Birgir

Birgir was a Midgardian warrior and a former Traveler who turned against the order he had once served when he learned that its sacred Path was a deception of Odin. Forsaking his brethren, he became a steadfast ally of Freyr in the Vanir resistance, and though his former order named him a heretic, he fought without flinching against the endless soldiers of Asgard.

The lie of the Path#

Birgir was once a devout member of the Travelers, the armored warriors who followed the enigmatic Path. He served it without question until, in the course of his wanderings, he learned the truth: the Path was in reality a means by which Odin sent soldiers into Jötunheim to besiege its unsuspecting people. Sickened by the discovery, Birgir forsook the Path and the order both. Before he left he sent letters to his former brethren warning them of what he had found, and for this they branded him a heretic.

He made his way to Vanaheim, where he took up arms for the Vanir and became a staunch ally of Freyr, turning his strength against Odin's endless Einherjar.

Warrior of the resistance#

Birgir was first met in Freyr's camp, where he asked that Kratos and Mimir keep its location secret. When Freyr and Byggvir were captured by the Einherjar, Birgir found the escaped Byggvir and carried him back to camp, tending the wounded ally with a steady sigil.

He took part in the rescue of Freyr. As Kratos bore the wounded Vanir god to safety, Birgir threw himself against the charging Einherjar with his great sword. When the company fled aboard Freyr's flying boat, a pair of wyverns set upon them, too swift for any ranged attack. Birgir deflected a blast with his blade, murmured a verse from the Havamal, and leapt from the side of the boat despite Freyr's protest, driving his sword into one wyvern and steering it into the second so that all three plunged together far below the clouds.

Survival and retirement#

His friends believed him lost, though Freyr insisted he yet lived. So it proved. After the resistance's hound led the company to a hidden stretch of the Crater, where a dragon forced their boat to crash, Birgir was found alive, taken by the dragon for its next meal. Once the beast was slain he was freed, injured but well, and when asked how he had survived his fall from the boat he answered only that he had rolled.

Birgir returned to the camp, where his warnings continued to echo. Three Travelers found in the Crater attacked Kratos on sight, and upon their deaths they were found to carry Birgir's letters; they had been sent as assassins to silence the heretic. Weary of fighting and wishing to retire, Birgir was offered a home in Freya's old dwelling in the Sanctuary Grove, where he became the caretaker of the great turtle Chaurli, grateful for the kindness shown him and speaking of one day writing a book.