Stornheist

*“It's a series of conspiracies, conflicting agendas and petty jealousies, all building upon, feeding upon, and excreting into an unending web of shit that people wade through every day and call it Life. If there was one Dark Lord controlling everything and we could drive a magic sword through his heart to free this city, that would be grand. Such clarity! Such focus! Alas.”*

-Stornheist

## History

The Lower District of Stornheist’s birth was a grim place to grow up. While it lacked the crowded, hectic energy of Slums, the best that could be said of the Slums was that for the lucky and the bold, there were opportunities. In the Lower District, there was not even the illusion of a future. It was joked that even the warlords of the Lower District were not born there, and that was certainly true of Captain Raden, the local tyrant in Stornheist’s youth. A former military officer drummed out of the Dragonsmouth Army, Raden did not even pretend to care for his people, and simply terrorized the local farmers with his company of bandits and ex-soldiers like himself. This was the world in which Stornheist grew to manhood, and became determined to change. Stornheist was born into a shunned ethnic community in which orc and human blood had mingled long ago - they were all half-orcs as far as the outside world was concerned. They survived by tending to the most meager and fallow fields, and hunting what little game they could get their hands, producing a hardy folk, skilled marksmen and survivalists each and every one. Stornheist himself was a strong and determined youth, determined above and beyond all else. His unwillingness to back down scared those who knew him and cared about him. Loss was a part of his life - he saw friends, family, and loved ones fall prey to violent deaths, and found within a burning determination to change things. Stornheist underwent a religious awakening after meeting an itinerant preacher named Hedod Gake, once the Cardinal of the Church of Iomedae who had given up his title after a clash with Cardinal McCrory. Hedod Gake saw Stornheist’s indomitable spirit induced him into the faith, but the feisty half-orc would prove a difficult charge. When it came time for Stornheist to choose a weapon for himself, he settled upon his father’s revolver, a choice which disturbed the honorable cleric. Nor did Stornheist care much for the god Iomedae, adopting a personal dogma that exalted strength and willpower and dismissed the idea of divine idea. Stornheist was unusually open about his desire to take the role of warlord of the Lower District, and began organizing a militia of half-orcs to protect their community, fostering unity and solidarity amongst his people. But Stornheist pushed his people farther then they ever imagined they would go, and used his men to protect other communities as well from the predations of beasts and bandits alike. A clash with Raden and his gang was inevitable, but Stornheist won attention and praise from elsewhere in Dragonsmouth by naming his men the Border Guard and pledging to dedicate themselves to the defense of the West Gate. Raden, he declared, had been remiss in his duties. Stornheist and his men received support from unusual quarters - Eisenberg of World’s End, who delivered black powder weapons to the Border Guard. Stornheist went on to defeat Raden and his men, but it was two more years before he was recognized as the warlord of the Lower District, such was the nature of his struggle with various rivals, and the disparate, disunified nature of his territory. To the surprise of those who did not know him, Stornheist went about trying to trying to better the lives of his people, starting by building the Stornheist Hospital and Asylum, which rivaled the sprawling, unethical monstrosity that called itself Doc Anderson’s Workshop and Clinic. He next spearheaded the construction of the Lower Market, which he saw as a way to unify the district around a central economic hub. In this he was reasonably successful, but brought himself into conflict with the entirety of the Trade District. This matters little to Stornheist, who had a bad impression of Cardinal McCrory left by his teacher, Hedod Gake.

## Personality

In the modern day, Stornheist shows no sign of stopping or slowing, and astonishes friends and alike by acting in the manner of a truly just man. This is not to say that Stornheist is weak, foolish, or even merciful. His Border Guard is just as ruthless as Raden’s bandits ever were; they are monsters that fight for lofty causes, and left unsaid is Stornheist’s casting of himself as the Lower District’s indispensable man. If anything happens to him, his progress will be undone and Eisenberg’s gleaming black powder weapons will be trained against those Stornheist now commands them to protect. Where he intends to go from here is unknown, but even those who do not know him are beginning to realize that unless he stopped, he will keep going.