[Center] [h1][Colour=Cadetblue]N O R C O K H A N[/Colour][/h1] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFHYQihGMk0&ab_channel=TrailerMusicWorldI]Theme Song[/url] [img]http://i.imgur.com/LMKyAKO.png[/img] [img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/dc57/f/2014/249/2/2/divider_550x30_by_daniyalisatya-d7y8210.png[/img] [Colour=Cadetblue]T I T L E S[/Colour] [colour=Silver]Wolf in the Mountain[/colour][Colour=dimgray] | [/Colour][colour=Silver]The White-eyed King[/Colour] [Colour=Cadetblue]T I M E O F L E G E N D[/Colour] [Colour=Silver][I]30,592 Winters since[/I][/Colour] [img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/dc57/f/2014/249/2/2/divider_550x30_by_daniyalisatya-d7y8210.png[/img] [Colour=Cadetblue]A P E A R A N C E[/Colour][/Center] [Colour=Silver][I]Due to the lack of artistry in his time, there are very few sources that can correctly gauge his aesthetic. It is true that he is taller than most men, standing at six-foot-six, but he does not tower over rooftops as is sometimes claimed. His eyes are not quite the pure white that is depicted in the tales either, they are in fact a very light shade of grey and whilst he does indeed have pupils, it makes his stare is no less forgiving. It is difficult to discern whether or not Norco is an ugly man for his ragged black beard, stained white in places, hangs over his mouth and chin like a chain-mail coif. Cheek bones sit high on his face, stretching his rough whitened skin that darkens ever so slightly in the crevices of his wide nose. His attire in the books and fables has forever been an example of his barbarism. Scantily clad across his broad chest they like to infer that his skin is armour enough. The truth is that during his time Norco wore many furs and pelts of animals that he had personally hunted. A bears head sits on his shoulders, halved down the center of its head and turned forward to match his gaze, they act like pauldrons of a brutish nature. Cloths and leathers cover the rest of his body leaving only his hands and head uncovered and exposed to the elements.[/I][/Colour] [Center][img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/dc57/f/2014/249/2/2/divider_550x30_by_daniyalisatya-d7y8210.png[/img] [Colour=Cadetblue]A B I L I T I E S & W A R G E A R[/Colour][/Center] [Colour=Silver][I]Norco is known as a warrior king, one of the deadliest to ever live. A swing of his axe can cleave several men in twain allowing him to carve his own bloody path through a battlefield. Whilst he is not the most skilled warrior in history his disregard for his own safety makes him insurmountable, wounds and injuries have been said to heal in hours rather than days. A blessing of endurance, no doubt from his father. Norco is also known to have a particular affinity for the cold. Having been raised in such circumstances this is hardly surprising. Beginning his campaign in the frozen east his battles have become legendary in their own right. Gliding across the ground with an unnatural ease a close mist shields him from those who seek him, his ambushes are renown. His prowess in the bitterness of winter went so far as to claim the snow itself was his ally. [B][U]Banemaw[/U][/B] - The Axe Norco wields is known by this name. Forged in the blood of a great wolf and sharpened upon it's teeth, its blade is said to cause wounds that may never heal, demanding the death of any who feel it's bite.[/i][/colour] [Center][img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/dc57/f/2014/249/2/2/divider_550x30_by_daniyalisatya-d7y8210.png[/img] [Colour=Cadetblue]M Y T H O L O G Y[/Colour][/Center] [Colour=Silver][I]In the frozen wastelands to the East, myth tell us of a man so huge that he could not feel the sting of arrow tips, that swords bounced from his skin as if striking a sheet of iron. That his very step would imprint onto rock. Indeed this hulking warrior, this behemoths legend has stretched to the very edges of the world and back. Passed down generations as tales told around a fire, everyone at some point has heard that name, Norco Khan. Our story begins with a people known as the Kulgan. A clan of barbarians that lived at the foot of a mountain fixed into the eastern steppe horizon. Christened Ironmaw mountain, it served as the highest peak within twenty leagues, overlooking two smaller mountains to its left and right. The Kulgan annually traversed the only safe passage through these mountains, eager to reach the bountiful forest that flourished on its far side. It was in the thirty-second year of Chieftain Kosk, a most notable leader in his own right, that those gatherers returned with more than roots and berries. In the snow covered mountain pass, a boy was found. Wrapped in a grey cloth, protecting him from the biting cold, his cries bounced from the rock faces and high into the air. It did not take long for the expedition to find the boy, sat upon a boulder free from the snow. The sole woman in the group stepped forward and picked him from the rock like a root from the ground. The very first thing she noticed were his eyes, a pure white with no pupil, no iris. She could describe them as two perfect spheres of marble if only she knew of the precious stone. “A gift from the gods!” She exclaimed to the people traveling with her. A boy supposedly placed in their path so as to live a normal life, but he would grow to be anything but normal. The people of the Kulgan took the infant in, raising him as one of their own. He grew, and grew fast. By the time he was seventeen he could match any man around for size. They were no strangers to watching him achieve feats they thought impossible, from picking up felled logs in the building of huts to large for any other to carry. Or the most famous of his fables, the confrontation with a colossal dire wolf which he dispatched single handedly with nought but his hands, earning him the name ‘Wolf of the Mountain’. It wasn't until his early twenties that Norco began to wonder of his origins. He had been told the story of the baby in the mountains many times before, yet if left too many questions unanswered. That winter Norco left the village, he headed for the mountain pass in search of those answers. A year passed and the Kulgan heard nothing of their adopted son. Some feared his death after traversing the pass in the dead of winter, a pilgrimage none dared to take. Another winter passed, another followed. It took five long years, when his fate had been decided, that Norco stepped down from the mountain to the people he once knew. Norco was different, in the five years he had seemed to grow only larger. His face and body showed exactly what it took to survive as he did for so long, muscle and sinew tying all of his limbs in place. He had become a man. The people gathered at the villages edge to watch a Goliath stride towards them. A man few believed to be real, a man with pure white eyes. The woman who had lifted him from that rock nearly two decades ago fell to her knees as she recognized the nearest thing she had to a son. His gaze pierced her with an air of pure might, taking a knee himself, his face softened for the slightest of moments as he took her hand. The words he spoke in that moment have been written in the history books of almost every civilization since, [B]"The Wolf returns"[/B]. Norco Khan quickly became one of the most legendary warriors alive, single handedly he dragged the small village of barbarians to the heights of a recognized world power. Indeed since that day it has been said that to travel to the east is to walk into the jaws of a wolf. They spread throughout the east in startling fashion, crushing anything and anyone that stood in their way. With Norco as their leader, the Kulgan were a seemingly invincible people. It took several decades, yet the Kulgan at one point in history ruled the entire eastern fringe of the known world. Mercifully for those who dwelled in elsewhere the great clan were reluctant to leave the frozen steppes, they were too acclimatized to the cold and struggled in every season but winter. It was not until he reached the age of forty-seven that Norco met an enemy that he could never hope to defeat, time. His hair grew white, his face sagged and wrinkled. The white-eyed king, as he would come to be known in the histories, was laid to rest in the very place he began his journey, the mountain pass above his old village. A pile of stone rests, sealed together and immovable as if to match the man underneath. Some say that whilst walking through the mountain pass, you can still hear the cries of a young baby boy. Alas his tomb has never been found by the many adventurers that have strived to traverse the east. Some think the legend was never true. Many years later the bards of younger nations would sing of his journey into the mountain, the five long years he spent in the numbed pass of Ironmaw mountain. It was rumored that atop that mountain, Norco questioned the gods. Bellowing his frustration towards the heavens in a thunderstorm so violent it cast a shadow across the world. A single bolt of lightning struck the hard stone ground, meters from where he knelt. A dire wolf. Larger than any living beast approached Norco from that scared rock. It did not bear its teeth, it did not advance with aggression. It simply sat in front of Norco Khan. He did not know it, but that wolf was no beast, it was a god. The father of Norco Khan had come to stare his descendant in the eye, to give his final blessing. His survival in the mountain had proved his worth and he was accepted by his progenitor. The wolf tipped it’s head skywards, to which Norco followed. Confronted by a strange alignment of stars, in the shape of Ansus, a cloud drifted across its expanse. A cloud in the shape of a wolf's head. Norco Khan, the wolf in the mountain, the white-eyed king, was to become the mightiest warrior the world had ever seen. It was a title that he undeniably lived up to. The Kulgan, under new leadership managed to continue their reign for a few years. However without Norco, they could not resist the empires that lay on their doorstep. Year after year the Kulgan lands shrank, retreating back the cold, bitter wastelands of the east. Even today there is still a town at the foot of the Ironmaw mountain. They no longer call themselves Kulgan, but their blood is linked, and they still await the wolf in the mountain to descend once more, to lead once more.[/I][/Colour] [Center][img]http://orig05.deviantart.net/dc57/f/2014/249/2/2/divider_550x30_by_daniyalisatya-d7y8210.png[/img] [Colour=Silver][I]"And when you die, The only kingdom you'll see, Is two-foot wide, and six-foot deep."[/I][/Colour] [sub][Colour=Dimgray][I]- Extract from the saga of Norco Khan -[/I][/Colour][/sub] [/center]