man approached by the Godhunter as an ally. Axel would become one of the Godhunter's closest associates during the War, especially in the North and against Sertrous in particular. His effort was doomed, however, as being a receptacle of Sertrous' soul, he would be unable to kill the great old one.

Prompted by a vision of the future, Tolumvire gives the Final Incantation to Axel Heiberg, but explains nothing about it.

Tolumvire leads Annakiya to Valusia for the purposes of killing Sertrous. Tolumvire was aware that Axel Heiberg, being the receptacle for Sertrous' soul, would be unable to kill the great old one. In the great battle with the serpent, Sertrous would devour the helpless explorer as he stood, hypnotized. As Sertrous began to digest his prey, Annakiya would use the oppertunity to strike, killing the great old one with the Blade of Echoes.

This would not prove the of Axel Heiberg. In a process forseen by Tolumvire and little understood - involving Axel Heiberg's connection to Sertrous and his mastery of the Final Incantation - a new entity would arise from the slain bodies of the serpent and the devoured demon lord, calling itself Abraxas.