Martellus Svenson

Martellus Svenson is a human cleric who first met the party while they were liberating the town of Dragonspointe. He is a lieutenant in the Iron Kingdom army, but is also known to accompany the party on missions from time to time.

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## Background

Martellus was raised in an agricultural backwater in the far eastern regions of the Earth Kingdom called Svaltenbrun. He was born to the son of Sven Orgunson and Miriam Fretadaughter. They owned and operated the mill in an otherwise farming town not far from the coast. When he was thirteen years of age, a Preacher, as the apostles of Sigismund call themselves, arrived in the town. She promptly asked after one Marek.

She was directed by Sven to a large and lavish house not far from town. Sven offered to escort her there, as he, his wife, and his son needed to haul the milled grain to the port, and Marek's house was on that road. So they traveled, stopped at Marek's house, and the Preacher, upon meeting Marek greeted him warmly and explained that his years of swindling taxpayers in the Iron Kingdom had finally caught up with him. Even as Marek spouted denials, the Preacher hefted her hammer, flashing with holy light, and smashed Marek first in the head, then the chest, then the shoulders, and so on, until naught was left of the rich man but a bloody paste and bits of bone embedded in the hammer and the knuckles that clenched it.

Miriam at this point had run for the town crying help. Sven, shaken but not cowed by the grisly murder, ordered the Preacher to stand fast while the guards arrived. The Preacher asked of Sven if he had any right to vengence for what he had done to Marek. Sven could think of no reason for vengeance on behalf of Marek, but his child, Martellus, had watched the whole ordeal. For that, his rage was mighty.

The Preacher looked at Martellus after hearing these words, and regarded Sven in an new light. She offered Sven the hammer, hilt first, and told him to take what vengeance he would, for he had surely earned the right. Sven, instead, insisted that he wait for the guard, and that she face a trial by law. But he kept the hammer in his hand.

The Preacher was taken into custody. True to her word, she would have stood trial by law, if not for the bandit attack. A large horde of miscreants, plotting an attack on the port town to the west of Svaltenbrun, had decided to use it as a main base of operations. They stormed the town two days after Mareks murder.

In the confusion of the battle, Sven went to his basement, where the town had kept the Preacher in lieu of having a jail cell. There he found the Preacher scratching at her chains and growling, begging to be cut loose so as to wreck vengeance upon the bandits. Sven grabbed her by the jaw, and having his attention told him “You want me to take my vengeance on you? My vengeance is your service. Save us. Save my family. Save the village if you can. But most of all, save my son.” The preacher's eyes slowly glazed over, then filled with a pure, hot, white light, and he murmured in a voice that was only barely human “Agreed.”

The Preacher then ripped the shackles out of the wall, with her bare hands cracked off a hefty piece of the mill stone, forced the leg of a broken chair through it, and with her makeshift hammer waded out into the bandit masses. They crawled over her, bit her, scratched her, stabbed her. It did not stop her. With every swing of the hammer many foes were sent tumbling, necks and arms at strange, impossible angles. The light played tricks in the night such that at times the Preacher stood tall in her dirty rags, at times a black armored figure, half again the height of a man and twice again as broad, stood firm against the raging tide of brigands.

Sven was killed in the fighting. As was Miriam. When the dawn broke, only two souls still drew breath. The Preacher and Martellus. As the sun crested the smoldering fields and shattered houses, the Preacher knelt in front of Martellus. The light was slowly fading from her eyes, but the ghostly outline of a mail-clad hand rested on her shoulder, and she spoke in a whisper that carried across worlds “Martellus, I would have you serve me. There is much vengeance to be worked in this world. And you have great potential to see it done. Follow my prophet, and she will teach you many things.”

And with those words the prophets eyes went dark, and she collapsed. She slept for almost a full day while Martellus watched over her. When she awoke, her first words to extract a promise from Martellus not to tell anyone of what had happened that night. Then they gathered food and supplies and set out. They traveled to the Iron Kingdom, to a monastery temple high in the reaches of the mountains there. On the road the Preacher taught him as much as she could of Sigismund.

One particularly fruitful lesson was the lesson of the four birds. One bird, when its eggs were taken by a snake, cowered in fear, and built a new nest far away in sadness. Another bird, when its eggs were stolen by a snake, attacked it with great fury and killed it. The same bird, when its eggs were taken by a man, might cower in fear just as the first bird had. But it may retain its thirst for vengeance. And those were the birds that were blessed by Sigismund.

Another lesson that caused Martellus no small distress was the lesson of the anthill. The Preacher placed a tunnel spider beside an ant hill, and shoved a small fly down the top of the anthill. The tunnel spider lept in after the fly, hoping to make a meal of it. Instead, it found itself fighting the teeming denizens of the anthill, who fought for an invaded home. After facing many painful bites, the spider flew into a rage at being attacked and being denied its meal by the ants, and began to slaughter them by the dozen. The ants, with immeasurable numbers, attacked and killed the tunnel spider. At the end, the Preacher asked Martellus whom Sigismund favored. Martellus thought for some time, but could not think of a sufficient answer. When he asked the Preacher whom was favored, she merely grinned at him, and explained that she was the favored one, as she put the spider there in the first place. She then balled up her fist and punched herself in the jaw, hard enough to bruise her knuckles to the bone and rattle her teeth. She then leaned down and whispered to the ant hill “Did you hear that, little ones? Your vengeance is taken.”

In time, Martellus and the Preacher reached the monastery. There he studied and trained. He spent years learning philosophy with the elders of the temple. He reflected on the ethics and limits and purpose of vengeance. What place it has in the world of nature and what place it has in the world of man, as well as the jarring differences between the two. He learned how to inflict vengeance upon others, as well as how to cure the wounds of vengeance unjustly sought. The elders of the temple, who were closest to Sigismund, would hear whispers from the earth of men and women who had earned great vengeance, and the Preacher and others left many times to deliver it to them. Every time she returned Martellus would greet her, and sit with her for hours while she regaled him with tales of her latest adventure.

One day, when Martellus was twenty four, he asked one of the Elders what he had seen on that night in Svaltenbrun, with the armored figure and the Preacher slaying hundreds upon hundreds of men. The Elder exclaimed with astonishment that the Preacher had ascended to become a Prophet of Sigismund, and that a great many exciting things were at hand. It was only after this that Martellus remembered his promise to the Preacher not to reveal the details of that night, but it was much too late. The Preacher returned from her pilgrimage to much exaltation and praise, and knew her secret had finally been let loose. She graciously skirted as many of the disciples as she could, and raced to find Martellus.

When she found him, she hugged him to her breast, held him tightly, and, with tears in her eyes, told him that she loved him like a son, and could never forgive him for losing her secret. She would seek vengeance on him right then and there.

And so, with no explanation, the Preacher forced him to fight her for his life. Their battle was mighty, but Martellus felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and a powerful force behind the blows of his hammer, and when he looked at his arms, for moments they seemed to be clad in black plate, and as they fought he saw fear growing in her eyes. And finally, when the Preachers spirit broke and she cried in terror and grief, he bested her.

As he lay over her shattered body, the temple elders approached. They told him that his crime was unparalleled, to have slain the prophet of a god an unthinkable act. They could think of no greater vengeance than to disbar him from the temple. He left that night, weeping.

From the mountain temple, unsure of what to do with himself, he joined the Iron Kingdom army. For he was sure that in the heat of battle, he would find himself drawn ever closer to his god, and having his questions answered.