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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 4582884" data-attributes="member: 63">Eh, sure. None of this was really part of the campaign saga, but if you're just looking for stories from my home game to mine for inspiration, no prob. Actually, I thought I put most of this in adventure 7. Anyway, ~120 years ago, a human knight named Galad married a Taranesti elf mage named Stacia. Galad's fellow knights were enemies of the Taranesti to begin with, and had heard (true) rumors that Stacia dabbled in diabolic magic (but really, what smart mage doesn't at least give it a try some time?), so they assumed she had ensorcelled Galad and was going to use him for evil ends.The knights tried to kill the then-pregnant Stacia, and Galad fought them off long enough for her to get away, dying in the process. Stacia gave birth, named her son Rhuarc, and at first just mourned. But she became more and more involved in the Taranesti efforts to defend themselves from the nearby human lands (mind you, this was all well before Coaltongue even arrived on the scene, and Shaaladel was probably just a young soldier at the time).Eventually tensions between the humans and elves flared into open conflict, with the human knights leading the charge. Stacia convinced herself that they were evil, and she sought to destroy them. By this point, deeply enmeshed in fiendish magic and one of the most powerful mages among the Taranesti, she tried to make a bargain with a devil so it would destroy the knights. The devil (a sort of arch-succubus with shadow powers), however, demanded two souls, her own, and her son's. The official conditions were something like, [hq]"Your body shall be my vessel, and my price shall be your blood to undertake your vengeance, your soul upon the destruction of the knights of the Church of the Aquiline Cross, slain to their last man. But as you bore your child in the wake of death, so will he bear his death in the wake of revenge, and so too will he bear your price."[/hq](Translated, the devil would take Stacia and Rhuarc's life as a price for starting the revenge, and would take their souls if she completed her task.)Thinking she could cheat the devil, Stacia delayed before agreeing, and she crafted the black scimitar, mixing her soul and her son's into its essence so that when they died, their souls would go into the blade, rather than letting the devil take them to hell for eternal torment. Then she summoned the devil again and agreed to its terms.The devil possessed her body and proceeded to track down and slaughter every member of the knighthood except one, named Marinus. She left him so that the terms of her contract would not come full, allowing her to stay in the mortal world indefinitely, using her position among the Taranesti to corrupt more people and cause greater suffering. Stacia's father (Rhuarc's grandfather) recognized something had changed in his daughter so he took Rhuarc away, and left him to be raised as an orphan among humans.Rhuarc grew up, believing his mother had died when he was 10. When he was in his twenties, though, he stumbled back into the local conflict, which had now grown to include the Taranesti, the humans of a few nations, the Shahalesti, and the orcs under the new chieftain Drakus Coaltongue. Some mysterious benefactor (his grandfather) gave him this awesome black magic scimitar, though Rhuarc was also partial to this spring-mounted punching dagger bracer he had, sort of akin to what Al-ta'ir has in Assassin's Creed.Long story short, Rhuarc joined a group of Taranesti assassins, unaware that his mother, still possessed by a devil, manipulated him like a puppet. Eventually, after he failed to assassinate Coaltongue during the same battle where the Torch was created, Rhuarc went to ground for a while, and heard rumors that one knight of the order who killed his father Galad had survived. The devil made sure Rhuarc didn't have a chance to follow up on the rumors yet, though, because her plan required a bit more time. See, she wanted the Shahalesti and Taranesti and humans to all destroy each other, so she dropped ominous hints to Rhuarc that the Taranesti assassins meant to betray him, so Rhuarc betrayed them first. He led a group of Shahalesti and human warriors in an attack on a Taranesti stronghold, with the thought that afterward he would be in a position to create at least temporary peace between the many different groups. (At the time, Rhuarc still cared for some things other than himself.) But at the height of the assault, Rhuarc breached the main chamber of the stronghold, and came face to face with his mother.She explained, in that perfect main villain fashion, that Stacia had not died, but that she (the devil) had never fulfilled the contract, because she wanted to give Rhuarc that opportunity. She had groomed him to be a killer, had encouraged his vengeful streak and his life-long hatred of any sort of knight. And now she had arranged for him a choice.She told him that Marinus, the one surviving knight who had killed Rhuarc's father, was among the warriors Rhuarc had helped assault the fortress. Rhuarc could go and take his revenge by killing the knight, which would fulfill the contract, and Rhuarc's soul and his mother's would be forfeit. Or Rhuarc could try to kill the devil, which would end the contract prematurely. The devil would be able to collect on her up-front price, snuffing the life of Stacia and Rhuarc, but their souls would be free. Marinus, however, would live on, and Rhuarc would never have his revenge.Devils live for this kind of sh**. Will a mortal make the wise choice, or let his vices damn him?Rhuarc considered, but the one thing he hated more than knights was this b*tch who had been manipulating him all his life. He attacked her, and after a long, mobile battle through a fortress full of three battling forces, eventually he and his mother ended up in a sacrificial chamber. The devil trapped him with a spell that paralyzed him, then advanced to kiss him and drain his soul. At the last moment, Rhuarc managed to break free of the spell and, in a passionate, horrific embrace with his own mother, he triggered his blade bracer and pierced her heart.Then he disentangled himself and decapitated her with the black scimitar. The weapon's soul eating magic trapped the devil, preventing her from collecting on her bargain. Rhuarc lived, and after he overcame the surprise, he thanked his mother for her foresight in creating the sword, and then went to fulfill the revenge both he and his mother desired. In the middle of the great melee in the fortress, Rhuarc crept up on Marinus, paralyzed him, explained who he was, and ended the man's life.After that, well, his life was pretty fulfilled, so you can understand why everything went downhill from there.Whoo, that was long.</blockquote>

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