Beric

Beric
Beric the Wanderer

Deceased

Paladin

Landorian Human

The Navigator's Guild

The Holdings

The West Holdings

Quarry

Player Character

When Beric was twenty a nobleman came to his village with a retinue of knights and a herald, all dressed in brilliant red and gold. They told a story of an evil tyrant sweeping through the land with an army of the damned. Many innocents would be slain, with their villages, towns and strongholds burned to ash. But all was not lost, explained the herald: their lord, to whom they paid taxes every year and offered them protection, sought valiant warriors to join in his endeavour and banish evil from the land once and for all. Who would join them in their crusade of light?

Despite knowing nothing but farming, it was the strong-headed Beric, with tremendous dreams of heroics, who was first to enlist. Eventually, with great promises of brotherhood and camaraderie, the remaining ten men of fighting age were persuaded to sign up. All friends since childhood, they bid farewell to their mothers, fathers, wives, betrothed, children, brothers and sisters, then by dawn the next day they had departed to join the good lord’s quest for glory.

On route to the barracks they passed through numerous other small villages, and accompanied the herald in encouraging more and more to pledge their name to the campaign. Upon reaching the city and being assigned quarters, they found dozens of groups like theirs, united across the land to fight for something bigger than themselves. When training began, the master of arms saw no reason to break the bonds of friendship, so Beric and his ten lifelong companions practiced in sword, bow and spear as a unit. They were an awesome group to behold. With Beric spurring them on, he and his ten trained with furious enthusiasm and synergy, gaining them respect of the entire barracks.

But the training had a purpose, and soon the time came to march out and meet their terrible foe on the plains of war. They joined up with volunteers from hundreds of miles around, similarly fired up and prepared to fight for their lord and land. The entire army met at the bottom of a great gorge, and with all their red flags and banners, they seemed to pour into it like wine into a goblet. Beric was nervous of course, but eager, and fervent to smite the evil that threatened his home village.

Beric and his ten were put into the vanguard, much to their elation, as they would now be the poised to reap the most glory. They marched in a column out of the gorge, over the hill top and onto a great green and ochre grass plain. There, arranged in front of them stood the enemy. Similar in strength and number but clad in blue, Beric could see no individual faces amongst them. Still his insides churned with hatred for these invaders. He turned to his left and right, emboldened to see 5 of his closest companions on each flank. They felt unstoppable, and now had come their moment to prove themselves.

The horns sounded, the soldiers roared, and Beric charged.

What he found on the battlefield was not glory, no awesome crusade, no evil to smite. All he saw as he crashed into the ranks of blue and glinting steel was himself, and hundreds more like him. The training was forgotten, and the unity of Beric and his ten lost in surging fury that engulfed them.

They won the battle, but only four of Beric’s village kinsmen returned to camp. The rest were left to the crows; their limbs twisted and locked with the rest of the slain.