Hanv

As a dark knight in the Belurocian military, Hanv's first assignment was with a company that used goblin auxiliaries as scouts and skirmishers. Most officers saw goblins as expendable, but Hanv listened to their reports, used their intelligence, and didn't waste their lives. His operations succeeded because of it.

He rose through the ranks, earning underlord through his successes. The same goblins served with him campaign after campaign. They knew him, trusted him, and operated well together.

But the Belurocian Empire demanded cruelty. Orders were ruthless. Pillage and burn any settlements that resisted the empire’s will. Torture prisoners. Execute dissidents. Hanv was not a cruel man, but he saw what happened to those who refused to obey. It was very public and very bloody.

When the Conclave Arcana offered Hanv a role as commander under Craniax the Quick, he saw a way out for himself and his goblins. Freedom from an empire built on darkness and death.

Hanv accepted. He deserted, and his goblins followed.

In the Fenmoor Basin, Hanv commanded the living forces while Craniax commanded the dead. They searched ruins, eliminated resistance, and secured sites where the conclave's surveyors searched for Praetoria's secret.

Then came the ambush. The four Nimbledook gnomes, Loving the Moo and the Canicush lupi, and the Belurocian Darkguard sent to end the underlord who'd turned his back on the empire.

The ground collapsed beneath the conclave's forces, burying undead and living alike. Spells of fire and death slammed into them from all sides as the Darkguard charged, cutting through their ranks with brutal efficiency.

Craniax saw the trap closing. He needed a distraction. He turned and drove his staff into Hanv's ankle. The bone snapped. Hanv cried out and staggered.

"Better you than me," Craniax said and fled into the fog.

Without their master, the remaining undead either collapsed or stood vacant-eyed and unmoving, and the ambushers turned on the living.

Hanv gritted his teeth, hefted his axe, and braced himself as they came at him. But with his ankle shattered, he was quickly overwhelmed. He collapsed in the muck, axe slipping from his grip as everything went dark.

They left his body to rot.

His surviving goblins found him the next day. They carried him to Ahna-Chei, city of the Dark Eternals, and begged the death speakers for help. In exchange, they offered the only thing they had: service.

The death speakers accepted. They carried Hanv into the catacombs. They chanted. He woke cold, his heart silent.

They taught him necromancy, and when Hanv could raise and hold a dozen corpses without strain, the death speakers released him to fulfill his end of the bargain: join the war against the conclave.

That suited him fine. Craniax was still out there.