“This vale was our home once. Lightning scoured these rolling plains as the thunder of our footfalls cracked the sky above, ozone stinging our nostrils as we hunted stegadon, theriumoth, and stardrake. Now not even the beasts remain, for the blight of the so-called God-King stains these lands. The Thunderscorn, the Rovskyr, and all the other wild and beautiful things were driven from this place, and for what? A crumbling waste of a city governed by failing bureaucrats who claim leadership not through strength or deed, but by blood? No more, I say! Our homeland shall once again feel the strength of our thunderous tread. We shall scour these lands, tear down this Eklysium stone-by-stone until nothing remains but piled corpses and faded memory!”
- Grakko Thunderhide upon the eve of war
The warriors of the March of Thunder do not hold to grand aspirations of nationhood or dreams of empire. Their one and only goal is simple, yet profound: the reclamation and restoration of their ancestral homelands from the blight of the God-King’s works. Their long march home began long, long ago with but a small band of Thunderscorn Dragon-Ogors led by the Shaggoth Grakko Thunderhide, picking up a retinue of followers and sympathisers as they went until now, as they finally approach their destination, they resemble something more like an army. Nobody within the March would describe themselves as such, however. To them, those who choose to stand by their side, who risk their very lives for what they know to be right, are comrade and family both. Any true adherent to the tenets of the March of Thunder would lay down their life for even the lowliest of their compatriots. This almost religious zeal for community and comradeship is matched only by the violent retribution reserved for those who betray their trust or stand in the way of their goals. Though many of their number are Thunderscorn, the March is welcoming of any who follow its ideals. Grots, Humans, Aelves, Duardin, Rovskyr and many others beside make up a portion of their ranks.
Their single-minded and honest goals, violent and destructive though they might be from the perspective of those living within the walls of Eklysium, continue to draw more and more of the drifters and displaced that roam the Azyrite hinterlands to the March’s banner. Even a growing dissent within the city itself is beginning to whisper Grakko’s name, mythologising her as a liberator, someone strong enough to return the vale to a glory long passed out of mortal memory, to a simpler time where community and kinship were paramount and the poverty and starvation rife within the underclasses of the troubled metropolis were unheard of. Whether this imagined utopia can ever truly come to pass, however, is yet to be seen. All that is certain is that many a great and bloody deed will be committed in its name before the end.
Grakko Thunderhide
Grakko Thunderhide never sought to be a leader. Her march home has been a lifetime in the making, starting when she was but a whelp during the founding of Eklysium and the scouring of the vale. She watched her home burn and her people slaughtered in the name of an order that she has never seen. In her long years she has borne witness to atrocity after atrocity, seen too many wild places burn and entire populations purged for fear of some perceived taint. She is old now, her skin weathered and scarred, her scales chipped and worn, but her strength has only grown.
She carries herself with an effortless dignity and iron will, and many who cross paths with her as she roams the hinterlands find themselves inexorably drawn to her banner. At first, she found this to be something of an annoyance, for she wished for nothing but peace and somewhere to call home. But as time went on and she witnessed the cruelty of the Realms, she began to find their presence strangely comforting. Now those who join her March become family; she mourns every death and celebrates every birth, and reacts with lightning-fast and thunderous retribution to any act of betrayal or harm towards her own. As she finally steps foot on the soil of her homeland in the hour of its greatest turmoil, Grakko Thunderhide’s fury threatens to swallow all who stand in the way of her goals.
Player Hooks
- You have followed Grakko’s March for many years, and this is the culmination of all your travails and efforts.
- You understand the pain of displacement and sympathise with Grakko’s goals, seeing promise in her utopian vision of a new order emerging from the chaos.
- The Thunderscorn may have little use for the riches secreted behind the walls of Eklysium, but you do. You’ll play along with her game of family for now, at least until it gets you close to the plunder.
- You simply wish to see the works of the God-King torn down, be it in the name of the gods of Chaos or more personal motivation.
- You are a resident of Eklysium who wishes to see the whole corrupt system burn.