Compelled by Dolorous Stroke to leave the war party in Winchester and slain by agents of Chaos.
Group: Crows of Albion
Barony: Chelmsford
County: Warwick
Duchy: York
Race: Human
Obituaries
I lied. You became my mother when I had none.
Now I have no mother again.
My prayers will go to Nethras that she may care for you the way you cared for all of your children.
-Artemis
Obituary for Ma? Nahhh, i bet she aint dead, she’s just
pullin’ our leg i reckon, shacked up with some nice bloke…. right?
Gregsy
The calmly determined and everlasting Harts faction hosted a lively and bustling Great Erdryjan Fayre in the year of 1112. The ambitious Morghana had drawn Excalibur from the stone and set her dreaded, unliving force against us yet again. This was a time before the land crippling, nation shattering Albion Crisis. This was a time when I first met the powerful yet saintly Ma.
She was in the attentive Harts camp with the blazing and unbreakable Scarlet. During a time made so busy by the games, and dangerous with the Black Flame and Morghana enraged, these two held the fort along with a few others while the rest of the Crows of Albion had reinforced the Griffons camp against a demonic siege fraught with abundant poison. Upon the Crows return to camp, the warm Ma Crow and assuring Scarlet showed me the importance of checking through everybody. That assumptions of good health were death’s many wry friends.
Where some healers such as myself can be cowardly or frail, she was both undoubtedly brave and matched the strength of any assailants to her vast adopted family. She may not have been the great Jackamo Cassandora, but to me she equally embodied the spirit of the Crows of Albion, almost an avatar. Her presence would fill the most lost orphan with endless love and steadfast healing. Ma Crow became an iconic leader of the Crows of Albion.
She was fully active in her devotion to Nethras. Within the Crows, she lived akin to a true champion of the Ancestor. I had planned to seek her knowledge of Nethras, to be taught more about the Ancestor. When now in hindsight, all the teachings were as clear as day in her very actions. Some things in this world can be written down, where as others are best demonstrated. Ma led by example. Unlike ink that will fade and parchment that will crumble, her actions will be interminably mirrored through generations. Her love will travel through time itself, now and forever.
Cliamain Vauthel,
Apprentice Druid, Lindisfarne Battalion, The Crows of Albion.
She was everyone’s Ma. She was some people’s Martha. But first and foremost, she was my mother, and I loved her. I wish I had told her more.
She will be missed more than the words I have to speak it. The one and only Martha Bartholomew.
Hesper Bartholomew.
I stood with Antonio and we held our swords over Ma Crow’s body and we shouted the Crow’s motto. There was no honour parade and there was no campfire to take her to. There was Shaman and there was Pebble and there was a lot of shouting and some silence and a lot of tears and some fighting and hurting over the death but there was life as well all at once. And Nethras watched as we the living sent Ma to her and I think Nethras would judge it as being a good death. Ma made that possible when she pulled the Crows into shape and became their mother and led the Harts in making Nethras fit within the Trinity like she should. I know the Crows will miss Ma maybe more than they missed any of their other leaders even and I know that it won’t only be Crows.
Sir Graf Dog
Biography
A biography by her own account:
I had always led a simple life; farming, friends and ale being my world. My neighbours and I would always help each other and that was my life, until one day when I was presented with a small babe whose mother had died in childbirth. Her father, an alcoholic, was unable to care for her. After a few years, this child had stirred such maternal feelings in me that I was determined that no child would ever go unloved or uncared for, and so began my orphanage, which I ran for many years, aided ably by my first child – Hesper.
As she got older, Hesper became my stalwart companion, my right hand and my friend. Every few weeks I would be ‘sent off’ to the local tavern for a respite from my heavy duties (I did not need forcing having a fondness for ale and the local blacksmith!). I knew that she would take good care of my children – each of whom I loved as if they were my own. She was the oldest child but only by a few years and they all adored her. However, the memories and events of a certain night remain locked in my heart and changed me forever.
I had indeed gone to the Inn at Hesper’s insistence on a hot and stormy summer’s night. The tavern was bustling and noisy, the blacksmith was there and we shared many a good ale; my cares and worries blown away in a night of simple pleasures.
I was soon interrupted by the arrival on one of my stablehands bursting through the doors shouting something about the orphanage being under attack and thrusting a scribbled note from Hesper into my hands. My beloved children were in danger and I was not there to protect them. Leaving the inn immediately, others following close behind, I ran my horse back home as fast as he could go.
The sight and sounds that greeted me rocked my world to its very foundation; flames lept high into the air, my children screamed as they were burnt alive, trapped in the broken and collapsed ruins. I rushed towards the building but was held back by the arms of the very man I loved. Love turned to anger as he prevented me from at least dying with my children and being with them in their last precious moments. Village folk helped see off the remaining few attackers but there was nothing anyone could do to help my children. My life and my home was destroyed. I had failed as a mother. My world turned black and bitter.
I stood there, helpless and waited until the flames had died and I was sure that there were no survivors. Everything I had lived for had gone. Turning my back on everything I had once loved I travelled as far away as I could, hoping that the further I went the less I would feel the pain. However every time I came across a child in need my guilt at the deaths of my family caused me to rush and help them – whether they wanted help or not! Sometimes being useful, sometimes a hindrance. I soon became obsessed with the welfare of any I called ‘my children’. Fostering so many different families that I purposefully forgot my own name and just became ‘Ma’ to any that would accept me, taking on their name instead.
My travels took me to Lindisfarne where I found an unruly bunch – too old to be classed as children! Whilst courageous and manageable in some ways, in others they were sorely in need of a mother and so I took it upon myself to adopt, without their permission, the Crows of Albion.
And so began the relationship of Ma Crow with her new “children”; a family that accepted this strange, often silent, sometimes overbearing woman with open arms and provided the love and affection she so longed for.
Finally, I felt at peace.
The Crows were, and are, my life, my family, and where they go, I go. In my eyes, whilst they are a mischievous bunch, their hearts are good and true and I will stand with them wherever I can.
All was well… until the surprise arrival of Hesper Bartholomew at the GEF in 1112. Surprise turned to shock, to joy, to suspicion and horror. Mingled emotions and thoughts in turmoil. How had she survived when none other had. Old feelings of bitterness began rising once more to the surface…