Saga Valdisdotter
Saga grew up in a small clan of "proud warriors". From a very young age, Saga trained with the other fighters, and from her 16th birthday, she started going with the raiding groups to the surrounding areas.
Saga was always handy with an axe, and she was a valued member of the crew on the longship. As the clan grew with the acquired wealth, so did the attention of the surrounding, smaller clans. Soon, the clan had to compete with incursions from the surrounding area, and one day, it all came to a bloody end.
The clan heard a rumour that one of the neighbouring clans had come into some unexpected riches, and started to plan a raid. However, this rumour was planted, and as the raiding party arrived at the settlement, they were ambushed by a force made up of warriors from the surrounding area. Fed up with the constant raids, they had decided to settle the score. Saga took a severe hit, went down, and was left for dead. Coming to, after the battle, she scoured the battlefield for other survivors. There were none. The raiding party had been completely wiped out, taking a notable amount of other clan members with them, but Saga was the only survivor. Gravely wounded, Saga made her way back to her settlement, and as she approached, she saw smoke on the horizon.
Whilst the raiding party had been away, the joint clans had mounted their own raid on the settlement, and it had also been wiped out. The only building still standing was the long house, which held a small amount of mostly women and children, along with the clan chief and a few of his guards. They had managed to fight off the attackers, suffering heavy losses in the melee. The clan was left with just a few people, the surrounding clans joining forces to end the threat from them once and for all. As Saga relayed the failure of the raiding party, the clan chief’s ire grew. He berated her for surviving, accusing her of being a coward. How could one warrior survive, other than by running away, he argued. She should have been in the settlement to defend it, or die with the other warriors. Saga’s wounds could not persuade him otherwise, and he banished her from the area, declaring that if she was spotted, she would be killed on sight.
Alone, and still gravely injured, Saga fled into the woods. She kept walking until she couldn’t anymore, and collapsed in a small clearing. Alone, injured, and far from home, she laid down to let her wounds take her. As the darkness closed in, she saw a strange figure at the edge of the clearing.