Svear is a very gruff looking goliath with scars covering his body-the most telling being a stitched up scar across the front of his throat. His story begins actually as an adult: the first thing he remembers about his life is that he woke up in a monastery with a dwarven priest standing above him. The priest told him that his name was Tarin and he had just revived him from the dead. Tarin noted that that he was a stranger to their town and asked Svear’s name. Svear, in a panic, could not recall it. Tarin calmly sat with him asking him questions about his past: where he had come from, what he was doing in their town, etc. Svear could not think up a single response, his mind was blank. He opened his mouth for the first time after three hours of questioning. “How did I die?” he asked. Tarin responded, “saving my son’s life.” Svear had somehow stumbled upon bandits robbing the small mountain monastery. He peered in through the cracked doors to see four masked figures surrounding a fifth, who was beating someone. Svear had sneaked in to get a closer look, and ended up charging the fifth bandit, and smashing him over the head with a wooden chair, knocking him out cold. He fought the other four off, but a sixth man emerged from the darkness, and cut Svear’s throat. The bandits fled, leaving Svear to drown in his own blood. At the end of the story, Svear grew silent and the conversation was over. Tarin bestowed upon Svear his name, in lieu of his former, unknown family name. He called him “Svear” because of it’s meaning in Draconic (brave). For the next month, Svear worked around the small dwarven hamlet, helping out in construction and field work. He didn’t speak a word for that entire month. The entire town was comprised of dwarves, outside of him and another man. The man was a white human who always seemed uneasy around the others. He, too, would just work silently. Tarin eventually explained to Svear that the man was the bandit that Svear had knocked unconscious in the brawl. The priest had somehow indentured the man to the town in some ancient magical servitude, as punishment for his robbery. On the last night of Svear’s stay in the village, there was a harvest festival in the town. While all of the townsfolk gathered in the monastery, Svear set out to the cell in which the human man was kept. There Svear found him, all alone and locked up. Svear tied him to a chair, shackling his hands on a tabletop, and spoke the first words he had in a month: “You’re going to die tonight. How quickly and painlessly depends on whether or not I hear what I want to.” Svear asked where he could find the other bandits. The man stayed defiantly silent. Svear coolly waited five seconds and then tore off the man’s pointer finger in one stroke. The man shrieked in agony for the next five minutes before Svear cauterized the wound with a red hot cattle prod. Svear proceeded to break both of the man’s legs, and began pressing the back end of a spoon into the man’s right breast before he talked. He instructed Svear to take the insignia off his black robe, that it was the sign of their group. Svear ripped the patch off the robe and returned to the man. He quickly punctured the man’s lungs with the spoon. The man gasped for breath frantically, unable to draw. Svear leaned in: “I was going to kill you in the same way he killed me. You were going to suffocate. But, since you cooperated, I’ll let you down easy.” Svear adjusted himself behind the man. He said, “Don’t worry. I’ll send the rest of them your way,” and swiftly broke the man’s neck. Svear left the town that night, taking with him only the rags he wore, that small insignia, and the man’s carefully preserved finger. For the next year, Svear survived off of wild animals and forest vegetation before finally finding another town, where he became a gladiator. After eight months of fighting in the pit, Svear began wandering again, knowing nothing of the times nor the turf—searching to become the revanchist of his memory.
Quotations:
- “I once killed a man with my bare hands. It was a mercy killing, actually. Because breaking his spine was a mercy after I tore off his finger, broke of his legs, and punctured both of his lungs with the back end of a spoon.”
- “Don’t worry, you’ll be alive. Just in pieces.”
- “I know you don’t think I can’t shove this animal pelt down your throat and, quite frankly, I’m a little unsure myself. But we can die trying, can’t we?”
- “You know what’s unpleasant? Getting your throat slashed.”
- “Someone took my entire life away from me. You know why? He wanted THINGS. He wanted to steal someone else’s THINGS. I didn’t remember anything about my past: where I had come from, or even who I was. I had to start over: an infant in an adult body. It’s been years since then, and still have found no indication of the man I used to be. But I have learned, in spite of all of this, one lesson: to do unto others, as others have done unto me.”
- “They told me I died saving a man’s life. And that I drowned in my own blood.”
- “Enjoy that ale. It’ll be the last thing you taste before I fill your stomach with sand.”
Powers workspace (creative license with power descriptions. Same effects apply):
- Reaping Strike: Svear raises his maul above his towering figure, and brings it down with such fury, that no parry could totally break its impact.
- Crushing Surge: Svear winds up his sledge for an uppercut. He’s going to enjoy this one.
- Stone’s Endurance: Svear’s flesh hardens under the blow, cracking like solid rock at impact.
- Spinning Sweep: Svear’s maul descends at a forty-five degree angle, careening at the foe’s ankles.
- Who’s Next?: After felling a foe, Svear immediately locks his eyes on a new target and charges with a roar.
- Sweeping Blow: Svear spins the hammer over his head, counterbalancing his weight to the hammer’s momentum, and swings once in a 360-degree spin.
- Knee Breaker: Svear strikes down in a hockey-like swing on the foe’s joint.
- Break the Shell: Svear applies his hammer savagely to the chest of the foe.
- Unbreakable: With a roar, Svear shrugs off the impact of a blow.
