Aongorm

Aongorm with her magical equipment.

Aongorm is an ancient british hag from the land that would later become Criptland. She serves as one of Keisara's generals.

## Biography

### Early Life

Aongorm was born in the land of Tirsgaile, before the colonisation of the northern continent, thousands of years ago. She is one of the last known speakers of Tirsgailic, the forerunner of both Criptic and the northern languages. In these ancient times, she had a stint as a warlord, before growing bored and deciding to travel the world. She formed a coven with two other travelling british hags. She would occasionally find a promising youth and train them in the art of heroism, but it was very rare for one to survive her training. One such hero was the great Fineogh mac Duunger, who would go on to become the Chosen of Giha and eventually destroy the other members of her coven. It was on these travels that she came across an adventurer, a younger Keisara. Keisara became the first in centuries to complete her training, leaving a lasting impression on Aongorm. The two kept in touch and when Keisara founded her empire, she offered Aongorm a role as one of her generals. Aongorm, seeing it as a choice between drifting for the rest of time or helping her friend and settling down, chose to accept the position.

Despite having no actual magical abilities herself, Aongorm was put in control of the empire's Unorthodox Magic division, leaving her the superior of a number of other hags and oni who she felt were better suited for the position. When she questioned Keisara about this, Keisara explained that, while these other creatures are very capable mages, a genius who understood but couldn't use magic would be able to make better use of all their combined talents without wasting spells or relying too heavily on magic itself to do what it was unnecessary to use magic for, and Aongorm's physical abilities would allow her to maintain discipline amongst her subordinates. Once Abadon started working for Keisara, Aongorm was given the demiplane of Ur Tirsgaile as her personal domain to do with as she wished. There she has built a fortress and uses the surroundings for training exercises for those who catch her attention. Even after all this time, Aongorm is still a teacher at heart, and is improving her methods to allow most to survive at least some training. As a result, Aongorm has managed to lead a number of the Kolshet Empire's elites to new levels of power.

Forty years ago, Aongorm slept with Sagnar, the spirit of one of the volcanoes in Ur Tirsgaile. She later gave birth to Sagadina, and abandoned her to the wilds of that island, believing that if Sagadina survived, they'd become a great hero.

### The Plateau

After an incursion of the Rogue Eternal, Keisara summoned her generals and told them to find a way to help her become strong enough to deal with threats like the eternal. While Aongorm was going through potential options, General Kleightus approached her with a proposition: if she could convince Keisara to allow him and a group of powerful subordinates to have some "time off" in Kleightus' Plateau, he could create an artefact there that he could use to both empower Keisara and kill the eternal. Seeing that she could use this as an opportunity to help her allies increase their power. She agreed to help Kleightus, and convinced Keisara to allow her to take some powerful individuals there to improve their strength and make them more useful to Keisara. Kleightus chose some individuals who were known to him and prepared to leave. As this was happening, Aongorm killed an ancient sea serpent that had attacked one of the empire's ports in the Bay of Gold and harvested as many bones as possible from its corpse. She decided that she deserved to treat herself and went to the master runecarver Vilberg to commission some magical equipment from him. She made arrangements for him to be taken to The Plateau along with the others, where she set him up in a workshop warded to prevent light and sounds from escaping within. There he went to work making equipment from the bones. While on The Plateau, Aongorm gave general instructions to Kleightus' subordinates as to how they could become more powerful. Some were more successful than others. After a number of adventurers had been killed by Kleightus' forces, Aongorm decided that she needed a proper holiday and so took a potion that would give her amnesia until she left The Plateau. This way she could enjoy the otherwise beautiful surroundings without having to worry about work.

### Meeting the Party

The party met the amnesiac Aongorm in the first ruin they explored in the area. They were very suspicious and distrustful of Aongorm, leading her to gain a fairly poor first impression of all of them but Aly. She attempted to help them in the fight with Jahegso'n, but by the time she had put on her armour she only made it in time to deal with some of the fallout of the fight. After this, Keeper had her take a brew to help her regain her memories. When her memories returned, she developed a great dislike for Keeper for prematurely ending her holiday. Aided by the side-effects of the brew, she pretended to be unwell, something picked up on by a number of party members, who realised she mostly just wanted to stay away from Keeper.

While the party was exploring the plateau, she stayed a few days longer before heading over to the palace where Jerrod was staying. On the way she hid her old equipment in the forest since Vilberg was almost done with her new, superior gear. She holed up in Jerrod's basement, having some oni come and put up some wardings to prevent her from being disturbed. The party eventually made it to the basement and managed to dispel the warding. Aongorm accompanied them back to the ruins they'd found her in and, after Thedun pointed out the way to Kleightus' control room, offered to guard the entrance to the passageway to prevent enemies from sneaking up behind them.

While she was watching the entrance, Vilberg turned up with her new equipment. Seeing as it was likely she would be leaving the Plateau soon, she put it on and had Vilberg prepare to return home. Once she was kitted up, Keisara made her presence known and had Aongorm explain to her just what Kleightus had done here. After some stern words from Keisara about her helping with this, Keisara announced that she would deal with Kleightus herself. She told Aongorm to follow behind at a distance while she disappeared into the tunnel. Once Kleightus was dealt with, Keisara summoned Aongorm into the command room where she told her that they were going to go vampire hunting before the two teleported away.

### Astarte's Minion

Aongorm was put in charge of leading a group of goblins to keep Astarte distracted while Keisara destroyed her coffins. This did not go according to plan: Astarte turned half of the goblins into vampires or lycanthropes, and subdued Aongorm, feeding her blood to the hag, and turning her into a blood ghoul, something that would ordinarily be impossible due to Aongorm's fey nature. Keisara saw what happened, destroyed most of the vampires, and subdued Aongorm while Astarte fled. Aongorm was then taken back to her keep in Ur Tirsgaile and was bound in adamantine chains and kept under heavy guard to prevent her from escaping and making her way back to Astarte's side. Such precautions were necessary due to Aongorm's prodigious strength. Keisara then managed to acquire the ashes of Astarte's head, which she took back to the keep to try to find a way to help Aongorm recover sooner.

Over the course of the next three-and-a-half months, Keisara and the All-Smith managed to create a cure, combining advanced alchemy and experimental golemancy. She was cured and was supposed to take part in the conference with other leaders before the crusade against Vafheim, but took the party out of the conference room to avoid Keisara getting annoyed by them and causing a mess. She rewarded the party for removing the threat of Bigo II to Ur Tirsgaile. The then provided hospitality to the party and keep them out of Keisara's hair.

## Powers and Abilities

As a british hag, unlike most other hags, Aongorm has no innate magical abilities whatsoever. She instead relies on her physical abilities, hence the weapons and armour. Aongorm is ancient, even by hag standards, and as such her physical and mental abilities are far greater than most other hags. Her strength was demonstrated when she instantly knocked Zed out with a bearhug when he was about to go on a rampage.

Aongorm's equipment and armour was enchanted by Vilberg using the elven rune for physical might. The exact effects of this rune haven't been seen yet, and presumably has different effects for weapons and armour.