Cerberus

The portcullis gates ascend to the delight of the gore addicted spectators. Expecting to cheer for the savage gladiator they've come to know and love, horror fills every eye as an abomination steps heavily through the gates, adorned with the still-moaning skulls of his enemies. His birth name lost to time, Cerberus the Skull Collector was once the revered general of an ancient northern army. Centuries ago, his forces stormed the slopes of Twinblade Peak to snuff out the remnants of rebelling tundra tribes as they made a desperate last stand. Unbeknownst to the general, the savage tribesmen had formed a pact with a species of Frost Giants believed to have been long extinct. The frigid behemoths emerged from the crevasses of the mountain in droves, and by late morning the slopes were dotted crimson with the gory puddles of his unidentifiable men. His forces decimated, the general was found wounded amidst a grisly pile of his enemies, a giant amongst them. Rather than give him the honorable death he requested, a chieftain grinned toothlessly and ordered his men to fasten him with chains along with a few other survivors. And so the once decorated general was sold into slavery and carted roughly south to faraway Sandrock. While drifting in and out of fever dreams, his only comforts were derived from fractured visions of his beloved northern wife, whose fate he could not possibly know. After miraculously recovering from his wounds, the former general was forced into the arena of Sandrock to fight for the amusement of a gluttonous upper echelon. Refusing at first to bear arms, he did so only when his captured comrades were threatened with execution. His bouts were nothing short of poetic, if poetry could indeed be derived from the severed limbs and liberated entrails he let fly to the delight of spectators. Yet somehow his aristocratic masters believed he still hadn't unearthed his full, savage potential. One night, a noble that had appeared to take pity on the general informed him that his beloved wife had been located and was awaiting him in the arena where the two could rendezvous and escape. The noble had not lied, for indeed she was awaiting him… with a rope fastened tightly around her neck. The chorus of laughter emanating from the nobles perched high above could not drown out the general's cries of anguish. Alone in his cell, he prayed to the gods to melt the chains that bound him, that he might take revenge on those who deserved it most. Maddened with rage, his prayers were finally answered by the Nether God, who offered him a bond of eternal servitude in exchange for the freedom to exact his revenge. The general accepted, and when his shackles were broken, went on a blood-fueled frenzy collecting the head of each man who'd been present at his wife's execution. Afterward, the Nether God looked down on his newest mad dog with eldritch pride before impaling the severed heads to his body and granting him immortal life, dubbing him "Cerberus," a most fitting name.