Agnor

Agnor is the leader of the stog, the deer-like people of Ferar, and a decisive ally in the campaign against Remora. His intervention transforms the conflict from a struggle centered on gobli resistance into a broader coalition: the stog seek an end to the genocide against their people, while Alvar gains fighters, intelligence, and a route into Goblia. Agnor therefore represents both a persecuted community demanding recognition and the practical military knowledge that makes resistance possible.

Identity and Position

Agnor appears as the largest stag among the stog, distinguished by magnificent antlers, extensive tattoos, a brown leather kilt, and brightly colored beads around his neck. He is taller than an average human man, and his physical presence marks him as a leader before his political speech confirms it. The stog themselves resemble fauns in their upper bodies and faces, but their lower halves are deer-like; their backs are covered in red-brown fur, their eyes are large and dark brown, and their bare chests carry red-and-white war paint. Agnor thus enters the narrative not as an isolated individual but as the visible representative of a nonhuman people with its own territory, history, and communal identity.

His authority is also connected to family and succession within the stog. Agnor explains that his son, Jahn, is chief stag of a northern tribe and will join him. The reference makes the proposed alliance larger than a personal act of courage: it links multiple stog communities and places the campaign within a continuing political structure.

Cause of the Alliance

Agnor approaches Alvar after gobli supporters rally around him. He offers to accompany Alvar and help, prompting Alvar to ask why the stog would take an interest in a gobli war or in an alliance with Underland. Agnor answers that Remora and her followers have hunted and killed the stog, while Remora claims that they have no right to the mountain. His counterclaim is historical and territorial: the stog have always lived on the mountain’s surface, whereas the gobli occupied its caverns and caves.

The proposed alliance therefore rests on a shared threat rather than simple loyalty. Agnor promises that the stog will gladly ally with Underland if Alvar stops the genocide of his people once and for all. The condition gives the alliance a defined moral and political stake. Agnor is not merely lending warriors to another ruler’s campaign; he is seeking protection, territorial justice, and an end to systematic killing.

Military Contribution

Alvar accepts Agnor’s support, noting that additional fighters will be useful and that Remora’s warriors will be at a disadvantage. Agnor then supplies the information that changes the tactical situation. Goblia has only one obvious entrance and that entrance is heavily guarded, but the stog have cut another opening into the city from the opposite side of the mountain. They also have spies inside Goblia who helped make the hidden road available.

Agnor immediately turns this intelligence into an operational plan. The opposing forces are to distract Remora’s fighters at the main entrance, drawing them away from the secret route, while the allied forces storm Goblia from behind. He reduces the political objective to the removal of Remora herself, describing the strategy as cutting off the monster’s head. He then orders a female warrior to carry the message to Jahn, ensuring that the northern stog contingent is incorporated into the plan.

This sequence establishes Agnor as more than a symbolic ally. He brings territorial knowledge, underground access, intelligence networks, coordinated leadership, and a method for converting a numerical or defensive disadvantage into surprise. His role is that of a threshold-opening ally: the secret road gives Alvar’s coalition access to a city otherwise protected by a single guarded entrance.

Relationship with Alvar and the Coalition

Agnor’s relationship with Alvar is founded on negotiated reciprocity. Alvar offers the possibility of ending the stog’s persecution; Agnor offers fighters and strategic access. Their exchange is neither purely personal nor unconditional. Agnor speaks as the representative of a people, while Alvar responds as King Alvar and future leader of a coalition that includes gobli and stog interests.

The alliance also broadens the meaning of resistance. The gobli rally behind Alvar, and the stog emerge from the mountain forests to join them. Agnor’s presence connects the caverns, the mountain surface, and the political future of Underland. Remora’s rule is consequently opposed not by one faction alone but by communities whose different habitats and histories have been forced into common cause by her violence.

Narrative Role and Significance

Agnor’s appearance marks the moment when grievance becomes organized strategy. His account of the stog’s persecution supplies the ethical reason for intervention; his knowledge of the hidden road supplies the practical means. The two elements are inseparable: without the injustice, there would be no alliance, and without the alliance’s concrete route into Goblia, the demand for justice would remain politically powerless.

The character also complicates the story’s treatment of identity and belonging. The stog are visibly different from humans, yet Agnor speaks in the language of residence, ancestral right, family leadership, and collective survival. His people’s animal-like bodies do not diminish their political claim to the mountain; instead, the narrative places their embodied difference alongside their fully articulated history and agency. Agnor consequently functions as a reminder that the campaign against Remora is not only a contest for power but also a struggle over who is allowed to belong, remain alive, and define the land they inhabit.