Phylactery of the Bleeding Heart
Male Dwarf Barbarian Cleric Avenger
“Father, why do the sages refuse to accept silver?”
The ancients experienced much and as such had great wisdom to share with future generations. Perennial vaults of knowledge earned through trial and error became the hyms of truth passed from father to son. Some of these truths were warnings. Some warnings unheeded had consequences. Woe to he who asks for his lord’s guidance only to disregard it.
In the last age, Kuldor Stoneskin, Dwarf King of Cloudraker mountain ruled mightily from his castle carved within the ocean sides.rocky range far to the north of Coldhome. His kingdom of tunnels and caverns sat atop a rich vein of silver and filled his vaults with riches. Kuldor’s blessings and provisions were never enough though to match the ambitions of his pride.
The wise men of the Four Winds Monastery are welcome sages of faith in many kingdoms, and Kuldor sought their insight to the will of the gods. The king was advanced in age and desperately wanted to leave behind a marvel of construction that would be his immortal legacy. He shared with the sage his plans to build a giant temple of silver plated iron to honor the gods more to bask in his own greatness than to seek approval, but ask he did. During the nights celebration of the king’s announcement the sage addressed the king regarding the will of the god’s.
Kings are never grow used to disappointment. The Sage shared a prophesy before the king and his guests that troubled him. He was advised not to build the temple, for reasons the king could not know would keep him from completing the work in his lifetime. But if he believed he did know the reasons, then he would certainly come to understand this.
Kuldor to save face before his guests did not accept this as a warning but a challenge.
Later he would consult his other advisors on how he might accomplish building the temple as soon as possible. If he the King could not know why he could not build the temple in time, then certainly his wise men would. They told him he did not have enough manpower to work the mines to gather enough silver to build the temple in his lifetime. Ah, to the king the prophesy made sense now. For he was recently diagnosed with a slow but terminal sickness. Only his physician could estimate how many seasons he had left and only his wise men could know that this wasn’t enough time to build the temple with the manpower he currently had. Now that he believed he knew the reasons, his solutions to would only please the wrong gods.
He waged war against the peaceful tribes of men and halflings that dwell in the adjacent Rimguard Forest and made them slaves to increase production in his silver mines. Tunnels ran deep and the mining was done hastily. A year to the day of his announcement to build the temple he held another celebration to unveil the foundation and framework that had been laid and to celebrate his complete recovery from the sickness that was expected to take his life. A healing he was sure was a gift from the gods. Such a marvelous plan coming together was indeed a great feat. The slaves worked around the clock and during the party. The sage of the Four Winds did not attend the feast, but the will of the gods certainly made their presence known that night with another gift. This one to the next generation of forest folk that would not be slaves.
While royalty ate and drank, slaves suffocated and drowned below. A barrier below the mines was breached, and an underground section of sea flooded the mines. Every support was washed away and half the kingdom sunk into the depths. Through drunk, the king had wits enough to finally understand the true meaning of the prophecy. Before he drowned he realized that there was no actual reason to rush and that had he not tried to build the temple so quickly there wouldn’t have been a flooding. The warning of what he didn’t know of before it was too late was the location of the underground sea.
Why it only took three generations to disregard the lesson learned.
King Gurthor Stoneskin, great grandson of old king Kuldor under the sea found a new vein of silver during his rein and began to form great plans of his own. This new vein was just under the Rimguard forest and to get to it he would have to clear out all of the trees and foliage. He sought the advisement of the Four Winds sages who protect the forest. Sages that haven’t offered advice to the Stoneskin clan in three generations. When they would not speak with him at his leisure, he began to clear out the forest without council. When he saw them he would share a third of the silver mined from the forest with the sages many times the worth of the beasts and trees cleared and all would be well. When the sages were alerted to what was being done they had a message of judgement from The god Erastil whose forest was not for sale. The sages told Gurthor that for what he had done an avenger bearing the sign of the forest would be his…" and before the sage could finish his sentence Gurthor spun with devilish speed and loped off his head with the same axe that felled the first tree. The other sages there used there magic and disappeared.Oh the attempts of man to alter their destiny are nearly humourous in their vanity and futility. For what Kuldor had done in killing the sage did not void the prophesy in the slightest. Before the blood of the sage went cold the kings wife went into immediate labor. Tragically the labor killed her but not before she bore twins. Two identical boys, but one covered from spine to scalp with a birthmark in the shape of a tree. For “an avenger bearing the sign of the forest would be his!”
At that moment the sages reappeared just long enough to seize the baby and then teleported away.
I would think that baby would be a young dwarf adult by now.
— The king’s lost son secretly named by the sages Oso Earthson goes by the nickname Grim by those outsiders that know him by his countenance. He was raised and trained by the servants of the distant Four Winds monastery. He is a Barbarian Cleric avenger of Erastil and he has been released from the forest into the world to do the will of his God and to grow in power with experience that he might become strong enough to do what he has been called to. He does not yet know of the prophesy. He does not know it, but is actions in the world are being watched by the sages, and agents of Gurthor still seek to find the missing son.