Fortias the Brave, Warden of Okar

Fortias the Brave was a half-elven nobleman who lived during the long decline of the Dwarven Empire in the Kingdom of Othune. To the Church of the Divine King, he is believed to be a hero, but not an incarnation of Islik. To the Prophets of the One Faith, Fortias the Brave is clearly an incarnation of the Divine King. To the people of Othune and Okar, Fortias is amongst their most celebrated heroes and his status as an incarnation is not particularly interesting to a Kingdom.

Summary

Fortias Warenger began his life on the borderlands between Othune and Okar. The half-elven son of two half-elves, his mother a Priestess of the Hunt and his father an artificer and engineer at the precursor of the Grand Arsenal. As a boy, he received an education at a local Temple of the Pantheon. As a youth, he apprenticed under an armourer at the arsenal and then found himself drawn to serve the Pantheon as an oathsworn Knight of the Moon Goddess, Moya, after a prophetic dream he had a High Priestess of Yhera interpret for him. His initial service as the equivalent of a questing knight brought him into the wilder lands north of Othune-proper, specifically into Okar. During this time, he made meaningful connection with several others finding themselves in similar circumstances. Over a period of years, Fortias and his fellowship explored the lands of Okar. While there, they tracked and killed the dark things that inhabited the abandoned lands, they explored the ruins of the great cities, and noted the myriad entrances to the vast network of interconnected tunnels, caves, underground rivers and ancient lavatubes he referred to as the "underdark." While his relationships with the leaders and nobility of Othune was unremarkable, Fortias and the Torchbearers had a relationship that went from strained to respect in short order. It came to a point that during a particularly harrowing invasion of an orcish horde, the Torchbearers lost the entirety of their leadership in a disastrous and seemingly random assault by orcish wyvern riders. Strained and nearly broken, the King of Othune decreed that Fortias the Brave would become the Watchtower King and Warden of Okar. Now the supreme leader of the Torchbearers and the viceregal governor of Okar, Fortias' first act was to locate the great warleader of the orcs and challenge him to personal combat. After an epic battle, Fortias was successful. Lacking their leader, the orcish invasion lost momentum and the horde dispersed into various smaller clans that were easily repelled by the remaining torchbearers and Othunite reinforcements. The next several years led to the creation of many of the institutions and structures that would sustain the Torchbearers in their defense of the realms. It would not be the orcs, nor the goblinoids who lurked deep in the underdark, that would rise to become Fortias' greatest enemy. Instead, it would be the reemergence of an ancient darkness sworn to the Worm King that would threaten everything he swore to protect and uphold. The wightlord Leshrac Blackheart was one of Nymarga the Green's chief lieutenants. It was believed that Leshrac was destroyed by Mishra the Purple centuries ago during the Last Battle, but something had released him from whatever kept him. He came to Okar in search of something, and found only resistance from the half-elven Torchbearers, led by Fortias the Brave. Leshrac acted quickly, and used his undead legions of ghouls, ghasts and wights to great and terrifying effect. Okar was overrun and the Torchbearers were trapped in their Watchtowers. Soon, the legions of undead were arrayed against Othune, and the danger to the Shield Lands was palpable. Suddenly, those legions stopped marching southwards, and turned to focus their attention on the greatest of the citadels just north of the ruins of Okar City. They came to bring the Fortias' citadel, Moonstone, to siege and found themselves slowly overcoming the masterful defensive actions taken by the Torchbearers under Fortias' command. Playing for time, Fortias sacrificed his fortress and his soldiers to maximize the delay and the cost to Leshrac. With the Othunites arrayed and organized to counterassault, Fortias made his whereabouts known to Leshrac. The two battled, and despite his bravery, Fortias was laid low by the Blackheart. While the wightlord had won the battle, he ran out of time. The Othunites cut a swathe through the undead horde and forced Leshrac to retreat into the Badlands to the northwest of Okar with but a shadow of his former forces.

Cultural Reception

In Othune and Okar, Fortias the Brave is revered as a hero and an important influence on the way that the Kingdom of Othune and the Torchbearers relate to one-another. In addition, his opening of diplomatic relations with the orcs following his defeat of the warlord Kargash Bronzeclaw ensured that future hordes would be nudged away from the Shieldlands for a generation. This led to recovery and expansion of the Torchbearer Order and the (re)construction of vital fortifications and transportation infrastructure to keep supply lines open despite the wilder territory of Okar being rife with varied threats to simple caravans. Fortias is the archetypal Torchbearer, and stands as a prime example of a heroic leader of half-elves in a situation where half-elves needed to assert their own place in the Shieldlands as their own people, not just human and not just elven. It is believed that Fortias is the first half of two lives that affected the region in long-standing and meaningful ways, all of them centering on the emergence of Leshrac Blackheart as one example of the long-standing influence of the dark god Nymarga the Worm King. His death was the discovery of the threat, and it was the birth of Yarna Greatspeaker in the Lands of the Eye not long after that was the beginning of the end.

Related Ethnicities