Kjell had once been an ordinary sailor, so much as that could be said for any of those Sarl Tribesmen who plied the Sea of Claws. In the days before he had received the blessing of his gods, he had made his living primarily as a whaler, harpooning the great beasts to bring back to his village for harvest. The blubber of his kills would be rendered into oil, the meat preserved with salt to keep for the winters to come, and the teeth and bones carved into tools or trade goods. The Ungols and Roppsmen to the lands south of his home village would be enemies more often than trade partners, but the other Sarl Villages would trade good steel for whale ivory scrimshaw. While other Sarls would raid the lands to the south to bring glory to their tribe and gods, Kjell had served his people in a more immediate way. That had been before the coming of the Black Leviathan before he had felt the power of the gods raise him up.
One day, about a year ago, Kjell had taken his longboat out to sea with his crew, aiming to bring in another whale for the harvest. They had sailed from their village near the mouth of the Kalti River out into the Sea of Claws when it happened. The fourth day of their voyage dawned with a sky clouded with heavy black clouds as if the Raven God had sent them a warning of the things that were about to happen. Around noon, just as the sun should have been most visible in the sky, a great black form rose from the deep. A fish so monstrous, with teeth as big as spears, eyes the size of dinner plates, and a hunger for flesh, it was a black leviathan. Kjell and his crew knew that they had to kill the blasted thing before it smashed their ship to flinders and gobbled them all down. They threw their harpoons, trying desperately to score a mortal wound on the beast, but most of the harpoons bounced off of its scaly hide which was tough as steel. Only Kjell's Harpoon found purchase, putting out one of the beast's eyes. Unfortunately, this was not enough to kill it. In a rage, the beast tore Kjell's ship in twain with a single powerful snap of its jaws. His crew fell into the water and were swallowed whole before the beast dove down into the depths. Only Kjell was spared, though he did not then know why.
Adrift on a plank of wood, clinging to life, Kjell called out to the gods, vowing that if they would help him survive this, and gain his revenge on the beast, that he would perform any quest they set him to in gratitude. He passed out shortly after only to find that when he awoke, not only had he drifted onto a small, wooded, island but that a being of immense power was standing before him on the shore. A powerfully built Daemon, red of skin, winged, and crowned with a rack of elk horns. The Daemon bore a spear of power and a brass ringed hunting horn. He introduced himself as "Khosrak, Master of the Hunt." and told Kjell that the Blood God had heard his prayer and was prepared to grant it. In exchange, once Kjell was finished with his vengeance, he was to gather a great hunting party and bring down a prey that none living had done before. He was to hunt a City, slaughter its people, and make of the kill a tribute to the Blood God to signify his new Patron.
Kjell readily agreed and when the Master of the Hunt laid his immortal hand upon Kjell's shoulder, he found himself filled with a strength that he had previously not possessed. The mark of the Blood God branded into his shoulder like a tattoo. That done, Khosrak departed from the material world, leaving behind a vague instruction to head to the east side of the Island. What Kjell had found there was a small house and a dock with a boat tied up at the end. Knowing what the Blood God intended for him to do, Kjell managed to break into the house and beat the old man living inside to death with a rock. Inside Kjell found dried fish, fresh water, but more importantly a spear, skinning knife, and leather jack. The old man had been a Roppsman, judging by the brightly patterned tunic he had worn. Perhaps he had fled to the island after a skirmish with another tribe. Kjell cared not for the man who he had slain, only that the slaying pleased the Blood God and that his new patron had shown that pleasure by providing him with equipment. Fastening the leather jack over his own, now ratty, clothes, and taking up the spear and skinning knife, along with some provisions, Kjell headed out for the small boat tied up at the end of the dock, and set sail.
It had taken him a week to track down the one-eyed Leviathan, but he managed to bait the beast out with the Old Roppsman's corpse tied to a rope and left to trail off the stern of his boat. The beast bubbled up from the depths and Kjell let fly with his new spear. This time, however, instead of merely taking out the eye, the god-given strength behind his throw managed to penetrate through into the beast's brain, dealing it a mortal wound. Kjell, seeing the beast was not long for this world and that his vengeance was at hand, leapt onto the thrashing bulk of the leviathan and drove the spear in deeper, killing the thing that had taken his crew from him and obtaining his vengeance. It was then that Kjell got an idea. Taking the skinning knife to the beast, he managed to skin enough of its tough, scaly, hide to make an armored coat from it, though he thoroughly ruined his looted skinning knife in the process. As a final act, he withdrew his looted spear from the corpse, slick with eye fluid, blood, and brain matter, raised it to the sky, and dedicated his vengeance to the Blood God. Once that was finished, a fell wind picked up and caught the single sail of his small craft, carrying him back to his village.
When he told the local Jarl of his tale, the Jarl refused to believe him, enamored as he was with the weak god Manaan that he had picked up from the village's more southerly neighbors. When Kjell called out for a Holmgang, a duel to prove it, the Jarl could not back down. or he would lose the respect of the Village. Kjell and the Jarl crossed weapons only twice before Kjell's god-given strength allowed him to impale the foolish Jarl through the chest and pin him to his longhouse's wall. Kjell watched the light leave the Jarl's eyes and was immediately proclaimed the new Jarl of his village. Kjell then set about forging a confederation with the other Sarl villages of Troll Country, extracting from them the promise that they would join his hunting party come the next summer. In the meantime, Kjell had the scales of the Black Leviathan crafted into an armored coat. The finished product was as light as a leather jack but as durable as a coat of steel scales. The winter was spent preparing, both his people and the plans he would have to enact.
The Blood God wished him to hunt a city, yet Kjell knew that if he went for an Imperial City like Norden or Salkalten, he ran the risk of being defeated by forces that the Empire could bring to bear. Kjell was just the leader of the Sarls of Troll Country, and say what you would of the men of the south, but their numbers would drown him if he gave them half a chance. However, the Blood God did not despise strategy, and so Kjell came up with a plan. He would raid soft targets along the Imperial Coast, sacking mostly villages but hitting a large enough town to cause the Empire to seek to protect their own borders before heeding the call of any of their allies, tying them up with the fear that one of their major cities could be next and paralyzing their navy with a perceived need to defend their own coasts. In actuality, Kjell would be sailing east to the coast of Kislev and seek to make the City of Erengrad the sacrifice that the Blood God required of him. The Kislevites had a smaller and less dedicated naval force that Kjell would be able to outmaneuver. He could land warriors outside the City further up the coast while the Kislevite fleet was busy trying to pin down his ships and sack the city from the landward side while they were looking to the Sea. It was a brilliant plan, one that made use of all the advantages that Kjell's Armada had and the weaknesses of his foes.
Indeed, his plan had been going flawlessly. Not only had he managed to sack a fair-sized town and get away with plunder and slaves before the garrison at Salkalten could stop him, but he had ravaged the coast of the Imperial Province of Ostland before heading east into the Starivoda Bay, pausing to offload warriors on the coast south of the Grovod Wood before raiding into the lands further east between the wood and Erengrad itself, sacking a few small villages on the northern coast of the Bay. It wasn't until the Kislevite Fleet sallied forth just this moment that Kjell had seen even a hint of resistance. The Kislevites were trying to hem him into the Bay.
Kjell grinned ferally, the fools didn't realize that he had no intention of leaving the Bay and every intention of sacking their precious port city. Still, he had to at least give them the fight to keep them dancing to the tune he wanted them to dance to. A good hunter knows how to trap his prey, and a savvy warrior knows that the best traps are often in the minds of their opponents. While schemes for the sake of sheer skulduggery were more the Raven God's thing, tactics aimed at making your enemy bleed were something that the Blood God very much approved of. Kjell urged his fleet on to clash with the Kislevites. A light volley of cannon fire from the Kislevite ships shot forwards and set a few of Kjell's ships alight with heated shot, however, the gunners were not used to fighting Norscan dragon ships on open water and overshot their targets in many cases, the smaller Norscan craft being lower in the water than the Pirate Galleys that the Kislevite Fleet had been dealing with of late. Archers from the decks of several dragon ships fired off arrows at 200 yards, forcing many of the deckhands and marines on the Kislevite ships to duck for cover or become living archery butts. This was all according to plan, as soon afterward the first of the dragon ships, Kjell's among them closed to within range to launch grapnels for boarding. While the Marines aboard the Kislevite ships were ducking arrow fire, they could not effectively suppress borders.
Kjell was the first up the rope and over the side of the Kislevite ship, this one a large galleon with a figurehead of a bear carved onto its prow. He leaped onto the deck of the ship and immediately skewered a man in a fur hat bearing an axe through the heart with his spear. Two more Kislevites attempted to rush him, one with another axe and the other with a Scimitar, but Kjell's god-given abilities did not extend solely to strength and his reactions had been boosted by the mark of the Blood God so that he was able to dance out of the way of a concerted attempt to bracket him with weapons. Kjell planted his boot into the stomach of the man with the Scimitar, causing him to double over, and used his back as a platform to roll over and out of the way of a follow-up axe swing from the other man. Another kick sent the doubled over man over the side to drown in the icy water of the bay, while his spear blocked a third axe swing from the other man and he riposted with a thrust that opened the axe-wielder's throat.
By now the rest of his crew had followed Kjell up the side of the galleon and were pushing back the lightly armed Kislevite crew with the ferocity of warriors of the gods. A crack rang out from behind the scrum and the man next to Kjell pitched over with a rapidly spreading bloodstain across the front of his quilted tunic. Kjell's sight followed the shot to the smoking barrel of a pistol in the hand of a Kislevite that was wearing a Captain's hat and had an official-looking coat of arms emblazoned on his surcoat. Kjell had only been to Erengrad once prior to this, but even he could remember the white ship on blue that the City's rulers used as their standard. Killing this man would please the Blood God and send the rest of the Kislevite Fleet scurrying back into their ports.
"Blood for the Blood God!" He shouted as he bulled forth, past two axe-wielding kossars in leather armor, pausing only to boot one in the knee so he could pass. That one was finished by a Sarl Warrior wielding a pair of dirks as he tried to stand on his shattered knee. Kjell couldn't really pay attention to that fight as he zeroed in on his quarry. A spear thrust took a swordsman with a sabre through the throat and Kjell rushed forwards, letting his momentum withdraw the spear from the dead man. Another axe-wielding kossar tried to halt Kjell's momentum, but Kjell bulled him over and sent him into unconsciousness with a stomp to his head as he rushed over and past him. By now, however, the Captain had finished reloading his pistol and took aim at Kjell. Kjell, seeing this, dodged aside just as the pistol fired and managed to take the ball in the shoulder. His armor of preternaturally tough leviathan scales stopped the bullet, but his left arm was dislocated from the shot. That was fine, Kjell only needed his right arm to throw a spear, and throw he did, aim hones by years of harpooning whales for a living, tempered by the power of the Blood God coursing through him. It wasn't even a contest, Kjell's spear struck true, piercing through the coat of mail that the captain had on and sinking into the flesh beneath, impaling the Kislevite commander through the chest. The Kislevite dropped his pistol and grabbed at the spear haft sticking out of his breast, mouth gaping in disbelief before finally dying with a rattling wheeze.
Scooping up an axe from a fallen kossar, Kjell stalked over to the corpse and hefted it, awkwardly with one hand, before hacking through the neck of the captain with a wet, snapping noise. He picked up the severed head of the captain and held it aloft by the hair. "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" He shouted. His men surged forwards and the battle was soon over. With the flagship taken, the rest of the Kislevite fleet fled for the safety of the Harbor. Kjell's forces had won the day.
The next day, Kjell would begin the siege of Erengrad by both land and sea. His first act was to burn the former Kislevite Flagship to the waterline in full view of the city's harbor defenses