Champions of the Olden Era

Specialty

+1 attack and +1 defense to all Pikemen and Halberdiers per 4 levels

Starting skills

LeadershipOffense

Starting army

14-20 Pikemen, 4-7 Archers

Second son of a minor border house, Aldric earned his spurs holding a collapsed gate against a winter raid that should have killed him twice over. He took the surname of the hedge that hid his survivors, and has worn it like a wound ever since. The chapter-knights call him cautious; his soldiers call him alive.

Specialty

Bless costs 1 less mana and lasts +1 turn

Starting skills

WisdomWater Magic

Starting army

10-16 Pikemen, 6-9 Archers, 1-2 Acolytes

Maron took her vows in a plague year, learning the litany of the dying before the litany of the hours. She is patient with the wounded and cold with the proud, and her chaplains have learned not to ask which corpses she still prays over. The Light, she insists, is a craft rather than a comfort.

Specialty

+2 morale to all friendly stacks when fighting Undead

Starting skills

LeadershipResistanceArmorer

Starting army

12-18 Pikemen, 5-8 Crossbowmen, 2-3 Squires

Callan rode out of the Eastmarch the year the barrows opened, and the iron in his beard is the same iron he pried from the wight that took his brother. He keeps a tally cut into the inside of his vambrace and refuses to say what number it is on. The order tolerates him because he wins; his squires love him because he does not lie about what they are fighting.

Specialty

+1 speed to all Monks and Zealots

Starting skills

TacticsWisdom

Starting army

8-14 Pikemen, 4-7 Monks

Once a tax-priest in the lowland sees, Osmund found his calling the day a heretic preacher set his cloister alight and his choristers with it. He marches now with the same ledger-book strapped to his belt, only the entries are different. He prefers a quick fight to a clean one and is plain about it.

Specialty

+1 attack per 5 levels to all Archers and Master Archers

Starting skills

ArcheryPathfinding

Starting army

10-16 Sprites, 6-9 Wood Elves

Elwen learned the long bow from a half-mad veteran who refused to teach her the easy draw, and the lesson stuck deeper than the calluses. She walks two paces behind any column she leads, ostensibly to watch the rear, more truthfully to watch the captains. Her arrows are fletched in grey because she finds painted shafts vain.

Specialty

+1 spell power per 3 levels when casting nature spells

Starting skills

WisdomEarth Magic

Starting army

8-14 Sprites, 4-7 Wood Elves, 1-2 Druids

Sylraen tended a grove that died of nothing she could name, and walked out of it with the bark-script of every tree memorized. She does not raise her voice, even in spellwork, and her acolytes have learned to read the angle of her shoulders the way farmers read clouds. She is courteous to enemies and exacting with friends.

Specialty

+1 speed to all Centaur, Pegasus, and Unicorn stacks

Starting skills

PathfindingDiplomacy

Starting army

12-18 Centaurs, 4-6 Sprites

Thorin was found as a boy in a stag's wallow, the herd circled and unwilling to part with him, and the borderwardens took the omen seriously enough to raise him in the lodges. He speaks little and listens to animals with the patience he refuses to spend on lords. His company travels light and never quite where the maps expect.

Specialty

+1 defense per 4 levels to all Dendroid stacks

Starting skills

ArmorerEarth Magic

Starting army

10-15 Sprites, 5-8 Dwarves, 1-2 Dendroids

Vaelis spent forty winters as a march-warden on the dwarf-marches and learned to love the patience of slow things. She braids her hair with thornwood at the solstices and refuses to explain why. Officers who try to hurry her column find themselves walking it; she is plain about who outranks whom in a forest.

Specialty

+1 attack per 4 levels to all Skeleton and Skeleton Warrior stacks

Starting skills

OffenseNecromancy

Starting army

20-30 Skeletons, 6-9 Walking Dead

Vereth lost the eye at a siege he no longer cares to name, and the socket has been filled with something that watches back. He rides a horse that does not eat and a banner that does not rot, and his lieutenants stopped asking questions years ago. He is precise on a battlefield and indifferent off of it.

Specialty

+2% Necromancy per level (raises more Skeletons from the slain)

Starting skills

WisdomNecromancy

Starting army

15-22 Skeletons, 4-7 Walking Dead, 1-2 Liches

Kethash earned his epithet in the long mortuary-libraries of Eshkar, where he is said to have waited eleven years for a single book to be returned to him. He keeps no familiars and no apprentices, considering both a liability. The dead do as he asks because he asks them politely and exactly once.

Specialty

Death Cloud costs 2 less mana

Starting skills

WisdomAir MagicSorcery

Starting army

10-16 Skeletons, 3-5 Walking Dead, 2-3 Liches

Morrigane crossed over in her own laboratory and did not bother to clean up the body afterward, on the grounds that she would not be using it again. She speaks in a voice that frosts the inside of helmets and is courteous to anyone who survives a conversation with her. She is not, by her own insistence, dead — merely uninterested.

Specialty

+1 speed to all Wight and Wraith stacks

Starting skills

TacticsNecromancy

Starting army

12-18 Skeletons, 4-6 Walking Dead, 1-2 Wights

Azrenoch held a marcher fortress on the wrong side of a peace treaty and refused, in the end, to come down off the wall. His banners hang in the same hall they hung in when he was breathing, and the local farmers leave wine at the gate on the anniversaries. He is said to remember every face that climbed his ladders.

Specialty

+1 attack per 5 levels to all Drone and Soldier-caste stacks

Starting skills

OffenseTactics

Starting army

16-24 Drones, 5-8 Soldier-Caste

Iyx was a third-clutch warrior promoted in a single engagement when its column-mothers fell to a sortie at the Ashen Step. It does not speak in the human cadence but the interpreters have learned the click-tones, and its orders are short and exact. The hive remembers its name now, which is a thing the hive does rarely.

Specialty

+1 spell power per 3 levels when casting on insectoid allies

Starting skills

WisdomMysticism

Starting army

10-16 Drones, 4-7 Soldier-Caste, 1-2 Chitin-Seers

Thraxa hatched in a brood-cell that, according to the chamber-keepers, hummed for three days before it broke open. It carries the chord-memory of forty thousand sibling-minds and arbitrates among them the way a conductor arbitrates among a section. Outsiders find it unnerving; the hive finds it indispensable.

Specialty

Acid Spit costs 1 less mana

Starting skills

SorceryFire Magic

Starting army

8-14 Drones, 5-7 Soldier-Caste, 2-3 Spinetongues

Vex emerged from a sub-brood that should not have survived its own pupation, and the elders kept it on suspicion of a useful mutation. The suspicion was correct. It is fluent in three human dialects and one of the under-tongues, and uses each with the same flat clinical patience.

Specialty

+1 speed to all Swarm and Lesser Drone stacks

Starting skills

PathfindingLeadership

Starting army

20-28 Drones, 4-6 Soldier-Caste

Kessrik lost the colour of its mandibles in a chemical exchange at the Vault of Salt and refuses, on principle, to have them re-dyed. It leads from the front of the swarm rather than the centre, which the column-mothers consider an affectation and the soldier-caste considers a reason to follow. It has not yet been wrong about a flank.

Specialty

+1 defense per 4 levels to all Dwarf and Battle Dwarf stacks

Starting skills

ArmorerLeadership

Starting army

10-15 Dwarves, 4-6 Battle Dwarves

Borin came down from the High Karak only after his elder brother fell at the Iron Doors, and he came down in full plate because he never expected to go back up. He keeps the family hammer on his back even when he sleeps. The lowland lords find him stubborn; his dwarves find him slow to anger and slower to forget.

Specialty

Runes cost 1 less resource of each type

Starting skills

WisdomEarth Magic

Starting army

8-12 Dwarves, 3-5 Battle Dwarves, 1-2 Runepriests

Haldra braids a fresh rune into her hair for every campaign she survives, and the braid has grown long enough to require its own carrying-strap. She apprenticed in three holds before her own master would sign off on her, and she is reputedly the most patient teacher in the southern karaks. Her rune-iron rings when she walks.

Specialty

+1 attack to all Golem stacks per 5 levels

Starting skills

ArmorerArtillery

Starting army

8-12 Dwarves, 2-4 Stone Golems

Orgrin lost the use of his off-hand in a quench-vat accident and rebuilt it himself, three fingers at a time, in articulated bronze. He says the new hand is better and refuses to elaborate. He is plain-spoken with apprentices, sarcastic with quartermasters, and silent in the presence of his own work.

Specialty

+2 morale to all friendly stacks when defending in a town

Starting skills

TacticsResistanceBallistics

Starting army

12-16 Dwarves, 3-5 Battle Dwarves, 1-2 Crossbow-Smiths

Thaegir served his first thirty years as a gate-warden of an unimportant pass that became, in the end, very important indeed. He is famous for refusing reinforcements that would have arrived after the deciding hour. The High Karak now consults him before quartering its garrisons, which is the closest thing to a promotion he will accept.

Specialty

+1 spell power per 3 levels when casting destructive magic

Starting skills

WisdomSorcery

Starting army

8-12 Troglodytes, 3-5 Harpies, 1-2 Beholders

Ysolde took her surname from the vault where she completed her novitiate, and she has not been back to confirm whether the masters who tested her are still alive. She prefers conversations to negotiations and negotiations to battles, but is fluent in all three. Her familiars rotate; she will not say why.

Specialty

Stealth-related spells cost 2 less mana

Starting skills

StealthAir MagicMysticism

Starting army

10-14 Troglodytes, 4-6 Harpies

Khethrin was raised in the under-temples of an order that does not, officially, exist, and has never once volunteered the name of his teacher. He walks soft on stone and softer on carpet, and his lieutenants have learned to count him into the room before they say anything sensitive. He is, by his own quiet account, very tired.

Specialty

+1 attack per 4 levels to all Minotaur and Minotaur King stacks

Starting skills

OffenseLeadership

Starting army

6-10 Troglodytes, 3-5 Minotaurs

Vraxis inherited his iron collar and his command on the same evening and has worn both without complaint since. He is brusque with rivals and patient with the minotaur captains, who consider him one of the few outsiders worth obeying. He keeps a tally of debts owed to him and is famously prompt about collection.

Specialty

+1 knowledge per 4 levels

Starting skills

WisdomFire Magic

Starting army

8-12 Troglodytes, 3-5 Harpies, 1-2 Medusas

Sevra trained in a sisterhood that takes its members' voices on the night of their oath, and conducts its rites in a sign-language no outsider has been taught. She speaks now through a slate she carries at her belt, and her handwriting is neat enough to be considered a discourtesy. Her wards do not argue with her, and her enemies find out why.