“You can still fight? If your lung is broken, kick me once in the leg for no, twice for yes.”
– Lord-Aquilor Karjeon, Azyr’s Bandit
There are still stories told of Karjeon’s mortal life in Azyr, though none take them seriously, least of all the Stormcast himself. Parents still delight children with stories of the Merry Man, who duelled the rich for their ill-gotten wealth with his quick blade and quicker wits. He tricked the avaricious, befuddled the authoritarian, and gave his spoils to the needy. It was said that his deeds reached even Sigmar, and provoked such long and loud laughter from the God-King that it was thought that there was a storm in Highheim.
The stories dwindle away at the onset of the Age of Chaos. None save a few know what had happened to the Merry Man; it’s a story Karjeon only relates to those closest to him.
When Sigmar called the retreat to Azyr, the Merry Man could have chosen to remain in safety. But instead, he chose to leave. Karjeon had heard of the depredations fo Chaos from refugees, and found that he no longer had the stomach to continue his banditry in Azyr. Not when there were far worse tyrants in Chaos to oppose. Unable to bear inaction on his conscience, he slipped through a Realmgate to Aqshy just before it closed.
Thus began his war against Chaos. Though his band was few, they made a good accounting for themselves, freeing slaves and ambushing patrols deep within the domains of warlords, without being corrupted by the forces they fought. Their defiance wouldn’t last long, but they lived up to their Azyrite legends twice over, even if no one would know it.
When Karjeon finally fell fighting for freedom against Chaos, Sigmar called him back up to Azyr to do it again as one of His chosen Stormcast.
As a Stormcast of the Hammers of Sigmar Karjeon excelled himself, earning the rank of Lord-Aquilor soon after he had bonded with the Gryph-charger, Karamis. Soon after he was placed in command of his Chamber, the Star-Beckoners, he and his Chamber would often disappear from the Gladitorium, sometimes for years at a time. Only they and Sigmar know where they went, though some suspect that they had been deployed to the Realms long before their Kin.
But in what time they did spend in Azyr, Karjeon and the Star-Beckoners began to form a close partnership with the Exemplar Chamber the Blackhammers, and the Extremis Chamber the Wardens of Burden, based around their natural complements of skills and personalities. Where Phionan grew solemn, Karjeon could break a smile across his face with a jape; when Tcimmera became single-minded, he could pull her back from her obsession with gentle charm. The three of them, seperated by Chamber and Stormhost, proved to be natural allies, and eventually close friends.
Karjeon’s first official deployment was at the Battles of Kha’ihva Plains. He led a combined force of his Star-Beckoners and the Reclaimed resistance against the armies of Chaos in the Plains, pulling them apart with diversionary strikes in preparation for the Blackhammers’ assault. When the Slaves to Darkness rallied and turned on the Blackhammers in a combined assault, Karjeon led a charge against their rear. The Battles of Kha’ihva were won by the combined tenacity, might and wit of the Stormcast and their mortal allies.
It was the Star-Beckoners who made first contact with the Desrakian Dominion. They probed the borders of the Dominion and skirmishes with the Ashwalkers, earning the latters’ respect and forewarning Desraki Rickad of their might. In the interior of the Dominion however, they were dismissed as more barbarian raiders to be crushed, derisively referred to as “Azyr’s Bandits”.
When Karjeon learned of the moniker, he loved it so much that he adopted it as his own. By the time the Desrakian invasion force was defeated at the Second Battle of Kha’ihva Plains and the counter-invasion crippled the Dominion, Azyr’s Bandit was spoken with more vitriol, and a little fear. Even after the other Stormcast had departed from the Dominion, the Star-Beckoners stayed, training and aiding the slaves they had freed to keep resisting their former masters. In doing so, they would create a thorn in Brasslord Rickad’s side that could never be pulled out.
But the successes couldn’t continue forever. The campaign into the Dominion drove a wedge between Phionan and Tcimmera, resulting in the fracturing of their friendship that Karjeon felt ill-equipped to fix. Just as that friendship seemed to be mended, tragedy struck with the loss of the Blackhammers at the Eightpoints.
When the news reached him, Karjeon swore through tears that the Star-Beckoners would protect Kha’ihva city in their absense, no matter how unsuited the Vanguard Stormcast would be at the task. There the majority have stayed, even as Karjeon leads elements of them to other battles, such as Amasya. But he never lingers away from Kha’ihva for long; his Vanguard and mortal allies have reported back to him that the Desraki Dominion has turned its eyes beyond its borders once more, and looks to avenge past wounds…
