originally published in Wyrms Footnotes #13
Human male, Rune Lord of the Pavis Sun Dome Temple
This write-up made shortly before that fateful journey into the Rubble in the summer of 1612.
Rurik’s father was an innkeeper who followed the Sartar colonials in the fruitless immigration to Pavis. As Rurik grew up he became totally enraptured by the storiues of the adventurers who frequented his father’s tavern. In particular, he admired the shining armor and deadly spears of the Yelmalio initiates who would come by after serving guard duty.
Rurik ran with the street gangs which are rife throughout New Pavis, a holdover from the bad old days when humans had to share the Rubble with the trolls. He made the transition from street-tough to adventurer (and incidentally, was disinherited by his father) when he killed the bully Herkan Quicksword in Gimpy’s Tavern.
Despite his later accomplishments, Rurik could never shake his sproblem with trolls. It wqas as if the gods had set him up to be caught, pounded on, and, alas, finally slain by them. His long-standing hatred for the Darkness Men probably had much to do with his ill luck.
When faced by the Giant of the Garden once, Rurik killed him with a single arrow. When faced by a priestess of Kyger Litor, in contrast, Rurik led his friends into an ambush by trolls hidden by invisibility. Half of the party was slaughtered and the other half were beggared by the ransom that the trolls demanded.
Finally, on a quest to regain Power lost in a previous call for Divine Intervention, deep in the Pavis ruin known as the Devil’s Playground, Rurik and long-time rival Jonathan Trollsbane led the party into another ambush, this time of well-prepared trollkin. [This was in the summer of 1612.] One of the enemy unleashed a shade that drove Rurik’s spirit from his body. Yelmalio heard his prayers and sent it back. Before he could rise, a lucky trollkin had plunged a spear into his leg. The shock was too much, and Rurik died again. This time, though, he didn’t have the Power to plead to Yelmalio again. Some priests think that Rurik now fights at the side of his god. Stories of a trader named Biturian Varosh, though, state that Rurik walks once again among the living, but how much trust can you hold in the word of a Goldentongue?
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- Personalities of Glorantha – Cragspider the Firewitch (1999)
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