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Guntrem Crowelee
Guntrem1
(Art by Rhosmera)

Occupation

Pirate (formerly)
mercenary (formerly)
knight
rebel

Class

Krieger

Date of Birth

ca. 5 B.P.

Affiliations

Royal Army(formerly)
Silver Fist

Status

Alive

Sir Guntrem Crowelee is a knight from Falomyr, born a common bastard in the lower slums, or leigh, of Crowe's Nest. Not known as an eloquent man nor one much taken with ambitions of leadership, he nonetheless has proven effective at motivating common militia and soldiery into performing acts they otherwise would not. Steeped in bloody Falomyran myth from a very young age he has also become a savage and crazed single combatant, inviting comparisons to the berserkers of old.

History[]

As a child in Crowe's Nest Guntrem was taller and stronger than the rest, reinforcing his desperate mother's conviction that he had the blood of great Falomyran lords in him. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, he was as violent and devious as many of his fellow youths, with a reputation for whipping himself into a bloody frenzy whenever his outer calm was disturbed. This reputation thrust him into leadership of a small gang by young adulthood.

Somehow Guntrem left his small kingdom behind as a thrall of the pirates who had made Crowe's Nest their home since the fall of Edwin Croweleigh in Hadrian's War. The years passed as they would for any youth co-opted by pirates, bloody and instilling in the boy a lack of regard for all human life save that which fought at his side. His later mercenary life, coming after he won his freedom and tired of the perils of piracy, would match well his detached personality.

Guntrem survived the maelstrom of the Third War only to find himself in the land of his ancestral enemies, Blackmarsh. In an unlikely twist he had come to serve as a dedicated footsoldier under House Albrecht and in this capacity served until the Dread Rebellion. It was in the final battles around Dreadholme that Guntrem was knighted for his skill and gallantry in leading the remaining local levies to keep pace with the Royal Army's veterans.

Direpoint[]

Going his own way for most of the following year, Guntrem once more found himself under the banner of the Royal Army during the Containment of the Forsaken. It was here that he revived his reputation and once more restarted the bloodthirsty arts of his ancestors, throwing himself into the slaughter at Diregate.

Myrwood[]

Within half a year Guntrem had become content with finding work as a knight of the Royal Army, though that was to change with the War of the Light. It was here that Guntrem found himself a command, and therefore more attention from noble commanders he deemed his lesser in battle.

Deployed to the Eastern Front, Guntrem was a minor captain under Paul Gregory Taylor Beauregard. It was under this lord's command that Guntrem's loyalties were severely tested, especially during the Second Siege of Tulloch. He paid dearly for disobeying a direct command to protect the Count, and in the end was given a much less prestigious position on the frontline, where he would battle his own grievous injuries.

The Battle of the Broken Tower was where Guntrem finally broke. Though he eventually decided to retreat, Beauregard's initial, seemingly suicidal orders prompted Guntrem to charge his militia directly into the firing line--but to surrender, not to fight. After disbanding his command he threw down his sword at the feet of the Argent riflemen. Not long after his captivity, Sir Guntrem became a knight of the Argent Crusade.

The Dregs[]

It was not long after that Guntrem joined the breakaway faction led by the very woman who recruited him, Harriet Clayton, dubbed the Silver Fist. Over time and through the reckless actions of his lord he had grown to accept the radical's words of liberation and revolution, though his concern was more for those with ability to defend themselves doing so without sacrificing their protection to the nobility. Whereas Harriet moved men and women to reject the Crown in their hearts, Guntrem saw their hands armed and trained for the bloody task of seizing their rights.

At some point Guntrem was found in the Dregs, though he did not stay there long. He has taken to travelling up and down the Ebontide, visiting the Grave and his old hometown, Crowe's Nest.

Rebellion in the Grave[]

A confrontation between the Queen's Champions and a mercenary company known as the Shield Bastards set off a fire of discontent in the Grave soon afterword, and it was Guntrem who took it upon himself to start the inevitable war against the Crown and the system of nobility that supported it. The Grave, with a duke widely believed to have abandoned his people, was an easy mark to stir into open rebellion.

Leading the rebellion to victory has, however, proven more difficult. With some of the Crown's most elite forces deployed to the province the Grave's peasant revolt is in full rout, taking to the wild hills for protection. It is here that Guntrem hopes to finally mold his peasants into a workable fighting force.

Personality[]

Guntrem lacks all pretense that might come with his knightly title. Merely concerned with being the strongest, and inviting as little trouble to himself as possible, he took his increase in status as it came but never desired power more than an animal would desire as much surplus as it needed to survive the winter. He took to his battlefield prowess as an artform, willfully distancing himself from the emotions of war to delight in his ability to kill.

Lately he has undergone a change, the most likely culprit being the influence of Clayton and the Silver Fist. Though he is still hardly an altruist, his disgust at seeing normal, weak people being thrust into war has turned from a mere aesthetic disagreement to a decidedly moral one. Only by tearing down the social order, he thinks, can a less mindlessly cruel world be built in its place.

Though recently taken to a moral cause Guntrem is not a forgiving man, and does not think of human life as fetching a high value. He takes his own hypocrisy with little more than a sardonic inward amusement, though time will tell if this begins to truly trouble him.

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