Cormir's Background
Cormir had always dreamed of being a warrior like his father, General Fabian De’Glast, a well liked and respected military man who had sadly died whilst away on campaign with the Iron Legion when Fabian was only 15. His mother, somewhat distraught by her husband’s untimely demise immediately tried to turn Cormir away from anything to do with fighting, but this only made the young lad more determined, and when he turned 16, he left his comfortable home in search of fame and fortune.
Following in his father’s footsteps, he joined the Iron Legion, his father’s name and his fast developing physical prowess opening doors and getting him through the recruitment process, with promises of a fast-track to a junior officer position.
Settling into the training camp based in the hills just south east of Pacedon, Cormir quickly discovered the reality of becoming a soldier - lots of repetitious boring activities and being tired almost all the time from the constant marching and weapons training. With virtually no time away from the camp, Cormir saw little of his mother, who, after barely one year he heard was due to marry a new man. The pair came, with his younger sister in tow, to tell him the news and Cormir took an instant dislike to the man - a “slimy” banker named Bernard Clayton.
The Company was organised into 4 Battalions, with three usually deployed somewhere at any point in time, the fourth returning to the camp for training and down time. If was from these returning “veterans” that Cormir got to hear the stories of the various campaigns that the Company was employed in. Occasionally the Company was hired by the government to help the actual military in some endeavour, but for the most part, it was travelling east, beyond the eastern border of Pacedon, past the Great Wall and being hired by the various independent small kingdoms / city states that always seemed in a constant state of crisis - either battling between themselves, or fending off external threats coming out of the mountains. The most recent had included an orc “horde” that had boiled out of the mountains with ogres, worgs and even some trolls. Cormir found himself fascinated by these stories where the troops battled against “monsters” and soaked up the knowledge like a dry sponge.
During his training, he developed a close friendship with several of his fellow recruits, a lad of a similar age named Olson, a half-eleven girl named Aleesa whose lithe physique belied her ability to regularly bruise her male compatriots with the training swords, as well as a likeable veteran and armourer named Orich Stronghammer, who was getting close to retirement.
After a couple of years, having just turned 18, Cormir finally saw his first real combat action. Hired by the minor Kingdom of Umbya, the royal family needed some troops to help quell a small rebellion. Passing through a closely guarded portal that allowed the company to travel instantaneously as far as the Great Wall, the Brigade then marched for a month with a pack train to reach the area where they were needed. One night, shortly before they were due to arrive, their nightly camp was attacked by a stealthy force. Cormir, on guard duty at the time, was the one to raise the alarm and found himself face to face with someone trying to kill him for the first time. The long hours of training kicked in and he managed to dispatch his opponent but not before he picked up a minor wound. Later, after the battle, he discovered that magical healing was not something generally provided for minor wounds. The camp cleric Doran, a dwarven cleric of Brunsk - the dwarven god of battle - explained as he bandaged Cormir’s wound how they would triage the wounded and only use magical healing on the most serious where time and rest wouldn’t do the job.
Over the next six months, Cormir saw further action on that particular campaign - most of it relatively low key - the odd skirmish here and there - but during that time, he gained a battlefield promotion to squad leader and saw his recruit friend Olson killed. Aleesa seemed to fall for another half-elven from a different squad, and Cormir’s promotion seemed to put a bit of a barrier between him and his other recruitment friends. Suddenly, he felt somewhat lonely.
Returning to Pacedon, he was pushed into officer training, taking a new rank as a junior lieutenant, but began to feel more and more isolated and lonely. His new rank gave him access to the wider picture, and he began to see how the decisions of where the Iron Legion was deployed were not always the most just or honourable. After two more deployments, Cormir got to see his old mentor Orich Stronghammer retire, relocating to the Colonial Lands where he had some distant family. The two kept in touch by occasional letter and Cormir discovered he had made a life for himself there and wrote glowing recommendations about the excitement of living in a frontier village called Tomar's Crossing, high up in the Luna Valley near the edge of a glacier.
In the meantime, Cormir’s life ground on in the Iron Legion, though the increase in rank kept him further from any real action and two years later, he found himself on a small scale deployment in Pacedon itself, commanding a squad of just 10 men (that a more senior officer named Captain Malc Hayden he chosen half of) acting as close protection for a high level negotiation between the heads of two trade organisations - the Silver Syndicate and the Jade Group
The Silver Syndicate is a Pacedon based prestigious syndicate that deals in rare and valuable commodities, such as precious gems and magical artifacts (but secretly has links to the underworld to manipulate its markets). It’s head is a man named Ernest Johanus.
The Jade Group is another powerful trade organisation, led by a man named Olly Stanchun.
At a critical point in the negotiations however, Ernest Johanus made some sort of signal, and there was a synchronised sound of five blades being drawn. Cormir's instincts kicked in and he immediately also drew his sword, ready to defend himself and the others. But he was taken aback as five of the soldiers he was commanding suddenly turned against him and his comrades. It was chaos as the traitors attacked their former allies, Cormir struggling to fend them off while trying to understand what was going on.
As his loyal companions died around him, surprised by the sudden betrayal, Cormir realised that the five soldiers who had turned were the five selected by Captain Malc Hayden - this must have been planned at higher levels! As he continued to defend himself from the traitor battling him, in the corner of his eye, he spotted Ernest Johanus personally slash the throat of Olly Stanchun, then put the mark of a black hand on Olly’s face, further confirming his suspicions that this is not a simple act of treachery, but something much more sinister.
Realizing he needs to get out of there alive, Cormir quickly assessed his options. Seeing a window nearby he made a split-second decision to jump out of it, glass shattering as he crashed through it landing hard on the ground outside. As he scrambled to his feet, he heard the sound of alarms ringing out and the shouts of the traitors who were now hot on his trail, yelling that he was an assassin!
He took off at a sprint, weaving through the crowded streets of Pacedon, with the sounds of his pursuers growing louder behind him. Cormir ducked into alleys, jumped over fences, and dodged carts and pedestrians as he tried to shake off his pursuers.
It's a close call as he barely managed to evade capture, but eventually he found a place to hide and catch his breath. Cormir realised that he couldn’t stay in Pacedon - the traitors AND the Pacifiers would no doubt be looking for him everywhere.
With no other options left, Cormir decides to leave the city. Making his way to the docks, he eventually sneaks aboard a ship hiding in the hold until the ship set sail. Later, once out at sea, he discovered that the ship was destined for the Colonial Lands. The journey would take a month. The captain was not pleased to find a stowaway on board, but wasn’t going to turn around, and got Cormir working to help pay his passage. During his time aboard, a plan formulated in Cormir’s mind, he would head inland once they reached the Colonial Lands and seek out his old friend Orich Stronghammer,. Cormir met three other passengers. One, named Anders, was a noble that Cormir finally recognised from his childhood - their parents had moved in the same circles. The other two, Drex and Morthos, were an unusual pair, an Aasimar and a Tiefling. All four of the group seemed to be fleeing something in Pacedon. They had no plans as such, and offered to join him on the journey to Tomar's Crossing.