This little sketch was to be back-story of a character I was considering playing in a friend's planned D&D campaign. It probably makes a lot more sense if you know about Ceusak Ten-Days, another player's character that retired from the current game. I will most likely never play this character, but once I'd thought of it, the story wrote itself anyway. I must also apologize to the player who made Ceusak for killing off his character, even if it isn't cannon.
Update: The player who played Ceusak thought it a proper end to his character.
Further update: I am now playing the character this story was written about in a new game which is the sequel to the game Ceusak was from. The story was edited slightly to make it fit into the campaign world, and is now an official part of the setting.
"So I was fightin’ for the Blodspyd Company at the time, down in the Southern reaches, and we was paid to wipe out a Balkan war band been raiding around there. The Captain put about thirty men under Sergeant Henning for the job, mostly pike and crossbow, you know, but with a handful of double-pay specialists like me. We caught up with ‘em as they was getting ready to cross Eldor’s Ford. They was a savage looking lot, about twenty of em, but we wasn’t worried, ‘cause a disciplined fighting force has the edge in a fight like that. They looked pretty startled at our numbers. We formed up proper before they could swarm us and started advancing. Henning gave the order and our crossbowmen started volleying. Standard shit. Well they all fall back a bit on the orders of this one ballsy fucker with a great sword. They can’t get far though, ‘cause crossing would leave them vulnerable and they know it. But this one, see, he just walks forward right towards us. Bolts falling all around him, and he don’t give a shit. Had this funny look in his eyes like he knew he was dead, and he didn’t mind, but he was fuck-all angry at us for being the fellows would do it. He's just one man, so we keep advancing, but he just charges right in.
"Now, I never seen a man move like that. He struck like a goddamn snake, stabbing here, chopping there. Before we could manage to lay a weapon on him, he was through the lines, five pikers and one axeman dying behind him. Then he was in the crossbows, and they didn’t stand for a chance. We couldn’t turn our full attention on him, cause the fellows by the ford start shoutin’ war cries and then mass charged us. Sergeant stayed pretty calm for such a shit surprise. Ordered the pikers to reform and brace for the swarm, while he pulled all the double-pays back to deal with this one fucker. That man took a full on warhammer to the leg and an’ some big axe cuts to the belly and a dozen lesser strikes, and he still didn’t go down till I chopped his legs out from under him.
"Haw, and that was only after he’d slashed open my chest and kilt or maimed most of the double-pays. He still didn’t die though, he just looked up at me like he suddenly knew me or some shit. Then, I kid you not, he just hands me his sword and tells me that soon I will know. I think he must a' been delirious what with dying and all. Our poor pikers were overrun pretty bad without the specialists to back ‘em up, and it looked like the end for us all. But when those crazy savages saw me holding that greatsword, they didn’t stick around to finish the job. Just lit off across that ford like there was fire on their backs. We was too hurt to pursue. In the end we kilt less than half of em, and we had 12 dead, 15 wounded. And most of them died later, or had to retire. I got this scar here on my ribs that day. Sergeant Henning lived, be he sure didn’ get the promotion he was bucking for.
"Company dissolved soon after anyway and I had to look for work elsewhere. Came back into Orletia looking for paying work, what with that cult uprising they’d just put down. I still have that sword. Best damn sword I ever used. I wouldn’t give it up for anything, and I’ll wield it till I die. Funny thing the way Balkan react to this old blade. One old Balkan crone even told me my fortune for free ‘cause of it. Even told me when and where I’d die, if you believe it, though I stopped listening when the old crone started into some history lesson about god’s razor or some boring shit.
"Been working here and there in Orletia ever since, makin’ a big name for me and my sword, though around some folks I get the feeling this sword’s made more of a name for itself then I ever will."
The phrase "god's razor" is a reference to the many names of The Father of Swords, called Oath Keeper, Sky Razor, the Immutable Blade, dropped from the heavens by god in the Old Times, most recently given to Ceusak Tendays by Crummock-il-Dayn, as he lay dying after the Battle of Carlin Fjord. The blade survives from before history, each wielder leaving behind new legends of the blade.
Trivia Note: the idea of mercenary units composed of pikes backed up by ranged attackers and interspersed with heavy weapons men who were payed double salaries is loosely based on the historical Landsknecht.
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