Post by Neruzian on Sept 27, 2013 19:35:32 GMT -5
Aiden loves the sun, and the sun loves Aiden; at the very moment that his head crowned the sun rose above the horizon and the first ray of dawn fell squarely upon the baby. This overt sign was followed by more; the flames in the hearth reached out as if to pay tribute to the newborn whenever he came close and every morning he was found to stare directly towards the rising sun for precisely one hour with no exceptions. As Aiden grew the signs became clearer and clearer; the sun would break through the clouds to shine upon Aiden even while rain fell not twenty yards away, fire obeyed Aiden's call and he could make flames leap from his hands with but a moment’s thought by the time he was six. By the time he was nine his home village was torn into two violently opposing sides; those who saw Aiden as a holy symbol and a sign of divine favour and those who saw him as magical demon spawn. It was in the midst of these rising tensions that a wandering Priest of Belenos found his way to the source of signs and portents he had been following for nine years; Aiden.
The Priest explained to Aiden's parents that he believed Aiden was chosen by Belenos to be the next great Hierophant and spun tales of Aiden leading undead-purging crusades across the land to bring the holy light to the world's darkest corners. Swayed by his words and fearing the rising anger of the townsfolk, Aiden's parents agreed to let the Priest take Aiden to Kilbel Abbey to train his powers and learn what Belenos had planned for the youth. The Priest promised to return in six years with Aiden and they would decide how to proceed from there.
That was the last time Aiden saw his parents alive.
At the Kilbel Abbey Aiden proved himself to be gifted in the arts, and though less than spectacular at book study the channelling of divine energies came naturally to him and he showed an ovbious affinity for fire and light. Six years passed in what seemed like a blink of an eye to Aiden and soon the boy, now a young man, found himself heading home with Priest who had found him all those years ago; a wandering Healer and devotee of Belenos by the name of Erek. Unfortunately as they crested a hill in the late afternoon instead of finding Aiden's village the two found only death and destruction.
Aiden himself remembers little of the following days until long after he was brought in covered in wounds and screaming divine retribution by a ragged and frantic Erek. By Erek's account the two discovered Aiden's home village raided and abandoned at least a year ago, but that was only the beginning. Erek went to search the village proper for clues while Aiden left to search his old home, a short while later Erek heard a scream followed by a pulse of divine energy. Arriving at Aiden's house at a run, Erek found the young man huddled in the corner and clutching his holy symbol; across the room lay a twisted corpse blackened as if by searing fire. Erek had little time to ponder this mysterious state of affairs before a groaning shape shambled out from a side room; one look was all Erek needed to know that it had been a long time since that creature had been alive, but before he could grab Aiden and flee the young man leapt up and grasped the zombie by the shoulder. Moments later the zombie was reduced to another burned corpse as positive energy seared the foul magics from the dead flesh.
It was now apparent to Erek what had happened here.
Aiden and Erek were forced to fight for their lives as they fled from the living dead and Aiden very nearly joined their ranks several times throughout the night, finally as the sun rose it found Aiden and Erek battered but alive. They had escaped.
The Village was cleansed of the unholy plague that had infested it, but Aiden never truly recovered from the ordeal. Seeing his mother and father as mindless zombies and having to purge them both with positive energy fractured the young man’s mind and his elders feared that Aiden might not be able to repair the pieces. A fear that Aiden proved correct, but not in the way the elders expected. Instead of repairing his mind, Aiden took the shattered pieces of his psyche and reforged them into an unforgiving blade. Driven by the horrors he had seen Aiden swore to never let another experience what he had, he swore to purge every last speck of undeath from the known world and he swore to hunt down any and all who would dare try to cheat death and burn them all to ash.
Driven by this virtuous zeal, Aiden has travelled to Eliador where he has heard reports of Undead in the region, vowing to begin his crusade against the darkness and usher in a golden age of prosperity and peace there.
Mechanically Aiden is a perfectly normal Neutral Good human Cleric with the Sun and Fire domains. He actually has two B plots; his vow to become the next great Hierophant and lead an undead-purging crusade across the world and finding out exactly what happened to his village; why was the village destroyed and its inhabitants raised as the living dead? To provide for himself he sells his services as a healer; services which are greatly appreciated by any he meets. Aiden's primary goal is to protect as many people as possible from the Undead and he does not consider himself bound by petty laws and government, for after all his quest is righteous and seeks to strike out the greatest evil known to man; how could Aiden be anything other than in the right?
