Your character has just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As they look around, their gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. They duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? She begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”
With a grunt, Bergulf lowers himself onto the cushion, his heavy frame making the soft fabric strain. “I’ve walked through many places like this. Swamps, ruins, all the same,” he mutters, his voice deep and steady. “But you knew I’d come." His fingers curl around the hilt of his axe, the weight of it a familiar comfort.
"I was born far to the north," he says, his voice rough as gravel. "In a land where the sun vanishes for half the year, and the dead freeze before they hit the ground. I was six years old when the wolves first came. I watched them tear apart our goats... and one of my cousins. That's when I learned: either you fight, or you vanish."
He scrapes a hand over his jaw, the motion weary, automatic.
"My first kill came when I was eight. Not a man — a bear. It tore through our stores in the dead of winter. My father handed me a rusted spear, no shield, no armor. Just a nod. No words. If I lived, I was worth keeping. If not..." He shrugs, as if the outcome had never mattered.
"I lived. Barely. Buried the spear in the beast's eye after it shattered half my ribs."
A bitter smile cuts across his face. "From that day on, they stopped looking at me like a boy."
Bergulf sighs, "From that day on, they called me 'Stoneborn' — said I had rocks in my veins."
"But then I started growing... too fast. The cold and the hunger twisted my bones. By the time I was eleven, I was taller than any of the men around me. Not just tall, but big. Bigger than a bear. Rumours spread that I was taller than a mountain! I didn’t fit the clothes they gave me, couldn’t wear the armor. So i had to craft it myself."
A shadow of a smile crosses his face, as if he's reliving the struggle.
"Furs were all that fit, and even they looked like they were made for a child. But I didn’t care. I’d fight in anything. In the blood. In the mud. I started to realize, as the years passed, that my hands weren’t just for holding weapons. They were made to crush, to destroy. And my body... well, it wasn’t built for anything but war."
His fingers grip the axe harder, almost as if he's reliving that feeling of strength.
"And then... I found this axe," he says, voice quieter now. "The one that killed my father. I didn’t pick it — it picked me. After those raiders tore through my home when i was away, I took it from the dead body of the man who raised me, and swore that i would make them pay at all cost. I swung it until the world was black with blood, and from that moment on, it became part of me. Never left my side. Never will." He looks the old woman dead in the eye, his gaze hard like the iron in his grip.
"By seventeen, I led men. Men twice my age, men who had seen battles I was still too young to understand. And by then, I wasn’t just a soldier — I was a monster. No shield, no armor could stop me. I tore through them like a storm through a forest. Throughout the blood and chaos i forgot my reason to fight. My enemies aswell as my allies, they feared me. Hell, even I started to fear myself."
His voice deepens, becoming colder, as if he’s remembering those days of unimaginable power.
"And so I fought. And I fought. And I fought. And then i remembered... we were passing through a recently raided village, to steal some leftovers. Thats where i saw an unfamiliar to me man, dying, with an axe buried in his stomach. So i took my men, and we began the search for the Raiders who killed my father and family. Although they didnt live long enough to see me get my revenge, they were the only ones i could call my friends. So i fought now, alone. Until I became what I am now. A wall of flesh. A tower of muscle." He shifts, the weight of his frame pressing into the fabric beneath him. The axe lies heavy in his lap, a part of him.
„That’s why I’m here. I’ve fought, I’ve bled... and now I seek vengeance for all I’ve lost. Something I can’t kill with one swing of my axe.“
His lips curl into a bitter grin, cold and sharp as steel.
"I heard your name whispered in a dead man's breath. They say you know things." His hand tightens around the axe. "And I'm here because I need answers." He leans forward until only the fire separates them, his voice a dark promise. "And if you waste my time... well," he says, the axe shifting with a low, eager groan of iron, "you'll learn why rivers run red when Bergulf comes to call."
