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"virtus et dignitas"
These were the words Father had etched into his armor, under the symbol of an open gauntlet. That symbol is my first memory and those words were my first words. Father said they literally mean "courage and dignity" but their context is so much more; that they are the briefest summary of a code of behavior meant to shape a man into a champion of loyalty and moral duty. He said they were words to live by and more importantly words to die by. Father died heeding his own words, single-handedly slaying a den of Banites that had begun corrupting our little village, before falling to his wounds.
The Church took me in after that and continued the lessons Father had begun. Father never spoke of my mother, and whenever I asked he simply grew sad and silent. The most I ever got from him was that she was as beautiful as she was fearsome, and that her loss was the greatest pain he had ever known. The clergy at the Church also refused to speak of her, out of respect for Father's wishes, except to say that I had her eyes. I do not know to this day whether Father meant he lost her to another, to death, or if their love was star-crossed and doomed, but she was not coming back for me, and so I found myself a ward of the Church.
My training was unremarkable if not a bit harsher than that of the other boys. The paladins who supervised our studies and martial practice said they always expected a little more out of me, that duty and obedience were in my blood. They did not say it with a tone of disappointment, but as a simple statement of fact. Father left big shoes to fill, and I strove always to honor his memory by doing so. I trained body and mind to be a bulwark against the evil in the world, and I kept my soul pure through acts of kindness, decency, and penance when needed.
Now I have come of age in a land that needs champions. Sundren is beset by evil of all forms: Thayan slavers, vampires, assassins and thieves, monstrous creatures tainting the forests, and worst of all the Banites. I am merely a shadow of Father, a reflection diminished by the fading light of these lands. If I wish to be the man I must be, the light must be rekindled and fed to a blinding radiance. I have a single purpose, to destroy that which is evil so that good may flourish. Here and now I pledge my oath to Father, to Torm, to the world: I will live and die with courage and dignity so this rising darkness can be turned back and the light brought back to these lands.
virtus et dignitas
These were the words Father had etched into his armor, under the symbol of an open gauntlet. That symbol is my first memory and those words were my first words. Father said they literally mean "courage and dignity" but their context is so much more; that they are the briefest summary of a code of behavior meant to shape a man into a champion of loyalty and moral duty. He said they were words to live by and more importantly words to die by. Father died heeding his own words, single-handedly slaying a den of Banites that had begun corrupting our little village, before falling to his wounds.
The Church took me in after that and continued the lessons Father had begun. Father never spoke of my mother, and whenever I asked he simply grew sad and silent. The most I ever got from him was that she was as beautiful as she was fearsome, and that her loss was the greatest pain he had ever known. The clergy at the Church also refused to speak of her, out of respect for Father's wishes, except to say that I had her eyes. I do not know to this day whether Father meant he lost her to another, to death, or if their love was star-crossed and doomed, but she was not coming back for me, and so I found myself a ward of the Church.
My training was unremarkable if not a bit harsher than that of the other boys. The paladins who supervised our studies and martial practice said they always expected a little more out of me, that duty and obedience were in my blood. They did not say it with a tone of disappointment, but as a simple statement of fact. Father left big shoes to fill, and I strove always to honor his memory by doing so. I trained body and mind to be a bulwark against the evil in the world, and I kept my soul pure through acts of kindness, decency, and penance when needed.
Now I have come of age in a land that needs champions. Sundren is beset by evil of all forms: Thayan slavers, vampires, assassins and thieves, monstrous creatures tainting the forests, and worst of all the Banites. I am merely a shadow of Father, a reflection diminished by the fading light of these lands. If I wish to be the man I must be, the light must be rekindled and fed to a blinding radiance. I have a single purpose, to destroy that which is evil so that good may flourish. Here and now I pledge my oath to Father, to Torm, to the world: I will live and die with courage and dignity so this rising darkness can be turned back and the light brought back to these lands.
virtus et dignitas