Bergis: Or, the Romance of the Petals
Sworn Lindell, 2860 NCC
Several hundred years after the GreatWar, groups dedicated to Order and the common good attempted to restore common laws and equal rights to the TwinGate area. In doing so, these groups, working in a united effort under the OathMaker banner, formed cities, trade routes, and by necessity enacted a number of laws. While the vast majority of the simple townsfolk were pleased and happy to have a more organized government in place, some individuals, unable or unwilling to change their chaotic and self-serving ways, resisted the movement. The most popular of these chaotic individuals was Bargorwys, now popularly known as Bergis.
Little is known of the early life of Bergis. Stories have him variously growing up on the JadePlains as one of the Riders, learning to fight up in the BlastedLands, and even being raised in the EastKingsTeeth, the bastard son of a copper dragon.*
What is known and undisputed is that Bargorwys was a warrior of surpassing skill. Like most of the JadePlains Riders, he wore light armor, which allowed him to move more quickly and outmaneuver his opponents. His weapon of choice was the Spiked Chain. This, of course, must bring up thoughts of the CryptLord, whose hellish minions favor such a weapon. Certainly, the activities of Bargorwys against the OathMaker priests would be activities that would have the CryptLord's favor, and while no conclusive evidence has been able to concretely link Bargorwys to the CryptLord, it should have been enough to mute his popularity with impressionable townsfolk. Regrettably, his popularity persists.
The stories, inaccurate and biased as they are towards some individualistic utopian ideal, tell of Bargorwys adventuring for many years in the BlackToothForest and the JadePlains, performing heroic feats. If one is to believe the stories, our hero's magical chain stopped a dozen Wyvernin from capturing and enslaving a town of halflings, tore a deadly magical wand from the hands of a mad priest of Balance, and slew a dragon intent on stealing some sort of magic stone from the BlastedLands natives.
It is obvious that the early stories, though far-fetched, are more credible than the later attempts, which bear the unmistakable stench of propaganda. While OathMaker governance in the area was still in its early stages, and mistakes were regrettably made, the overindulgences alluded to in later stories make no sense when one takes MarnealinsParadox into account. Certainly, the hero, now renamed Bergis for simplicity, is unlikely to have led "strikes of freedom" to stop some imagined OathMaker plot.
And if he did, one must then look at what he accomplished. History records that the OathMaker priests were unable to correctly order the populace, possibly due to interference from individuals like Bergis. As a result, forces were shifted up to the DemonWood towns, leaving the GoldenWood towns vulnerable to BlackPillar activity. Today, those towns are controlled by the BlackPillar, which can hardly be seen as a blow for justice or individual freedom. In fact, in my opinion, it only supports the idea that Bargorwys was an agent of the CryptLord, another evil deity who may at that time have had an alliance with the BlackPillar.
In the later tales, Bergis becomes no better than a wagon guard. The supposed "Epic of the Rook", in which our "hero" protects a master carver who is delivering a magical chesspiece to the Duke of TwinGate, has all the legendary status of a dock manifest. The attacks by creatures of "iron and stone and shadow" are desperate attempts to make Bergis into something more than human, but only serve to highlight his essentially mundane nature.
In sum, while some warrior named Bargorwys or Bergis must certainly have existed, he seemed to be little better than a thief or brigand for much of his life, and no more than a guard at the end. When he finally departs for the EastKingsTeeth, to "protect the winged ones", he leaves behind nothing but chaos and disaster.
This exemplifies the romance of the ScatteredPetals, a group in which Bergis was supposedly one of the first members. Displays of chaos, however well-meaning, can only lead to ruin in the future. Order, pure and simple, is the only real means of creating a lasting solution.
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* This particular flight of fancy likely arises from the poet referring to the hero as "Copper-Skinned Bergis", a figurative indicator of the color of his skin. This actually lends more credence to the claim that Bergis hailed from the JadePlains, as the humans in that area have darker skin that could be poetically referred to as copper-colored.
Such inaccuracies and the lies they have fostered are an excellent example of why poetry should be carefully regulated.