Ygrid Ironborn
Goliath, AKA ‘The Tower’, ‘Kelemvor’
Appearance
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Drawing done by Agata Żebrowska of MiragesIllustrations on Etsy.
As her nickname would suggest, Ygrid is described as a very, very tall, intimidating Goliath standing at over nine feet tall. She has tightly cut, dark-brown hair that is tied off in a long, thick braid that runs down her back and sharp gunmetal blue eyes with tomboyish features. Years of fighting have built Ygrid in a staggering mountain of a woman, with arms that can wield a greatsword with one hand and cut through men like a hot knife through butter. She carries evidence of her battles in her military experience and battle scars. Her most noticeable is an open tissue scar on her left cheek that exposes her top and bottom teeth. Evidence that someone tried very hard to kill her, but failed like so many others. Those who stand in the presence of the Tower see her as a symbol of victory and conquest, or a great white beast to be shackled and locked away.
Queen of the Goliaths
Ygrid is the High Queen of the Goliaths and one of three figureheads of the Triumvirate. Her rule is absolute and unchallenged.
Backstory
The Tower
The earliest sightings of Ygrid were in the Dwarvish military. The stories go that she had been exiled from her clan and joined the military in search of a purpose. She learned advanced military tactics and close-quarters combat with the best the Dwarves had to offer. A Goliath physique and Dwarvish training turned Ygrid into an outstanding soldier. Her feats of strength and leadership were well-known amongst the Dwarves. However after two years of service Ygrid had been dishonorably discharged and shackled in chains. From exile, commander, to a slave.
The Forsaken
Ygrid had gained notoriety in the Torr Pits of Kartenheim, one of three blood sport arenas where slaves and criminals alike were forced to fight each other or whatever the Vikings felt like throwing at them. It was one of many offences the Goliaths had to endure. Old friends and bitter enemies awaited Ygrid in the arena. When Ygrid refused to fight, the Vikings forced her to watch her people die in her stead. An outcast and exile to her people, and a traitor to her soldiers. Somewhere in the midst of all the bloodshed and loss, Ygrid found herself. Ygrid began to play the Viking's game, giving bloody glorious displays complete with disembowelments and deceptions. Striking down bears and overpowering great serpents. The crowd loved Ygrid.
No matter what was thrown at her, Ygrid persisted. So much so that the Viking leaders made her a promise, defeat the champion of the arena, and she would be freed. One more victory was all it would take, and Ygrid would be back in the military where she belonged. Her opponent was Boudeca Warborn, Ygrid's bitter rival throughout her childhood. The Warborn and Ironborn clans had a bitter, bloody feud that went back to the first Giants that settled the Frostback Mountains, and the Vikings knew this. It would be the fight of the decade. Two of the strongest, most efficient killing machines would clash in a sold out arena. Unknown to the Vikings, when Ygrid was locked away she had began scheming with the other fighters. Goliaths, Drow, Loxodon, Orcs, anyone who would listen, anyone who would fight, was recruited to Ygrid's cause. All of the outcasts and undesirables were united under one banner. She called them the Forsaken.
When Ygrid and Boudeca entered the arena, they were greeted by thousands of screaming spectators ready to watch the two women tear each other apart. The fight began with exchanges of fists and elbows, then escalated to ropes and brass knuckles, and ended with swords and axes. Bloodied enough to sell the charade, Ygrid and Boudeca began their plan. Ygrid lowered her shield and Boudeca ran at her, ready to deal the killing blow with her axe...then planted her foot on Ygrid's shield, and leapt into the box of the Torr Pits leaders. This was the beginning of a bloodbath, as thousands screamed and fled, hundreds of fighters stormed the arena, overpowering the guards and killing anyone in their way. This was followed by the same in the two other arenas where Ygrid's people planted the seeds of a revolution.
The Goliath Uprisings
Ygrid would go on to lead the Forsaken onto a violent warpath that claimed two slave cities and hundreds of lives. The leaders of this rebellion were other Goliath Chieftains whose clans had known nothing but bitter civil war. But when Ygrid showed up, they banded together against a common enemy. The people responsible for the genocide still plaguing their people. The Forsaken stated that if the Humans would not listen to reason, they would be forced to listen. Slave estates had been reduced to smoldering beds of ash, towns were ransacked and pillaged, anyone with a hand in the slave business had been flayed, gored, or burned alive. Ygrid and the other leaders wanted to send a clear message, if their people wouldn't be freed, they'd take their freedom. And take it they did. The Forsaken had freed thousands of slaves living in captivity, and those that remained were freed amidst protests that came too late from the Alliance's people. Most followed the Forsaken across the Fordvern Advance to the wild lands that waited across. Some stayed since a life in the Alliance was all they knew. After a year of fighting, it seemed the Goliaths and their allies were free to live amongst themselves. The thing about peace it that is rarely ever lasts.
The Seven Year War
Not even six months after the Goliath Uprisings, the Alliance and newly freed Goliaths began butting heads once again. The Goliath Queen, Gremala Drathos, had ordered any and all Alliance scouts, settlements, and troops to withdraw from the Frostback Basin. The settlers had colonized the region and were building homes and towns on sacred land, and the Queen wasn't having it. Ygrid was put in charge of clearing these areas by whatever means, if they wouldn't listen to reason, then Ygrid put her boot on their throats. The forced move turned into armed conflicts and more lives being lost. The Alliance had claim on the land, the Goliaths were its natives. And the Goliaths certainly weren't going to go back to living under Alliance rule. So, Ygrid had been sent to the Alliance in an attempt to negotiate some kind of peace. What happened instead were insults and laughter thrown Ygrid's way. Which she returned with her own slew, until eventually she had enough. King Windhelm, having lost his patience, asked Ygrid and her people to stand aside. That there would be an armed response to their violence. He asked if she answer with war, or obedience. Ygrid had infamously answered with, "I would have war." What followed was seven years of the bloodiest conflict in the known history of the realm. It became known as the Seven Year War, or The Bloody Seven.
All Hail the Queen
During Year 5 of the war, Ygrid was pregnant with twins. During an assassination attempt that claimed the life of Queen Drathos as well as a number of other high-ranking Goliath leaders, Ygrid lost one of her children. The surviving child was wrought with mortal wounds inflicted during the attempt, but somehow survived alongside her mother. Between bouts of depression and grief, Ygrid found the strength to move on and named her daughter Runa. This experience changed Ygrid forever and would inevitably cost the king his eldest son.
Motherhood
Motherhood was a challenge for Ygrid, especially during a war. Her own mother was but a passing figment, lost to the more visceral memories of the bitter harshness of Goliath tribal life. Not one for softness, Ygrid raised Runa to become self-dependent and unwavering in the face of adversity. It was important to Ygrid that Runa learned the bitter truths of life early on so that she may adapt and learn to navigate them, not with bitterness, but a strong, mature hardness. Runa would be a presence that the Goliaths rally to if she chose it, and she would have to act it. Life, even during the war, wasn't all politics and hard-earned lessons for Runa. Ygrid did her best to give Runa a taste of a normal childhood whether it was playing in the garden with other children or sitting in at stories during dinners. Motherhood was a delicate balance of protecting Runa, and preparing her for the harsh world outside the walls of Jotunrath.
The Battle of Jyorkstead
Ygrid's most infamous victory, was the last major battle of the entire war. While the Alliance, and some of her most trusted allies, prepared for an Alliance victory, Ygrid prepared to steal it out from under them in one fell swoop. The plan was to coax the 33rd, led by Edgar Castille, into chasing Ygrid and what was supposed to be the last organized pocket of resistance, into a trap. As the land around her burned and Alliance flags flew high, Ygrid traveled under the cover of night to neighboring territories. Hours of riding and navigating the forests she was raised in, that were now heavily occupied by Alliance soldiers. When she returned, she prepared her soldiers for what some believed would be a final stand. At the peak of the next day, when the sun was highest and casting its light on the Frostback Shore on a patch of warm sand, Edgar and Ygrid's units finally met. As the battle seemed to turn in Edgar's favor, Ygrid called for her men to retreat just as they planned. When Edgar's forces chased after them, it was then that Ygrid sprung the trap. During those nights of espionage, Ygrid had gained the favor of Queen Nadeem Val-Kalrath of the Drow, and Visera Maelstrom of the Warforged. Nadeem had the single largest colony of Drow under her rule, and Visera the largest collection of vengeful Warforged. The details of these talks and deals are known only to the Triumvirate themselves. The full force of the battered, beaten, and broken outcasts of the Alliance descended upon Edgar's men. The fleet that had sailed them there were assailed by Warforged firepower the likes of which they had never seen, and outmatched and outnumbered by the sheer force of the united Goliath and Drow ground forces. Failure to see what Ygrid was capable of when backed into a corner, failure to see this trap earlier, had cost the Alliance the entire war. Over 30,000 men were corned and held captive overnight, and were to be executed if the Humans did not pull out from the war. Which they did. Ygrid had won...
Queen Ironborn
In the aftermath of the Seven Year War, Queen Drathos was dead. With nobody else they trusted remaining, the Goliath people turned to Ygrid. In the weeks following rebuilding, Ygrid has seized power from the very people she had gone to for help. Leaders who she promised coin, land, anything they wanted as long as they would help. Believing them selfish, Ygrid instead placed herself, Nadeem Val'Kalrath, and Visera Maelstrom as the three ruling figureheads of the newly established Nation of Conclave States. Any outcries or promises of rebellion were swiftly put down. Ygrid sent the heads of the old leaders back to their people with a very clear message, "Live in our world. Or die in yours." She would accept nothing less than complete, and total fealty. With all her enemies dead or in chains of their own, Ygrid sat on the throne. She had made sure that anybody that would challenge her this time, would have one hell of a climb doing so.
Cataclysm
During the events of Cataclysm, Ygrid was approached by Omerók of Croak and Dagger when the crafty duergar had narrowly escaped the clutches of Caelrogh, with a friend in tow. Edgar and Omerók found themselves in Jotunrath, forcefully knelt before Ygrid. Through his natural charm and good nature, Omerók convinced Ygrid to let Edgar live while imploring her for aid. It wasn't soon after that the rest of Croak and Dagger arrived on the day of Runa's wedding, with the idea of asking Ygrid for aid. They decided against this since it was a very special day for Ygrid and Runa, and gained favor with the Goliath Queen the next day. Ygrid told them the stories of her life before Jotunrath, the war and the image she and her people had of the Alliance. What followed was a series of high-pressure meetings with Ygrid and the leading figureheads of the Noble Goliath Houses. Against all odds, Croak and Dagger were able to unanimously convince the Goliaths to aide them in the fight against Caelrogh. The Goliaths would fight for their former masters.
Halfaya Pass, the Lord of Judgment
During the Siege of Halfaya Pass, Ygrid had encountered one of the men responsible for her first child's death. In a fit of blind rage, Ygrid dropped her form for a moment and struck him with a smite unlike any other. Andol and Aiden, who were closest to the strike, saw Ygrid for who she really was. Kelemvor, the Great Lord and Judge of the Damned.
Abilities
Legendary Tank
Master Tactician
Deity of Death