Role in Its Society:
Ausk serves as the sworn warden of the Stormwrath pass—a narrow artery where caravans, pilgrims, and foolish raiders gamble with wind and ice. In human guise he carves way-markers and digs anchor holes before the first thaw; in hybrid he stalks night trails to shadow predators; in full bear he breaks sieges and carries the wounded. Griffons recognize his cedar-scent and wheel wide; yetis parley at the cairns; manticores keep to leeward unless starving. To highlanders, Ausk is not a curse to cure but a covenant kept: the pass holds because someone holds it.
Appearance Description:
- Human: Weather-cracked ranger in cedar-oiled leathers, frost crust in a white-blond braid, eyes glacier-blue. A bone ring bears a carven knotwork of fir boughs.
- Hybrid: A towering, white-furred brute (nearly 9 feet tall) with runic scarification across the shoulders, a cedar-wrapped greataxe haft gripped in one clawed hand. Breath plumes in steady drafts, never ragged.
- Bear: An immense polar boar with braided mane cords and iron way-nails threaded like beads.
Backstory:
Years ago, raiders drove refugees onto a rope bridge in a whiteout. A wounded monk—last guardian of a mountainside priory—begged Ausk to buy them minutes. He did, and he was bitten doing it. The monk taught him older vows than temple law: anchor the weak, break the line, leave no body to the cold. Ausk bound his curse to cedar and ritual. He keeps a ledger of names he has pulled from drifts; he oils his axe before every storm and leaves a token at each cairn he passes.
