Voss the Destroyer

"Of all the Warlords leading armies across Ennostwell during the Rennon Consolidation Wars, Voss Carillon is easily the most misunderstood. His intentions, motivations, tactics, and leadership are cast too easily onto scales to be weighed by people who were not there."
-Chom Biitulaay; Voss the Destroyer, Voss the Creator; ch 1; p 2
"None of the very few scholarly endeavors seeking to reshape Voss the Destroyer as some kind of hero for the greater cause can change what he was. He was a savage, pure and simple."
-Sorel the Elder, Commentaries on Commentaries, vol 3, p 31

Voss the Destroyer was a central figure in the Rennon Wars of Consolidation. He rose through the ranks from soldier to warlord to king until finally dying in a blast of flame while defending an ancient fortress. For more than 40 years he was involved in conflict. His life was forged, formed, and finished by war. It was his continual concentration of allegiances that built the structure through which Rennon society was taken from bands of squabbling tribes into a worldwide power that controls Creation to this day.
Born into a mid-level merchant family in the city of Rainshadow , Voss Carillon had a youth that included hard work, travel across southwestern Ennostwell , and daily instruction in negotiation. Of his parents he later said, "Everything they did for me they did out of love and a sense of duty. To me, those are the only two reasons to do anything. They should be doled out in equal measure."* His mandatory military training began at the outbreak of The Greymarsh Campaign and that fixed his future on a path of inevitability.
His military acumen was quickly realized as he began leading small teams to scout the vast tracts of The Greymarsh. He mastered hit and run tactics and within a year he was promoted into the officer corps of Sty Tothen's Rainshadow Regiment. After the successful suppression of the Grey Rebellion he remained with the regiment as the Rennon Wars of Consolidation erupted all across Ennostwell. Soon he became a senior commander before the age of 30. When northern forces declared themselves the Capitol City of Ennostwell and turned south in earnest they defeated Tothen at the Battle of the Pral River. It was Voss who took command of the remnants of the regiment and led them across the harsh and unforgiving Slate Fields to bring the Wars to Yeoam and the eastern realms.
It was in the Yeoam Campaign that he earned the name Voss the Destroyer. The people of the east were proud and strong and Voss decided that they had to be crushed in order to bring them under his sway. The Wars of Consolidation had started as independent skirmishes but as they unfolded the various Warlords began to see opportunities to rule all of Ennostwell. Voss had the background to see what a unified continent could mean. Commerce, prosperity, security; they all flowed from unification.
The only pause in his life of conflict came when he finally declared himself King of Unified Yeoam and Rainshadow. This period of relative calm lasted three years before the continent was plunged right back into open warfare. During these years Voss turned his attention towards advancing trade across his lands. He pushed for development of new weapons and training. He set up the legal foundation that was the precursor to the Rennon Legal Code we now have around all of Creation. He also wrote a series of pamphlets which described his thought on many subjects.
The last five years of his life were spent in the field. He waged war on Capitol City forces and with rebel Warlords within his own Kingdom. He became more ruthless in his tactics and launched several punishment campaigns against Yeoam, Rainshadow, and various towns in between. Nowhere was safe from his wrath. It seemed as if he were determined to hold Ennostwell together through sheer force of will. In fact, any truthful telling of the times would have to concede that the continent was more divided than ever.
Shortly before his last campaign he wrote the most bluntly introspective pamphlet of his career. In it, he acknowledged "history will not be kind to me and I can accept that. I've given everything I have to the Rennon people. If they require just a little bit more, then I can rest easy with that."** Voss Carillon was killed two weeks later at the Second Battle of The Strake. The Rennon Wars of Consolidation would last for 15 more years before the entire continent collapsed exhausted into an uneasy peace that eventually birthed a united Ennostwell that went on to rule all of Creation.

*Voss Carillon, On Leadership, p 6
**Voss Carillon, On Life and Duty, p 3

Gender: Male
Race: Rennon
Birth: CY 6880
Death: CY 6955
Profession: Warlord
Weapons: Heavy Longsword