Falner Brigthbeard

Falner Brigthbeard was a Cleric of Torm, the god of courage and self-sacrifice. He served the monastery as their protector, with his war hammer and shield, he kept the wild animals and goblins at bay. One fateful morning the monastery bells began to ring out the warning sounds of an imminent attack, Falner donned his armor and took up his hammer, ready to meet the approaching attackers. He was overwhelmed, the orcs came in huge numbers and killed everyone in the monastery, except for Falner, who fought bravely at the entrance to the cloister but was knocked unconscious by an Orc Barbarian. When he came to, he found all of friends dead, the monastery alight with flames, and all the golden decorations and treasures stripped from the walls and pilfered, only thirty gold remained, and that was Falner’s hidden stash he was saving for better armor.

His spirit was destroyed, and he turned to a new deity for power to avenge his fallen friends, he began to worship and study the god Shar, the god of darkness and loss. He became a Death Domain Cleric and set forth to destroy the orcs with his new found control over the undead. He began creating skeletons, one a day for forty days, then he sent them all to raid a nearby orc village/fort. The skeletons were not strong enough to kill all the orcs, in fact many orcs survived the raid and re-enforced their villages defenses. They also employed a few clerics of their own to ward off the undead.

Falner, not being deterred began research on how to raise stronger undead. After a few months of searching and learning, he learned how to raise ghouls, and after a month of creating them he attacked again. The Orcish clerics began to cut into the ghouls, but Falner attacked with them this time, and he easily defeated the orcish clerics, and allowed his remaining ghouls to breach the walls. This time most the orcs of the village we killed, the chieftain was severely injured and barely escaped, with a small group of his retainers.

Falner began to raid anyone he met, his undead horde growing and growing. Soon he raided the Orcish city of Gashak  but was beaten back by the well trained militia of orcs. Falner was slain that day, and all his undead were set free of his control and wandered away from the city. People say to this day Falner’s undead still plague the land, hiding in caves and catacombs, some brining even more skeletons and ghouls to life themselves.

This led to the general outlawing of Necromantic practices, by the Dwarves of Seiðrheim. Some still practice the dark arts, and some magic users cast necromantic spells, but the creation of undead minions is frowned upon, and if the government doesn’t like you, they might lock you away or execute you.