Weri
Overview
Weri began setting fires when he was only three years old and the son of a lesser noble in the then-North Province of Aerdy's provincial capital of Eastfair. By the time he was in his early twenties he was an accomplished pyromancer and had graduated from setting small animals on fire to ravaging intelligent creatures with his deadly flames.
He nearly died in C.Y. 585 at the hands of the ranger Killian "The Red" O'Brien. He had been working as a mage-for-hire with a group of slavers known as the Grindsmen. After his near-death experience, he left the group, found a powerful orcish magical item, and allied himself with the High Orc nation.
He died in high summer of C.Y. 586 in a battle with the Blackrazors now known as the Battle of the Flame (Read the adventure Battle of Blue, Part 3: The Battle of the Flame). He was slain by a death arrow fired by Killian, who also died in the battle.
History
As a young man, Weri was obsessed with fire. As he matured, he set them whenever he could – under controlled circumstances where he could watch the effects of the flames as they burned their lives away. By age 12, the mages of Eastfair has noted his exceptional intelligence, and recruited him. He soon began to pursue his love of fire through magic, creating a number of memorable, if disastrous, experiments. When the latest and greatest experiment accidentally destroyed a portion of the Wizard Guild’s mess hall, he was banned from the city. He didn’t care: he’d already passed the Test of Ascension that certified him as a master of the mystical flames of magic. Journeying from town to town, he hooked up with adventurers when he could, gaining magical knowledge where ever he could, and eventually earning a dangerous, but well deserved, reputation as a maverick mage. In 584, he signed on with Cantsik, the leader of the Grindsmen, a slaver band operating out of Bellport. In the fall of 585, after the band kidnapped the daughter of a noble from the city of Randell, Weri experienced his greatest defeat.
A group of adventures, led by a strange albino elf named Malphas, decimated the Grindsmen and "killed" him, sending him to death’s door. Fortunately, some of the more able Grindsmen were able to retrieve his body and revive him before the adventures could finish him for good. That brush with death terrified Weri, who suddenly became a great deal more unstable.
He abandoned Cantsik – who was in fact glad to see him go – and signed on with an adventuring party looking to profit from the destabilization of the Flinty Hills. The group set out looking for one of the gnomish fortresses that were over run during the wars. The adventurers arrived at the fortress to find it had been overrun by a orc tribe known as the Ga-sa-Turis (Warriors-of-Turis). Sizing up the orcs as little more than humaniod scum, the group sneaked into the fortress looking for looted treasure. They were then attacked by the orcs who were in turn led by High Orc warriors. Weri, in an instant of insane insight, found a new way to tap into the elemental Plane of Fire. He channeled a massive burst of pure flame into this reality, sending out a blast of fire that killed everyone around him, and melted the stone for 100 feet. He barely survived the explosion and resulting drop – thanks to his ring of feather fall.
In the aftermath of the explosion, Weri found one item that had survived his blast: a strange glove from one of the High Orcs. The fire mage slipped the glove on his right hand – his dominant hand – and slowly climbed out of the crater. He then went through the remaining rooms of the fortress, slaughtering its inhabitants. He then began to wander the northern reaches searching for some sort of connection to the Elemental plane of fire. As he searched he discovered he had developed an affinity for the orcish tribes that had over run them. Strange new powers began to manifest themselves and he discovered his very appearance was beginning to change. The glove was a minor artifact of the High Orc god Ati and his wielding of it marked him as one of the god’s chosen. He attracted a new band of followers, High Orc clerics and warriors working under the orders of the Oben-tusk, the ruling council of the High Orc Ascendancy in Bone March.
After proving himself to the Oben-tusk, he was allowed to go west to seek vengeance on Killian and his crew. Although he murdered several bards in Greyhawk, he wasn't able to trap the ranger -- instead the damn do-gooder somehow landed himself in jail while his friends retreated to Obsidian Bay.
In spring of C.Y. 586, he was ordered by the Oben-tusk to go to the Pomarj as an adviser to the orcish forces under the control of Turrosh Mak. Weri, who at this point was more than a little bit insane, gleefully accepted. When he arrived in Highport he immediately led a group of High Orcs into the Drachensgrab Hills where he was able to find and subdue a young red dragon. The dragon, called Inferno by the humans, served as Weri's mount and became the symbol of the army gathering in the city. The army -- eventually known as the Army of Highport, or the Army of Burning Glory -- launched an attack against the Free City of Blue. An expeditionary force from Obsidian Bay met the army outside of Blue and was able to fight it to a draw. This victory was possible because of a crucial skirmish fought days earlier. During this skirmish, Killian and his friends -- who called themselves the Blackrazor Guild -- ambushed and killed Weri, his High Orc honor guard, and the dragon. The Blackrazors took the mage's many magical items, but subsequently lost them when their senior leadership was abducted and possessed by the evil, disembodied and powerful life forces of seven long dead mages (Read The Treachery of Su-Quan).
