Damaris of Ostoria

*“Life ends with death for each of us—for kings, and slaves, and gods—we are tied together by the final knot of death and failure, so there is no reason to look down on any other or for the gods to be patronizing or judgmental. We all lose. We all fail. We all die. But we all fight, and struggle, and defeat is not refutation.”*

-Damaris of Ostoria

## History

The daughter of General Dolom Tkerekin, Damaris was raised in Nadezhda in the years before the War of the Philosopher-Kings. Her father made as much time for her as he could, but his duties were such that Damaris was typically looked after by various members of the Pale Spear. Her earliest memories were of sitting on the knee of the giant king, Ymir, and listening to his tales of lost Ostoria.

Whether or not Dolom Tkerekin knew that she was a sorcerer is unknown. Some defenders of Tkerekin's legacy insist that he did not know, for he would have put a collar on her had known. Others maintained that there was no way he could not have known, and that he had a hypocritical side to his personality.

Others still alleged that Abi Eodauga himself knew of Damaris' bloodline and planned to make her his heir.

## Personality

Damaris Tkerekin is a bold and unhesitating, driven by vengeance and a utopian vision. Like her father, she is a brilliant tactician who commands loyalty in her followers and rarely doubts her own judgement. Quick to anger and slow to forgive, she is a demanding monarch whose closest followers consider impossible to please.

## War of the Philosopher-Kings

A young girl during the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Damaris begged her father to let her fight, bringing smiles and chuckles to the faces of the Nadezhdan high command. When her father died in battle, some thought that the the truth should be hidden from her, but Abi Eodauga took it upon himself to break the news to her. Damaris raged and wept, and the approving Marshal of Nadezhda vowed to avenge her father's death. When he too died, Damaris learned that she could not rely on the strength of others - she alone had to take back the world.

## After the War

Damaris went into exile in Jotunheim with a few protectors from the Pale Spear. At the time, she was not known as a mage and was therefore of little interest to the Hexenjägers. As Damaris grew up, she never lost her hunger for vengeance, and was determined to realize her father's utopian vision. Damaris traveled throughout the earth, honing her powers, searching for magical secrets, and assembling an array of follower: principally outcasts, mages, and monsters. She appeared on the radar of the Hexenjägers, and was forced to hide further and further north, and eventually, to fight back. Her greatest coup came when Royce Underhill, a world-famous thief and wanted mage, stole the Staff of Iryaclea, Abi Eodauga's arcane focus. Knowing he would find no buyer for it in the Reich, he fled to Jotunheim and sold it to the eager Damaris. Not long afterward, Damaris established the Kingdom of Ostoria, a fledgling nation composed of her loyal subjects, and the only refuge for mages in the north. Most observers dismissed Ostoria and downplayed its chances of survival, but Damaris, armed with the Staff of Iryaclea and the loyalty of her followers, survived and thrived. In time, hidden and persecuted mages from all four corners of the Reich began to flock to her banner, seeing her as their own hope. And so, Ostoria became a county in truth as well as name, with Queen Damaris at its head.

## The Long War

Queen Damaris would be the first monarch to recognize Knil of Tyrsea and his Kingdom of Naz as a legitimate country. The two would ally to preserve their own independence, then to deliver the death blow to the moribund Reich Nördlich, and finally to clash with the kingdoms of Utgard and Guilddon. As the Long War began in deadly earnest, Knil and Damaris met privately to determine where they would stand. What words they exchanged remain unknown, but both vowed unity in the defense of mankind against the gods.