Soren Ottesen

Saga-smith

Name: Soren Ottesen
Deed name: Saga-smith
Sept: Whispered Oaths
Pack: The Juggernauts (Clashing-boom-boom)
Rank: Cliath
Breed: Homid
Tribe: Get of Fenris
Auspice: Galliard

JAGGANATHASMOL
The Ballad of the Juggernauts

Recite, o spirits, the sounding fame
and honor of Ares’s apt-chosen children,
ungentle Juggernauts of General Boom,
who smite with smoking steel the fiends
marching from the mouth of the Midgardsormr!
Barrow-blooders, blight-field tillers, who
heavy-hoe with holy harrows the soil of
battle, and break the brackish earth of Wyrmish
sinew with stinging spades of fury!

When Hrodhvitnir’s hollered howl shall sound
the wail of war-won Wyrm-death at last,
say you still will sing in Valhalla,
shattering your shields with shouts for the full-moon
Finishes-the-Fight, foe-scorning son
of canny Cockroach. He captured the mailed
Tar-Bane, and tore its tainted body
with fingers of fire, flinging it headlong,
woefully weeping, to weaponless slumber.

Recall the caern of caves in awe, where
stood forth Sickness-scourge, arrayed
against the galling Gorms of Wyrmbrood,
serpent-spirits slithering to guard
the bleaching bones of a battle-worsted
Wyrm-drake. While a wilting fire
burned her bristling battle-form’s fur,
she leveled a leer of lack-Rage at the
flaming fiend-snake’s face and laughed!

And laud their leader, lore-taking Tideturner,
unequalled infiltrator of the Hive of Aurora,
Celestine-supplicant, summoner, the matchless
walker through walls of Wyrm-wrought metal,
who stole unseen past scores of Wyrmspawn
to wander unwatched in Wyrmlingshaven
and write, on reams of recollection, the
memory-maps of Midgardsormr’s
deepest dungeons. He dared to fly
with quail’s quickness, and quaked they all
with wrath, and regret, and rue, that Franklyn
Worthington, warren-weasel, Wyrm-enchanter,
reckoned to ravage their corrupted Pit.

KALDERJAFNAÐERSMOL
The Ballad of Cold-Justice

Tell, Uktena, with tongues of shadow,
starkly assisting your silent gaze, of
your judge, Cold Justice, a giant of resolve,
your dear adopted daughter, born of men,
who treads, untrembling, the tracks of the spirits.
This vessel of visions viewed the dead
in ground, in grave, in grief, before
Empty-set ingressed the ichor of Aurora.
When Piggybacks-the-Porcupine penetrated the haven
of infamy, and under their eyes, ensorcelled
with brands and blessings of Black Unicorn,
snuck out their secrets, then stole away -
your child, in chains of chiminage, took on
the wary watching of the way from Foe-pit
and stood to see him sally again.

OSHÆTTASÅNGRIRSVITHA
The Lay of Unceasing Song

Hear, o Heavens, of him I sing,
that cherished child of charging Thunder,
Unceasing-singer, son of Gromot.
Hail to Hell-bred-horses’-doom,
Skin-stealer-slayer, instiller of fire in
water, Wyrm-scourge, Wight-friend and counsel,
the which, of Whispered-Oath’s weal a bolster,
together with Gromotson grasped the reigns of
her steed of steel, once stolen, now ransomed.

Now, acknowledge his renown, o Heimdall!
Say the spirits’ singer beareth well
the burden of breaking the bat-eared Wyrm-wolves
he played like puppets, peerlessly feeding
their malformed maws a meal of defeat!
A Skin-dancer snack he set before them,
for Wyrm ate Wyrm, when Wound-scorn
a perfidious Foe-kin freed that day.
Coyote-kinsman, cage-mangler,
sin-foe, septmate-sainer, fiend-master,
our enemies’ envy aileth them much
when Conquer-kin-fiend confoundeth their folly.

Yea, unyielding Yggdrasil, bend!
Listen to lore of Leech-beguiler,
Vampire-vanquisher. Their very dreams
are hardly hidden from him who vaulteth
the manse of Morpheus with merest whim,
who scorneth sleeping suck-bloods’ lies.
He goeth getting Gaia-foes’ secrets
that once they owned, but only mourn
with tears of talon-tilth, in terror. They never
kept a counsel from Crushes-Dream-Bastions
he worked to win from Wyrmish slumber.

ANNARRVINDRSMOL
The Ballad of Second-Wind

Attend me, Tyr’s-bane, tireless Fenris,
who dreadst not the draught of giants to drink -
thy glibness-gauntlets gleaming lend me,
and arm me, ye Aesir, with an iron voice,
so Otto’s son aptly may over the mountains
and across the crashing crests of the sea
sound the song of Second-wind, the dauntless,
the full-moon fostern, by Falcon chosen,
the son of Donatien and scion of Lafayette
of blessed breeding, born with two legs.
To his honor let all your ears incline,
repeat with pealing howls his peerless glory,
and hurry to hear his Hawk-bred wisdom.

I first before you affirm and proclaim
his affable, upright, and honest wisdom.
He offered to adren and athro his counsel:
Sole-judgement he generously and gently advised.
He gave sagacity to Goldfarb the half-moon,
conferred his foresight on Confronts-the-storm,
with his harshness he helped Harmony-of-the-soul.
He bendeth in battle his bow of yew,
sending forth silver-tipped spirit-bound arrows,
the ancient armament of the archers of Falcon
he got by grant of the gracious Jagglings.

Then sing I of Second-wind’s outstanding honor.
He guarded the groves of great Whisper-haven
with fury and fortitude befitting his lineage,
and carried out his calling as the caern’s Wyrmfoe
as steadfastly and strongly as the steel of Mjoellnir.
He creepeth not, nor cowereth, clamoring his challenges:
to Freed-waters-flow a defeat he delivered,
Magpie-friend on the mound he made a fostern.

This full-moon of Falcon his fathers gladdeneth
by breaking with battle-ice his beastly foes.
With Saga-smith, assaulting a Spiral-tainted
skin-inker’s shop, he slew a Wyrm-wolf
and burned the abominable blight-fiend-warren.
Woundless he walked away from the farm
where Hell-bred horses with hooves of Wyrm-poison
and foam-flecked faces fiercely attacked.
Unwounded he weathered the witchcraft of Sundancer
and deftly defied he Donovan’s deceits:
their honorless and infamous ambush he endured,
shrugging off the sting of a silver arrow,
terrifying the treacherous turncoat Theurge
before snatching the splendorous spirit-bow Eclipse,
wresting from Charyss’s wretch the weapon
he mourns immured in the mire of Erebus.
Four of the First Tribe would feed the vultures
and from their Folk a favored Kin,
if Second-wind had skulked at the sound of battle
or his vaulting valor refused to reveal.
To Myninn I commend his marvelous glory.

JARNROGSVITHA
The Lay of Iron-Clause

Bear up, o Bragi, the burden of verse-craft
and offer to Otto’s son thy awesome wit
in song to ensnare soaring deeds
obscured by skill and sleight of hand.
With cunning and cleverness and the coldest mind
must we stalk in the streets the stalwart Wyrm
who abideth in braces of brick and steel,
sickening with his smoke the sons of men.
For such a struggle Fyodor did sire
the pure-bred Piotr, a paragon of shrewdness,
of Thunder’s thanes a thief and rake,
whose human hearing hoarded wisdom
‘til first the fray-skin fiercely he wore.

That now you may know this new-moon’s honor
Saga-smith sings of his steady resolve.
Many at two moots did the mad fool delight,
his duty he did with deftest tongue:
when he mocked without mercy the mound itself
it rose to his berating with a ribald riposte.
Sickness-scourge he scorned with a scandalous title,
and with boldness he rebuked bullheaded Never-tires.
To the town of Pataskala he took his sway,
when sorely his sept-friends sounded retreat:
in vain at the Veil did the villains tear,
for though they thought to thank our efforts
by carrying our claw-wrecked chariots to the reeves,
the evidence was eaten by Iron-clause’s greedy
gullet, is gone, and grates us no more.
This Ragabash his role he relishes and loves
and commits his mind to its mastery ever.

Hearken, and heed the hard-gotten wisdom
this unnoticed no-moon nightly reveals.
He summoned a spirit with Descends-the-Labyrinth,
a manic elemental of might and guile
which consented itself inside of a few
devices of vanquishing vigor to bind.
Rite-student, reckoner, ready in alertness,
who lusts to learn the lore of his tribe,
Bethink thee, Thunder, of thy thane-son’s esteem!
Say to the spirits the story of his fame
and have them hail him henceforth a fostern.

MODHRHALMTHUSTSVITHA
The Lay of Fury's Scourge

Behold, mighty Hyginn, and pay me heed,
your rock-breaking raven-beak make ready
for a meal of memory. I mean to declare
before you, fame-shouting fight-eagle, the deeds of
the doughty doom-thrower in the shield-din,
Thwart-foe and Thrash-fiend, Theodore’s son,
deeded in Daeva-mark Death-from-Above,
the homid herald of the heavens’ wrath,
the faultless First-tribe full-moon, Wyrmslayer,
who twists between his fingers the twinkling
blood-dark battle-witches that bray to all
their helm-crushing hunger for hewing foe-limbs.

First it befits this skald of Fenris
to sing of his strife-brother’s steady wisdom.
With alacrity he learned the lore of his tribe -
correctly from Runs-amok three rites he mastered.
A First-tribe folk-kin he befriended wisely,
the gleaming-eyed girl named Gabrielle.
Unwavering, he weathered the wight-world’s chill
coming with Coyote’s children to climb,
defying death, out from the Dark Penumbra.
On their bawn at Beltane, advancing boldly,
he erased the rot of a wretched Wyrm-stone
from the holy haven of Hidden Flame.

Second I sing of Merlin’s scion’s
sure-bred, strong and steadfast honor.
The forsetir and skaldir of Fenris say that
to do his duties he endures much;
at many a moot rite of the Melting Pot
with one as well of Whispered Oaths
Sir Canning did keep the spirit-concord.
To Ends-the-unending he honored his word,
forbearing to blemish his famished blood-rasps
with red raven-wine from Amanda the ragabash.
Justly the jeers of Julia Stanley
he answered, offering honorable combat,
accepting her sudden assent, and breaking
as a reckoning-ransom her right forearm.

With Soren Saga-smith this scion of Merlin
two times has toiled in the tumult of war.
With Otto’s son he opened the arteries of a battle-Bane,
a hook-nailed horror he hacked undaunted,
wetting his Wyrm-thirsty wound-hawk with its gore.
At Melting-Pot’s moot-revel we marked his valor -
his battle-ice bore stoutly all his boasts
and victory evaded the vampires when they
sought to shatter his comrades’ skulls.
Lambently he lacerated leech-necks in glee
and, spurning them, spilled their sullied blood.

He worked to war-grieve a one-eyed suck-blood
and brilliantly brought it low in battle,
tracking and trapping it in its torrid lair
and dragging it to die in the dawn-lit fire.
At Beltane he bellowed with brawl-glee
and went into war with Second-wind,
fiercely finishing six fire elementals
reeking, corrupted wretches of the Wyrm.
His shimmering strife-wolf he slaked with morsels
of the chitinous covering of a Chaos Monitor.
Let burn in the books of the bards forever
the glimmering glow of his hard-won glory.

HERFILIGRSNARRARSDRAP
The Fall of Spite-spinner

In the last day’s long dawn, lingering, dreadful
when heavenly Valhalla its heroes pours forth
to greet wide Vigridhr’s green battle-plain -
say skaldir still will strengthen the blood
of hosts upon hosts of holy warriors
with tales of Pataskala, the torrid Wyrm-haunt,
and the fall of the fomor defending its gates,
Bradley van Buren the Bitter-rage-monger
called Spite-spinner by Saga-smith after the sack
of his fortress of fear, fallen to Whispered Oaths.

For six years, Spite-spinner skulked and cowered,
a cult of killers calling to himself,
armed in anger with iron and lead,
and wove for the Wyrm his web of deceit.
The town of Pataskala he terrified with slaughter,
weakening its will to the wiles of the enemy.
Recount how canny Cockroach’s son
the brawny bear-shirt, born of sin,
Surgical-strike, by secret means
uncovered the counsel of the concrete bunker
van Buren bored into barren earth.

That bulwark of blasphemy balefully cast
its stare of shadow on the streets of Pataskala.
There servants of the sullied serpent of Midgard
fed from the fear, as flies upon refuse,
depending for power on the palace of Spite-spinner.
But he, in his hiding, held the means
to sneak unseen past the city’s warders.
The First-tribe’s philodox, far-seeing Boyette,
Hawk’s scion, heard and heeded this counsel,
and led us to lore of the long-lived fomor’s
needfulness to the nearby benighted scab.

Marty Maze-breaker and Moral-compass,
wind-blown way-walkers of Owl-bred wisdom,
together with Gromotson, Thunder’s galliard,
and irrepressible Piotr, that peerless new-moon
scouted Spite-spinner’s stronghold mighty.
They crept in as close as their courage could dare them,
finding from afar its defenses of glass
and wire, and weapons of Weaver-make
corrupted to ruin by the rot of the Wyrm.

As a gift from Gaia, Piotr got the report
that Spite-spinner was soon to see a tooth-driller!
and to pass from his proud and paranoid citadel
leaving, leerily, by long rambling roads
in a bulletproof bucket of bolts whose whole
array of arms and armor availed him
not, for nothing kept our nervy stalwarts at bay.
And once Second-wind had word of this news
He fielded Finishes-the-fight to capture him,
matching him mindfully to Moral-compass,
the Silent Strider, the swiftsure philodox,
and Chain-gang Chuck, the child of Rat,
affable, able Eyes-in-the-dark was with them,
and Songs-never-cease, the son of Thunder.

They followed the foe in fleet pursuit
and aimed, eagle-eyed, to end the chase
with valiant volleys of vengeful fire.
With Cockroach’s craftiness they crippled the jalopy,
and out came an enemy from each side -
but Spite-spinner’s servant was a sorry hireling,
a gold-bought greenhorn, galled by the thought of
breaking his body and breathing his last.
That driver a draught of shame did drink,
meeting the mind of Moral-compass, who
contested his composure and crushed him handily,
mauled by her mastery as mortals are.

And here they beheld the horror of the face
of Bradley van Buren, the blighted Wyrm-claim,
with visage so vile, the Wyrm itself vomited on
his stinking shape several waving arms
as he readied his corruption and reek to fight.
This pus-leaking pig-goblin, putrid with lesions,
fought with the fury of five Garou
and tirelessly he tarried in the tumult of strife
flagging not, nor fleeing from fair Luna’s chosen.
Swift as salmon his talons smoked
in the blessed blood of the bold heroes.

Then Surgical-strike the steady did leap
the weft and warp of the Weaver’s tapestry
to appear, unpromised, in the peal of swords.
Rune’s mien was a mask of the man they called
Rat-a-tat, the wretch, the reprobate, charach,
the Glass Walker gone to gorge on Wyrm-filth.
But Surgical-strike dispelled their confusion
and the heroes hailed their help unlooked-for
and together they grappled in the grueling brawl.

Then Bradley van Buren began to tire,
and wept from his wounds with the wine of ravens.
They thrashed him through and through, till his wit
he lost, and lay in Lethe on the ground.
They bore him, battered and bound, away
to the metal-mines of the metis Sven.
Spite-spinner, the soul-eaten, the spear-flayed, the vanquished,
Bradley van Buren, the bunker-digger
whose many arms mercilessly mauled your septmates
is fallen before you, fighters of Gaia.

Speak, o spirits, spare not your tongues,
remember to Myninn these many names:
Chain-gang Chuck, the child of Rat,
Alyosha the unyielding and his younger brother,
the no-moon newsmonger named Eyes-in-the-dark,
Marty-Maze-breaker and Moral-compass,
the steadfast Striders of subtle fame,
and Cockroach’s clever children, the full-moons
Finishes-the-fight, fallen to death,
and steely Surgical-strike, who wails,
languishing long, in the lake of Erebus.
Let the gleam of their glory glow undiminished
in the gloom of the guttering flames of Gaia.
Whisper their wisdom to the world beyond,
and unveil their valor through the velvet curtain.

BLITERSKVEDJA
The Valediction

Hear, Hyginn, and heed, o Myninn,
for know we not who next shall die,
though long we look with living eyes
and see the story the spirits write.
Say that Saga-smith’s septmates did well
and gladdened the good dead gone before them.
Enlist their labors alongside the struggles
of ancient ancestors they honor still.
Witness these worthy warriors’ sacrifice,
their ashen offerings, immersed in gore,
and ward the ways of Whispered Oaths
‘til Apocalypse proves their peerless mettle.