Martyr Champion Lore
Many are the songs sung of the Martyr of Lumaya, though few of these are what one might call cheerful. Clad in silvery mail and armed with a blade limned in holy fire, the Martyr appears in the darkest of moments, where hope is all but lost. The first recorded sighting of the Martyr was in the Age of Hellfire, during the Second Great War. The story has become a familiar one. An embattled bastion, threatened by a horde of Demonspawn. A hopeless last stand. In the final moments, a flare of silvery light as a holy blade hacked through the ranks of the enemy, as the Martyr led the defenders in a final charge, in Lumaya’s name. There were no survivors.
None, that is, save the Martyr, who appeared again and again, fighting her way across Teleria. Witnesses claimed that she was present for every final stand; every rear-guard action; every desperate charge. Whether this is truth, or mere hyperbole, is impossible to know. What is known is that she took part in many great battles of that age, and often was the only survivor. No matter the extent or severity of the Martyr’s injuries, no matter the odds stacked against her, she fought on, as if gripped by some divine madness. Others around her caught this fervor, and be consumed by it; driven to acts of doomed courage by her mere presence.
Some in the Sacred Order whispered that this mysterious warrior was nothing less than Lumaya’s wrath made flesh — that she was proof that Lumaya was not absent from this conflict; more, that she was with them in spirit, if not flesh. Such would explain her sudden appearance on so many battlefields. It was as if she were not a mortal woman at all, but instead a manifestation of holy light itself.
The Martyr’s true name was unknown. None could recall such a being within their own ranks. Those who sought her out, whether to see her for themselves or to ensure that she was what others believed her to be, claimed that she was nothing more than a mortal woman. One of great zeal and faith, to be sure, but a normal woman nonetheless. When the Second Great War came to an end, the Martyr vanished as suddenly as she had appeared. At least for a time. There were rumors that she had been seen here or there, hunting Demonspawn and battling Undead. But the sightings grew fewer and farther between, until they ceased entirely. Many believed the Martyr to be dead at last.
Then came the Red Crusade. The Martyr appeared once more, at the forefront of the Sacred Order’s armies. Whether it was the same woman, impossible as it might sound, or someone new wielding the blade, she fought as before, with a passion that was almost madness. She slew Skinwalkers, Lizardmen, Orcs, and Ogryn with as much enthusiasm as she had shown in killing Demonspawn in the Age of Hellfire. And if some claimed that she wept sorrowfully as she fought, many in the Order said that she wept to see how the true servants of Lumaya were denigrated by their enemies.
Even now, the Martyr’s true identity is unknown; indeed, some claim that she is not one woman but many — that Martyr is not simply a name or a description, but a rank. That there are many Martyrs; women chosen for the purity of their faith and an excess of zeal, to carry the light of Lumaya into the darkest of places. Others believe that when one Martyr perishes, another is chosen from among the ranks of the Sisters Militant by the Sacred Order to wield the holy blade once carried by the first woman to bear the name ‘Martyr’. They say that it has ever been thus, since the ending of the Age of Hellfire. The most persistent of the stories is that there is and has ever been only one Martyr; a soul blessed – or cursed — with eternal life. A woman placed into a Shard by the Arbiter, whose only peace is found in battling the foes of Lumaya on behalf of the Sacred Order. As to which of these tales is true — if any — only Sacred Order or better yet, the Arbiter, knows.