Neill Family/Ender
Ender; son of Erik
Age at Death: 95
Class: Warrior Hero
Weapon of Choice: Executioner's Axe and a long sword.
Last Titles: Dread Lord of Heorot, Duke of the Frozen North
Titles Held: Dread Lord of Heorot, Sponsor of the Horde of Heorot, Duke of the Frozen North, Executioner, Duke of Makar, Magrave of Makar, Duke of Icegate, Marshal of Icegate's Armies, Founder of The Warriors of Valhalla, Hofseggia of the Hörgr of Makar, Marshal of the Makarian Horde, Ring Giver , Founder and Sponsor of the Makarian Horde, and General of the Army of Makar
Religion: Norse Pantheon
Unique Items Held: Emerald-Studded Sword of Unlife, Sacred Shield of Protection, Ornate Book of the Dead, Silver Shield, Brilliant Axe of Daemonslaying, Cursed Breastplate, Blessed Blade of Picnu, White Book of Awakening, Faries' Necklace, Band of Ice
Realms Served: Heorot, Barony of Makar
Personal Heraldry
The use of heraldry was not popular among the members of the Neill clan. Lord Ender would, however, prove to be the first of several exceptions when he adopted a simple rune and color scheme for his personal banner. Though his banner would eventually be replaced many times over the years, usually due to battle damages, it almost always remained the same.
To prepare a banner, Lord Ender typically went on a hunt and would return with the pelt of the largest bear that lived in the forest of Makar during that season. It would cleaned and stretched over a frame that was designed to be carried into battle by one of his men. Once placed on the frame it would be colored with red and black pigments, usually in a halved or quartered scheme. Over top the scheme the symbol of war and the war god Tyr would be painted in a brighter color over top. An account from one of the artisans charged with the creation of one of the banners claimed that Lord Ender preferred the symbol to be painted in white because “it stands out from the rest of the color and takes splattered blood nicely.”
In battle, Lord Ender typically flew his personal banner first, followed by banners representing the Neill Clan, the Warriors of Valhalla, the city of Makar, and the Barony of Makar. Only on major military and raiding expeditions was Lord Ender known to use all of his banners on the battlefield. Due to this, most foreigners, and indeed many Vikings, rarely saw anything more than his personal ‘heraldry’. Even still, the use of banners was not always practiced and the only place it could be seen was on the round shields that a few men in his units would bear.
Childhood and Teenage Years
As a small boy, Lord Ender was described by his caretakers as very tenacious and energetic. He spent a great deal of his early years attempting to escape his mother’s attempts to keep him in the village so that he could hunt ‘trolls and sea dragons’ or tag along on his father’s hunting expeditions. He was known for being fond of showing off feats of strength to the other children and getting his younger brother, Weland, in trouble. His innocence would be quickly robbed from him at an early as age, however, when his father died during a hunting expedition when he was only 10 years old. Though no records say of what exact effect this had on Lord Ender, some say he took a more serious approach to life as he felt obligated to fill his father’s place in his family.
As he grew older he became a little more reckless then he was in his during his childhood, but still gave extra attention to his studies. Like most of his clan, he spent a great deal of time practicing the basics of combat, hunting, and fishing. Much of his time not training or tending to his tasks saw him in the forges with his younger brother. He would eventually, however, find the occupation of a blacksmith not nearly as interesting as that of a warrior and as such left most of the forging work to his brother. He was, even as he gained more years, still known to have enjoyed showing off his strength and to tell tales, often far over embellished, about his feats. He claimed at times to have “swam the length of Makar’s coast tenfold times in but a single day”, to have “joined battle with the Lord of Yetis and ripped his arms from his body in a splash of warm gore”, and to have “drank as much mead as Thor himself and more in a single night until Odin placed a hand on my shoulder and declared that I was truly his son.”
While a great deal of his tales can be viewed as nothing more than fiction, one of his greatest deeds as a young man did truly read like legend. During a badger infestation one summer, he was celebrated for killing nearly twenty five of the giant badgers (though he was known to say hundreds) while standing alongside older men who killed only five. After the infestation he was often seen wearing a necklace of badger teeth that had a tooth from each beast he had slain that day strung together.
Adult Life
Lord Ender, eldest son to Erik and Finna O'Neil, was the first of the Neills to emerge from the forest after generations of isolation. His mother wrote that he had “left our home with the long sword he and Weland had forged on his back, his hunting bow his father had once carried, and his beard as long as a man’s should be, hiding the grin on his face.” He made his way to the center of the City of Makar where he declared his allegiance to the leader of the Makarians (some say he did so by tossing the disembodied heads of three bandits he had met on the way to the city before the lord) and soon found himself in the service of the crown. Military records indicate that he recruited a group of archers from the nearby military academy and marched with the rest of the Makarian Army to the fortress city of Icegate. He participated in the Siege of Icegate and was one of the first Vikings to pass through the gates and to stand present during the surrender of the city.
For a time after the siege he served under the brutal dictator Hid Coi. In his service, Lord Ender traveled Atamara and participated in countless raids, quickly finding a taste for the bloodshed. During his travels he is said to have acquired gold from looting nearly every realm in Atamara: Southasland, Norland, Cagilan Empire, Minas Ithil, Tara, Ash Sea Islands. He taste for violence would eventually lead him to gain interest in the work of the ruthless Viking executioner Herr Krankspeiler. He also met his scribe and eventual best friend, Leif, during this time. It was during a final raid in Norland that the Viking leader Hid Coi, co-founder of Horseless jousting, decided for reasons unknown to the realm to retire. The vicious general of the Makarian armies, Edda, quickly seized power and a new moment in Ender’s life would soon begin.
After some months of serving under Dictator Edda, Herr Krankspeiler resigned from his post and left the position of Executioner unattended. Hearing of the opening, Lord Ender quickly sent a scribe to Edda describing his desire to take up the position. Edda agreed and he was quickly appointed Executioner during a hasty ceremony performed on the eve of battle in the southern realms. In time he grew a reputation for being ruthless and cruel to any enemy he found in his dungeons. Using any body that came to his dungeon, he practiced a variety of torture methods, perfecting preexisting methods and developing several of his own. Over time, the people of Icegate (where the main dungeons were located within the Barony) grew used to the steady stream of criminals being led into the dungeons and the faint screams that could be heard on quiet days.
During his first stay as Executioner he grew a terrible reputation for brutality that would come to be considered be many as inhuman. He was well known for the massive executioner style axe that he carried on the battlefield, forged from a massive chunk of iron and crusted from the blood of every man he had ever killed with it. It was said that he never cleaned the blade so that the blood would be a reminder to him of every man he had slain and a warning to every man he faced of their fate.
“They say he has killed hundreds. That he stands a head taller than the tallest man in the world. That his blade his made of bone and blood. They say that he is immortal. An ender of men. I say that the Executioner is merely a man. And men can be killed!”
- Reported to have been said by an Estonite noble mere moments before Ender and a unit of berserkergang entered the camp and slaughtered every man they found.
For his services to the realm he would later be appointed Duke of Makar. While the title would not always be held by him during his life, he would eventually carry the title to his grave.
As time passed Edda lost grip on power and an older Viking named Sordnaz would usurp the throne. While serving in a war with Eston, declared immediately upon the new ruler’s ascension to the throne, Lord Ender was subdued and placed into an Estonian prison. Upon escaping he found that he had been temporarily replaced by a young Makarian named Harod. He saw Harod's enthusiasm, which was all too familiar to him, and decided it was time he resigned. Though he was known to have created several unique torture tools and to have written several volumes on torture technique during his first service as Executioner, no Viking after him ever found any sign of his work. It is generally believed that he brought them with him after resigning and built his own dungeon.
After a five realm invasion of Makar tore the city from Makarian control he was appointed the Duke of Icegate. Due to the chaotic nature of the war a great deal of records from this era was lost, especially on a personal level. What is know is that Lord Ender married a women from the southern regions of Atamara named Valencia (though it is rumored that she was but one of many of Ender's wives). He joined the Guild of the Templars and ordered a guild house to be built in Icegate. Personal entries from his new wife’s journal seemed to indicate that Lord Ender was at first comfortable and pleased with his position. As time passed however, he began to spend most of his days tending to his beloved city, Icegate, and trying his best to get into any battle, fight, brawl, or beating he could. Those close to him began to fear he may be growing even more reckless than he was as a youth. They believed that as he grew old, Ender detested the idea of passing onto to Valhalla peacefully.
Sometime after his realization, it is believed that Lord Ender stepped down from his position as Duke of Icegate in order to found the guild The Warriors of Valhalla. It was meant to embody his dream of dying as a hero in battle in order to ascend to Valhalla and to spread his ideals to the Vikings that lived in the Barony. While the ultimate fate of the guild is in question, the long lasting effects of its establishment can be seen in the formation of the first organized religion in the Barony of Makar.
Makar would eventually, after a battle with Eston alongside their former enemy Norland, be reunited with the Barony and Lord Ender was once again crowned the Duke of Makar. He brutal and bloody reign, once well known during his stay as Executioner, was renewed in Makar and the city was soon brought into line (from a Makarian perspective at least. Foreign accounts of the city tell tale of a wild, primitive place were the ideals of ‘only the strong survive’ was as much law as Lord Ender’s decrees). One of his more prominent actions as Duke of Makar was the founding of the Makarian Horde, a division of the Barony of Makar's army. According to Lord Ender, the Makarian Horde was the truest army in the Barony and had such “immense power that if those who were apart of the Horde were to all swing their axes at once the world would split down the middle.”
Later in his life, during a looting campaign in Minas Ithil, Lord Ender took the wrong road when moving his unit of Mystic Monks out of a region due to enemy misdirection and found himself in the region of Dunstroke alone. He immediately set out on a massive looting campaign that saw several minor villages totally destroyed and the local magister’s house being occupied as his personal manor. After spending the night enjoying the spoils of the previous battle he awoke the next morning to find a small division of the Minas Ithil army waiting for him. Immediately grabbing his axe, he and his men charged into battle and were subsequently slaughtered, all for one man who would die from terrible wounds later and Lord Ender himself. Disappointed that an entire army was unable kill him he began sending peasants with insults to their nobles. One noble was known to throw weapons at him and called him a coward, but it was a young woman who would eventually try to save the honor of her people and challenge Lord Ender to a duel to the death.
Personal records from Lord Ender’s scribe’s private journals indicate the he was so shocked by the girl's bravery that he accepted. They met the next morning and the duel began. Blows were traded one after another and despite Lord Ender's experience his age slowed him and the girl, Sukira, stabbed him in what should have been a fatal blow. The healers carried him off to the tents where he spent days unconscious and dying. When finally they thought he wouldn't last the night they returned the next morning to find him sitting up in his bed complaining loudly for a flagon of mead and "the head of the idiot who put me in this bed." Healed enough by his own judgment, he began packing his gear to return to the Barony, now instilled with a newfound respect for this southern girl and her sharp blade. It is said that she would be one of the few in Lord Ender’s life that was not Makarian that he would ever respect greatly and even consider being an equal.
After the duel Lord Ender continued his life as usual, though a little disappointed that he had not been able to get to Valhalla though death. He oversaw the construction of new breweries in Makar, believed by many to be among the largest in the known world and spent a great deal of time training with Makarian Academy tutors. He participated actively during the war that broke out after the breaking of the Federation by Norland and Eston and was eventually reinstated as Executioner of the realm.
In later years he would continue to serve as Executioner and carrying out sentences and executions whenever he saw fit. He saw firsthand the destruction of Norland and dealt with many of the political repercussions and internal strife that followed. After years serving Sordnaz with blind faith, he grew disillusioned with the husk of a realm the Barony of Makar had become and began planning.
The result of that plan was the formation of the Vikings Realm of Heorot in Makar. Presiding over his new realm as Dread Lord of Heorot, Ender was the happiest he had been in years. After slaying the general of the Barony, Mick the Slasher, in a duel, Heorot was soon beset on all sides by foes who sought to take advantage of the internal strife in the Vikings lands, and he dove headfirst into battle.
Yet despite all the battles to be had, Heorot fell and the Vikings who served it spread out. Furious that the gods would deny him yet another chance to reach Valhalla, he decided to set out from Makar on a longship and sail into the North to seek out the gods and challenge them for his place in Valhalla. As his ship left the harbor a blizzard that had been brewing suddenly worsened and a single bolt of lightning lashed out and struck his ship, utterly destroying it. His two sons who bore witness to the event swore that it must have been Thor who did the deed, taking their father once and for all to the Halls in Asgard to drink, fight, and feast for eternity. Others say it was merely a storm. Either way, the terror of the Frozen North had finally met his end.
