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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DarkSoldier" data-source="post: 1932672" data-attributes="member: 3106">At first glance, you might not give Kerad Dyilf more thought than any other odd loner, but if you take a closer look...Standing 5'6", Kerad wears a trenchcoat one size too large so it stretches to mid-calf, and metal pauldrons are bolted to the coat's shoulders.  He wears his dark brown hair long and loose to flow down his back.  A single scar cuts down his face (like Ohara's scar from Enter the Dragon, but cleaner).  He wears work boots, black jeans, and two leather straps crossing his chest from shoulders to hips.  He's a decent-looking guy, but his eyes, however, draw your attention: two orbs of a most unnatural green shade, a shade that evokes the most primordial fear you've ever experienced just by looking at them.Why does he have those eyes, you ask?  Three thousand years ago, demonic forces openly roamed the world, and the gods fought them with their own armies.  For a hundred years they ravaged the land with their conflict, until evil was forced to flee.  However, some of their minions remained, struggling with their own internal conflicts, and convinced the forces of good to give them asylum.  Their blood mingled with the mortal races, but their offspring always expressed traits of their demonic lineage.  While the blood has diluted over three millennia, those traits occasionaly pop up again.  Kerad is a direct descendant of these refugee warriors.PersonalityKerad feels slighted by the world at large.  He believes that he could have been something better than what he is now, if the world had just given him a chance, but it spat in his face and kicked him to the curb, and now he's going to pay it back for mistreating him.Kerad expresses many traits associated with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder" target="_blank">Avoidant Personality Disorder</a>.  He also has difficulties with long-term planning, changing allegiances whenever he perceives a benefit in doing so, without regard for what long-term benefits previous allegiances may have brought him.Because his lover Malra Mytil is the only person who has expressed any form of interest in him as a person, Kerad does not want to do anything that would jeopardize that interest.  He will cater to her every whim and do so eagerly.Background"Ruination follows the Son of the Black Moon."A new moon heralded the birth of Kerad Dyilf.  Within a year, he had already suffered a vicious attack by his own older brother, jealous of the attention he got.  As he grew older, he suffered more; in school, it seemed that every student wanted to take a swing at him, and every teacher disliked him.  One incident stands out in his mind: an older student was beating him when the school's vice-principal interrupted, demanding to know who started the fight.  Kerad claimed it was unprovoked, while his opposite made up a story about catching Kerad trying to steal something from him.  Unsurprisingly, he sided with Kerad's attacker, and either did not notice or did not care when he sucker punched Kerad right in front of him.His home life was even worse: his father had become an abusive alcoholic, his older brother still tormented him daily, and his mother, who also possessed his inhuman jade green eyes, gave him precious little support between their mutual beatings.  At the age of seventeen and after numerous failed suicide attempts, Kerad decided that there was only one way to escape; he took a sharp knife and slit his father's throat before escaping into the night, swearing never to return to his homeland.Kerad barely managed to fend for himself for the next several months, in which he travelled halfway across the continent to the scrub desert town of Albard, where he promptly passed out into the sand.  The next thing he knew, he was receiving care from an old man and a young girl; wizards of the desert.  He barely had time to figure out where he was before word came that desert raiders were attacking.Kerad followed them out and watched, detached, as the raiders fell onto the city, barely slowed by determined defenders.  They cut down the old wizard when Kerad stopped to pick up a fallen sword, and he used the sword when the raiders went after the girl.  The raiders' leader saw this and challenged Kerad.  When the young man tried to attack, he was cut down, bleeding from a wound to his face.  The raider laughed at his effort and turned his attention to the girl.  Kerad used that mistake to drive the sword through his neck.the next day, Kerad set out on his own into the desert, intent on crossing it alone, with nothing save the clothes on his back and the sword in his hand.  Many times, he thought he would die from exposure, starvation, or thirst, but miraculously, he always found just enough sustenance to keep going.  During this hellish period, Kerad came to the conclusion that some supernatural force was watching out for him, not to keep him safe, but to prolong his suffering, perhaps for its own twisted amusement.  He called that force "Fate."Perhaps with Fate guiding him, Kerad ended up on the fabled R'itni Islands.  Shortly after his arrival, he was greeted by an mugger armed with a wicked knife.  Kerad was fully intent on killing the mugger, until one of his strikes removed the mugger's cap, which broke an illusion and revealed that the mugger was actually an attractive half-elven female, a fledgling wizard turned brigand by the name of Malra Mytil.  In her, Kerad saw a kindred spirit, a promising individual heartlessly cast out of her own society for being different.Kerad's emerging feelings for Malra, coupled with his recklessness in defending her, landed them both in prison, in the same cell as a common street thug named Keane Kominda.  Keane, like them, was different: he had the blood of demons in his veins, manifest as dark red skin, red eyes, short horns, and sharp teeth.  Together, the three managed to escape to one of Keane's local boltholes, where they met Keane's loyal guard, a dark elf named named Do'kem Nupaji.Some other power must have taken notice of Kerad, connected him with "Ruination follows the Son of the Black Moon," and sent Elizabeth to get him.  Elizabeth, a seductive vampire, offered Kerad pleasures and power beyond human comprehension if he did a few tasks for her "master."  Smelling a rat, Kerad initially refused the offer, but soon decided to see what it would cost him.  One meeting with a titanic demon later, Kerad was infused with the ability to call upon the primal energy of the world of Boram'ith: the Macrocosm.  He spent a week learning how to use the powers he had suddenly gained, and then returned to his companions with a new look and a new, unsettling and secretive, attitude.The task he had to complete in exchange for the Macrocosm was allegedly a simple one: assassinate a troublesome wanderer identified only as "Falkyn."  Kerad observed this Falkyn for a while, even hiring him to kill another individual his benefactors wonted dead, but he only succeeded in making Falkyn forswear killing.  When he finally decided to confront Falkyn, he overpowered him spectacularly, but during the fight, Kerad discovered the nearly-fatal side effects to his new power: the demonic whisperings that he occasionally heard turned into full-blown demonic possession after prolonged use of the Macrocosm's energy.His benefactors had made a slight mistake: they could not remove the ability to access the Macrocosm from Kerad, nor could they simply kill him on the spot.  Moreover, he continued to resist Elizabeth's advances, even in the face of veiled threats to his companions.  His incredible power did more than make Kerad potentially the most powerful being on the planet: it almost alienated his companions, something that profoundly disturbed him when Malra bluntly told him, "You scare me."Kerad started looking for a way out of the deal, but what he was looking for came right to him when Elizabeth grabbed Malra and threatened to kill her if Kerad did not destroy Falkyn immediately.  Kerad responded by declaring that Elizabeth had just nullified the terms of the deal by physically threatening his companions.  The next thing she knew, Kerad appeared right in front of her, wrenched her grip from Malra, and teleported Malra and himself away.Kerad looked down at Malra and told her he had a few loose ends to tie up, and then he'd be back.  One of those loose ends involved disposing of the swords he received as a bonus: a pair of demon-bound weapons that his benefactors hoped would corrupt him to their service.  Rather than submit, he took them to a volcano and threw them in.  Thinking that was that, he started to leave, but the volcano erupted.  Coming to the realization that he had been running from everything his entire life, Kerad stopped, turned to face the flow, and died with Malra's name on his lips.He experienced the afterlife, where agents of the god of judgement enlightened him on how his activities affected his world, as well as informing him of Malra's unrequited love for him.  When he felt the call of resurrection, he answered it, and found himself lying on a stone slab.  The cleric who had brought him back, Miah Honzonoto, asked him to help her, and he agreed on the condition that he gather his friends.  First, he found Malra and professed his own love for her, and then he gathered Keane and Do'kem.Unfortunately, Elizabeth had her own plans for Kerad.  She manipulated Miah into sending Keane and Do'kem to their deaths, and then killed Malra herself, using Kerad's grief to convince him to work directly for her.  As they travelled, a mist separated them, and Kerad was never seen again.</blockquote>

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