Name: Alcello Bas
Sex: Male
Place of Origin: Mennon
Appearance:
Alcello is not an imposing figure at first glance. Standing a few inches short of six foot, and not particularly broad, it would be easy to dismiss the man at first. His common garb of a simple woollen cloak and hood only adds to this effect, by design.
But beneath the hood, Alcello’s face is weathered, scarred and hard-edged. His strong jaw is obscured by a thick beard, the same burnished copper as the rest of his hair, which is kept short. One of his eyes is a burning green, while the other is milky and blind, a long, prominent scar cutting across it. His nose is crooked, his lips rough and rarely curled into a smile.
Under the cloak that he wears, Alcello still wears the lamellar plate of his years as a kestaphos. Although it has been beaten, and even broken in places, leaving long, ugly scars across Alcello’s torso, he has carefully repaired it every time, and can rarely be found out of it.
His left sleeve hangs loose, a brace of chakram’s held within, and his bow and quiver are slung over his shoulder, and his bastard sword strapped across his back, and the bright ribbons of his legacy wrapped around his right arm are amongst the only sources of colour on his otherwise dull clothing.
Psyche: Alcello rarely partakes in the joy of friendship, or human company. He has spent long years on the road with no-one but his own thoughts for company, and it has left him a man who has little time for social etiquette. He speaks his mind, even it may not be welcome. He is cunning, and quick to act when it is needed. He has seen too often the corruption of souls, and does not allow himself to trust anyone, lest they cut his throat in the night.
Skills: Alcello is a skilled warrior, proficient in most forms of combat, both armed and unarmed. Although he has favoured his sword, bow and chakram’s since his hunt began, they are not the only weapons with which he has fought. He is also a skilled rider, although he has come to prefer travelling on foot, save for long journeys, enjoying the greater anonymity that a man on foot can possess.
But it is Alcello’s experience that is his greatest strength. Since he began his hunt, he has travelled to nearly every corner of the cradle, even traversing the Brimlands on several occasions, moving closer to the Deadlands than perhaps any alive could claim. And on his travels he has encountered the foulest creatures that the age of ash could ever birth. Hideous monsters, drawn from the darkest nightmares and made flesh, corrupted souls who call on magic to sate their heinous appetites, Alcello has witnessed them all, and put them all to the sword. There is little evil that roams the Cradle that Alcello has not hunted, and as the rumours of a dark sorcerer continue to spread, his experience may prove vital...
Equipment: Alcello is clad in fine lamellar armour, although it is far from the polished splendour that it was during his time as a kestaphos. Nonetheless, it is still a strong defence against the creatures that Alcello hunts.
When he does hunt, Alcello takes with him a simple composite recurve bow, well-made and carefully maintained, and a quiver of broad-head arrows. If his prey gets too close, then he still retains his chakram’s, the symbol of the kestaphos. For the killing blow itself, Alcello has come to favour a one-and-a-half hand sword, a bastard sword, forged by a fine smith and whetted with the blood of the wicked.
Bio: Alcello’s father was a kestaphos, and from as soon as he was old enough to swing a sword, and to ride a horse, Alcello was moulded for the day when he would take on his father’s mantle. His father was a proud man, and a gifted warrior, who had been given a narrow strip of land, on the far northeast border of Mennon, and ordered to defend it. Due to it’s proximity to Baccum, many foul creatures met their end on the tip of Alcello’s fathers spear.
When Alcello’s father finally passed, slain by a sickening infection that took a hold of a wound given to him by a rampaging gorrak, Alcello was still a young man. But the law was clear, and so Alcello took up his father’s spear that same day, and began his vigil. He had battled the beasts of the Cradle at his father’s side, so he was no novice, and he took to his duty with vigour. The people who called his strip of land home came to see him as a strong leader, and many of them enjoyed tankards of ale around the fire, sharing stories and laughing. But all this was to change.
A shaman, twisted by the callings of Mara and drenched in the blood of his village, stumbled onto Alcello’s land. By the time Alcello had gathered his most trusted men and ridden out to meet the threat, three villages had been slaughtered by the foul witchcraft of blood magic, only feeding the shaman’s strength greater. When they charged to slay him, the surrounding land transformed into a hell-scape. The ground ran red with blood, flames burst into life, and the very sky was stained red. The battle was nightmarish, the shaman summoning beasts and monsters of shadow and blood to fall upon Alcello and his men. Alcello cut down all that came before him, even as his followers were slaughtered all around him. Finally, he reached the shaman himself. Levelling his spear, he let out a wordless roar as he spurred his steed forward.
With an almighty crash, the two men collided. Alcello’s spear punched through the sorcery surrounding the shaman, the tip driving through his ribs and bursting his lung. But even as it did, the weapon shattered, and Alcello’s horse screamed as it was consumed by dread claws reaching from within the pool of blood at it’s feet. As his steed was dragged down, Alcello threw aside the shattered remains of his spear, and drove his dagger into the shaman’s throat, even as the other man manically laughed and grinned, washed in his own blood. Again and again Alcello drove the blade home, until at last the roars faded, the flames died, and the rivers of blood dried.
Gasping for breath, Alcello sunk to his knees, the dagger falling from his grasp. He was soaked with blood, and as he looked around, he saw that his land was scorched and wasted, his people dead, his home gone. With a grim face, Alcello took the bright ribbons, that had adorned his spear, and his father’s, and his father’s, tied them around his arm, and then started walking.
The first village he came across, deeper into Mennon, watched the blood-drenched man with distrust, but they recognised the armour of a kestaphos, and left him alone as he washed the blood from his clothes, bought supplies with a handful of coin, and then was gone just as quickly as he appeared. The rumour of the wandering kestaphos continued to spread, as Alcello walked from settlement, seemingly without direction and without goal, until he reached the towering walls of a Roshad city. How he obtained a meeting with the city ‘thinker’, and access to the colossal library, has been forgotten, but when he emerged, Alcello no longer walked without purpose.
He began to hunt. He would trace rumours of monsters, find the trail, and then unrelentingly pursue the creature until he put a blade through it’s black heart. Whether it was corrupted sorcerer’s, rampaging beasts, or the foul monsters of nightmares, Alcello would hunt it. His pursuits took him all over the Cradle, and deep into the winding mountain passes of the Brimlands, and his exploits became the subject of great epic ballads and poems, the story of a kestaphos who purged the evil from the world and then vanished into the shadows again. No-one knew his face, few knew his name, but his legend grows with each new village that is saved by the almost silent-figure.
With the tale of a dark sorcerer being whispered around fires all across the Cradle, it was almost inevitable that the hunter of monsters would appear and lend his almost unique talents to those who have set out to hunt them down.
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