Hvitabjörn - Druid of the White Tundra

Hvitabjörn was once counted among the Druids of Brel Alda in the kingdom of Draksborne. His life was simple, tied to the turning of the seasons and the care of the land. Yet simplicity seldom lasts. On a moonless night during a winter hunt, he was mauled by a great white bear that had gone rabid with some unseen madness. He survived, but the wound cursed him with Arctanthropy, the affliction of the Werebear. At first he was shunned by his circle, who feared the curse would spread or corrupt their sacred rites. Hvitabjörn was driven into solitude, left to wrestle with the beast that now stirred within him. For years he raged against it, each transformation tearing at his mind and body. In time, though, he learned to temper it. He came to master his affliction, not as a disease to be purged, but as a power to be wielded. The druid who once spoke for the balance of nature now carried its most brutal face, a towering beast of fang and claw. Hvitabjörn made the tundra his home, keeping to hermitage. He defended its frozen reaches from raiders, hunters, and any who sought to despoil them, his cursed form giving him strength beyond mortal measure. Villages told stories of the White Bear who came down from the wastes, protector to some, monster to others. He wore the names without care, for his creed was the land alone. But peace cannot last forever. In recent years, beings who claim themselves to be the true Gods of Mayreth have walked the villages near his home. They call him an accursed spawn of darkness, an affront to their divinity, and have sent hunters to kill him. Where once Hvitabjörn bore his curse with pride, he now finds himself pressed against forces far greater than any he has faced. Gods or not, he will not bow to them. If they mean to unmake him, they will have to do so with their blood on his claws.