Steggar the Mirthless in "The Spire of the Ubermages"

Steggar was born to Urion the Valiant and his wife, Velma the Fastidious, in the Village of the Elders in the third century of the Age of Hytophrexes, beneath a blood moon as the baying of the carrion hounds echoed mournfully across the Betur Plains, which everybody agreed was a mouthful to print on the birth announcement, but Velma, as her nickname would suggest, was insistent that every little detail be just so. Steggar was bathed in yak urine as per the tradition that nobody was certain to the origin of, and Urion and Velma were showered with many gifts of yak meat, yak hide, and wind-chimes made of the bones of yaks. The yak-poor were allowed to forego gift-giving provided they had a daughter of "taking" age who was willing to offer herself hound-style to the village chieftain. Most civic disputes were solved in this way. The relative merits and faults of the system are open to debate, but it was the only system they had, and the chieftain wasn't about to change things any time soon.

Steggar's childhood was a blur of violence, circumcision and ritual yak-blood drinking and is best not dwelled upon. Upon the reaching of adulthood, Steggar decided that he cared not for anything and took the nickame "the Careless", a decision he didn't think through very well. "Watch your feet, Steggar," the other warriors in the village would giggle. "Steady with that pile of boulders now, Steggar," the elders would cackle through their beards. "Are you sure that hut's properly constructed?" the youngsters would wonder. "I don't think you took the proper care in thatching that roof."

"Okay!" Steggar roared after a few short weeks of this ribbing. "I get it!"

"You have no sense of humor, Steggar," the village chieftain said, and he quickly re-dubbed the younger man Steggar the Mirthless. Steggar, happy to be shed of his hastily-chosen nickname, threw himself into the role, and for the next 13 years was never seen to bare his teeth for any reason but hunger or battle.

Then a few years of other events happened of no consequence, leading us to the situation with which this story is concerned.

To Be Continued