Lord Massereene

Lord Massereene is a Human Warlock who was first Risen during the Dark Ages.

Biography

Like most Lightbearers, Lord Massereene has no memories of his past life, although due to the location and condition of his body, he hypothesizes that he likely first died during the Middle Ages. He was Risen within months of the Collapse.
He began as a human man Risen by his Ghost in a crumbling mausoleum in the ruins of an old medieval church, located near what used to be County Cavan, Ireland. Upon waking up, his Ghost briefly explained the situation with the Traveller and the Light; the man had a large number of questions, but his Ghost waved him off, saying that they could be answered once they had found somewhere safe to stay. Undeterred, the man continued questioning, this time about what dangers they were trying to avoid, until the poor Ghost was forced to give him a crash course on the area and the various alien races that had invaded.
As they prepared to leave the mausoleum, the man inquired as to what his name was, as well as the name of his Ghost. When she responded that they did not yet have names, he returned to the place he had originally been buried trying to get a name off of the tombstone. The only part he could make out was the name Toirdelbach, which he decided to take for himself.
Toirdelbach then pondered what name to give his Ghost. She, impatient, told him that they didn't have time to sit around all day and think about it, so Toirdelbach suggested she pick one off one of the other graves as they departed. She chose the old Irish name Sárait.

The Tribe

With Sárait's prior knowledge, Toirdelbach found a small group of fifteen people who were living camped out in the ruins of a small Irish village. Most of them were refugees from surrounding towns, fleeing the Hive and Fallen that had moved into the area. There were two other Lightbearers, both Hunters, called Tully and Lola.
Toirdelbach received food and supplies -- in return, he helped protect the small tribe, using both weapons made from scrap and his newfound power as a Warlock. Although clumsy and unsure at first, it became quickly apparent that Toirdelbach had both an unusual affinity with the Light and a natural-born talent for leadership, with inexplicable wisdom on how to build and run a settlement. As such, he became the de-facto "head" of their small town, which they named Highknoll after the hills in the area.
One of Toirdelbach's first acts as the leader was to organize search parties that could scour the surrounding areas for other survivors, and Highknoll slowly grew to a population of fifty or so people over the course of several months. At Tully's suggestion, they began building fortifications to build wood and stone walls, as well as attempting to rebuild some of the derelict town. They harvested peat from the nearby bog to fuel fires and even used traditional Celtic methods to build houses and plant crops.
In addition to their Iron Age techniques, Lola began a project of salvaging Fallen technology in order to build technology of their own. With her help, the group was able to build up an armory of sorts, outfitting themselves in mismatched pieces of modified Fallen armor, wielding whatever weapons they could salvage and repair, from Shock Rifles to cannons and grenades. After a Skiff was successfully shot down and crashed, Lola and several others began trying to find a way to modify it into a working mode of transport.
Despite their successes, the growing village at Highknoll also suffered countless setbacks. At the end of the first year, conflicts with the alien races in the area had claimed almost three-quarters of the number of people they were bringing in. After a particularly brutal onslaught by Hive, they were dealt a crippling blow when Lola died her final death at the hands of a Knight.
After two years, Highknoll held its first official election for Village Head. Toirdelbach had been at the forefront of leadership since the beginning, and he was almost unanimously selected for the position. Now officially in charge with Tully as his deputy, he began composing a rough draft of a constitution and a code of law. He also changed his name to Turlough, an anglicization of Toirdelbach, since many people struggled to pronounce the traditional Irish variant.

Turlough, the Headman of Highknoll

Even from the start, Turlough made it clear that he was both a strict and fair leader who dealt with problems swiftly and had a very low tolerance for disorder. He formed a Village Guard, the members of which he drilled endlessly until they were nothing short of perfect. Crime was rare, but not unheard of, and in the absence of a jail non-violent offenders like petty thieves would have to work off their "repayment" to their victims, while violent offenders faced harsher punishments. While the death penalty was allowed, it was hardly ever used; murderers or people who had seriously injured someone else were typically sentenced to a period of hard labor.
Executions were rare, but not unheard of. Typically, after a verdict was reached, Turlough himself would simply shoot the convicted on the spot with his sidearm.

Other Names

• Toirdelbach
• Turlough
• Carolan
• Cavan 
• Lord Massereene
• Tor (by Tully)