While at Texas Furry Fiesta this past weekend I had the utter privilege of meeting  savageshark and after drooling over his artwork, and a rather silly question about whether it was a faux pas to commission someone at a Furry Convention for artwork of a Human, he kindly agreed to take my money and to bring this character to life. Merovech is a character of my own design from the now defunct Warhammer Fantasy setting, someone of whom I actually have played as in rpg groups as well as having a model to represent him in my collection. He Hails from the Kingdom of Bretonnia, within the former Duchy of Mousillon.

As a quick aside for those of you who may not know: within the setting of Warhammer Fantasy and within the Kingdom of Bretonnia exists a place known as Mousillon, a blighted land of undead and disease-infested swamplands of where supposedly no good could ever come from. Its peasants are even more twisted and deformed from generations of inbreeding and constant exposure to the sickness that plagues the lands, and often times not even the nobles that reside there come away unscathed. It can often be said that the land plagues the very hearts of those who dwell within it. As such it is not unheard of for those Nobles who make their home within Mousillon's borders to consort with the ruinous powers, or the undead.. perhaps even being undead themselves.

Merovech, so named after the mad Duke of whom he so distantly shares a bloodline to, was raised from his birth on the stories of gallant and chivalrous knights, riding out to right wrongs and to do righteous deeds in the name of the Lady of the Lake. Raised almost entirely by his mother, the ideals of chivalry and goodness were placed again and again within the boy's mind, telling him that while the place he lives in may be cursed, that no one or no place can be beyond redemption, that it might take someone like him to lift the curse, to prove to the Lady herself that some good yet dwell within Mousillon. He did his very best to adhere to these beliefs, that he must fight against the darkness, to do everything that he could to help others. The boy's childhood was fraught with trouble.. From meager harvests of what little the manor's peasants could grow or gather, raids of Beastmen, attacks by the Undead, along with a deadly pox nearly killing the boy before his seventh summer it seemed only by the Lady's very will that he survived to maturity.

Shortly before his fifteenth name day Merovech came to find that his darling mother had taken ill, one of the poxes of Mousillon had finally claimed her. She bade her son to take up his father's sword from the mantle, to take the old mare, Amber from the stables and to ride out, to begin his tour of Errantry. As such he was thrust out in to the world to fend for himself, with only what training he'd received from this point to protect him.. however before his departure his mother recalled a time the pair of them had traveled to the City of Mousillon itself.

"My son, do you remember when first we made the trek through the swamps? To the city that was once the brightest gem of all of Bretonnia? Do you remember those creatures upon the docks? The ones with the spots, and the tufts of fur upon their backs who giggled as though laughing? Some call them 'Carrion Hounds'. People hate those creatures, for they scavenge and seek out the weak to hunt.. But that hate is misplaced. The Carrion Hound does what it must, it endures the insults, it fights to survive, and in the end, it has a belly full of food. You my son are like them, all will look upon you and see little more than what they consider to be vile, they will assume you cruel and corrupted.. But you must endure it. The Carrion Hound Endures, and so shall you and the stories you will write."

The Carrion Hound Endures. That phrase had become the motto of the young Knight and he'd done his best to live by it.