Synopsis
The son of a fallen barbarian tribal lord.
Description
Title
Ashmeister
Age
Twenty-two
Gender
Male
Height
7'1¾"
Weight
257lbs
Body Type
Muscular, tall, elongated
Affiliation
Barbarian
Notable features
Short black hair and gray eyes, dimpled chin, broad shoulders, cross-shaped birthmark on the nape of his neck, black marking covering the entire left arm.
Personality
Brave and stoic but biting and unforgiving, Ascheriit is a cruel caricature of his father whom's death he was forced to witness firsthand when the meteor struck. This and the murder of his mother, sister and betrothed at the hands of knights in a night raid led him to hate knights and nightspawn equally, treating both like monsters and showing them the same amount of mercy - or lack thereof. Raised a barbarian, Ascheriit hits first and asks questions later, if at all, something which has earned him the respect of his fellow barbarians in the past. He is unwilling to work with knights and would rather go into battle alone than with undesirable comrades. He can be persuaded to see the light in a temporary alliance, but has made it clear that he would rather sever his own wielding hand then to openly befriend a Knight. Though the clan is no longer existent, he continues to show pride in the name of the Bestreiken and continues to go by their customs.
Equipment / Abilities
Equipment
Armor:
Light black iron breast plate, matching gauntlets, greaves and fauld. black leather trousers and undershirt.
Weapons:
Vernichtung - an 80in., 15lbs. sword with a 5in. thick blade. Though it was originally wielded by his father, Ascheriit had it reforged in molten meteorite, relishing in the idea of killing nightspawns with the very thing that brought them on this earth. Its pommel is in the shape of a fang, its handle is a black leather helix and the blade has a black hue to it. The cross-guard is V-shaped and three garnets of decreasing size ornate the blade on the length of the forte, each two inches apart from the other with the biggest two inches apart from the guard. Despite its astonishing size, Vernichtung is more of a memento then a primary weapon.
Blatt & Schneider - a pair of orichalcum swords which were forged at the same time as Vernichtung was reforged. Unlike the massive weapon, they are 35in. in length, 5lbs. in weight and only 2.2in. thick. Like the Vernichtung, "the destroyer", they are double-edged and are ornated by three garnets. In appearance, they are simply single-handed versions of Vernichtung, virtually indistinguishable from one another. Unlike the showy name of their gigantic counterpart, the two blades have more modest names, respectively "sword" and "blade".
Other:
Black fur mantle (gift from his betrothed), Garnet pendant on a silver chain (memento of his sister), Onyx clad silver wristband (from mother), a blackened scalemail sleeve over his burnt arm.
Abilities
Natural:
Berserker - Being a member of the Bestreiken clan, a direct descendant of the Berserkers, Ascheriit is able to surmount and even completely disregard the gravest pains and injuries, allowing him to fight to his best until comatose or dead. Thanks to this, he is able to withstand significantly more damage than the average human being.
Erhaltung - Preservation. Being the sole remaining member of his clan, Ascheriit is able to fend for himself, be it in battle or in survival. Cooking, hunting and many other skills have become part of his every day life.
Gewalt - Might. Ascheriit is a naturally powerful man with innate talent as a swordsman and he has been honing these gifts from his earliest days. As such, he is a powerful and robust warrior. The fact that he can wield a monstrous weapon like the Vernichtung speaks for itself. However, such monstrous physical training has left him with a muscle-bound and unusually large built unsuitable for stealth. However, the ability to single handedly lift an armored man from the ground tends to make this minor handicap worthwhile.
Biegsamkeit - Realizing that his muscular mass would come to be an hindrance in battle, Ascheriit has trained in such a way as to retain optimum flexibility and agility. As such, he remains fast and flexible while retaining his formidable strength, but is not as much so as a leaner person would be with the same amount of flexibility training.
Meteor-based:
Natchjäger - For reasons unknown, surviving the impact of the meteor made Ascheriit optimally competent at night. Thanks to this, his senses and strengths are unhindered and even slightly optimized by darkness. However, this comes at a cost, as his eyes are more sensitive to light than the average person's to the point where he cannot look directly at bright light, risking temporary blindness.
Natchstartzer - Again a memento of the asteroid, Ascheriit's swords "drink" the blood of nightspawns, stocking it within the decorative garnets for powered strikes. Each charge (1, 2, 3 garnets) makes the blows progressively stronger and emanates a larger dark aura similar to a blade of embers or ashes. The garnets darken with each charge, becoming blacker than even charcoal. The blood must be that of a nightspawn for this to function, human or animal blood having no effect.
Laichenarm - His "burnt" left arm actually shares features of the nightspawn. It is significantly stronger and faster than a typical arm, allowing him to cave in skulls bare-handed if the situation calls for it. Heat seems to emanate from this arm.
History
Ascheriit was born the son of a barbarian Tribe lord, that of the Bestreiken tribe. His mother was the daughter of the tribe shaman. Either portion of his parentage would lead to believe Ascheriit would have a bright future. First born of the family, he was destined to take his father's place some day and - having for sole sibling a sister - no signs of any change to this birthright were in sight. He was trained with a sword from the day he could stand and sparred with the other boys of the clan since he could comfortably wield a zweihander. He was promised to the daughter of another tribe lord at the age of sixteen and was intent on marrying her. Both for love and political reasons, a rare sight among arranged marriages. But this faith would not be his as a raid of knights took from him his only younger sister, his mother and his betrothed. From that day forward, he swore a pure hatred to the knights and refused any form of allegiance to them or mercy towards them.
Ascheriit was a cruel right hand man to his aging and more benevolent father, though he also shared all of his good traits. He quickly became battle hardened and even from such an early age he took to the battlefield on his own, returning with war trophies and stories aplenty. Unfortunately, those were not ofttimes shared as such trivialities stood in the way of Ascheriit's conquest. Like his reputation, his kill count increased and with death came glory in the barbarian ranks, a fact which was particularly true among the men of the Bestreiken tribe.
A particularly explicit tale depicted the lone combat of Ascheriit against a full legion of knights, during which he would have beheaded the leader within the first ten seconds of the battle and annihilated the rest of his now disorganized foes without any aid. This fortified his position as upcoming leader of the Bestreiken and earned him respect among the other barbarian tribes, though the number of opponents was much less than most would come to tell of the tale, it remains nevertheless a truthful account of the young warrior's past.
One day, in the middle of a heated battle, the dreaded meteor fell in the midst of the battlefield. Frightened, his horse doubled over and fell on top of him, only to be incinerated shortly thereafter. The corpse of the animal served as a shield and a hollow in its skin would become a pocket of air through which Ascheriit could breath with relative ease, surviving the cloud of ash that erected from the event. When he finally moved the beast and freed himself, the remains of his clan - his father included - where nowhere to be seen.
Joining a group of fellow barbarians despite his pride, the young man thought he was returning to battle with Knights but was met with the creatures of the knight. Ill-prepared for such foes, he barely managed to kill one before realizing the horrible status of his left arm. Aware of the difficulty of his situation, he fleed with the remnants of the massacred tribe and ran past his former enemies; the knights.
His group would discover the monsters' fear of fire, but remembering the raids on his camp led by the knights, he refused to use the nightspawn's weakness to his advantage, unwilling to lower himself to the level of a knight who would cowardly attack women and children in the dead of the night while the men are away on the hunt. While he was pronounced unofficial leader of the barbarians due to his valiant efforts, very few of the tribe lords actually recognize him as such and he makes little effort to uphold his "rule". Now, he fights the nightspawn alone and slays any knight unlucky enough to cross his path.
Extra
Though now ambidextrous, he was originally left-handed.
His left arm was burnt in a bizarre way during the asteroid crash and is now permanently blackened, though no actual burns appear to mark his flesh.
The Bestreiken (roughly translating to "black ones") were named such due to their use of black iron, a normally unforgeable metal, in the making of their armors and weapons.
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