Volstus

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Volstus

(Person)

Titles

the Storm Tyrant

Alignment

Neutral evil

Ancestry/Species

Storm giant

Class

Fighter 6

Gender

Male

Homeland

Ironbound Archipelago

Source: Shadow of the Storm Tyrant, pg(s). 62

Volstus is a powerful storm giant warlord seeking to bring about an age of giant rule over the people of Avistan.

Background

Volstus was born into a family of storm giant nobles in the mountains of the Ironbound Archipelago. His violet skin, an admirable trait among storm giants, created great expectations from him early on, which fueled a young Volstus' desire to excel and drove him to develop all the traits of a leader.

As he grew, Volstus came to resent the smaller races and scorn those giants who fostered friendship with them, as he perceived smaller humanoids as thieves of giant wealth and land that should instead worship the more powerful giants as almost divine beings. He developed an uneasy friendship with a taiga giant named Cirdassa whom he met while hunting in the Algid Wastes, and developed his belief that the giant races needed to unite to forge a powerful empire and rule over all other peoples, including both lesser humanoids and dragons. At this time, Volstus obtained a magical meteorite know as the black comet heart from Cirdassa's tribe.

Volstus and Cirdassa embarked on many adventures over the following decades, encountering the spirit naga Linrathis, who would become another of Volstus' allies, and discovering an Orb of Red Dragonkind in the Kodar Mountains, which Volstus used to enslave the red dragon, Akazerath. As his power grew, Volstus sought to seize control of one of the cloud giants' legendary cloud castles, which he intended to use as a mobile base of operations, and to gather a true army under his banner.

After having gathered several influential allies, such as the stone giant inquisitor Urathash, the frost giant graveknight Skirkatla, and the fire giant king and queen Tytarian and Quivixia, Volstus encountered the cloud giant twins, Nalbia and Nalbur. Having heard of Volstus' rising power, Nalbia instructed her brother to seek out the warlord, in order to secure his aid in staging a coup for control of Zephyr Hall, the cloud castle where Nalbia resided. Volstus and Nalbur's first meeting quickly escalated into a contest of dominance, fueled by their respective might and arrogance, which Volstus won after an aerial duel. Having established his dominance, Volstus devised a plan for seizing control of Zephyr Hall. Having learned from his new allies that the sky castle would soon pass close to Ashpeak, a volcano in the Mindspin Mountains, Volstus instructed Tytarian and Quivixia to move their clan there. When Zephyr Hall passed by, Volstus strafed it with a hail of meteorites from the black comet heart, forcing it to land in the mountain's crater for repairs. Once there, Volstus' fire and ash giant forces quickly overran the castle, while Nalbia and Nalbur's allies turned upon their kin and seized the castle from within. His prize secured, Volstus renamed Zephyr Hall to Ironcloud Keep.

Following the conquest of the cloud castle, Volstus tortured its chief cloud engineer, Renfal, in order to learn how to direct the flying keep, and ordered his execution once he obtained this information. Renfal lingered as a ghost, however, forcing Volstus to employ magical means to contain Renfal's spirit. Volstus further raised the remnants of the slain cloud giants as mohrgs and used gate spells to summon a number of extraplanar beings, including a troop of gugs and two Leng spiders, to bolster his forces. Having raised a powerful army of giants through the efforts of his allies, secured a Flying Fortress, and enslaved several further dragons, Volstus now aims to enslave the orc tribes of the Hold of Belkzen before expanding his ambitions to the rest of Avistan.