Pholtus

Count of Ffangor, Marshal of the Army of Ossmat, recently honored with the opportunity to serve as Arch Priest.

Pholtus is of the Blood-Phoenix family of north-eastern Atamara; their ancestral estate stands in the chill coastal region of Yule. He came to Beluaterra after spending some time in the Colonies. He had agreed to travel there and serve in the Theocracy of Alowca, where his kinswoman, the heroine Larani, was Haruspex Maximus. The capital of that realm was under great assault, and she died upon the walls. Since it was believed at the time that Alowca was about to fall (it did survive) there was a great exodus to many distant lands. Remembering that Larani had long spoken of her desire to adventure in Beluaterra, crusading against the forces of darkness and evil, Pholtus felt he should do so in her name, as a final tribute to her memory. At times he almost feels her presence beside him.

But once in Beluaterra, he found a new home for himself in Old Grehk, a land very different from the Barbarian Kingdoms of his homeland. And now he cannot imagine leaving this realm that has accepted him, and entrusted him with several important positions, and which he has seen rebuild itself from the ashes and rubble of the 2nd Undead Invasion into a realm of size and majesty. It has occurred to him that there is no more appropriate place for someone with his surname than here, where whole realms can be virtually destroyed, yet rise again like the Phoenix, their strength renewed.

For a time, Pholtus joined a colonization effort to the northeast, in the realm that would come to be known as Thalmarkin. It was started as a joint colony of Old Grehk and Riombara. The barren wilderness had almost no inhabitants left, most having been driven off or slaughtered, and the place was even colder than his childhood memmories of Yule, if that was possible! Every acre of the place seemed to be absolutely infested with monstrous humanoids and undead, who outnumbered the human citizens many times over! Pholtus instructed his scribes to work with a herald he employed to design a Crest for the Colony to use, but his own bias for Old Grehk caused him to favor the link to that "parent" in the design, likely causing its rejection. He remains proud of it, and is considering using it as his own personal coat-of-arms. When he got a clearer idea of what Thalmarkin was looking for, he suggested several alternatives, and in the final voting they chose the bear-head design seen today. Eventually, with the Colony established, and called by events in Old Grehk, he returned to the land he sees as "home".