Wrote a thing explaining my Vermintide 2/Warhammer Old World oc!! I'm not the best writer, nor do I do it a lot, but I was quite proud of it, so I wanted to share. My ipad is back, so I should get to drawing again soon! I did my best to base it all in-lore.
Ttherese “Tess” Bauer was born in the far north of Middenland, far beyond the great city of Middenheim. Her home sat near the Middle Mountain foothills where the forests grew dark and the winters longer than they ought to be, one of the last truly rural pagan settlements still surviving beneath the rule of the Elector Counts.
The village itself was unusual for Middenland. Where most northern communities valued hardiness, stoicism, and the brutal philosophy of "survival of the fittest" preached by followers of Ulric, Tess was raised among devotees of Rhya. Her people believed survival came not through ruthless strength alone, but through cooperation, caretaking, and mutual dependence. In a land where winter killed the isolated and prideful, they endured because they relied on one another.
The settlement had formed around an old and important shrine to Rhya deep in the northern wilds, a sacred place tended to primarily by women. Priestesses and followers alike traveled from distant corners of the Empire despite the danger of the roads and the bitter cold. The shrine was famous among rural cults of Rhya because of its location: a sanctuary of warmth, fertility, and healing in one of the harshest regions imaginable. The purest and truest example of Rhya's influence. Many believed the goddess herself watched over the valley; crops survived longer there, livestock survived impossible winters, illness spread slowly, and children survived infancy more often than they should've. The villagers considered these blessings proof enough that they had earned Rhya's favor. Tess grew up almost entirely surrounded by women: herbalists, midwives, shrine keepers, caretakers, mothers, elderly priestesses, and wounded travelers the village took in and sheltered. Women were seen as divine; pure vessels of Rhya's will where true strength lied in embracing your femininity and being attuned to oneself. Most of the men living there were old, injured, sick, or otherwise unable to survive harsher forms of labor. The cult of Rhya cared for people society discarded. She was raised believing tenderness was holy, kindness was strength, and that caring for others was not weakness but survival itself.
Tess was expected to eventually become a priestess herself. For most of her life, she wanted nothing else. She imagined tending the shrine, helping mothers through childbirth, caring for the elderly, raising children, settling down somewhere, and living quietly beneath the goddess’s guidance.
Then the north erupted into war again.
Chaos raids intensified along the northern borders of the Middle Mountains as Beastmen descended unto Middenland. Villages burned, roads became unsafe, and like always in times of desperation, the Grand Duke of Middenland began demanding bodies for war. Draft messengers were sent from settlement to settlement, gathering every able-bodied man they could find in the entirety of Middenland. Starting with Middenheim, then working outwards towards the borders. Tess’s village was one of the last on the list.
The official who arrived there expected to find farmers and woodsmen ready for conscription, the usual Ulric worshippers and rugged older men who had nothing else better to do. Instead, he found a tiny Rhya cult settlement composed mostly of women, elderly caretakers, and half-invalid men recovering under their care.
There were almost no healthy men fit to march.
The messenger demanded a soldier regardless, becoming impatient and angry with the reality he was presented. Baffled that such a village even existed with no healthy men to protect it. Panic spread through the village, then arguments followed. Some begged for exemption. Others tried to offer supplies instead. But the Empire wanted bodies.
Eventually, the village made its choice.
They sent Ttherese. She was healthy, strong, old enough but not too young, a capable hunter, and physically sturdier than most women there. It felt like betrayal, yet it was their only option left.
Tess was handed over to the Middenland militia in place of a man and marched north into a war she had never wanted; kicking and screaming.
She hated it immediately.
The military camps were everything her village was not. These men were loud, filthy, cruel, drunk. Rhya's grace was nowhere to be seen. They saw women as little above whores and barmaids. She went from a society where women were revered as life-bringers to one where men inflicted death and destruction everywhere they set foot. She felt like a doe thrown into a den of wolves. The bloodshed horrified her.
Unfortunately, she discovered she was great at it.
Tess became an excellent fighter out of sheer necessity. To keep people safe, she told herself. She learned how to wield her axe quickly, muscle memory from hunting and chopping wood for her village kicking into overdrive. She adapted to shields and militia tactics. She endured freezing marches and Beastmen raids and battlefield horrors with grim determination. Every skill she gained made her feel more spiritually contaminated. While Rhya nurtured life, Tess was taking it.
She mourned constantly for it.
Human. Beastman. Mutant. Soldier.
Eventually, the dead all blurred together into one endless tragedy in her eyes. She cried often after battles; quietly at first, then openly once she realized she could no longer hide it. Many soldiers mocked her for it. Others called her weak. But despite everything, she refused to lose the values she had been raised with.
She treated wounded soldiers regardless of how they treated her, protected civilians whenever possible, shared rations, comforted the dying, and continued offering prayers to Rhya even while believing herself unworthy of being heard. That contradiction became the core of her identity. Tess genuinely began believing she was spiritually disgusting. Tainted beyond repair.
She had blood on her hands now. Too much blood. She feared Rhya would no longer see her as worthy of fertility, love, softness, or peace in any lifetime. Yet abandoning the war would only lead to more death, so she kept fighting.
Not because she wanted to, but because she believed she had to. Over time, she developed a reputation among soldiers as overly emotional, soft-hearted, stubbornly compassionate, and frustratingly merciful. Some mocked her openly as a “crybaby.” Others found her comforting in ways they could not explain. Even surrounded by the end times, Tess remained painfully, openly human. That humanity became her greatest strength. While others hardened themselves into weapons, Tess continued caring. Continued grieving. Continued loving people openly despite every horror she witnessed.
During one of the great northern invasions into Middenland, one of the many disastrous Beastmen incursions spilling down from the Middle Mountain passes, Tess’s militia regiment was effectively annihilated. By that point, she had already spent years serving in campaigns she never wanted to fight in. The constant attrition, starvation, corruption, and death had worn the Middenland forces thin, and the particular force Tess served with had become little more than exhausted men being thrown into impossible battles by those in charge to delay Chaos advances. The breaking point came during a catastrophic retreat after a Beastmen assault shattered their defensive line. Officers were dead, supply lines had collapsed, and soldiers were deserting openly. Entire formations were being overrun in the snow. Tess knew, with horrible certainty, that staying meant dying for nothing.
For the first time since being conscripted, she disobeyed orders.
Rather than hold the line with the remaining militia, Tess instead focused entirely on evacuating the survivors. Wounded soldiers, civilians trapped in the fighting, camp followers, and even injured horses. She spent most of the battle dragging people out of the chaos instead of participating in the defense itself. Soldiers screamed and shouted at her, dissenting and calling her a coward for abandoning the line, deserting her fellow men. Eventually, the regiment collapsed completely. Whatever remained of the militia scattered into the wilderness, dead or fleeing. Tess followed and simply kept running. Bolted like a frightened little doe. Not north, never home. She believed too much had happened for that. Would they even recognize her? Instead, she wandered south carrying little more than the armor on her back and the weapons she was entrusted with. Crying and gritting her teeth, ever onwards.
By the time the Ubersreik Five encountered her, she was half-starved, exhausted, emotionally and spiritually frayed, and surviving by helping isolated villages defend themselves from roaming Beastmen (and now Skaven) in exchange for food or shelter. The group first met her during a mission near a ruined coaching road, where they found a terrified farming family barricaded inside a barn while a lone northern woman fought Beastmen outside almost entirely by herself, axe and shield in hand. Scratched White Wolf insignias still on her armor. According to Kerillian, her first impression of her was: “A wounded doe trying to kick wolves to death.”
She survived the northern campaigns physically, but spiritually, she no longer knew where she belonged. She could not return home. Part of her feared the village would look upon her with quiet horror for what she had become. Not a future priestess or caretaker, but a woman shaped by war, a woman who'd taken more lives than she can count. Another part of her carried deep resentment toward them for sacrificing her so easily when the Empire came demanding bodies, a deep sadness in her heart rather than outright anger. A displaced northern soldier carrying Rhya charms into the apocalypse, white wolf insignia still on her armor, desperately trying to reconcile the woman she had wanted to become. A bleeding heart, begging forgiveness from her goddess. Eventually, that wandering path would lead her to Taal's Horn Keep and the strange collection of killers, survivors, zealots, and outcasts known as the Ubersreik Five.
- The general insignia of Middenland is The White Wolf, with their colors being blue, white, and yellow.
- On some maps, the Middle Mountains are east to Middenland, while on others, they are directly north. In my interpretation, they are north. It just makes more sense ! The Reik would be south.
- Her nickname is "doe", mostly used by Kruber, I'll elaborate on all this at a later time trust !!
2087
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
izzy806
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
stormborns