Harold Sten-Artis

**Harold Sten-Artis**, also called Skjor Tiro and Harold Mountain-Breaker, was the original Iconic Warpriest of the Collective.

## Appearance

Harold has a rune covered silvery hand prosthetic that replaced his left hand, which he lost during the early days during the Torgrim war.

**Medisian biology:** As a people who developed in a land where a great war between gods and dragons was waged, and the trace amount of Elven and Dwarven blood that flows through their veins, the People of Medius live on average 140 years, and remain youthful longer than normal men.

## History

### Early Life

Raised a Commoner adopted by Noble Chief, Sir Leonard of House Sten-Artis, in the Winter Faelands.

Born to the King and Queen of Medius, Harold was taken into custody of Sir Leonard and given too the Fish Merchant Bron to be raise among the people, with the expectation of Sir Leonard that he would bring Harold into the Nobility of his people and trained to become a Knight of Bianca, the Paladin Goddess of Medius.

During a conflict with the Frost Orc tribes of the wasteland his birth parents were slain, escalating tensions between the Medisians and Orcs.

However, tired of the youth, the Fish Merchant Bron abandoned Harold too an orphanage at the age of six.

Later adopted by Sir Leonard as his heir when the Cheiftan discovered this, his plan to take Harold on as a Page only slightly altered. Growing up as a Commoner among the Noble children of Medius Harold was in a constant struggle to prove his worth, he had to be faster, stronger, and more clever than the children around him to gain any sort of respect of his peers. Proving himself at the age of twelve when he struck the killing blow on a drake that attacked his village.

Harold was betrothed at a young age to Lydia of House Tirma; who was three years his elder, while he understood that there would come a day when he was too wed her and share his life with her the young Harold could not see her as anything more than a dear friend and rival Squire. Not developing any romantic feelings for her until they reunited years later well into Harold’s twenties.

### The Frost Orc War

His people engaged in war against the Frost Orc tribes when Harold was 14 years old. Now a Squire, Harold was charged with a small number of Knights and warriors given to him by his adopted Father. The young Warpriest proved himself time and again against the Orcs and often fought alongside the Winter Fae mercenary lieutenant, Wilmatos.

Several months into the War effort Harold was captured by combined Orc and Fae forces, lead by the Fae Wilmatos who betrayed the Medisians when the Frost Orc Cheiftan, Nothus, offered him a better deal than the Medisians had.

Harold was held by Wilmatos for a month and a fortnight, being physically and mentally tortured. Runes carved into his runes and sealed with silver, and complex charm magic weaved into his mind. Given subtle orders and suggestions, that the Realm could only come to peace with a marriage between himself and a Winter Fae Noblewoman, and that this notion shall be a self-evident truth in his mind until he declared too a grand assemble of his people that he was too take a Fae wife.

The Warpriest \*escaped\* his torment and buried an axe deep into Wilmatos’s skull, which was very much not part of the Fae’s plan.

Found wondering in the Wastelands of the Winter Feywilds by his people, lead by his betrothed Lydia, Harold spent the rest of the War recovering. When he was again well, physically at least, the mental suggestions and orders of Wilmatos still in place, Harold took his Knighthood trial. Defeating a spectral bear associated with his Noble House, and on his case a Dire Bear. After his victory against t the spiritual beast Harold should have taken it’s form, the blessing of his goddess. However the runes carved into his bones prevented this transformation. While he now had the blessing within him he could not share in it’s might as his fellow Knights could.

Some weeks later Harold, with a unit of Knights, discovered a beautiful Winter Fae noblewoman injured on the road. Taking her in for safe haven and recovery the Orders of Wilmatos began to overtake Harold’s mind.

He spent much of the next week with the Fae woman in privet, filled with thoughts of marriage and unification between Medisians and the Winter Fae. Though he could not seem to find the words to share these ideas with the Noblewoman.

A fortnight after her rescue he held a feast in her honor, and declared her to be his bride. Much to her appearent horror and fled the meadhall, only to discover years later from Wilmatos himself that she was the Mother of the Frost Orc Cheiftan in glamor and the Warpriest so easily fell for his scheme. After her departure Harold passed out, the Knights of his Order seeing him in that moment as a drunkard fool. Though the true reason he fell unconscious was his mind being freed of the compulsions of Wilmatos.

When the Warpriest awakened he was before his goddess, Bianca Dragonslayer. She informed him that his actions has upset the Winter Court, and now the Realm is again threatened with War. On behalf of her people she struck a deal with the Unseelie King, Harold was to be banished to the material plane, and cursed so that he may never return to the Winter Faelands.

### Harold’s First Exile

Harold, who until this point in life was known as Skjor Bronson, wondered the lands of the material plane, more oft than not in a drunken haze. These years of Harold’s memory is more notable in his lack of memories of this time, the ages between 16 and 19.

Things began to turn around for the Warpriest when he was arrested for a drunken tavern brawl, in which he threw a table threw a wall. His public defender, by the name of Curio managed too get him a plea bargain of three months community service and teetotaling. Working in the kitchen of the tavern he damaged is where Harold discovered his love of cooking, and when he learned his recipes for chili and beef stew.

### The Adventurer’s Collective

Not long after his 21st birthday Harold joined a growing guild known commonly as the Collective, a faction he learned off after meeting it’s defacto leader Tarek Al-Amir and witnessing his power. Tarek was a wise and steadfast Paladin who embodied everything Harold believed a person should be. In the Collective he quickly made friends with the Eldritch Knight, Harkin Saldorek, the Oracle, Tapestry, and many other adventurers. As well as a budding crush on the second Hexblade Atala. Though Harold was never able to tell her of his feelings.

In his early days of the Collective Harold fought a particularly huge Frost Giant with Harkin, fought off a black dragon with Atala. And officiated the wedding of Talma and Tarek Al'Amir.

It was during this time he adopted his son, Charles Tiro.

### Death of the Hexblade and the Torgrim Conflict

Her death shook the entire Collective, and that he never admitted his feelings is something that will always haunt him. Atala the Hexblade’s death changed many things in the Collective, to many it ceased being a fellowship of adventurers and had crossed the threshold into a small military force. One in particular felt the Collective did not go far enough, Torgrim the Warforged Warlord. Who left the Collective in disgust due too the guild’s unwillingness to issue the Final verdict on the life of Quinn, the previous Hexblade and Atala’s master. Only for the Warlord too return too the Collective and kill the Dancer Breamson in combat. Two death in the Collective within a fortnight.

The Warpriest could feel the oncoming war before the Paladin Tarek returned from his outing to arrest the Warlord, before it was real he knew. War.

Harold fought off nearly one hundred of the Torgrim hive-mind clones before his divinely inspired might failed him and in the battle, he lost his left forearm. This injury kept him out of the next wave of the Torgrim War, though it was in the brief period of peace when he met the kitchen worker, healer, and Harbinger of the Final Winter, Bryony.

Learning his lesson on the fleeting nature of Life Harold did not allow his own nerves forbid him from telling Bryony how he felt and the two entered a deeply caring relationship.

This was also when he met the Iconic Death Knight of the time, and now good friend whom has saved his life on more accounts than he would like to admit. Raide Askr Frode, powerful Revenant, Wyrmdrake, and future King of Olet.

During this time the Fae, Wilmatos resurfaced and in a moment of vulnerability ended the spell that prevented Harold from shifting into a werebear, however without proper training Harold cannot use this power without losing himself to wrath and primal instincts.

Still healing from the lose off his forearm Harold was unable to join in on Torgrim’ s second attempt at destroying the Collective. During this time he kept himself occupied with working alongside Talma Al'Amir and their efforts too prepare the City and Country for the horribly strong Winter of that year.

### The Council of Arcanes/Harold’s second exile/ and the arrival of the Medisians

Less than a fortnight away from Tarek’s plan to siege Ascaria, the nation Torgrim ruled and operated out of, Harold was abducted by the Council of Arcanes, a Multiversal Order of the alternate versions of the God of Magic in the Medisian Pantheon.

The Council declared that his people interfered with the natural order of events of the world by traveling too and from planes and alternate worlds far too often. Desiring too relocate the Medisians too one of their own realms too watch over, which Harold viewed as an attack on the freedom of his people and challenged the Council. He would complete any trial they gave him and if he did so the Council would allow the Medisians too live freely on the Collective’s realm of existence in the material plane. The Council accepted Harold’s challenge and they place within his soul an unstable and powerful Light, forged by them too study what the Light of Primal Creation may have acted like in the dawn of the Multiverse.

They said, this is the power of creation itself, channel it and Create a Sword, do this and you have completed your trial. Then they teleported him and his universe’s Arcane too a planet they used as a Prison. A world where time flowed strangely and was filled with dangerous outsiders and planar criminals. Within a year of the time Harold was experiencing he was captured by a giant cyborg Minotaur and one of the planet’s most feared Warlord’ s a terrible Devil with purple skin, and wings that were covered in bloodshot eyes.

He was branded, and forced too fight in the Devil’s gladatorial arena for years, too busy with survival too master the strange and powerful force of nature the Council placed within. With the aid of an alternate Harkin Saldorek he escaped the Arena and was reunited with his Arcane.

When Harold finally was able to summon a Sword through the power of the Primal Light he was aged years, even though when he was finally returned to the Collective he was only gone one month.

His people freed from the Council, and from the Winter Faelands he was named King of Medius. Alongside this betrothed, Queen Lydia of House Tirma.

### The Medisian Community Center and Refugee Aid

As King of Medius, a Country that no longer physically exists, Harold was more a social leader and guide to his people in a strange new world, and believed that a large community center in the city nearest the Collective’s Guildhall would best serve this goal. During this time the Warpriest was mostly absent from Collective activity due to the change in his life style.

It was during this time Harold officiated the wedding of King Angus Mcfife of Dundee, and King Damakos the Brave, in the realm of Dundee.

His average duties mostly consisted off passing judgment on matters his people placed before him, though due too the Primal Light the Council placed within him, Harold was forced into a lifestyle of rigorous physical training and meditating multiple times a day to help regulate the energies in his body.

### Rediscovery of the Citadel of Medius

Several months into his rule the wizard Antwon, who was the god Arcane, created a Portal that could return his people to the Citadel of Medius, a massive Metropolis sitting deep in Planar Space. However when he and his Queen, Lydia investigated the Citadel they discovered in the three hundred years his people have been away from it the Citadel had become a Necropolis, ruled by the Goddess of Undeath, Maren. Sister of Harold’s goddess, Bianca Dragonslayer.

Trapped on the Citadel, when he pushed Lydia back through the portal as it was closing, Harold fought for hours against a grossly powerful death knight called the Valdedrake.

The Valdedrake, unyielding as he drew power from the goddess, Maren, defeated Harold, and attempted to kill him to harvest his soul. Only for Raide Frode and Antwon too come to his rescue. Lydia unable to join as she inadvertently set off one of Antwon’s wards and she was greatly injured.

While the three managed to escape the Citadel of Medius, Harold was burdened with a difficult truth. The Valdedrake is the body of Kaarle Tiro, a King who was both his ancestor and himself from a previous life, and though they are a multiverse away the Valdedrake will stop at nothing to slay him and reclaim his soul from Harold.

Having a difficult time processing the reality of his connection to the Dark Valdedrake, Harold appointed his cousin, Timothy of House Svikie, as Lord Protector. Leaving Lydia as High Queen of Medius.

In the past days he has been troubled by dreams of this past life. Fighting the Valdedrake has reconnected Harold with his past lives, and he has yet to discover what this all truly means and what future his past lives herald.

## Iconic Warpriest

Harold joined the Collective within it's first year, becoming the original Iconic Warpriest. He played a major role in the Collective War.