Bertok Vass

Summary

Bertok Vass (489-556 DB) was, by many accounts, a vicious, lazy sadist. The third son of Misi Vass, he was born into a life of wealth and luxury in Hagiv during the Ferencz Monarchy. He spent the first quarter century of his life drinking, gambling, and beating up whores. By the time he turned twenty-six, his father had disowned him and was ready to let him rot in debtor's prison, but Bertok's mother pleaded with her husband to give him another chance. So, Misi allowed him to try his hand at running a single office in the Vass-Ingesson Trading Company - one responsible for bringing in wines from the Cap.

Bertok was well on his way to ruining that office by drinking through the profits when one of the dwarves who performed fetch and carry for him found a fragment of the Sunstone. Bertok saw an opportunity and befriended that dwarf, planning to steal the Sunstone fragment. He was unable to steal the fragment and failed to have the dwarf assassinated. So, instead he encouraged Nagev to follow the more radical revolutionary teachings he was learning from other slaves. When the Glorious People's Revolution actually started, Bertok was well-positioned with the disaffected young nobles of Sefia and convinced many of them to join the revolution. His idea was that one of them could be king after Negev drove the old king out.

Instead, the Revolution kept gaining momentum and Bertok lost his own control of the Vass Family forces. He remained at Nagev's side and was widely seen to be his closest friend once Nagev became Glorious Leader. But, Bertok was largely a puppet of his smarter cousins. At the behest of one of those cousins, he was knifed to death in a brothel in 556 DB.