The Party

From left to right: Pezzack, Nymue, Jorg-Hammer, Esther

The party are the main characters of Dead Evil - a diverse group of adventurers with differing allegiances and affiliations who have bounded together to fight common enemies and accomplish common goals. The party have no unifying title between them - though Celtiar dubbed them the *Stormguard* for the purposes of Sel-Duarmia's historical records - and it's members have shifted as time has gone on. The party includes or has included the following individuals (in order of appearance)

## Principle Members

### **Jorg-Hammer (the Sunderer)**

Jorg-Hammer is a human fighter, a tribal hailing from the Tribal North. Belonging to the honorable but weakened Havsbladen Tribe, Jorg-Hammer is a bold and brash warrior with a strong respect for his tribe's traditions. Jorg-Hammer aims to do right by his father Ragnar the Bold's memory, after he was lost in a storm that swallowed a fleet of Havsbladen ships bound for the west, seeking a new land to conquer. In addition to the party, Jorg-Hammer also travels with his pet goat, Tanngrisnir, who is said to be a sacred animal gifted with magical powers of clairvoyance called "the Sight." Deeply spiritual and determined to bring glory back to his tribe and unite them with the other Northern Tribes, Jorg-Hammer is tasked by the Havsbladen's elder and seer, Ysilda to confront the Forgeborn army near the beginning of the campaign, a task that is only the beginning of his intricate destiny. Jorg-Hammer would eventually be forced to leave the party during their venture into the Underdark of Zventhos - when he received a vision spurned by the warnings of Mazyranth in which he saw the death of his uncle Thor-Axe at the hands of Rathos and the ensuing destruction of the Havsbladen. Pezzack would bargain with the demon Mendaxos to safely transport Jorg-Hammer to the tribes, but his exact whereabouts are now unknown.

### **Merric Mandrake**

Merric Mandrake is a halfling sorcerer who was exiled from his community of other halflings who lived in the Crater. After Merric descended and made contact with the meteor in the Crater's center, he lost consciousness and awoke with magical, draconic powers - as well as a voice in his head he called Rekuza. When his powers were discovered, he was cast out into the wastes by his family, where he was quickly enslaved by a band of roaming slavers and sold off to the Blood Dog Tribe to the North, where he eventually met Jorg-Hammer who won the halfling in a duel (with Merric's help) and freed him. Merric is an unhinged and curious sorcerer, masking his darker side with beguiling charm and cunning, and is determined to exert his will on the world with his newfound freedom. He is currently unaffiliated with the party, after having been lost in the storm that stranded them on the magical island of Krakengärd. His current fate or whereabouts are unknown.

### **Pandora Von Smythe**

"Doctor" Pandora Von Smythe is a dhampir alchemist and vivisectionist, whose sisters resented her for killing their mother in childbirth. She wandered the wastes for years before she was found and adopted by Doctor Mordecai Von Smythe, an alchemist in the city of Dreadmont. Von Smythe elected to mentor the girl in alchemy, instilling in the young Pandora a demented fascination with the darker aspects of magical science. Obsessed with understanding her own condition as a creature sitting between life and undeath, she travels the wastes in search of answers and research, taking with her the *Necros Arcanos**,* a legendary book of necromantic magic she found with the party's aid in the city of Kethis. She is also in search of her true heritage, curious to find the vampire that sired her so many years ago. She eventually left the party towards the end of the Forgeborn Threat to pursue both Dr. Von Smythe and her vampiric father. Her current fate or whereabouts are unknown.

### **Pezzack Ingor**

Pezzack Ingor is a tengu cleric of Calistria and a fledgling necromancer from Dreadmont. Despite the unfavorable view most wastelanders have of necromancy, Pezzack is driven by a kind of altruistic ambition to create an undead army to serve as agricultural workers - bringing plentiful food and luxury back to the world. This vision is an uphill battle though, in no small part due to the stigma associated with it and Pezzack's own limitations and narrowed focus. As a cleric of the goddess of revenge, Pezzack is prone to pettiness and does not take slights against him or his work lightly, and has an ever-growing list of individuals to kill in Calistria's name. He was mentored by a mysterious elven woman known only as the Priestess, who disappeared on her own quest for vengeance, leaving Pezzack to pursue his goals alone, until he joined up with the party who have proved to be a welcome addition to his plans for the wasteland at large.

### **Esther (the Crimson Mirage)**

Esther is a tiefling swashbuckler, hailing from the desert ruins of Sethulhmet. Sold into slavery at birth, she managed to find a place for herself in the city of Kaath as a pit fighter steadily climbing her way to renown under the name of *"the Crimson Mirage."* She finally managed to earn her freedom after killing the arena's top champion with his own gun, which she claimed for herself. With her freedom, the girl renamed herself Esther and made her way out in the wastes, carving a living out for herself by aiding a small abolitionist militia of former slaves and just trying to survive, but she eventually abandoned the group after a falling out. The tiefling got a second chance at redemption however, when she was offered a chance to travel across the sea to the east by a mysterious organization to confront the threat of the Forgeborn and put an end to their slave labor. Reluctantly she took the opportunity and found herself a stranger in a strange land - taking up arms alongside the party to defeat their mutual foe and walk the wastes with newfound allies.

### **Nymue Solamor (the Nightshade)**

Nymue "The Nightshade" (born Nymue Solamor) is a changeling inquisitor, working as a member of the Taken Sisterhood - an order of Wee Jas worshipers living in the forests of Golgotha. The product of an unknown hag and human man, Nymue was left on the doorstep of a couple in Sunvale, in Yarmouth. She worked within the local church of Pelor there, the Church of the Lost Dawn, until she was excommunicated by one of the priests under mysterious circumstances. After a time of hardship trying to make a living elsewhere, she felt the "calling" of her hag mother, but instead stumbled on a member of the Sisterhood, who recruited and indoctrinated into the order. As an Inquisitor, Nymue is tasked with helping them reclaim magical artifacts and destroy magical creatures to "take back" the domain of magic for the goddess Wee Jas. She is eventually sent eastward to investigate a strange source of powerful magic - her fate intertwining with that of the party's when she too shipwrecks on the island of Krakengärd.

### **Nastalia Einar (the 37th Lash)**

Nastalia Einar is a half-drow slayer and assassin - a member of the 40 Lashes, an illustrious assassin's guild devoted to the goddess Calistria. Originally hailing from Karstein, Nastalia would flee the corrupt cityscape due to familial disputes, setting out upon the wasteland where she eventually caught the eye of Colm McCallum, an assassin that recruited her into the Lashes. After a number of years spent as an assassin, Nastalia was sent below into Zventhos to pursue the Priestess (the same that trained Pezzack) - a task that the party were later asked to complete as well once it appeared Nastalia had failed. However, they and the Priestess she was sent to find would instead find her captured by the Queensguard, and freeing her, employed her aid against the threat of the ancient drow forces.

## Secondary Allies

### **Tanngrisnir**

Tanngrisnir is the goat companion of Jorg-Hammer, gifted to him as a boy by Ysilda following his father Ragnar's presumed death at sea. A creature of great spiritual value to the tribal and the Havsbladen tribe, Tanngrisnir possesses the prophetic powers of the Sight - capable of sharing his visions and psychic insights with Jorg-Hammer and other members of the party with concentration. A friendly and docile creature, Tanngrisnir is often central to discovering hidden truths in the many conflicts the party finds themselves in, identifying untrustworthy individuals and even passing judgments on the morality of the party themselves. After Jorg-Hammer was compelled to leave the party to confront the danger threatening the tribes, Pezzack bargained with the demon Mendaxos to transport both the tribal and the goat safely back to the Havsbladen. As such, Tanngrisnir's current fate and whereabouts may be unknown.

### **Sleipnir**

Sleipnir was Jorg-Hammer's horse. A loyal and steadfast steed that followed the party during their adventures in Kethis and during the Forgeborn threat, Sleipnir spent most of his time out of the action the party found themselves with. In the aftermath of dealing with the Forgeborn, Sleipnir accompanied the party on their ill-fated voyage west, and was tragically lost during the storm that left them stranded on the island of Krakengard. Despite having narrowly evaded death a time or two before, Sleipnir never resurfaced, and is presumed to have died in the shipwreck.

### **Abdul**

Abdul is a minor character and occasional ally summoned by Esther. After acquiring the Lamentful Blade during an encounter with the legendary ghost ship, the *High Queen's Lament*, Ester gained the ability to raise victims of the blade as ghostly allies. The first such victim of hers was Abdul - a slaver guard working for Minister Na'ssraru, the ambassador of Jadus's embassy in Durkheim - who Esther killed while attempting to free the tiefling Karina. Abdul, seeing the dark irony in his fate, expressed contentment at being repeatedly summoned rather than spend an eternity in the Nine Hells. As such, Esther occasionally expends the spirits she might otherwise raise with the Blade in favor of summoning the reliable if stoic phantom of Abdul.

### **Barnaby**

Barnaby is a magical dog capable of being summoned from an onyx figurine of wondrous power. Barnaby was originally an ancient artifact that found itself in the hands of a mercenary group of relic hunters employed by the Orrukov Regime. This group was evidently killed or otherwise disappeared, leaving the figurine behind in the makeshift camp they'd assembled in a drow ruin in Zventhos. Nymue discovered the figurine, and speaking it's name became the dog's new master. While he is an intelligent, common-speaking magical beast, Barnaby is only able to be summoned sparsely one every seven days, but he is an adept tracker that displays remarkable loyalty to his new masters.