Wiki Category: Characters

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ed by: Andrew Lepperd
Name: Aradael (Formerly Aradel d’Bellecourt)
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Race: Human
Hair: Dark Brown
Eyes: Dark Brown
Occupation: Farmer/Herder/Crowsguard Captain
Known Skills: Armor Proficiency, Shield Proficiency, Dual Wield, Toughness (x1), Stalwart, Basic First Aid
Birthplace: Castle Bellecourt, in the Kingdom of Aldoria

If you’ve ever served under arms, you’ve probably heard the same litany I did about the sword becoming an extension of yourself. I cannot say I ever reached a point where I felt like it did. That’s not to say I wasn’t competent with the tool, but I never romanticized its terrible work.

As a young man, I lead others into battle in the army of Aldoria. It was, I had been raised to believe, my hereditary duty. A lordling of middling status, the name I had inherited gave me the right to command men, and the obligation to do so to whatever end the king bade me. Seldom did I find these ends to be the righteous or chivalrous ones of bard’s tales or the bleached white aggrandizement of the histories commissioned by the noble families.

Most of those I lead in my youth were my age, many of the trusted sergeants double that, and some of the greenest recruits boys of scarcely more than a dozen summers. The armies we faced were much the same, such that one could scarcely tell us apart if not for the tabards and banners. Though in time my rank entitled me to give orders from a hilltop vantage, it was seldom my wont. I placed myself at the front of my companies, where I could better see the bewildered, terrified disbelief of boys dying at my hand, and at my side. It was not bravado that kept me at the vanguard, but a desire to protect my own. New recruits were said to have taunted my valor at the sight of my towering shield, with veterans promptly cuffing them for insolence and relating the time I’d extended my aegis to them or a close comrade. With each foe I struck down, more and more I started to question the difference between the luckless conscript at my side and the one at the edge of my blade, and why I should care only to preserve the life of the one and not the other.

There was a time I believed at least half-heartedly in what the lords and marshals told us we were fighting for. Defending the honor of Aldoria’s daughters, protecting hearth and home, avenging terrible wrongs done by dastardly foreigners. I cannot count the number of fields my company of men transformed to abattoirs haunted by the moans of the dying, the call of the carrion birds, and the wailing of camp-following wives turning over a prone form and learning they were newly widowed. Never did it seem that we created enough of these stinking vermilion tableaus to finally win the peace, security and honor we were ostensibly fighting for.

Perhaps most influential in my growing perspective was a chance meeting with a member of the Crescent Order. Our regiment had managed to persuade the abbess to detach some of these crusaders of Lunara to serve alongside our forces and render aid to the wounded. Amalthia was her name, and she was a hazel-eyed beauty, and a syndar. I had thought her unapproachable, both for her fey ancestry and whatever vows bound her as a woman of the cloth. My good friend and confidant Fortinbras, our quartermaster and unnoficial unit mummer, made jest of my reluctance. He goaded me to approach her, but she alone among women seemed to turn me into a bashful schoolboy.

Fate, or chance, as you would have it, gave me the opportunity to try my charms on her when I was convalescing from a battle wound. She was not near so unapproachable as I thought, nor were her vows as dire as I feared. Were I a poet, I could relate to you the dizzying joy of our romance, but I am a soldier, and have only a soldier’s unsubtle and unimaginative tongue.

It was not long before I proposed, and to my surprise and joy met with her assent. Amalthia’s order and her calling hold that Lunara’s path is not a narrow one, and her Goddess could be served as well by a wife (and, I would find in time, a mother) as by a celibate warrior-priestess.

I could no longer abide my bloody duties, and resigned my commission. My sword hung over the mantle. And, as I said, I did not feel as if I lost a part of myself. Though my hands still remembered the blade. When I tilled the soil, when I held my child, still the grim business of soldiering could never be completely out of mind. Though, with the seas of blood spilled at my hand and by my order, perhaps not an undeserved one. It cost me my family name, the title and lands due me as eldest son of a knight-noble, and my inheritance. I could not care less. My father, a lifelong and loyal officer, called it cowardice. He expected me to follow in his bloodsoaked footsteps. To me, cowardice would have been to continue marching into needless slaughter under that hateful banner because of the weight of obligation.

The decade between my resignation and recent calamities was blissfully uneventful; yet full of the simple bounties of life that soldiering keeps a sword’s length away. The worst of my worries was an early frost or an outbreak of flystrike in the herd, nothing next to the humble joys of a sunrise hand in hand with my beloved over the fields, or a quiet night by the hearth with a book.

The greatest of these simple yet transcendent joys occurred some six seasons ago. According to Amalthia, she has my ears. Paige’s birth seemed to be an affirmation of the humble, peaceful life of farming and ranching I’d chosen.

Or it would have been, had the dead finally spilled over our borders. My regiment was stationed far from the borders, and as I came to learn, much effort was taken to suppress the true magnitude of the danger at our doorstep to those of us still fighting rebellious barons and peasant uprisings. We had all heard the stories, but most dismissed them as the offspring of a coupling of rumor and exaggeration. Though the plague had burned for nearly two generations, it was difficult to imagine the true enormity of the threat from second and third hand tales.

Fortinbras arrived to warn us with the grim, first-hand truth. He arrived in time, but only just. Without his alert, not to mention his sharing in the despair and danger of our flight, my family would almost certainly have perished, or worse, fallen to the curse of waking death.

Neither I nor Amaltia had beaten our swords into plowshares; keeping arms and armor was a prudent thing for an isolated farmer. At first I had intended to defend what was mine, but the enormity of the legions of dead and crazed made quick folly of the idea.

We fled. Even these seasons later, it haunts me to write much of our time as refugees. Suffice to say what I did to protect my family troubles me more than the oceans of blood spilled under battle standards in my youth. Those I came to trust in our flight are now my closest friends, family by atrocity shared. Those that survived, at any rate.

Those of our party who made it to Clearport faced a press of humanity that reminded me of nothing so much as an overfull pen of hogs ready for slaughter. The zealots and the hungry dead were not far behind, and the desperation to make it to the remaining ships had engendered a state of crazed inhumanity that I hope never to see again. When we had shield-bashed and shouldered our way through the sea of refugees to the boarding planks of the Gentleman Caller narrowly making its departure, I looked back at the desperate souls leaping and trying to swim after. I had done what I could for my people, and in the most elemental sense, it was them or us. This is what I told myself, and is it not the truth?

Our fortune did not much improve during the voyage, cramped together and living on starvation rations. Nor did it improve when we reached land. On the last leg of our voyage, colossal storms wrenched us far off course, and eventually dashed the ship against the rocks far from our intended port, killing much of the crew and passengers, but sparing my family and many of those who had fled with me.

As luck would have it, we found ourselves shipwrecked in a fertile delta valley more than suitable for farming and ranching, something I had come to know well. We have made a new home of it, working in common and sharing in the defense from the predacious denizens of this new land. We call this steading of some dozen families “Crow’s Landing,” as there were no gulls to be seen, but dozens of the dark avians came to feast on those who did not survive the wreck. The washed up faster than they could be buried. Though the first seasons were hard, we have made this place a new home.

And when I till the land, hold Amalthia, and write on the slate to teach young Paige words, sums, and the like, still my hands remember the sword, and I have learned to be grateful. It is still a hateful tool, but it is a necessary one. Finally the battles I fight really are for the essential ideals of dignity and survival, and not the pretense of these things wrapped around the petty, greedy struggles of lords and their nations. From the motley militia of Crow’s Landing, I will never resign. Was it the only way to secure the safety of those closest to me, I would march against the world until no others remained. My family again has a home, and I will let nothing again threaten them. If in time I can no longer enjoy the simple pleasures for which I first put down the sword, if that ugly tool does finally become a part of me as drillmasters assured me it must long ago, so be it. If it is us or them, I choose us.

TL;DR VERSION:
Aradael is a veteran officer of Aldoria who resigned his commission after becoming cynical and dissilusioned about the military. He married Amalthia, a battle cleric of Lunara, and they have a daughter, Paige. He lived for around ten years as a farmer and rancher before the undead destroyed his farm forced him to flee for Mardrun, where he and a circle of trusted comrades shipwrecked far from the other Newhope settlements and founded Crow’s Landing. Though the small freehold community has no official leader, he is often looked to in this capacity, particularly in matters of defense.

Of late, he has come to see that Mordok raids are a greater threat than his tiny militia can handle, and is travelling to a nearby outpost in order to broker some manner of mutual defense agreement with surrounding communities and Ulven tribes.

Played by: Samantha Vold
Name: Lexia
Age: 17
Occupation: Ranger
Relationships: Wilken- little brother. Rauran- friend

My name is Lexia. I have a younger brother whom I recently met up with after 5 years of being apart. His name is Wilken. When I was 12 (Wilken was 11), our parents had begun arguing on and off for several months and mom just couldn’t take it anymore. So, she eventually left. She took me with her, leaving Wilken and dad behind.
After we left, we wandered into a little village about 20 miles south of where we previously had lived. There, I took the opportunity to ask mom where we were going. The only response she gave me was “Far away, honey.” In reality, we never did stray that far from home. I think the farthest we ended up was 30 miles south of that first little village. We only went a total of 50 miles south, all said and done. I think she secretly missed dad, although she would never admit it to me.
But, we made home in one of the rooms of the tavern after mom befriended the hostess there. Rent was cheap, and life was a bit hard. We never really had a lot of money, so mom did a lot of hunting to feed us. When I was old enough, I began working in the tavern as a server and helped the guests that came. All the money I made went directly to our rent though. I never saw any of it myself. But, it made mom happy, so I guess I was happy.
During my free time, mom would teach me and she occasionally took me out hunting with her. I learned archery during those trips and even killed a few meals myself. But, one day, our hunting trip went wrong. We were deep in the forest tracking a deer that had previously wandered through. We stopped to examine some tracks when I heard a rustling in the bushes. I asked mom what it was and she replied saying it was just another animal passing through. We held still for a few moments to see if we could hear anything more or if the animal would come out. When nothing happened, we started moving again. That was when it happened. We were ambushed by four mordok. The skirmish was a bit of a blur to me. Mom told me to climb the nearest tree that I could find and get up high while she fought them off. She took one out with her bow and decapitated another with her sword. I sniped one from my position in the tree, but there was still one left. Mom had been wounded while she was fighting and was running out of energy to keep it up. The last mordok grappled her to the ground and began to tear her apart. I screamed for her and shot an arrow through the mordok’s arm. That didn’t do much, simply slowed him down a bit. I jumped from my spot in the tree and stuck another arrow in his arm. That time I got his attention. He left my mom lying on the ground and turned on me. When he charged, I took aim and stuck my last arrow right through his chest. He ran another few feet towards me and then dropped. I stayed where I was for a few tense moments, just to be sure, then sprinted to my mom’s side. She was still breathing when I reached her, but was losing a lot of blood from a large wound in her side. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “There’s nothing you can do to help me, dear. But please, try to find your father and brother. Apologize to your father and tell him I’ve still loved him over these years. And take care of your brother. He needs you now.” I promised her I would follow through with her request and stayed by her side while she took her last breath. When she had gone, I closed her eyes and ran into town as fast as I could. The woman who ran the tavern gathered a group of men to help me carry my mother back to town. The next day we had a small funeral for her and buried her in the town’s graveyard along with her bow and the few arrows we could find. I kept her sword for myself and vowed to avenge her death one day and to help protect others from the mordok as best I could so no else had to go through what I had.
A few weeks later I met Rauran. He had come into the tavern, sat in a corner and challenged anyone that would play to a game. Even with his seemingly arrogant attitude, he kept losing. One gentleman stayed and played several rounds with Rauran and kept winning. Eventually, Rauran got so far into debt that he couldn’t pay up anymore. And there was no hope of doing so soon. A fight then broke out. Several people helped me break the fight up and I threw both Rauran and the other gentleman out.
A few days later, Rauran returned, sneaking back into the tavern. I spotted him sulking in the same corner he had been in the night before, but this time he had no game going. As courtesy dictates, I went over and asked him if I could get him anything. He told me he didn’t have any money to pay me with. But, he looked hungry to me. I gave him a bowl of stew and walked away. When I returned, the bowl was empty and he looked slightly guilty. I picked up the bowl and heard a muttered “Thank you” as I walked away. When I reached the bar and turned around, he had gone.
Later that week, I ran a few errands for the tavern hostess. When I left the market, I found Rauran huddled in an alley-way. I walked over to him and told him I’d pay him a few pieces of silver to carry my bags for me. He accepted and helped me back to the tavern. Upon returning, I offered him another bowl of stew and before I got an answer, went to grab a bowl. We sat down a table and I learned his story.
He had been an orphan for about two years and had a bad streak of gambling and fighting. He made his way from town to town, village to village, in hopes of finding some new people to gamble with and hope no one knew of the debts he had built up over the time he spent in each town. He explained that gambling was the only way he could earn any money for himself. (Although he wasn’t very good at it and kept losing more than he earned.) And then he ended up in this tavern several days ago. Plans were kind of in the works for him to leave town and head out to another within the next day or so. Hearing his story, I took pity on him and left to talk to the hostess. She offered him a job working in the tavern and a room as well. The work would pay off the rent and he would receive one free meal a day. That was enough to keep him in town for a while longer.
Several months passed. Rauran stayed in the village and continued working at the tavern. His gambling streak had lessened dramatically, although he still played a few games every now-and-then. All was going well as we became good friends and my sorrow over my mother’s death lessened. Travelers came in and out and many stories passed through as well. Rumors of mordok on the move would send search parties out into the forest and they’d return sometimes with a trophy, and other times not. Several mordok head were displayed around the tavern as the one who killed it would triumphantly tell his story to all who would listen.
One day, a lone and young traveler came into the tavern. When he pulled the hood of his cloak down, I recognized him instantly. It may have been five years since I had seen him, but it certainly was him. My little brother, Wilken, had somehow made his way to the tiny village. I dropped the dishes I was carrying in disbelief and ran to him, hugging him and rambling about how much I missed him. I’m pretty sure tears sprang into my eyes, I was that excited and overjoyed to see him. But…where was father? Why was he alone?
I ran to the back and grabbed little brother a bowl of stew, sat him down and made him tell me everything that had happened over the five years since I had seen him. Father had taught little brother everything he knew. How to fight, gamble a bit, hunt, read, etc. They spent many days out in the forest tracking animals and training. One day though, that little escapade turned disastrous.
A few weeks ago, they had been out in a meadow and father was teaching little brother some new sword-fighting techniques. But, they were ambushed by some mordok that had been attracted to the sounds of a small skirmish. Father and Wilken fought them off as best they could, but father ended up mortally wounded. Wilken was able to take down the last mordok that father had wounded and after that ran to tend to his wounds. He was able to get father back to the cabin in which they had been living and did his best to help father heal. But, the wound became infected and father fell deathly ill. After several days of fighting a horrendous fever, father passed away, leaving little brother on his own. He buried father near the cabin, took up his sword, and headed out, looking for any and all mordok he could find in his scheme of revenge.
Little brother spent quite a while wandering from little village to little village. He first headed east of where the cabin was and stayed a few nights in a tavern there. Eventually, he made a giant loop and ended up in the village where I was. After his story, I filled him in on what had happened with mother and me. I told him we were now officially orphans, knowing that father was dead. And I offered to let him stay with me then, at least until he was old enough to set out on his own completely. But, he argued. He had heard rumors of a caravan that was headed to Daven’s Reach that had gone missing. He wanted to check it out, so that’s where he was headed. He was just passing through this little village on his way.
Not wanting to let him go right away, I made him stay a week with me and fill me in some on this rumor and everything else that had been going on. He met Rauran and they seemed to get along well, a friendship had begun to form. But, eventually, I had to let him go. He set out for Daven’s Reach, but I had to stay behind. So, I let him leave with a promise that he’d do his best to stay safe. And in return, I gave him a promise that I’d join him in Daven’s Reach sometime soon. I couldn’t leave right away, but after I had just found my brother after five years of not seeing him, I wasn’t about to let him go. So, I made the promise that I’d meet him in Daven’s Reach.
So, that’s where it kind of all started. I invited Rauran to go with me, and we set out from the little village and made our way to Daven’s Reach.

Played by: Jim Stevens
Name: Aedan Haleth VonHorst
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Race: Human
Hair: Dark Brown, slightly graying, reddish beard
Eyes: Brown
Occupation: War Priest
Known Skills: Kill “bad” guys, using Arnaths might in battle!
Birthplace: Northern Vandregon, southern edge of the Celestial Mountains
Appearance: Tall with glasses and a goatee, wearing heavy armor with a red tabard.
Notable Traits: Aedan has some deep seated anger issues, but he is deeply devoted to the tenants of his faith and maintaining the honor of his order.
Relationships: Part of “Boomhowlers Bastards” adventuring party, Crusader/”Lion of Arnaths Fist, growing friendship with Kragen Bloodmoon
Rumors: Since the first few days in Davins Reach Aedan has not been sleeping well. He also seems to get extremely agitated when a green Syndar is around…

Bio:
Hello, my name is Arden Haleth VonHorst, and this is the beginning of my story…

I was born twenty six years ago, while our people were still fighting to save what was left of Faedrun. My Mother was a disgraced former Priestess of the Light, disgraced because she had the temerity to join a man in his bed. Even during those dark days the Lectors took such things very seriously and she was tossed out of her Temple and thrown into the streets. The shame was so great that we were barely even able to get our daily bread ration in the town square. My Mother was a kind, profoundly gentle soul and losing her town, friends and even her family to one night’s mistake broke her. She was 24 years old when she died. No one in town wanted me, so the local Order Outpost took charge. Another recruit for the war.

By this time Arnath’s Fist, or more simply the Order, was pushing recruits through training and into the grinder as fast as they could, so I was pushed out the gates at sixteen. I have done my best to forget those days, but my nights are filled with nightmares and the faces of the lost, Honored Dead or not.

We received the evacuation order during the spring and my Company, with twelve of the original one hundred and fifty Crusaders, made it to the coast and the ships within the month. The voyage is a blur of storms and prayer, and the early days on Mardrun aren’t much better. The enormity of what had happened, and what I had seen finally hit me. I had seen cities that had stood for millennia burned to the ground. Families torn apart by their loved ones. The Livings armies smashed by our own dead. My wife and daughter…

Family: gone.

Home: gone.

Friends: gone.

We…

I had lost almost everything.

I wandered Mardrun for a few years doing odd jobs, just trying to survive. I reconnected with the New Order at Starkhaven and went beck into training as we had been shoved out the door well before we were ready.
Everything changed during December of my twenty-sixth winter. I was sitting in the local tavern on the anniversary of my Mothers’ death, minding my own business when the son of the local Magistrate, Elric VonHorst walked in. He had been one of the cruelest and most vocal detractors of my Mother back on Faedrun, and by some cruel joke he had survived. He was drunk, followed by some of his sycophant friends. He had always been a braggart, and as I said, a cruel man. He also hated me with a passion, as he thought I should have been tossed into the woods to die simply for being my Mother’s son. When he did next is predictable.
What I did was not. He had been dishonoring my Mothers good name for years. He had been egging me on for years. After ignoring him, and leaving the room he was in, and letting it go for twenty years…something changed that night. I still don’t know what, but when he started on his normal rant, I reached to my belt, drew my mace and bashed his skull in.

I was first taken before Seneschal Bubrinin, the leader of the Order’s local Chapterhouse. He promptly turned me over for judgment by the local Magistrate, after giving me a scathing lecture about how I had clearly not learned as much about the Path as I thought. I was then taken to the towns keep where Magistrate VonHorst, also known around the area as ’Boomhowler’, was waiting for me. He called me into his personal chambers before pronouncing the sentence. He told me that he had “known” my Mother, years before. He told me that he had been called away to set up the Northern Colonies here on Mardrun and had not known about what happened to us. He had never known about me. He also told me that the man I murdered was an ass and thanked me for solving his problem for him. He then gave me the deed to the farm that his son had run into the ground as an apology, as he wanted it to stay in the family.

However, there was a catch. Before I could have the land I would have to prove myself, as his other “sons” would soon be leaving to do.

We left for Daven’s Reach two days later.