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Henrik the Pyromancer
A skillful, but sometimes clumsy pyromancer, Henrik showed from an early age that he was adept at the ancient art of controlling conflagration. However, his practice of pyromancy also led to his expulsion from his home, the village of Albarnen. Though pyromancy is one of the many magical arts that is banned by the Church, that was not the primary reason for his exile. It had more to do with the location of Albarnen, which is a wooden village built on stilts in the middle of Lake Varnen, the largest lake in Doredain. However, Henrik tries to make the most of his situation. Ever the optimist, he now travels the land of Doredain, trying to learn more of the secrets of pyromancy, whilst dodging the knights of the realm and church assassins at every turn.
Huntress Amaris
The leader of a small village of Maethvale in the beautiful forested valleys of the north-west of Doredain, Amaris is compassionate, intelligent and, most of all, tough. After all, she has to be. Maethvale might be picturesque but it is also poor and situated right next to the city of Alva, home of one of the four Lords of Doredain, the Mayor of Alva. The nobility of Alva see Maethvale as little more than a resource, to be used and exploited for all it can give, whether it be crops and meat in tithes or money (what little there is in Maethvale) in taxes. If the duties levied are not met, then the soldiers of Alva will come and take what they please back to the city, leaving the people to starve if needs-be. It is in this environment that Amaris was raised and it was in this environment that Amaris lifted herself to the forefront of the village. She has tried playing politics, to some success, but she knows that the only way forward for the village is not capitulation but action. They just need a bit more strength.
Paladin Vargas
Born of a noble family in the Church stronghold of Nimloth Anor, Vargas grew up wanting only one thing, to become a Knight of the Church; a Paladin. Whilst Knights of the Realm serve the King and, by extension, the Lords, Paladins serve the Church directly and, as such, are granted protections by the Church and the Gods they worship. Paladins do the Church’s duty, hunting down heritics, whilst employing special miracles to protect themselves from magic, methods taught only within the Church. Vargas trained not just his body, but also his mind, learning all of the stories of great Church miracles; from the Tale of Saint Gustav and the Dragon to the story of how Saint Elarosa cured the land of the hundred year plague, until he was deemed worthy of being named as a Paladin. Weilding the blessed greatmace, Drangul, he set forth to do the Churches work, however, he is met with disturbing realisations. He saw how those outside of the nobility and Church elite lived, their poverty and their struggle to survive and he wondered how his Gods could allow such suffering and began to question the callousness of his bretheren in allowing such disparity and, in many cases, revelling in it.
Sera the Witch
Born in captivity, Sera never knew her father and barely knew her mother, as she died when Sera was very young. Raised as a prisoner and virtual slave in the castle of Foegnear, the personal fortress of Lord Alvarard, Sera’s childhood was one of suffering, humiliation and pain. And then she discovered that she was a witch. Unlike most branches of magic, witchcraft is not learned (though the formal study of other magical arts is definately a way to improve ones abilities) it is innate and the ability to perform this form of spellcasting is exclusive only to women, passed down from mother to daughter. With her newly discovered powers becoming more and more powerful by the day, Sera escaped Foegnear, vowing to never return unless it was to personally put Alvarard in an unmarked grave.
Giant Gorom
A giant in every sense of the word, Gorom’s size is matched only by his personality and heart, as well as his devious sense of humor. Though his size belies a gentle heart, it is unwise to take Gorom lightly, he is beast on the battlefield, and it is in combat that Gorom’s true heritage may come to light. The Lords of the City of Lindeloft, the greatest port in Doredain, are famous for many things, their drinking, their bravery, their golden armour and dipping their enormous zweihanders in oil and lighting them aflame before battle, a technique which could cause chaos amongst the ranks of their enemies through a combination of fear and burning flesh. It is a technique that Gorom knows all too well, though Lindeloft is far, far away from where he finds his current home, and his return is to be met by death, as decreed by Adjudicator Urael, the City’s current “Lord” and steward.
Blacksmith Freja
The finest blacksmith in all of Doredain, Freja has made everything from a gate for a farmers field to armour and weaponry for the Legion of Baron Ilhun, and everything between. Though she is highly sought after, she is very picky about who she offers her services to. If you can pay her price then she will work, but if you can capture her attention and her enthusiasm, she may even work for free. And she won’t be forced into taking a job she does not want. The Knights of Doredain have oft come to try to convince her to work exclusively for the kingdom, but have been rebuked each and every time. A fearsome fighter in her younger days (her muscles weren’t just built up by hammering iron and steel), Freja knows how to defend herself and her choice of abode makes that abundantly clear. She chooses to live in the ruins of Mithren Túr, one of the 3 great fortresses of Doredain that fell in a war between the kingdom and the Legion near 200 years ago, and the tower is long rumored to be haunted by a variety of ghosts and vengeful spirits. This, combined with her skill and demenor, has gifted Freja an aura and status amongst the people of Doredain that few but the Lords would dare challenge, not that she cares much for the fame or plaudits, her only dream is to create the perfect blade.
Simon of Alva
A former Knight of Doredain, Simon left the service of the realm upon his marriage and he and his wife settled down to a quiet life in the city of Alva. That is until his wife was abducted, stolen away in the middle of the night by unknown assailants. And that is where Simon of Alva’s story really begins. In search for his wife, he tries every avenue of enquiry, utilising old contacts in both the knighthood and on the streets, but still nothing. And then the City Guard come for him. Simon is thrown in Tovon Túr, the second of the great fortresses of Doredain, now the kingdoms most famous prison. Surmising that Geoffreed, the Lord Mayor of Alva, may have something to do with his wife’s disappearance (if not, he is certain that the Lord Mayor definately knows something), Simon undertakes an act of pure desperation, something no man had ever done before; he escaped the prison of Tovon Túr. Now on of the kingdom’s most wanted men, Simon lives on the run, still searching tirelessly for anything that may lead him to his wife. But whilst he searches, there is one destination that he knows will have some answers. Home. Alva. And the Lord Mayor Geoffreed, one of the four Lords of Doredain.
Saint Avalayn; First Lady of the Church
Known as “The First Lady of the Church”, Avalayn is the premier Paladin in Doredain. Ambitious, arrogant and not above getting her hand dirty, she is fiercely loyal to the faith, taking great personal pleasure in putting down heretics with her own hands. She is also an exceptional manipulator, using guile and a sharp tongue to prize information from even the tighest lips, and resorting to torture on those whose lips do not talk. One can see her effectiveness in how she is treated by the Church. Her epithet was bestowed upon her by outsiders to the Church, but the title of Saint was bestowed by Archsage Yanvalis himself, making Avalayn the first Saint of the Church sanctified in a century. The Sainthood is the highest rank a Paladin can achieve and is only bestowed upon those who have achieve one of two great deeds. One is to have felled a great monster or foe of the Church and the other is to have performed a previously before unseen miracle. Avalayn is one of the few to have done both, she slew the captain of a pirate force that landed on the coast of Doredain and ransacked a Church holy site and her miracle is known as the Divine Spears of Judgement, upon her prayer bolts of lightning fall from the sky and strike down her foe. There have been numerous Saints in the Church’s history, but the discovery of new miracles is seemingly the exclusive domain of female Saints. Despite her lofty status, it would appear that Avalayn is not so high in the Church’s estimations that she is not required to do tasks she feels is beneath her, in this case she has been requested to shaperone a young, relatively new Paladin by the name of Vargas. Together, the pair are to investigate rumours of a sorcery led insurrection against the Church and the Lords, originating from the town of Wyteoak.
Archsage Yanvalis
The latest in a line of Archsage’s stretching back thousands of years, Yanvalis is the 268th Archsage of the Church. To his followers and admirers, Yanvalis leads the Church with humility, wisdom and a strong but stead hand, with his devotion to the Church and its teaching unwavering and his righteous judgement of the Church’s enemies unfaltering. To his enemies, however, Yanvalis is a ruthless zealot and an aspiring tyrant, a man who has taken advantage of a weakened royal throne to consolidate his own power, rather than to strengthen any position of the Church. And it is true that, even amongst the Church’s more traditionalist and conservative positions, Yanvalis holds extreme views. The Church has always been opposed to the wide spread practice of magic, due to their belief that magic was created by the demons who opposed the Gods in the war of creation (ironic really, considering that, to the trained eye at least, there is virtually no difference between miracles of the Church and common sorcery), and many previous Archsgaes have condemned magic and ordered purges against magic users. But Yanvalis’ purge is unlike any seen in a thousand years, not since The Great Church Imperium of Archsage Naevaris. There are also mutterings that Yanvalis’ ascension may not have been entirely legitimate, rumours of bribery and the suspicious death of his predecessor sway many. Although, one cannot be sure if the death of the previous Archsage was down to foul play due to the Church doctorine on the sanctity of the body, a law forbidding the disturbance of the bodies of deceased Archsages, laid out by Yanvalis’s predecessor after his own murky rise to power. Still, Yanvalis does not heed the hearsay of idle gossips. He has absolute authority within the Church, more than enough support from its members and, most importantly, he has the ear of the Prince, who, what with his father’s terrible sickness, seems poised to take the throne.
Geoffreed; Lord Mayor of Alva
Born into a rich noble family in the City of Alva, Geoffreed inherited a fortune upon his fathers death and he spent little time putting it to use. He started by buying out many of the cities merchants, focusing on sectors at a time, consolidating every vendor he could under his ownership, until he owned practically every shop in Alva. Farmers, fishermen, carpenters and blacksmiths all had no-one else to sell their wares to and customers had no-one else to buy from. And then Geoffreed moved on to housing, due in no small part to a disasterous (and for Geoffreed, fortuitous) fire that engulfed the City some 20 years ago. With much of Alva destroyed by the blaze, Geoffreed financed the reconstruction of the city. At first this made him a hero to the people, but what they didn’t know was that Geoffreed had made a deal with the Lord Mayor that would see Geoffreed own every building he built and allow him to charge whatever he felt like for people to use his buildings, even if said buildings were literally built on the foundations of that persons former home. In exchange, Geoffreed promised the Lord Mayor that he would finance the office of the Lord Mayor and secure the position against challenge, which Geoffreed did. Of course, he never promised that he would do either of those things for anyone other than himself, so when he bought the seat of Lord Mayor it came as a shock to no-one. Of course, Geoffreed is deeply unpopular with the people of Alva, he owns everything they need to survive and now makes the laws of the city they live in, but how can they depose him? He is one of the Lords now, with power over the entire region of Maethglen (in which Alva is situated), any action against him would bring reprecussions from not just the city guard, but also the Knights of the Realm.
Adjudicator Urael; Lord of Linderaer
With the City of Lindeloft being the largest port in Doredain, seat of the Lord of Linderaer and the primary point of trade between the kingdom and the outside world, the city sees its fair share of crime, debauchery and depravity. That’s where the Adjudicators come in. Originally an auxiliary force to the City Guard, the function of the position evolved over time until they became what they are now, effectively their own private army, answerable in theory only to the Lord of Lindeloft, but in practice only answerable to their own individual moral codes, which can be incredibly lose at times. They act as judge, jury and executioner to any criminal they find, and they will find crime where-ever they want to, on whatever grounds they want to. As one might expect, the unchecked power of the Adjudicators became such a problem in Lindeloft that the people started to petition the Lord, at the time being Giant Gorom, to dissolve the position. However, this prompted the Adjudicators into open rebellion, crushing dissent with horrific violence and diposing Gorom, banishing him from the city on pain of death upon his return. It was at this point the Urael made his grasp for power. He had been one of the main conspiritors against Gorom, but with the Lord out of the picture, he gathered those amongst the Adjudicators who were loyal to him and turned upon his fellow conspirators. The purge was short and bloody, and was supported by the Knights of the Realm after Urael swore fealty to the King and was declared the new Lord of Linderaer. Now the great port is essentially a police state, Adjudicators ensuring order with violence, dealt indiscriminately aginst innocent and guilty alike. After all, power is worthless if it isn’t displayed.
Alvarard; Lord of Varaen
One of the four Lords of Doredain, Alvarard has dominion over the north-eastern region of Varaen and the great city of Paeltovar, nestled in the icy mountains that give the region its name. The most reclusive and secretive of the Lords, Alvarard did not come into his position through wealth or military might, he was born into the lineage of the Lords of Varaen and had to survive long enough to inherit his title. Surviving multiple assassination attempts before he was even 10 years old, Alvarard knows that in order to survive, one must strike before the enemy. As one might expect, he is the last of his family still alive. At face value, Alvarard is probably the least tyrannical of the Lords. He shows little interest in governance, prefering to allow local authorities to handle the day to day running of the region. But don’t be fooled. Alvarard is far from a benevolent Lord. It is in his private residence of Foegnear Castle, high up in the Varaen Mountains, that his true interests become clear. You see, the trials and tribulations of Alvarards youth led him to a twisted philosophy of survival of the fittest. Only those who are able to survive are worthy of life, those who have the most get to survive whilst those who have nothing obviously don’t deserve anything. But even beyond that, Alvarard became obssessed with his own survival, his fear of death driving him to near madness. He began to see assassins in every corner, believing that every person he saw that he did not recognise (and even some he did) was there to rob him and kill him. Eventually, this madness saw him turn to magic and he secretly started conducting horrific experiments on kidnapped commoners, trying to find a way to improve the human body in both physical prowess and longevity. Most of those experiments just left mangled corpses or twisted, malformed wretches that are thrown into the pit to die. Very few come out of Alvarard’s Castle and, alongside their master, they are the most monsterous of all.
Dragon Knightess
The Dragon Knightess, Lord Alvarard’s personal bodyguard and his greatest creation. A product of Alvarard’s magical experimentations, nothing is known about who the Knightess was before her transformation. Well nothing is known to anyone but Alvarard, if he even cared to know to begin with. What is beyond doubt is that whoever she was she was most definately a magic user of some form, be it a sorcerer or witch, as she displays the ability to use magic (although in a much more primal and animalistic way than any trained magic caster, probably down to the experimentation). It is also certain that she was not a willing participant, none of Alvarard’s test subjects ever are. It isn’t even clear if she is truely partially dragon as her name suggests, the dragons of myth have not been recorded in thousands of years, so where Alvarard would have collected material for a successful cross-transfiguration is a mystery to say the least. What we can know for certain is that there is little, if anything, left of the woman she was before. Nobody undergoes the physical and mental trauma she has gone through and come out the other side anything other than broken. And yet, she is looked upon with reverance in Foegnear, the denizens of the pit gazing upon her as the best hope of what they might become.
Lanroth; Lord of the Legion
The Legion. It has had many names, titles and epithets; the Legion of the Forlorn, the Legion of the Damned, the Accursed Legion, the Doom Bringers, Fors ætnian un−læd dæghwîl, Kingdom’s Bane. What started out as a few lost soldiers of a land destroyed in war, became one of the most defining forces of geo-political power for a millenia. As the Legion wandered the land, they took in any who were outcast by society, teaching them to fight and survive, no mater their station or ability. Young, old, man, woman, able, crippled, mad or sane, the Legion would take you in. And any that would stand in their way would be crushed. When the Legion was young, they tried to settle in the ancient kingdom of Anur, but the King sent his army to drive them out. The Legion razed Anur to the ground in a week, thousands of years of civilisation reduced to dust and rubble and left for the crows and surrounding kingdoms to squabble over. In all there have been 14 kingdoms, fiefdoms and principalities that met their end by the hand of the Legion. Over time it became more of a wandering army for hire, a mercenary band that fought for money, or goods, whatever service a kingdom could provide. Those within the Legion became hardened to the outside world, the company was made up entirely of those born into the Legion and enough generations had passed that even those who could remember when the Legion would recruit from outside had passed from living memory. And then came Doredain. As with many other kingdoms before, Doredain refused the Legion, but this war was not the fast, overwhelming victory that the Legion had seen in the past. The war was brutal, lasting 20 years and saw both the King of Doredain and the head of the Legion die. However, the new King of Doredain saw an opportunity and called for negotiations. A treaty was negotiated, giving the Legion right to settle in the South-Eastern region of Doredain, the area known as the Rhunmark, and giving the head of the Legion Lordship of the Rhunmark, in exchange for the Legion swearing loyalty and fealty to the King of Doredain. And that is how it has stood for the last 200 years.Which brings us to Lanroth, the current Lord of the Legion. Gaining his title through a challenge of combat against his predecessor over 40 years ago, Lanroth is quite simply, the strongest fighter in the Legion. Strong-willed, perseptive and valuing loyalty above all else, he is an astute tactician and a fearless warrior. His actions almost single handedly won the last border war between Doredain and her eastern neighbours. But in the 30 years since that war, many amongst the Legion have grown tired of peace and, despite his best efforts at statesmanship, Lanroth is one of them. He is a warrior, not a politician and finds himself bored by the intricacies of governance, even if he understands their importance. He only hopes that his chosen heir, his lieutenant and eldest son, has more of an aptittude for such matters, but given his proclivity for drink and womanizing, it is doubtful. Despite all of this, Lanroth still remains a peerless fighter, as a swordsman many would say he is unrivalled in all of Doredain, and he inspires such loyalty amongst the Legion that it is concievable that if he were to give his word, they would, to a man, rise up with sword in hand and burn Doredain to the ground like the Legion of old. In many ways, Lanroth is not just the Lord of the Legion, he is the embodiment of it.
King’s Blade Gothartd
The right hand man to King Alain, Gothartd is one of the most powerful men in all of Doredain, but you would not know it by the way the man acts and speaks. A humble man, Gothartd started his service as a squire, becoming a Knight of the Realm after a long apprenticeship. He fought in the Border War with great distinction and it was during that war that he was thrust into the position of the King’s Blade. The King was conducting an inspection of his Knights at the garrison where Gothartd was stationed and it just so happened that an enemy spy had infiltrated the garrison as well. Seeing his opportunity, the spy attempted to assassinate the King and it was only by Gothartds quick reactions that the King was saved. To reward his saviour, the King added Gothartd to his personal entourage and, despite his lowly beginnings, Gothartd soon garnered more and more favour. Practically immune to the politics and duplicity of court life, Gothartd is straightforward, reserved and, above all else, loyal, utterly devoted to the King and his kingdom. He is the last line of defence of the kingdom, personal bodyguard to the King himself and willing to cross swords with anyone who should threaten his master. But King Alain is growing old and his health is deteriorating. The Lords bicker and fight, more interested in themselves than the kingdom, the Church and its Archsage gather more power around them and the King’s most likely heir; Prince Wilhem, well, Gothartd does not favour him when compared to the Prince’s father. Duty is duty and Gothartd will follow whom so ever weareth the crown, but he cannot help but feel a great sense of unease.
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