Name: Karliege

Race: Human, perhaps it should be considered formerly human

Nationality: Aldebarani

Occupation: Sorcerer

Religion: None. Karliege holds that there are no Gods, or that if there are then they are insane. He has seen the other side and all it holds is darkness and terror.



A battered and skeletal waif, with his stooped shoulders and his crooked leg Karliege stands a little under five feet and nine inches and probably weighs half of what a man his size should. He is pitifully thin, every last one of the ribs which make up his hollow chest is bared on display beneath his luminous pale skin. All over he covered in markings, scars, tattoos, some ritual in nature, others demarking his former life as slave to the God-Emperor Dagon, and all the cruelties that it entailed. The left knee is a snarl of scar tissue and fused solid, the result of one too many vigorous beating and years spent in chains. The right arm is hidden beneath a web of bandages, but hangs withered and trembling at his side.

His face is half covered by his lank dark blonde hair, thin and greasy it hangs down to the left to obscure dark red branding scars, ones that permanently etched his station under Dagon’s Empire into this face. It crosses over his left eye and the trauma inflicted by the burning iron has left it milky white and unseeing. The other eye is a soft grey, and usually stares vacantly, whatever intelligence flickering within is distant, sometimes there is great sorrow in that one remaining eye, at other times there is an even greater madness. The rest of the face would have once been considered well-made, slightly effeminate and elfin perhaps, but handsome none the less. A slender nose, now slightly crooked from an old break, leads down to thin and cracked lips the colour of ash. Hunger and privation has made the angles of Karliege’s face even more pronounced, but not for the better, gauntness is the lasting impression rather than beauty. He is only a young man, but he seems old before his time.

Normally the worse of these abuses are well hidden beneath a great woollen cloak of dark gray, its deep hood used to further hide Karliege’s appearance. Underneath he wears whatever clothes he can find, caring for warmth over any form of aesthetic. His boots are mismatched, a necessity brought about by his now uneven legs and limping gait.



Karliege is cold and reserved, not in a cruel or uncaring way, but as if separated from all others around him by an immense unseen chasm. Distant is probably the lasting impression that he leaves on others. Even when he is direct conversation with his peers he has a habit of gazing off into the middle distance, almost as if he’s looking right though someone to something beyond. He’s quiet, in particular about himself and his history, and when pressed upon a subject he does want to discuss, instead of becoming irritated or hostile, he is more like to introvert and become despairing and defeatist. If he were to smile it would be a sad one, and only when he thinks he is alone. He sleeps little, haunted by nightmares that make him wake in fits of terrible screams

And yet at the same time there is another side of Karliege, one that shows itself rarely. It seems a kind of madness that manifests itself sometimes, when he is threatened or finds himself in danger. It starts with fear, despair, and terror. His eyes struggle wide in their sockets and he displays a rare outburst of emotion and becomes much more vocal. After this he might may briefly fit or seize up, at other times he faints. When he recovers from this, he is changed. He is silent and moves and acts with a boldness and arrogance completely unlike his normal cautious self, there is also a sense of hardness and cruelty in this other Karliege. He seems to take pleasure in the pain of others and his unscarred eye has an intense burning focus very dissimilar to its normal gaze.



Karliege is a native of Kuranes, one of few residents of that accursed place that have improbably survived its terror and escaped. He was raised without the love of a mother or a father, only a master, and a cruel one at that. In Aldebaran, children who are born with the gift of power are often taken at a young age to be inducted as acolytes in the Cult of Dagon. The same was much true of the days before the Red Night. The crown had always taken interest in the powers of sorcery and had attempted to monopolise upon, so sorcerers sworn to the crown were given royal assent in the abduction of children from their mothers’ breast. Karliege was one such child.

He remembers little of his birth parents, although he does recall hazy memories of living as a child somewhere in the countryside. It used to bother him that he couldn’t recall his parents’ faces, but as the nightmare that is consuming Geryon continues, he is strangely relieved by it. Something which is forgotten cannot cause more pain or aguish. He does not have to worry about what could have happened to his parents in this new hell, because they were nought but phantoms to him already. There are many things however, that Karliege cannot forgot, events and faces that are burned into his mind like the slave brand burned into his face. One of those things is Colndil.

Colndil was his master, and the first face that he truly recalls. His terror of the man has barely even receded in adulthood. Tall and broad, with a pointed beard and a great black mane, the mere thought of that piercing gaze from his ice like eyes was enough to send shivers down Karliege’s spine. He had been powerful in the ways of dark magic, and one of the closest associates of Dagon before his ascendance to godhood. He had kept a veritable stable of young apprentices to use to further his own power. He abused them all, both physically and mentally, and some, those he took particular dislike to, he abused in ways to sordid to describe here. And where did Karliege stand in all of this? Karliege was his most despised pupil.

Colndil saw him as weak and effeminate, and hated him for it. Karliege was skilled in the ways of sorcery in a way that many of the other boys would never obtain, but he did not have great reserves of power in himself, like most of Colndil’s other pupils, instead he had to rely on more devious and secretive ways to manipulate this veil we call reality. Karliege has always wondered why that irked Colndil so, perhaps it was because in many ways it was the same as how Colndil himself worked his magic. Colndil was a master of the art, the most skilled and knowledgeable of his generation, but still he relied on the reserves of small boys to accomplish his greatest feats. But no matter, whatever the root of Colndil’s abuse it created a mutual hatred between master and apprentice, one that would eventually prove nearly fatal to the pupil.

It was not so for all of Colndil’s students however, some rose to this cruelty and sought to overcome it through the proving of their own might and drive. One such pupil was Frior. He was child of even lower birth than Karliege, taken from gutter in Colndil’s own words, but he had strength above all them and rose to be Colndil’s right hand and acolyte. At first it just Colndil that would go to the Palace to visit the Emperor, then after a particularly long and late meeting with his liege, he began to take Frior with him. These meetings became more and more frequent as the weeks went by and eventually the two would be gone for days at a time. The other apprentices, Karliege included, welcome to the respite from their master and his dog. But this peace was shattered, when they were summoned, every last one of them, to Dagon’s Palace.

They gathered them in the throne room, sorcerers and apprentices from across the land, a larger gathering than Karliege ever heard of in his lifetime. Then it began.

He remembers nothing of the Red Night and what unspeakable horror was done in Dagon’s throne room. He remembers that they lied to him, told him they were doing the greatest of works and were to bring about an era of peace and prosperity for the world. He remembers that he poured his skill and his power in doing whatever was done. But he remembers no more.

After the Red Night, everything was changed. The wars began, and the enslavement of peoples of Geryon was underway. Karliege and the rest of the apprentices were confined to the lower regions of the palace and worked as slaves in the blood magic of Dagon. They saw little of Colndil and Frior now, both had been raised to the status of Perfecti and had been changed in the process. When the sacrifices began, they were the ones to administer them. They were ones required to the work the rights take the blood. The things… the things that they did. Unspeakable. Terrible.

One day it all proved too much. Karliege and another one of the former apprentices, Raul, decided to try and flee the capital or die trying. They escaped from their quarters and roamed the palace searching for a way out, but they failed, and were both captured. Karliege tried to use his magic to kill the legionaries, but there was too many, and by the time he thought to try and turn it on himself, it was too late and he was too weak to even end his own life.

From then on the days were a blur of beatings, and the nights full of lonely freezing solitude. It was then that they branded his face, and smashed his knee. Sometimes the Perfecti would call upon him to use his magic, other times he was left to starve and rot in the darkness. But somehow he survived. He survived long enough, that is, for a shadow from his past to return to torment him.

Colndil. Colndil returned to Karliege and his hell, brought him up out of it and delivered him to another. He… did something to Karliege, something that changed him in ways like no other abuse or torture had. He did not take something away… he added something to Karliege, something dark, something dangerous. They carved it into his arm, this magick, with knives of obsidian and powered grave dust. The plucked something forth from the darkness beyond the veil, and implanted it within his soul.

What it is exactly, Karliege does not know, but is powerful and is alive in its own fashion. He does not fully control it, but neither does it hold mastery over him. Sometimes it feels like it is within him, crawling in the back of his mind, at other times it seems to exist outside of him. He knows that he has seen it on the edge of his vision, a dark shadow roughly hinting the shape of a man. Why it was put there? Karliege has long suspected that he was only a trial run of a ritual that Colndil may have intended for himself, to amplify his own powers even more. Karliege had only been subjected to it because of how he and Colndil had once worked in a similar way. Whatever the matter, it was his salvation, and it allowed him to escape.

It used his body and its power to break down the cell doors and run faster than Karliege’s own crippled body could have imagined possible. It combined his skill of reading and manipulating the veil of reality with its own strength to hide them from the legions, from Colndil, from Dagon. The price was dear though, after their flight, Karliege had lain in a forest, under a great oak tree, vomiting blood , half blind and mad for a week. Never again did either of them push the boundaries of their endurance than in that desperate escape.

After months in the wilds, living on acorns and berries, they finally found their way to the relative safety of the mountainous forests of Varyon, and the rebels under the Scarred King.



- Silver basin, used for scrying in moonlight
- Bag of knucklebone runes, used as a method of divination
- Ritual knife, a simple single edged blade used for drawing blood or reading entrails
- A stout yew staff, iron shod, gently thickening towards the upper end
- Gray woollen travelling cloak
- Undyed tunic, woollen leggings, and a set of mismatched boots in soft leather



Divination
Karliege is a somewhat skilled in the use of arcane mysteries, in particular the abilities of scrying and divination. He can learn of events transpiring far away and consult with both the fates and the spirits as to the events of the future – however, they are not forthcoming in their prophecies and will often speak in riddles or intentionally mislead the asker if they fail to ask the right question.

Colndil’s Curse
A shadow follows Karliege. It is bound to him in blood and sorcery. It shares its strength with him, but it also makes us of his body and invades his mind. When the shadow is in control Karliege becomes incredibly powerful and is able to kill his enemies with a wave of his hand, however, this comes at a great cost, both mental and physical. The dark powers that exist beyond this world do not co-exist well with mortals, and the longer Karliege prolongs his contact with this shadow the more power it will exercise over him, until he is little more than a husk.



Karliege wants to see Dagon and his former master, Colndil, dead and all the evil they have wrought undone. It is both personal revenge and a sense of moral duty, for Karliege assisted in the creation of this nightmare and feels the burden to atone. But more than this, they have robbed him of his mind and crippled his body – they had destroyed Karliege’s life even as it barely begun. His existence is pain, and the only thing that drives him onward is thought of revenge and to make sure that Dagon can never do to another that which was done to him. After that, Karliege intends to end his own suffering, as it is the only thing that he believes can set him free of Colndil’s curse.

As for the shadow that follows Karliege, its desires remain a secret to itself, but for now it seems to aid Karliege in his quest. Although considering the circumstances of its creation, it is unlikely to be benevolent.

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Appearance:



Name:

Lem Arronson

Age:

47 or 48

Personality:

Lem Arronson is hard man, he’s lived a hard life and a long one at that considering his profession. He’s tough and reliable, diligent, someone that you can depend upon but will equally require you to work hard and do your fair share – he gives no free rides. He speaks little and sleeps less, he’s patient and quiet, this leads him to be a cautious (yet highly skilled) fighter on the battlefield. After all, there is some truth in the saying that there are old mercenaries, and there bold mercenaries, but there are no old bold mercenaries.

Despite his gruffness and unyielding nature, Lem ultimately has a good heart. If one has the patience to listen to him then he imparts advice freely, and pretty much always speaks honestly. He has even served a sort of mentor in the past to younger men following similar paths to the one he has travelled. He has dry sense of humour, although it tends towards the more grim and macabre end of the spectrum – another side effect of spending a life killing people for money.

Backstory:

Lem’s story is a common one. He is not an orphan, his young life was not filled with hardship or tragedy or formative suffering. He was the son of peasants, and he lived in a small village in the north of Edessa where his father herded flocks of sheep for the local feudal lord and his mother worked all day in their vegetable garden. The eldest of four children that made it past infancy, he worked in the fields and pastures from a young age. Lem did not live a miserable or particularly hard life, sometimes the winters and springs were lean, and sometimes they were not. Ultimately they scraped a decent living for folks such as themselves and his family were content. Lem however, was not.

He was adventurous boy, always dreaming beyond the valleys of his childhood to the world that was outside. He wanted to see it, he wanted to be more than just another peasant, more than his father; he wanted to live. His father was not a bad man, but they clashed a lot, and sometimes he beat Lem, and sometimes Lem deserved it. One day after feeling particular discontent, his arm particularly sore from a slap of his father’s crook, Lem decided to leave his family and the life he faced ahead of him as another peasant farmer- for good.

He ran away south before is fourteenth name day, taking little with him except the clothes on his back. He had little idea of where he was going, stealing and working as a day labourer to get by. For a couple of months he lived like vagabond until one night, while sleeping in a haystack he was seized by a group of recruiters for the King’s Army, had the shilling forced upon him and was pressed ganged into the service of the crown.

Now while this might seem as a set back from most people, it was really the best thing that could have happened to Lem. He was fed and clothed, given tasks to set his mind and energy to, and most of all he was given a life beyond working a plough or crook or scythe. He saw Edessa, fought in a fair number of skirmishes, he became a fair fighter and then a good one. After his ten years were up and he was given the choice between going back to the life of a civilian or continuing as a solider, Lem chose the latter. Although this time, he was not in service to the King, instead he joined one of the free companies of Edessa – mercenaries who do not fight for crown or glory, but for gold.

Mercenary life suited Lem even better than an enlisted man, he earned more and saw even more of the world. For six years he warred his way through the eastern lands, fighting alongside the nomads and barbarians in their never ending conflicts. He made a fortune and returned to Edessa, there was a woman for a while, talk of settling down and having a good, respectable life, but something went wrong and within a year Lem had drank his fortune away and returned to a life on the road. He fought wherever there was fighting needed to be done and in the process made a fair reputation and name for himself amongst the circles in which soldiers of fortune tend to move.

All of this continued uninterrupted until three years ago, when Lem’s horse was killed beneath him during a skirmish on the Welds border. A novice spearman, their very first battle in fact, stepped out from behind a tree as Lem thundered past and skewered the horse in its chest. The beast fell, and Lem wasn’t quick enough to leap clear of the saddle. It landed on his right leg, crushing his knee into a bloody, broken mess. Lem survived the battle, but he would never be the graceful and truly formidable fighter he had once been.

He served on as a mercenary though, he was experienced, he could lead and train men and was still a good enough sword – especially when in the saddle. But when his band was called south again to fight the orcs, he left them and returned to capital. He said that fighting orcs was different to men, and that he was getting too old and would be of no use to them. But everyone knew that was a lie, no one was sure why he went back, but he stayed in the city until the last moment, leaving with the very last caravan on the road north to Ardel.

Skills and Abilities:

• Accomplished Swordsman - Lem has been fighting on and off the battlefield for over 30 years now. If you can do something with a sword that he doesn’t know about, it’s probably not worth knowing. His main areas of expertise are when it comes to sword and shield or sword and dagger, less accomplished with two handed swords or other combinations.
• Professional Rider – Lem is very comfortable on a horse, having ridden in both combat and non-combat situations.
• Professional Spearman – Lem is also skilled in the use of the spear or lance, especially when on horseback.
• Journeyman Healing – A practical knowledge of how to stich and dress flesh wounds, set and splint broken bones, and relocate joints develops over the years when you main source of income involves getting hurt a lot.
• Novice Huntcraft – Foraging and scavenging food in the field is important, however Lem lacks any real skill with the bow, so they are limited to snaring rabbits and trying (often unsuccessfully) to spear large game.
• Novice Armourer – A basic knowledge of how to reshape dented plates and repair rivets on chain mail while on the move. Only quick fixes really until a professional blacksmith can be found.

Equipment:

• Armour - Lem's armour consists of three layers, a basic thin padded and quilted arming jacket and trousers, over which goes a full length mail hauberk with mail leggings and coif. The topmost layer is a coat of plates sewn into leather, steel vambrices, greeves, a mis matched set of pauldrons (one iron, one steel) and a iron open faced helmet with a nose guard. One his feet he wears hobnailed leather boots and his hands are covered with leather gaunlets with a few small plates sewn into them. Much of the armour is used and has beaten and rough look to it, but is servicable.
• Arming Sword - A one handed steel Arming sword, a little nicked, but very sharp still. Plain guard and sharkskin grip.
• Dirk - A steel dagger for small tasks or to be used in his off hand
• Shield - A round oaken shield with an iron rim that can be strapped to the arm.
• Boar spear - A short iron spear hafted with ash that can be used as weapon or for hunting
• Coin purse - A small purse fat with silver and copper coins, additionally Lem has a few gold coins sewn into the lining of one of his jerkins and a garnet hidden in his left boot.
• Horse - A relatively old grey mare called Dutchess, Lem's horse for the last three years. She carries a set of saddlebags that contain:
  
  
  • Two sets of small clothes, two leather studded jerkins (one fur lined), two sets of breaches, one ragged woollen cloak
  • Animal gut thread, a neede and some linen strips
  • A small hammer and set of tongs, a small bottle of oil, some rags, a whetstone
  • A bed roll and a tarred sheet of canvas
  • A water skin, a wine skin, a small leather flask of 'fire water' (a strong alcohol from Varyan)
  • A few days worth of dried provisions (bread, cured meat, hard cheese, dried apples etc)

Name: Sarcen - the Destroyer, the White Fire, Taker of Life and Wielder of the First Blade

Character: Unrestrained Hedonism is Sarcen’s most key and core essence – they pursue their own enjoyment and amusement to the detriment or even destruction of others and of the self. They are violent, sadistic, self-centred, hedonist and utterly depraved. They live their life as swirling vortex of fighting, drinking, whoring, stealing, killing, and abusing others that sucks in all those around them and spits them back out broken and bruised - and often even worse. However, at the same time as this Sarcen has an intense fascination and interest in humans, their little plans and schemes and intrigues and emotions. So insignificant and weak but crying out for recognition, love, praise and power. Sarcen is sincre in his respect for mankind and their pleasure seeking and often brutal ways (sometimes even he is impressed by their capacity to inflict horrors) but he feels no love for them - or for his own kind of that matter. It's like watching an ant farm... occasionally crushing a few between your fingers to see how they react. And while he can exert his will over many of them for his enjoyment now... its gotten stale... perhaps a larger ant farm to play with is needed?

Flaws:

• Untrustworthy and completely self-centred makes them a poor and unwilling ally
• Hedonistic and self-destructive tendencies hamper effectiveness (permanently hung-over or drunk/high)
• No focus or pre-planning, they act, they don't plan, and if they get bored of something, they will give up and do something else

Appearance: Sarcen is tall man, broad shouldered but slim at the waist. They are muscular but at the same time have a lean and hungry look to them, like they haven’t eaten properly for days or weeks. Angular is their face with high and sharp cheekbones, with a strong chin that always bears a few days’ worth of rough stubble upon it. Unlike his cheeks, his nose is flat and wide, it looks as though it has been broken in the past. Their skin is marred with many scars and pale, like their hair, which is a silvery blonde kept short, tight buzz cut on the sides with low messy spikes on top. Their lips are thin, and pull back to reveal yellowed teeth with long, sharp, canines. Yellower still are Sarcen’s eyes, a bright inhuman and incandescent yellow, with slits for pupils – predator eyes, although normally these are hidden by a set of ever present black sunglasses which themselves rest upon his pointed and multiply pierced ears. A metal bar runs through their right eyebrow.

They dress in an old stained and torn white ribbed vest transitioning down over a black leather belt with a large tarnished belt into ripped washed out jeans and heavy black army boots. Over the exposed part of the his body you can see Sarcen's 'art work', hundreds of different tattoos all in different styles and of different ages, some overlapping each over, some familiar symbols and motifs, others alien and incomprehensible.

Essence: Fire. White Fire, that’s burns hotter than any fire you can imagine, as Sarcen taps into more and more of the flow an essence this heat becomes more focused and more intense – allowing them to create explosions and blasts of superheated air. However, for all the power and strength of their use of essence, Sarcen lacks all forms of subtlety and technique with its use. All he can understand is brute force when it comes to the use of his powers.

Emblem: A silver and black switchblade.

Relationships:



Stats:
Ambition: 7
Combat: 8
Essence: 7
Cunning: 3
Reputation: 1

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Name: Eadrom Fianna

Nick name: Ead

Gender: Male

Species: Deer Daeva

Age: 22

Appearance: Averaged height, with an angular frame that has the potential to carry an awful lot of muscle on it, but hasn’t been properly filled out, leaving Eadrom looking generally quite thin and bony. The same can be said of his face, thin and angular, although not effeminate. He has generally boyish good looks, with deep hazel eyes and a slightly lopsided, though charming, smile. His hair is chestnut brown and is a curly, unruly mess. He also sports a small soul patch on his chin.

Clothing wise Eadrom almost invariably dresses in the dark, black armour of the Daeva military, although slightly modified to weigh less and be less restrictive for his light footed combat approach. Get him out of armour and he dresses plainly and simply, no frills or lace despite his noble background.

Weapons: Eadrom uses a pair of rather thin, mid-length swords, which he dual wields. His fighting style involves a lot of movement and circling, trying to get deep, pinpointed strikes on his opponent’s weak spots.

Background: The Fianna family are members of the minor Daeva nobility, though they are not linked by blood or marriage to the royal line itself. They own lands on the eastern side of Nixie Lake and are relatively affluent. Eadrom is the heir to the family estates, although currently he is viewed as a slight black sheep for going into military service instead of the traditional political or economic positions the family has held. However, he believed that the good he could do for the Daeva people was much more limited by following these routes rather than joining the army.

His aspiration to join the army manifested at an early age, and his families connections allowed him to be singled out by the elite training division of the military academy. Eadrom is trained in more than just the standard scope of combat and leadership; he has also been tutored in the often diplomatic and ambassadorial role that the Daeva military often play. He proved an able and willing student, and so was fast tracked for high status positions in the internal structure of the military. However, he has been reluctant in accepting these more desk bound duties, as they detract from his ability to do good for the people.

He was approached by General Sergio (who effectively mentored Eadrom during his first years as on active duty) who saw that joining the expedition would be a way to prove his worthiness and do ‘good’ at the same time. However, this was before the recent developments involving the death of King Raha, and since then there has been a great deal of speculation about whether it is wise to send such a young and untested soldier where serious military and diplomatic clout might be needed instead.

Extra: He currently holds the rank of Captain, although he is not officially in charge of any body of men.

Name: Baron Stephen de Monfort (Stephen the bloody)

Gender: Male

Age: 31

Appearance:

Stephen stands at around 5'9" and is of a fairly lithe build, though he has surprisingly large shoulder muscles and biceps which allow him to swing short hacking weapons with deadly speed. His hands are similarly strong and callused, showing a life of either hard work of handing weapons. His physical position is peak, unlike many other knights who ride on horseback Stephen is accustomed to fighting on foot for battles.

The most noticeable feature is a line white scar that runs from the base of the temple to the bottom of the chin, unlike the rest of his face, no hair grows on it. Making the scar stand out against the dark blonde stubble, his hair is a similar colour, dark blonde streaked with brown yet stained darker either by sweat or blood. His eyes are typically northern European blue as is his fair complexion. There is nothing particularly unpleasant about his face, yet it is not instantly attractive, nondescript would be the best way to think of it. His garb in the desert is always the same, the armour and the white mantle with a red cross that all Templars wore.

Equipment/inventory:
-Steel Chainmail Hauberk with Coif (leather cuirass underneath)
-Leather Gauntlets
-Steel toe capped armoured boots
-Steel Greaves and Vambraces on legs and arms
-Small crucifix
-Gold Reliquary containing a finger bone of Saint Jude.

Weapons:
-A knight's long sword, a family heirloom forged in the 10th century.
-A shorter brutal sword, a Falchion with one cutting side and a machete like blade.
-A light single handed axe, with a cutting blade, an end spike, and an armour piercing pick.

Background: Stephen was born into nobility in the southern France province of Aquitaine. Here he was raised under the eye of a stern father and a mother who bowed to the will of her husband. Despite whatever vice's Stephen's father had, Robert was devout to the word of God. His hand may have been heavy and his temper quick, but when he heard an utterance of heresy from his own eldest son, he made sure the boy would never again doubt God. He beat Stephen within an inch of his life before sending him off to a monastery in Normandy for two years to learn respect for God. It was here that he met Raymond of Cyprus, a Knight Templar.

While at the monastery the knight had been visiting before he went out to the holy land. He had fascinated the boy with tales of the crusades and how God rewarded all who went upon it, this more simulation for Christianity than any monk could provide. When Raymond left and Stephen was returned to his father he set about becoming a knight worthy of the holy land. But in his abscense it was apparent is mother had died of the flu, grieved but not changed, he also decided to pray for her soul when in Jerusalem.

He trained hard and achieved this, his father died when he was 17 and he inherited what was his. Nothing could now stop him on his voyage to Jerusalem. It took two years to sail to Tyre and then across the desert to Jerusalem, when there he prayed and met a familiar face. Raymond was still in the holy land, older but still a Knight Templar of high standing. He joined the Templars shortly afterwards and served with them in the two years of peace between then and the start of Saladin's war on Palestine. When the truce broke again in 1186, he was in fact part of those who caused this, he raided a caravan with Raynald de Chatillion, which had Saladin's sister in it.

He had continued to fight with Raynald until the battle of Hattin, where he was moved back to Tyre in case the Muslim army headed north. After Hattin Saladin took Jerusalem and Arce, but Tyre still stood. This is what prompted the Third Crusade, to take back Jerusalem, and the holy war was back on again. He battled down with other Templars to Acre, they took the Muslim garrison but were themselves besieged. When the demands of King Richard I were not met, he was one of the executors of the 2,700 hostages. After this he still pushed south, hands stained with the blood of thousands of Muslims from over thirteen years of bloodshed. At Arsuf he killed hundreds more, and onto the city of Jaffa, even more dead. By this point peace talks had begun and a treaty was signed to prevent more killing on both sides. Jerusalem was lost and the Knights were ending the violent campaign for now.

He decided to return home for the first time, sick of death for once. On Cyprus he met with the son of Raymond who took him in for a short while. Here in their family chapel, did he see what his life had led him to.

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V E L Y N V I R I T H

Original Art by Minttu ____________________________________________________ Character Information Name - Velyn Virith of House Redoran Gender - Male Race - Dunmer Age - 36, born 3rd of Sun's Dawn, 3E412 Faction - House Redoran (former), Buoyant Armigers (former) Class - Spellsword Birthsign - The Lady ____________________________________________________ Skills and Attributes Major: Agility Minor: Personality Expert: Spear Adept: Light Armour, Speech, Acrobatics Apprentice: Sneak, Short Blade, Alteration ____________________________________________________ Spells Alteration Shield, an arcane shield that protects the user from harm. Water Breathing, the ability to breath underwater. Water Walking, the ability to walk upon the surface of water. Slowfall, the ability to float instead of falling. ____________________________________________________ Character Equipment Weapons Chitin Glaive, fashioned in the traditional Dumner style. Twinned Steel Wakizashi and Tanto, worn at the waist. Armour Full set of Light Dunmeri Chitin Armour. Enchanted Items The Chitin Glaive bears a minor flame enchantment on its blade. Miscellaneous Red Travelling Cloak. Kagouti Hide Travelling Pack. Spare Clothing. Paper Lantern. Few Days Rations. Jar of Sujamma, a potent liquor of Morrowind. Dunmeri Lute, similar to a Shamisen. Skooma Pipe. Three Vials of Skooma. Books and Scrolls, mostly the teachings and poetry of Vivec. Carved Guar Tooth Amulet, containing Ancestral Ashes. ____________________________________________________

A P P E A R A N C E Velyn Virith is a young male Dunmer. The Dunmer age slower than their human counterparts after they reach physical maturity, and hence he has a touch of boyish youth about him still, despite having seen three decades. He is of an average height, but slender and long limbed, with the lithe musculature of a dancer or acrobat. The comparison is even more apt when you see him in move, his steps are light and quick, his motions fluid and graceful, at least they are when he is sober. His face is handsome, the features sharp and angular like many of his kind, but not to the point of harshness, the bloom of youth softens them still. The skin is ashen grey, the narrow eyes blood red, between them sits a high aquiline nose that leads to a lightly arched brow. There's something sad about those eyes, when caught unguarded, the look in them verges between desperate hunger and utter despondency. But there's another look they take on too, with increasing regularity these days, the glazed half aware stare of the skooma addict. Ceremonial Dunmer tattoos mark his face and body. A scarab sits on his throat and neck, it curves up to cup his jaw, its forelegs peaking out onto the point of his chin. A pattern of waves adorns his left cheek, it marks him as one of the Buoyant Armigers and curves up from the side of his neck to caress the side of his high wide cheekbone. He wears the Hand of the ALMSIVI Tribunal over his heart, and a depiction of a seated figure, flames about their head, on his back. When they cast him out from the Temple, he cut his hair free of the topknot its warriors wore. The shorn locks have grown since then and they now hang around his face once more in loose black strands. Through the dark hairs you can make out his pointed ears, from which dangle a few golden rings, several empty holes indicate they were once adorned with many more than are currently on display. Other than the chitinous armour and the red cloak that wraps around it to keep out the ash of his homeland, Velyn has few clothes with him. That which he does own are of fine quality, rich in colour, but poorly maintained and cared for, near threadbare in places. Around his slender neck hangs a carved pendant or amulet, a hollowed out Guar tooth sealed with resin, containing a fragment of the ashes from the funerary pits of his family's ancestral tomb. P E R S O N A L I T Y What is remains when a person has nothing left to believe in? One of the many answers to that question, is Velyn Virith. Like a ship thrown against the rocks, or a tower built on unstable foundations, he finds himself tumbling down and shattered into a thousand pieces. All that he thought he knew and loved is gone, and in its absence nothing makes sense to him anymore. From the swirling chaos of his doubt and despair, pieces of who Velyn Virith once was sometimes emerge. He is still exceptionally courteous in his speech, stringing words together like poet, in either Imperial Common or his native Dumeris. He writes little, but some nights he still plays the lute he brought with him when he left Morrowind. In the darkness, he sings to the slow sad music, keening ballads that echo with wails of lost lovers and sundered hearts. When he fights he is reckless, fighting with no shield, and with his head bare. He often allows his opponents to strike the first blow, a long standing tradition of the honour duels of the Dunmer people, especially of the Redorans. While perhaps a noble sentiment in the honour bound house Velyn hails from, on the battlefield it is a foolhardy tactic, one that will likely end up getting him killed one day. He does not seem to care. He still says that he wishes to fight for what is good and noble, that he cares about protecting the common people, and living up to the ideals of his faith. But there is no passion to those words, they are learned by rote. To Velyn, gallantry is a routine, he does it because he does not know what else to do. Velyn is not unfriendly, but neither does he pursue any form of closeness to the other rebels he finds himself associated with, content to wait out his time alone in between their battles. If approached he is companionable enough, if not for the somewhat bitter edge to what passes as his humour. He still laughs at lot, frequently at himself, but not in a pleasant way. There's something harsh about it, as if he considers himself the butt of some great and terrible joke. The only time his spirits truly seem to lift is when the sweet smelling smoke of Skooma hangs in the air around his tent and on his threadbare clothes. Those nights he does not play or sing, he prefers to lie insensate, and dream of times long gone. In truth the emotion he most commonly seems to elicit in others is a mixture of pity and disgust. Pity because who does not know the feelings of loss and heartbreak. Disgust because Velyn seems to have given himself over to wallowing in such feelings. All of his pain, all of his loss, his doubt, his yearning, his love, and his grief can be found in one word, one name, one letter written in uncertainty. Vivec.

_{H I S T O R Y}

Velyn Virith was born on Vvardenfell on the third day of Sun's Dawn in the four hundred and twelfth year of the Third Era. He was the son of Theldyn Virith, Kinsman to the Great House Redoran, Hetman of the fishing port of Ald Velothi. Most of Velyn's childhood was spent between the Redoran district capital of Auld'ruhn and his family's ancestral estates in the West Gast. Like his brothers and cousins, he was bonded to his house from birth, and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps as another proud Redoran warrior, but fate had other plans for Velyn Virith.

He couldn't have been more than five, perhaps six, when the course of his life was irrevocably changed. His father had business with a clan of fellow Redoran nobles, the Saren clan of the city of Vivec, and he brought young Velyn with him on the long journey down to the greatest city on Vvardenfell. While his father conducted his business, he left young Velyn with a retainer to show the young boy the sights of the city.

It happened the second morning they were there, as he passed over one of the high bridges that linked the upper plazas of the cantons. A crowd had come out to line the waterways, and being a curious young child, Velyn pushed his way through to the railings to witness the cause of the excitement.

A regatta was being held on the grand canal. Barges of beaten gold, wreathed with floral garlands, floated upon the shimmering waters. The oars of each barge were manned by a host beautiful maidens and comely youths. Groups of troubadours and musicians filled the air with the sound of lutes, and pipes, and drums. From the gilded decks, knights clad in iridescent glass laughed and sang as they threw roses to the adorning crowds. And there, hovering above them all, a seated figure, half gold, smiling, and radiating the light of Heaven itself.

This was the first time Velyn saw a God. He vowed that day that it would not be the last.

He would not forget what he saw that day. On the long journey by strider back to their home it was all he could think about. He wanted to live in that light, and bathe himself in its warmth. The Redorans were one of the more pious of the Dunmer Great Houses, but even amongst them, Velyn's single minded dedication to the faith and in particular to Lord Vivec, struck many of his kinsmen as being unusual.

As soon as he was old enough he pledged himself as novice to the Temple, the first step in what he thought would be a lifetime spent in that glorious light. Once he had proved himself in feats of arms, exhibitions of arts, and generosity of alms, Velyn was apprenticed into the Buoyant Armigers. That order of iridescent knights he had glimpsed upon those gilded barges many years ago.

But the he order in found himself in was somewhat different from how he had imagined it. In those days the fear of the Sharmat hung over Vvardenfell, and recently the ALMSIVI had receded from the outside world. Rather than spending his time at the side of the Lord he had adored from far, Velyn was dispatched to the fortress of Molag Mar in the magma strewn wastes of Molag Amur. There he began his work as an Armiger, hunting down the blight of the Sharmat, slaying Sixth House Cultist and Corpus Monsters.

That was the year that the Nerevarine returned, and by his hand, the fall of the Dagoth Ur. There was upheaval in the wake on St. Nerevar's return, the amnesty on the Dissident priests, the events in Mournhold where it was rumoured that the Tribunes Sotha Sil and Almalexia were both slain. To many it was a time of uncertainty and fear. But to Velyn those few years were glorious.

Vvardenfell was freed from the threat of the Sharmat and his monsters, and Velyn's Lord was freed from his ancient duty of maintaining the Ghost Fence. For those precious few years Velyn bathed in the light of his Lord. There was time for music and poetry in those years. There was time for dancing, and nights where they would join their Lord in rituals that had been long neglected. It was in those years that Velyn learned the secrets of carnal exultation, it was everything Velyn had ever dreamed of.

And then it was over.

It was when the Gates of Oblivion opened that everything began to go wrong. Portals opened up across Morrowind, and Tamriel beyond. The Imperials sat behind the walls of their fortresses, on the mainland some even marched back through the passes of the Velothi Mountains to defend Cyrodil while Morrowind burned. The Armigers were dispatched to keep the city of Vivec safe from Daedric incursions. The city held, but elsewhere the situation was dire.

In Ald'ruhn, where Velyn had spent much of his childhood, where he had first served as a temple novice, the fighting was the worst. The city was practically destroyed, its defenders going so far as to resurrect the great Emperor Crab Skar, demolishing the council halls and manors of their most powerful citizens in the process. Once the city of Vivec was secure Velyn had fought his way north to meet up with a Redoran army from the mainland. But they too late. By the time they arrived there was little left by corpses and rubble.

Theldyn Virith, his father, was among the dead. Velyn was left to burn his body and make sure his ashes were interned with his ancestors.

In all this madness there was no sign of Lord Vivec, the Living God had disappeared around the time the Crisis. There was no sign of the Nerevarine either, who it was rumoured had travelled to the continent of Akavir. The people of Morrowind did their best to pick up the pieces, and rebuild their shattered lives and cities, Velyn was amongst them. For though their Lord had disappeared, though his father was dead, Velyn had the support of the Temple and of his sworn brothers. That was enough.

Besides, Velyn could not forget what it meant to see a God in all their glory. He never would. So he kept his faith, as best he could.

Those were trying years for Morrowind, there was fighting amongst the houses as the Hlaalu lost their place of preeminent and were expelled from the Grand Council. Imperial authority collapsed with the lack of an Emperor on the throne. While the Dunmer simultaneously tried to rebuild and fought amongst themselves, an even greater threat loomed. One that had been hanging over them for a long time.

Baar Dau, the Ministry of Truth, Lie Rock. It had floated above the City of Vivec for millennia, suspended there by the Living God himself and held in place by his power and the faith of people who lived beneath. But it appeared the Crisis, the deaths of the Tribunes, and the disappearance of the God had weakened that faith. In truth, those years were first where Velyn felt his own waver. Sometimes at night he wonders if he too is partly to blame for what happened when Baar Dau fell.

He had not been in the city. If he had, he would not be here today. The Palace and High Fane were directly beneath the impact, none who were there survived. Instead Velyn was at the Armiger's fortress at Molag Mar. All they saw was a burning light on the horizon, a terrible shaking in the ground, and the roaring hot winds of the blast wave when it finally reached them. It was only when that the mountain had answered with ash and fire, filling the Foyadas with lava and trapping them in their stronghold.

When boats from the mainland finally reached them he had tried to go to the city to search for survivors. They had told him there was no point, the city was gone and waters where it had once stood boiled. They call it Scathing Bay now. He had thought then to try to reach Ghostgate, to find the other chapter of their order, but that fortress had sat upon the Foyada Mamaea, and had been incinerated in the eruption. So, with no other option, he had gone to the mainland.

It was a good thing that he had, for soon the mainland would have need of every warrior Morrowind could provide. In the moment of their greatest ever weakness the Argonians invaded. The lizard men sacked every city they came upon, even as the ash and fire rained down still. No where was spared, not even Mournhold, a holy city of the Tribunal and the capital of all Morrowind. The jewel of their province which had somehow miraculously escaped the ravages of the Red Year was reduced to another smoking ruin.

That's what Morrowind was those days, a land of smoking ruins, refugees, warfare, and death.

And somehow, Velyn kept his faith.

He fought with his sworn brothers, with his fellow Redorans, with anyone who would defend Morrowind. Perhaps that's what allowed him to keep his faith, he had no time to think about what was happening around him, he was too busy trying to survive. So went on as he always had done, being an Armiger, doing his deeds of Love and War in the name of his Lord, Vivec.

The war was terrible and it was long. The Argonians made it as far East and North as Port Telvannis, they even made it onto Vvardenfell itself. Their armies fell most heavily on the Dres and the Telvannis, but no where was truly safe from their wrath. Over the years more and more of his brothers fell, but the Redoran led armies slowly routed the Argonian warbands from much of their lands. Mournhold was recovered, even if it was a ruin, and new fortified borders and lines of defence were drawn up between these two new independent powers.

Suddenly there wasn't anymore fighting to be done. So Velyn went back to the Temple. Only to find there was no Temple for him to go back to.

While he had been away at the front, the balance of power in the Temple had changed dramatically. With the loss of the traditional centres of orthodox Temple power, Vivec and Mournhold, there were new Archcanons at the head of the faith, and they had very different ideas about the status of the Old Tribunal. The Dissident Priests and the New Temple, as it later came to be called, had emerged triumphant from the rubble of their nation and they decried Vivec as a false god.

He should have just accepted it. The evidence was plain enough, Vivec had not protected them, and he was gone. But Velyn couldn't forget. He couldn't forget what it was to see a God in the flesh. To see the light of Heaven itself. To touch it.

Velyn kept his faith. And won himself exile for it.

Bereft of his Lord, his Land, and his Love, it was only then that Velyn finally broke.

Spurned from the homeland he had fought for, he fled to Cyrodil, following in the footsteps of countless Dunmer refugees across the Velothi Mountains. There he found a province also lost to chaos and war as the Stormcrown Interregnum unfolded. In the camps outside of Cheydinhal he fell into low company and discovered something which could take away the pain that felt in every waking moment. Skooma.

He frittered away what money he had left, when it was gone he began to sell his possessions. When he started to run out of things to sell he began to offer his services in exchange for a fix. That was first time he had killed in cold blood, without a higher purpose, in those days he was little more than drug addled thug. He acted without the Will of Love.

He left Cheydinhal when he argued with a dealer over a payment he had been owed, it became physical, and when the dust had settled the other man was dead. Velyn took every vial the man had on him and ran. It was no longer safe for him in camps there, so he decided to go overland to Bravil, where he had heard Skooma was cheap and plentiful. That had been the main concern on Velyn's mind at the time.

Going overland to Bravil however, meant travelling by Skingrad.

There were always refugees on the road, looking for somewhere safe, so he had travelled on the edge of convoy. He had not truly been a part of them, but when a patrol of the Count's men fell upon the refugees he found himself unable to turn away. These were cruel men, who subjected the weak and desperate to harassment and depravity to satisfied their own base needs. In that moment Velyn had felt some old instinct reawaken in him, and before he had fully known what he was doing, the bloody tip of his spear was protruding through the chest of one of the soldiers.

Singlehanded he had slaughtered the patrol, taking a few grievous wounds in the process. Many of the refugees fled the scene, only a few remained to tell the band of rebels who emerged from the woods what had happened. They took the wounded Dunmer in and nursed him back to some degree of health.

That was how Velyn Virith met Isobel Aurelia.

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Bonus Short Story:

Name: Willet

Age: 29

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Appearance: Willet is a small man. Not standing much over 5 foot 7 inches, but what he lacks in height in makes up for in brawn, he is of strong sturdy stock, with a broad chest and thick arms. He is tanned and has fairly weather beaten skin for his age, indicating a life spent mostly outdoors. His hands are especially worn, covered in hard skin and calluses.

His face is relatively attractive, though not exactly handsome. He keeps his hair reddish-brown short and sports a similar coloured beard that he crops closely too. His face is board and lends itself to a smile of good strong white teeth, with a broken, bent looking nose above them. His eyes are a green-y hazel.

His clothing consists of leather and hide mainly, hardy and pragmatic, in mostly hues of green or brown. Over this he wears a long green wool cloak with a hood, very useful for blending into a wooded area. The piece of clothing most important to Willet is his boots, good boots are essential if you live an outdoor life. He normally carries a leather pack on his back, along with his composite bow and a quiver of arrows. On either side of his belt hang a wood axe, and a dirk.

Personality: Willet is quiet but friendly, a tough looking man with a relatively soft heart, especially for the poor and children. He doesn’t like cheating, lying, stealing or killing and has a particular dislike to those who make money off of other’s misfortune. But neither is he idealistic, he most definitely understands that you do what you have to do to survive. He likes company, but believes that towns are corrosive to people and bring out the worst. He would much rather have company with honest working men and women than with a high lord or a king.

Magic/Abilities: He has a natural affinity to the forest, years of spending time there have taught him its ways, and years of listening to it have taught him its tongue. Whilst this might not constitute as true conversation with the forest, it grants significant advantages when it comes to encountering dangerous animals or demons, or navigating a dense and unfamiliar wood.

Weakness(es): Willet is a simple man. He cannot read or write his own name and is poor at anything academic. In combat, he is not the most skilful either, his melee tactics are poor and he is unsuited to fighting in open areas.

Background/History: Willet was born outside of a town, and he will die outside of a town. His parents were some of the few people to forsake the relative safety of a community to live their lives in the wilds. They led simple lives, partly maintaining a small hold, partly hunting and cutting lumber to sell to the local villages. They had only one child, Willet, and for twelve peaceful years life was good. Occasionally there would be a threat from the wilds, but Willet’s father knew the forest even better than Willet does now, so they were safe enough. But of course, in this world peace like that cannot last for long.

But it was not beasts or demons that shattered this peace, it was sickness. Willet’s father got seriously ill and quickly, had they been in a town they might have got a doctor, but it over half a day’s walk to the nearest village, almost a full day to the nearest doctor. He died shivering and vomiting in his own bed. After that, living in the wilds couldn’t go on, without Willet’s father they had no protection. And so they forced to move into a town, they couldn’t sell a property out there in the wilds, so they were poor, poorer than dirt. For another two years they tried to get by in a little back water town, hunting, fishing, begging, anything. Willet’s mother deprived herself of food for his sake, she grew weaker and weaker, until she caught a fever and died too. After that, Willet decided there was nothing left for him in towns, so he returned to the peaceful place he liked best, the wilds.

It was tough, but he had learned enough from his father, and what was left he managed to pick up from himself. He has a meagre existence hunting and trapping, living a nomadic lifestyle on his own. He is currently visiting Bitewind to sell his current haul of furs and to pick up some supplies, before he intends to return to the wilds.

Additional/Miscellaneous: Willet has killed very few people in his life, and only when he has been attacked first and forced to. He will always, always err on the side of mercy.

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_{H I S T O R Y}

Velyn Virith was born on Vvardenfell on the third day of Sun's Dawn in the four hundred and twelfth year of the Third Era. He was the son of Theldyn Virith, Kinsman to the Great House Redoran, Hetman of the fishing port of Ald Velothi. Most of Velyn's childhood was spent between the Redoran district capital of Auld'ruhn and his family's ancestral estates in the West Gast. Like his brothers and cousins, he was bonded to his house from birth, and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps as another proud Redoran warrior, but fate had other plans for Velyn Virith.

He couldn't have been more than five, perhaps six, when the course of his life was irrevocably changed. His father had business with a clan of fellow Redoran nobles, the Saren clan of the city of Vivec, and he brought young Velyn with him on the long journey down to the greatest city on Vvardenfell. While his father conducted his business, he left young Velyn with a retainer to show the young boy the sights of the city.

It happened the second morning they were there, as he passed over one of the high bridges that linked the upper plazas of the cantons. A crowd had come out to line the waterways, and being a curious young child, Velyn pushed his way through to the railings to witness the cause of the excitement.

A regatta was being held on the grand canal. Barges of beaten gold, wreathed with floral garlands, floated upon the shimmering waters. The oars of each barge were manned by a host beautiful maidens and comely youths. Groups of troubadours and musicians filled the air with the sound of lutes, and pipes, and drums. From the gilded decks, knights clad in iridescent glass laughed and sang as they threw roses to the adorning crowds. And there, hovering above them all, a seated figure, half gold, smiling, and radiating the light of Heaven itself.

This was the first time Velyn saw a God. He vowed that day that it would not be the last.

He would not forget what he saw that day. On the long journey by strider back to their home it was all he could think about. He wanted to live in that light, and bathe himself in its warmth. The Redorans were one of the more pious of the Dunmer Great Houses, but even amongst them, Velyn's single minded dedication to the faith and in particular to Lord Vivec, struck many of his kinsmen as being unusual.

As soon as he was old enough he pledged himself as novice to the Temple, the first step in what he thought would be a lifetime spent in that glorious light. Once he had proved himself in feats of arms, exhibitions of arts, and generosity of alms, Velyn was apprenticed into the Buoyant Armigers. That order of iridescent knights he had glimpsed upon those gilded barges many years ago.

But the he order in found himself in was somewhat different from how he had imagined it. In those days the fear of the Sharmat hung over Vvardenfell, and recently the ALMSIVI had receded from the outside world. Rather than spending his time at the side of the Lord he had adored from far, Velyn was dispatched to the fortress of Molag Mar in the magma strewn wastes of Molag Amur. There he began his work as an Armiger, hunting down the blight of the Sharmat, slaying Sixth House Cultist and Corpus Monsters.

That was the year that the Nerevarine returned, and by his hand, the fall of the Dagoth Ur. There was upheaval in the wake on St. Nerevar's return, the amnesty on the Dissident priests, the events in Mournhold where it was rumoured that the Tribunes Sotha Sil and Almalexia were both slain. To many it was a time of uncertainty and fear. But to Velyn those few years were glorious.

Vvardenfell was freed from the threat of the Sharmat and his monsters, and Velyn's Lord was freed from his ancient duty of maintaining the Ghost Fence. For those precious few years Velyn bathed in the light of his Lord. There was time for music and poetry in those years. There was time for dancing, and nights where they would join their Lord in rituals that had been long neglected. It was in those years that Velyn learned the secrets of carnal exultation, it was everything Velyn had ever dreamed of.

And then it was over.

It was when the Gates of Oblivion opened that everything began to go wrong. Portals opened up across Morrowind, and Tamriel beyond. The Imperials sat behind the walls of their fortresses, on the mainland some even marched back through the passes of the Velothi Mountains to defend Cyrodil while Morrowind burned. The Armigers were dispatched to keep the city of Vivec safe from Daedric incursions. The city held, but elsewhere the situation was dire.

In Ald'ruhn, where Velyn had spent much of his childhood, where he had first served as a temple novice, the fighting was the worst. The city was practically destroyed, its defenders going so far as to resurrect the great Emperor Crab Skar, demolishing the council halls and manors of their most powerful citizens in the process. Once the city of Vivec was secure Velyn had fought his way north to meet up with a Redoran army from the mainland. But they too late. By the time they arrived there was little left by corpses and rubble.

Theldyn Virith, his father, was among the dead. Velyn was left to burn his body and make sure his ashes were interred with his ancestors.

In all this madness there was no sign of Lord Vivec, the Living God had disappeared around the time the Crisis. There was no sign of the Nerevarine either, who it was rumoured had travelled to the continent of Akavir. The people of Morrowind did their best to pick up the pieces, and rebuild their shattered lives and cities, Velyn was amongst them. For though their Lord had disappeared, though his father was dead, Velyn had the support of the Temple and of his sworn brothers. That was enough.

Besides, Velyn could not forget what it meant to see a God in all their glory. He never would. So he kept his faith, as best he could.

Those were trying years for Morrowind, there was fighting amongst the houses as the Hlaalu lost their place of preeminent and were expelled from the Grand Council. Imperial authority collapsed with the lack of an Emperor on the throne. While the Dunmer simultaneously tried to rebuild and fought amongst themselves, an even greater threat loomed. One that had been hanging over them for a long time.

Baar Dau, the Ministry of Truth, Lie Rock. It had floated above the City of Vivec for millennia, suspended there by the Living God himself and held in place by his power and the faith of people who lived beneath. But it appeared the Crisis, the deaths of the Tribunes, and the disappearance of the God had weakened that faith. In truth, those years were first where Velyn felt his own waver. Sometimes at night he wonders if he too is partly to blame for what happened when Baar Dau fell.

He had not been in the city. If he had, he would not be here today. The Palace and High Fane were directly beneath the impact, none who were there survived. Instead Velyn was at the Armiger's fortress at Molag Mar. All they saw was a burning light on the horizon, a terrible shaking in the ground, and the roaring hot winds of the blast wave when it finally reached them. The mountain had answered that terrible roar with its own, raining down ash and fire, filling the Foyadas with lava and trapping them in their stronghold.

When boats from the mainland finally reached them he had tried to go to the city to search for survivors. They had told him there was no point, the city was gone and waters where it had once stood boiled. They call it Scathing Bay now. He had thought then to try to reach Ghostgate, to find the other chapter of their order, but that fortress had sat upon the Foyada Mamaea, and had been incinerated in the eruption. So, with no other option, he had gone to the mainland.

It was a good thing that he had, for soon the mainland would have need of every warrior Morrowind could provide. In the moment of their greatest ever weakness the Argonians invaded. The lizard men sacked every city they came upon, even as the ash and fire rained down still. No where was spared, not even Mournhold, a holy city of the Tribunal and the capital of all Morrowind. The jewel of their province which had somehow miraculously escaped the ravages of the Red Year was reduced to another smoking ruin.

That's what Morrowind was those days, a land of smoking ruins, refugees, warfare, and death.

And somehow, Velyn kept his faith.

He fought with his sworn brothers, with his fellow Redorans, with anyone who would defend Morrowind. Perhaps that's what allowed him to keep his faith, he had no time to think about what was happening around him, he was too busy trying to survive. So went on as he always had done, being an Armiger, doing his deeds of Love and War in the name of his Lord, Vivec.

The war was terrible and it was long. The Argonians made it as far East and North as Port Telvannis, they even made it onto Vvardenfell itself. Their armies fell most heavily on the Dres and the Telvannis, but no where was truly safe from their wrath. Over the years more and more of his brothers fell, but the Redoran led armies slowly routed the Argonian warbands from much of their lands. Mournhold was recovered, even if it was a ruin, and new fortified borders and lines of defence were drawn up between these two new independent powers.

Suddenly there wasn't anymore fighting to be done. So Velyn went back to the Temple. Only to find there was no Temple for him to go back to.

While he had been away at the front, the balance of power in the Temple had changed dramatically. With the loss of the traditional centres of orthodox Temple power, Vivec and Mournhold, there were new Archcanons at the head of the faith, and they had very different ideas about the status of the Old Tribunal. The Dissident Priests and the New Temple, as it later came to be called, had emerged triumphant from the rubble of their nation and they decried Vivec as a false god.

He should have just accepted it. The evidence was plain enough, Vivec had not protected them, and he was gone. But Velyn couldn't forget. He couldn't forget what it was to see a God in the flesh. To see the light of Heaven itself. To touch it.

Velyn kept his faith. And won himself exile for it.

Spurned from the homeland he had fought for, he fled to Cyrodil, following in the footsteps of countless Dunmer refugees across the Velothi Mountains. He found a province in chaos, another war unfolding just as he felt the last one behind. The Stormcrown Interregnum. He sold his sword to the highest bidders, fell in with low company, common mercenaries and murderous thugs, or worse. But above all else Velyn tried to keep moving, always heading west, away from the past that was lost to him.

Until one day there was no further west to go, and the other war he had searched for some meaning in was also done. A new emperor sat upon the throne, and an uneasy peace returned to the Imperial Province. Velyn found himself in Anvil, with nowhere left to go, and nothing to distract him the gaping hole in his soul.

Bereft of his Lord, his Land, and his Love, it was only then that Velyn finally broke.

He spent what coin he had earned on idle pleasures of the flesh, trying to drown in his sorrows in drink and in the warm embrace of lovers. In the end he found one thing that took away the pain he left with every waking moment of his existence. Skooma.

For the last year or so Velyn has lived as an addict, selling his sword to buy a fix, playing his lute in the low dockside taverns and dives for spare septims when he can't find other work. He's a familiar enough sight around the rougher parts of the city, and an associate of paupers, beggars, criminals and other outcasts. Though there are very few in Anvil who know much of his true past, of the mer he used to be.

Velyn is just another strange piece of flotsam, washed up on the western shores of Cyrodil.

Shattered from the storm that tossed it there.

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Name:

Titles:

Age:

World:

Race:

Form:

Legend:

Will:

Mastery:

Ascent:

Ephemera:

Excuse me sir, might you be one of the heroes from legend? Good turn to you, I have travelled-"

With a crackle of arcane energy, the dark figure looked up from the mess of scrolls and tomes they had been hunched over. Behind the lank strands of his black hair, his eyes were narrowed in suspicion and hostility, a fell and malicious invocation held ready cast in his right hand.

"Who are you and how the hell did you get into my sanctum?"

WAIT WAIT WAIT! Please great hero might you lend me your ear? I have travelled far and wide to hear your tale, my only wish is to tell your story. True, I suppose if I wanted to know of various deeds I could just visit my local tavern or library, but to get it from the horse's mouth, now that would be a treat, far better than any old watered down story you hear on the streets, wouldn't you agree?

"I don't agree. Get out of here. Leave me alone."

But surely you would appreciate the chance to set the record straight? Clear up any misconceptions and falsehoods that have sprung up in the wake of your glorious deeds?"

"Glorious deeds?" He laughed, it was not a pleasant sound. "I don't remember many of those. Though there are plenty of misconceptions and falsehoods, and a few outright lies."

He paused for a moment, staring at the reporter, thought not really looking at him, rather beyond him, before closing his hand and releasing whatever spell had been held there. With it, a strange sense darkness fled from the chamber, the many candle stubs that lined its cluttered surfaces returning to their usual brightness. He stood up from the work desk, stretching stiffly as he did so.

"Fine, ask your questions. You have until I get bored of this."

Oh you will? Joyous occasion! You shan't regret this my friend, I promise you!

The figure fixed the reporter with a look that suggested that he was already regretting this.

Now then, What is your name?

"You came all this way to ask me my name? Fine, fine, I guess I did just agree to this." He sighed. "Eskel Rindarium, the sage of Ilmare, although I hear some fools have taken to calling the Mad Mage as of late."

Splendid, and your age?

"Wait... what year is it again?" He quickly did some math on his fingers. "Twenty-nine, if I have the date right."

He looked older. There were streaks of premature grey in his hair, lines on his brow and around his mouth, dark circles beneath his eyes. None of those were there a few years ago, and made Eskel easily pass for almost a decade older than he actually was.

Fantastic, and your gender good hero?

"...Really?" He rolled his eyes. "Male."

Excellent and of course I know what you look like, but for the sake of our readers?

"Why, tall, dark and handsome of course." He answered with a snort. "Look, you can describe me yourself, or do you really want to keep wasting your time with these banalities?"

Eskel was certainly dark, and he might have once been considered quite handsome. He was pale, fine featured, with shoulder length black hair shot through with a scattering of grey. An old scar ran through his left brow and into the eye below, blinding it into milky white, the other eye was a brown so dark it almost looked black.

He was of average height and a light build. Previously he could have been described as lithe, but now he gave of the impression of being gaunt. In the past his features were perpetually twisted into some kind of smirk, but these days he rarely smiled. He looked tired, like he hadn't slept properly in weeks, and was so pale it was clear he hadn't left the darkness of his rooms for even longer.

Even those who hadn't know him before would think that he looked unwell. Something only be confirmed the bandages that covered his left arm that were peaking out from the end of his sleeve.

Excellent Excellent, and how do you act on most days, you know, your mannerisms, your quirks and such. What makes you, you?

"Well, I've been told I have something of an abrasive manner, if you hadn't already guessed that. I don't suffer fools or idiots lightly. People and their petty concerns do not interest me, that's why I make my home out here away from the ignorant masses. I can focus on my work here, my research, without any meddling interference or distractions. I guess you could say I'm solitary in my nature."

Mhm, and your abilities magical or otherwise? If you use magic, what is your discipline? do you use it for battle, defense, healing?

"Frankly I probably know more about most types of magic than you could possibly comprehend. But my specialty has always been in summoning, the act of controlling the passage of people and powers from one plane of existence to another. Whether that is to draw something from across the gulf between worlds to our own, or seal and banish it back to its own realm. It's very complicated, I doubt you'd understand."

"My current research is just an extension of the same principles, and a unification of some other arts. What is death other than another plane of existence? The body but a construct for the soul to inhabit? Where does the physician end and the necromancer begin? It's just another reordering of spirit and matter between between worlds, these foolish labels and taboos just get in the way of a holistic understanding of life and death."

"Most of your kind think simple teleportation is the height of what we can do, and that only requires transportation of mind and matter across one plane, let alone... Oh never mind, the theoretical background I would have to spell out for you to even participate in this conversation is not a good use of my time."

Yes Yes, and before everything that transpired, what was your life like? Who were you?

"Oh, I was a product of the mage schools of Bradena. The old kind, that we had after the rebellion. Plenty of corporal punishment and indoctrinated self loathing. Never did me any harm, I turned out just fine." He laughed again at that, it was even less pleasant than before. "My gifts manifested young, I was scarce out of cradle when my parents dumped me on the threshold and abandoned me there. Part of the reason I'm one of the most gifted mages of his generation, the alignment of natural talent and a rigorous education."

"Of course I left as soon as I was able, and supported my continued research through the odd mercenary contract. Monster slayers are always on the lookout for someone who can cast a six hells trigram planar binding. That's how I met her... Octavia..."

I would have never guessed, and what were your relationships with your comrades, are you still friends? Maybe lovers? Bitter rivals? How do you see them in your eyes?

"I don't see much of them these days. It might have something to do with the fact I called them all traitorous cowards who lacked the resolve to do what needed to be done. They failed Octavia, we all did. I'm the only one trying to make things right."

So that's how you worked with each other, and how was your relationship with Madame Ravenwood? Nothing but good I hope.

"She was the best of us. I... I miss her deeply."

He looked like he had something more to say but could not bring himself to form the words. A terrible and desperate longing rose up from the inky depths of his one good eye. An unspoken need for something that had been forever pushed beyond his grasp.

I see, and.....did you know?

The question seemed to pull him out of his absent reverie.

Did you even guess, did you even have the slightest idea?

"Guess, guess what?"

Do you even realize the amount of shit you heroes are in?

A cold and horrible understanding began to dawn upon Eskel's face. There had been wards set around his tower, strong ones, how had a mere journalist managed to navigate his way through them?

What made you think you could defeat him so easily? WHAT MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD DEFEAT US SO EASILY?

"Impossible." He whispered. "I designed that seal myself. It was meant to hold for a thousand years."

We almost did it, almost, but then you heroes and that bitch! well no matter, you and your comrades will get yours soon enough!

Anger flared inside of him. He began to speak an twisted invocation that he would have never even dared to utter a few years previously.

YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT HIM, DEFEAT US! NEVER!

He released the spell. All the lights in the room went out, the thing before him dropped to floor as a smoking desiccated husk. He could feel blood trickling on his hand, the wounds on his arm had opened up again. As he relit the candles with a wave of his hand he stared once more at the corpse at his feet.

"You will not speak of her in that manner."