Baldur Issaksen

"The most wondrous flower must eventually wilt. The most glad day must come to an end. The brightest sun, must someday burn itself to cinder and ash. It is not a reason to mourn, that things come to an end, but rather take heart in the season during which it bloomed, for that gives meaning to it's passing"

## Character Information

### Deity

Apocryphal Groetus, personified as the Sun

## The Old life

"This bodes poorly. The Tankard is in reverse, between both The Crag and The Field. That is nothing to say of the 7 of Shields after The Deserter. Fate is clear on this augury Darucksen that if you follow your sword that disaster awaits." Those was the last warning he gave the new village chief, successor to his rather Daruck Tjollsen, before the lad of 23 led the entire villages warriors to battle a warforge convoy scouts had discovered. Living life on the outskirts of Halmar meant that half the villages purpose was to provide advance warning of Orcish attacks, and to advance without warning on Orcish anything. Raiding had not only given them honour, but supplemented their food stores and given them goods to trade with settlements further inland. But with Daruck gone, his son was overeager to seize glory for himself in a daring and ill-thought out raid.

Baldur had perhaps not a drop of leaders blood in his veins, only an taint of the Abyss hidden in his odd bone structure and mouthful of incisors. But he had been a sage and wiseman for the small settlement for nearly three times as long as the man-child had been alive. Perhaps it was that Baldur failed to recognize him but his own name, calling him by his surname after his father instead that angered the youth. But his authority had to be earned by respect as far as Baldur was concerned. Of the capable warriors, every able bodied man was conscripted for the attack, as well as half the women. But Baldur refused his command, and stayed behind, insulting him further. Perhaps there would have been repercussions, as their laws would have justified, had the party ever returned.

Instead, Baldur was left to care and defend for nearly 60 remaining kinsmen, among them children, elderly, and a very small number of capable hands with which to help. The Farm had collapsed, and like a Crag, the wounds wound not heal over. The clans days were numbered. Baldur spent the next many years among them still caring for all ages, and defending them when needed - though the days of raiding here were over. The most difficult part was helping to secure a future for each member still left, whether it was teaching skills and survival, or else negotiating with other groups to accept anyone who could bring their own clans value. Eventually, the children grew up and left or married off, and the elderly passed on with reverence. Baldur, now 125, was done with his charge.

## Glory to the End

With most all his ties cut, Baldur was left free of responsibility - though he still occassionally checked up on a few spinsters who moved off in different directions - one even opening up a successful harbalists shop in Sigmundrakr with the skills Baldur had shown her. Baldur knew that his twilight years were fading. He was a venerable old man now, even for his mixed heritage letting him live as long as it had. And he had no regrets. Regrets mar the life, and the memory you leave behind, and Baldur believed that there was only one phase left in his life. To find a cause, and fight for it tool and nail with whatever his body had left to give until he burned the last of his life in a briliant blaze of glory. He would not be a fire that sputtered it's last embers into the air, only to go cold sometime in the night. So he did what any not so sane Man with a slightly arched back and a hobble from a time in his youth spent in an orcish slave camp WOULD do. Baldur began adventuring. Here, he found a final purpose, one that still follows him now.

## Children

In his old age, Baldur never had children. He wasn't about to start now. Biologically at least. Yet somehow, he ended up fighting alongside some child numerous times. She looked to be barely of age by most races standards, but he could tell that she was unfamiliar with the world around her that belied a younger mind. That said, she could easily care for herself, so what worry did Baldur need to have? Still, he seemed to go out of his way to interpose himself between whatever they happened to fight at the time - usually undead. They did not scare him. He had seen in a vision once, what he believed to be the end of the world - a dark world, nearly devoid of life that barely hung on, as a red sun whispered one last secret before collapsing to end it all in a devastating wave of fire. He had learned to channel that spark of the end to great effect in fights to the death in war. A few measly piles of bones did not frighten him, they would not be what gave him his deserved end. But until that final end, there was always a new beginning. Why did he keep coming back to that? Even his readings, gave obscure references to new life. Baldur begun to wonder if his main was beginning to turn to dust like the weapons of his enemies and the earth around him while he raged. But the answer was much simpler.

Against all odds, he had something left to give it would seem. He was contacted by a lady - nearly a child herself it appeared, and offered a faculty position teaching schools of young children in an academy classroom. Nearly as suddenly as the offer extended itself, he found himself a Professor of Herbalism and spiritual biology. Not what he had expected, but his knowledge of how the bodies energy flowed from one nexus to another, and how to manipulate that with diet, acupressure and exercise was apparently of high value. Knowing how to persuade his own body to shake off the rattles of time and degradation (being versed in them himself), had prolonged his life and arguably robbed him of a glorious end many times over. Now, he was teaching those techniques to youngsters, everything from medicinal values of pesh to the arthritic-relieving properties of witches beard to meditation techniques. It was.... odd...

But the like time, the apocalypse waited for no man, and as he drew on in time, it's strength only channels itself stronger though him.

## Appearance

Baldur is a venerable old man, and a rather well built old man at that. While not raging, he surely wouldn't win too many contests of strength against your standard adventurer, but he could still bench 175 pounds despite his age. His technique of funneling the bodies natural energy to heal itself had to be adjusted as he learned it for his own body though, as his bone structure - though mostly the same as to be expected - reflected his abyssal tiefling nature. The most obvious markings are a prehensile tail that ends in a dual barb that he normally keeps hidden beneath his loins, and odd extensions of bone from his elbows, almost like if the marrow wished at one time to be a sturdy fin and then gave up. Finally, his mouth is lined with only one style of tooth, an incisor. Normally, he hides this fact my murmuring and mumbling around strangers, rarely opening his mouth wide enough to display his capacity to bite - unless you are a foe, in which case he will gladly use his mouth and hands to shred you marrow from sinew. He wears no armour, which displays his many prominent scars from his long age on his body, including a brand on one arm from his time 'registered' as a number in a warforge orc camp.

## Relationships

Though he may have never gotten her REAL name, Baldur has traveled many times with Anzu - usually vanquishing undead.

As well, he is currently in the employ of Angel as a professor at her school, though not actually under direct contract - perhaps because Angel knows that it would sour the deal. It is mere speculation still at the present, but rumor among some of the youth is that there's contingencies for the eventual day that Baldur doesn't show up for work, whether it's having moved on or died.

He used to have a large number of drinking buddies that frequented a tavern called Valhalla Prime in Halmar, but they've all since either died, retired, or disappeared.

A mysterious Box traveled with him for a few days, and they bonded partially. What with him slowly dying, and the box not being truly alive. Actually, it's still in the air how it happened.