Thundersteps

Within the walls of Abysola, the capital city of Belyos and home to the necromancers of the Legion, a boy asks his nursemaid for a bedtime story. She asks him what story he would like to hear, and, to her surprise, the boy asks for a new one, “a scary story,” he says. The woman finds it amusing and searches her mind for something to satisfy the child of her masters. At first, she has some trouble thinking of something that can frighten a boy who is so used to life, death, and everything in between. His parents were themselves masters of the Anush-Vah and had shown the boy their gruesome power. The nursemaid, a lowborn girl who came with her family from the north at a much younger age, didn’t think she knew anything that could match the boy’s expectations… Then she remembered it, a tale she had heard on the golden road, told to the children of the caravan by a red shaman. The old crone, captured alive during an attempted raid, looked like a monster herself, with her sharp fangs and her sickly skin, but the stories she delightedly told the children were much worse. They were stories of a monster so great and powerful that it could scarcely be imagined. The nursemaid thought to herself this would be perfect. A monster more fearsome than anything the Legion has to offer, more resilient than the walls of Astaris, and more powerful than the greatest spell the mages of Quinvala could manifest. The only reason the woman could sleep at all, knowing all of this, was that she found safety in the knowledge that the monster was simply too terrible to be real. Many are those on the continent who sleep soundly on the same blissful ignorance.

Stories abound about this monster who roams the lands of Paxos, the territory of the clans of the Primal Blood, but it would be some time before people realized the various accounts were all related to the same creature. Even though encounters with the creature tend to end in gruesome deaths for most, there always seems to be at least one survivor to tell the story, and its reign has gone on for so many years that those tales have coalesced into legend. Had the powers that be paid closer attention to these legends, they would have noticed much earlier how the blood clans had found themselves something of a new deity. Had they cared for the beliefs of a people they consider lesser, they would have realized how captives spoke of this entity with the reverence they reserve only for the Everlasting, or for the Daemons, who were their enemies. They would have noticed a new name upon the lips of the “savages” they slayed, a name invoked as a final death curse. Perhaps they would have noticed that this name was not the name of an ancestral spirit but that of a very real creature, one of flesh, blood, bone, and fury. The name was Thundersteps, and the powers that be would know it soon enough.

When the Order lost contact with one of its many expeditionary forces it sent scouts to gather information and produce a report. The expedition was part of a larger effort to map out the Paxos region and find safe passage to the Malediction. It was not uncommon for such an expedition to suffer great losses due to attacks by both man and beasts, but the explorers were all highly trained, experienced, and well-supplied soldiers, so none of them returning at all was… Troubling. The scouts followed the trail of the expedition and eventually found the remains of a battlefield. They found some of the destroyed equipment that bore the insignia of the expeditionary forces but not their countryman or even their remains. The landscape itself was completely destroyed, and the scouts thought that a great monster, or perhaps a natural disaster had caught them off guard, but the lack of remains and the fact most of the equipment was gone pointed to a sinister will behind these acts. 

The scouts continued tracking through Paxos, until one night they came upon a hunting party. They were able to survive the battle and capture one of the orcs. When they interrogated him, the orc smiled and told them he would show them the answer to their questions if they killed him by the blade, erasing the shame of capture. When they agreed, the orc guided them to the outskirts of a great clearing, where the scouts saw the greatest gathering of the blood clans they had ever heard of. Not even the great hosts that assaulted the Walls of Astaris from time to time had this many warriors. The scouts were already filled with a sense of dread, but the orc smiled at them and told them to wait. As night fell, the camp came to life with preparations for a great feast and ceremony, and the scouts watched in horror as the bodies of their compatriots were dragged to an altar as an offering. It was a strange sight, as clans who were known to have been enemies before, drank together in merriment now. Whatever force had pulled these people together needed to be reported back to the Order immediately. When the moon reached its apex in the sky, the sound of the drums stopped, and several shamans joined at the elevated altar. Then the shamans, the Takra of Spirit of many different clans, screamed together in a strange language. They chanted, and danced, and manifested magic from the earth, wind, and fire. As they did this, the people responded to the chant, and their voices together were like the sound of thunder, as if they were calling out the storm. After some time, the storm answered.

It took a moment for the scouts to notice, but though the sky was clear, they could hear thunder, real thunder echoing around them. As the people chanted, the thunder roared in the same rhythm, and the scouts did not know if the chant guided the thunder or vice versa. The chant accelerated and so did the roar, getting faster, more consistent in its rhythm, louder… So much louder… The forest line beyond the clearing exploded, with trees being uprooted and the ground shaking! The scouts watched in horror as the people’s chant erupted into the name of the large creature that had emerged at the place of the explosion. “THUNDERSTEPS!! THUNDERSTEPS!! THUNDERSTEPS!!”. The orc who had guided them there delighted himself with the absolute terror he witnessed in the faces of the scouts. Although the scouts would return to Astaris and give back the full account of events, many would not heed this warning, and the same terror that struck them that night, hundreds of years ago would strike all those who meet Thundersteps in battle for the first time. A similar mistake would be made by both the Conclave and the Legion, at once too distant from the issue and unaware of its scope. They would all pay dearly for it as the centuries rolled by and encounters with Thundersteps became more frequent.

To this day not much is known about Thundersteps’ origin, and the common folk think of him as a tall tale, a scary story to tell their children. Beyond witness accounts, over the years the continent has heard of the giant through the battle cries of his followers and the words of captured shamans. Those who have seen him describe gray skin as tough as the hide of any beast, pulled taut over a mass of muscles strong enough to uproot trees and crush a man inside his armor. Besides his enormous size, the most unique features of Thundersteps are his great tusks, marking him as more beast than man, and the single blood-red gem bound to the center of the creature’s face. Not many who have come close enough to gaze upon that gem have lived to tell about it, but those who do say that they could feel Thundersteps looking at them through it. Markedly, the ones who did survive were scribes, pages, or otherwise non-combatants who accompanied the warriors who faced Thundersteps. Whatever the creature was looking for, it did not find in these people. Whatever Thundersteps is, there are no records of anything like him in any stories or legends, even the few that survived the Fall. Legend has it that Thundersteps appeared from the Malediction, coalescing from the chaos as an answer to the plights of the Primal Blood. This origin may explain why besides his physical prowess, Thundersteps exhibits an instinctive control of the forces of magic, in the same way that some warriors of the Primal Blood can, but his power is immense, and the effects he can manifest are ground-shattering. When there is battle to be had, the giant is unstoppable, forging through with reckless abandon, and his fury and eagerness to fight seem to spread to those that follow him, so they will strike harder, faster, and more ferociously than they could otherwise.

It is no wonder his name is spoken of with such reverence, for many of the Takra of Spirit see Thundersteps as the ultimate leader. For the people who follow the Balance of the Blade, one who cannot be defeated cannot be wrong, so Thundersteps is seen as the return of Octna, not the reincarnation of his soul, but of his will. The giant rarely speaks to make his will known to the people, and when it does it’s in a strange language that only the Council of Shamans known as the Voice of Thunder can decipher. They translate not only his meager words but also his actions, for his deeds are many and may seem confusing to those unlearned on the ways of the blood pact. As the embodiment of Octna’s will, they expect that he will eventually guide them to their lost home, somewhere north, beyond the lands of Dynas, and if he has not done so yet, it’s for his own inscrutable reasons. Unfortunately, not all members of the Primal Blood share in this hope. Despite the best proselytizing efforts of the Voice of Thunder, most of the clans have yet to join them in a great host. Despite Thundersteps’ clear power, the giant has remained among the Primal Blood for centuries, and they are no closer to finding their home now than when he appeared. The clans are restless people, and whoever is to lead them must not only be the strongest there is but must also guide them, as Octna did. Thundersteps proclivity to follow only his unknowable whims does him no favors in that regard, but as the Ebbing of the Malediction starts, the winds shift and Thundersteps makes his will heard.

The other factions keep their scouts and spies as close to his encampments as possible, for Thundersteps is more a force of nature than a living being, and one needs to keep a close eye on such things. They were all that to see when Thundersteps finally addressed his followers directly. He spoke no words they could understand, but he stood and roared and all watched him in awe. Even at a distance, the foreign observers could feel the will of the giant in the air like an oppressive force, pushing them south and east. The creature guided his people to the Edge of the Malediction, which seemed like madness even to his most devout followers. When the first of them followed Thundersteps into the cursed lands, it was the first time anyone realized the effects of the Malediction had receded. The Voice of Thunder took this as a great sign and spread the word to the other clans.

The Primal Blood now has in Thundersteps their perfect leader. He had always been too strong to lose, but now he is also the tip of the spear, punching through the storm of chaos toward something. What goal he has is anyone’s guess, but what all of Selejia has realized is that whatever it is, it has spurred the most numerous faction on the continent into action. As Thundersteps braves the cursed lands, the other factions have made their preparations, each with their own intentions but keenly aware that they should step carefully, because if they find themselves on the path of the one-eyed giant of Paxos, they may be crushed underfoot.