Lord of the Rings - The Blue Host - Easterling project

ashur · 19 June 2021 12:10

Sangiban, headsman of the Host

Some men cannot shed the shadows of their past, and the Blue Host is no exception: tribes and war parties still fight over grudges of unknown origin, and chieftains still crave personal conquest. Worst yet, some still succumb to the call of Sauron. By desperation, greed or hatred, some men cannot refuse the call of their former master and slink back into his service, poisoning the Host from the inside and challenging the word of the Blue Wizard. It is only thanks to Darkness Slayer’s unending efforts that the Blue Host endures, hope and ideal rallying men against the Dark.

When that is not enough, the Host calls on Sangiban.

No one knows what hell Sangiban escaped to reach the Host, only that he was wounded, starving and alone. Later, people understood his tribe had been wiped out by Mordor’s unending expansion, leaving him orphaned and wrathful beyond words. He quickly stood out as a man with a veteran’s talent for killing and no hopes or ambitions for himself, his only goal to avenge his kin tenfold before joining them. The Lord of Chariots knew what he was doing when he noticed that single-minded ruthlessness and selected him for a thankless duty.

The headsman’s task is to suspect everyone, to expose treachery before it strikes and to root out the poison Sauron pours into man’s soul. Dealing with fractious chieftains is one thing; dealing with corruption is an entirely different matter. Those who betray for ambition lose their head cleanly; those who fall to the Dark do not get that mercy for Sangiban has no pity for the corrupt. Those he confronts are well advised to fight to the death for the alternative is to be fed to wolves in displays of public justice. The Host believes in redemption, not in forgiving a man twice.

When battle calls, Sangiban turns into the warrior he must have been in another life. Riding a wolf fed with the flesh of traitors, he challenges captains and champions to prove their devotion to Sauron. So far, the headsman has always collected a new skull. Wielding a two-handed falx to carve his way through the enemy, he inspires his fellow warriors to feats of bravery, not through speeches or charisma, but by example alone. Whether they laud his commitment or revile his heavy hand, no one wants to falter under his gaze, or worse, disappoint him.

Sangiban (count as Amdûr, lord of Blades)

ashur · 30 September 2021 06:02

A preview of things to come, once I’m free to paint again:

The last Wainriders

Centuries ago, at the peak of the western kingdoms’ might, came a new enemy. They were a people, or a confederacy, stronger and better armed than any that had appeared before, they journeyed in great wains and their chieftains fought in chariots. They ruled the largest empire east of the inner sea, they inflicted to the western kingdoms their most crushing defeats and brought them closer to collapse than any other enemy except the Dark Lord himself. Those conquests entered legend and became the model every ambitious eastern warlord has tried in vain to surpass.

The West knew them as wainriders.

Among the easterlings, the tale of the Chariots Lords’ ascension is only surpassed by the tale of their fall. After triumphing over foes in Rhun, Khand and Harad, after earning a place in Gondor’s nightmares, they sold their loyalty to Sauron in exchange for the promise they would rule the fertile lands west of the Anduin. Their strength proved insufficient and Gondor, not without grief and blood, turned the tables on the Chariot Lords, whose dreams ended on the cursed marshes. The confederation collapsed and the wainriders vanished into legend, a reminder that Sauron does not forgive defeat.

Centuries went by, until mere decades ago Darkness-slayer returned to rebuild the Blue Host once more. But this time with him came a people thought long dead and the east now trembles, for the wainriders ride again at the call of the Huntsman.

No one knows where he found them, or how they managed to endure down the centuries, or what pact was signed between the Blue Wizard and Gochar, lord of kine and chariots, last of the Chariot Lords. But those who have met him know his bloodline has forgotten nothing of his people’s hatred for Sauron the deceiver. Generations of bitterness have been transformed by the encounter with the Blue Wizard. In his voice, Gochar sees strength capable of challenging Sauron. In him, the Blue Wizard sees a living grudge against the Dark Lord and a name from a mythical age to rally those who refuse to submit.

So the wainriders have stepped out of legend and into history once again, and around them the Blue Host is reborn. Two names from the past resurrected by the Blue Wizard to spite Barad-dûr and remind its master he is still here.

What few people know is that Gochar remembers more than Sauron’s betrayal, and his ambitions go beyond the current war. He remembers what his people lost, trapped between Sauron and the West. He sees no difference between them for all stand, as always, between the wainriders and their destiny.

In the tents and encampments of the east, the Chariot Lord and his grizzled kin cling stubbornly to what remains of their legacy and ponder the road laid before them: if Sauron wins, hope is empty. But if Darkness-slayer is proven right, if the Dark Lord can fall, then the world will be transformed. If this vision comes true, the east will become the realm of the Chariot Lords once more, and Gochar will take the Blue Host west, to complete his forefathers’ dreams.

Maybe Darkness-slayer failed to see this ambition. But who can tell what the Blue Wizard knows? If he ignores the scale of Gochar’s plan, or knowns and cares not.

Or more disturbingly, if he approves, or even inspired, this dream.

Only one soul in Middle Earth can answer this question: his kin. His fellow traveler, the one who knows Darkness-slayer’s true name, who in ancient days ran with him and their father the celestial Horn-blower in search of evil creatures to hunt. Wherever he is, wherever he toils, whatever tools he uses to complete his task, he knows enough to wonder what truly drives the Blue Host, and if his feral, irascible brother has truly remained loyal to their purpose.

As he prepares for the coming war, the other Blue Wizard wonders if maybe seeing Mordor fall is only the first step in Darkness-slayer’s dream. If maybe an eternity of killing fell beasts, an eternity of building and rebuilding over the ruins of Sauron’s malice gave the Huntsman a vision for the coming age of man.

A vision of men locked in an eternal cycle of conflict, hunters and preys all, drawing strength from hardship, bane of the orc and deaf to the poison of corruption. A future where neither Dark Lord nor distant Valar will have a say in how mankind kills and hunts and thrives in the untamed wildland Middle Earth must remain to be saved.

And only Eastern-star, who knows him like a brother, knows what he will do if his fears are proven true.