General Information
- Name: Darius Brandon Blackwell
- Race: Human
- Gender: Male
- Age: Twenty-seven
- Height: 6'0"
- Weight: 200lbs
- Build: Medium
- Hair: Dark Brown Hair
- Eyes: Gray-Blue
- Skin: Lightly Tanned
(Artwork drawn by Nyssis)
|  |
Overall Appearance
A human male with stormy gray-blue eyes and dark hair. Approximately 6'0" in height and of a medium build, when visible there is an ugly and jagged scar on his left bicep.
He wears highly polished silvery armor blessed and forged by the Triumvirate smiths. His holy symbol, the right handed open palm gauntlet, hangs from an iron chain at his belt. Sheathed at his side is a blade with a silver hilt. On his right hand, he wears an unadorned gold band.
Background
Darius is a native of Waterdeep, the City of Splendors. He is the eldest child of Matthias and Alana Keenan Blackwell; both parents are well-respected military leaders within Waterdeep, although Matthias Blackwell recently retired from service. Darius has a younger sister, Emiliana Blackwell, who also lives in Sundren Valley.
The entire Blackwell family is steeped in a rich military tradition. Darius' parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, and great-grandparents have all served as soldiers and military leaders in some capacity or another for many generations.
Not of nobility, Darius was bound to follow in his father's footsteps by participating in the same profession that had been apart of the Blackwell family for generations. At a young age he was schooled in reading and writing, both in the common tongue and their native Chondathan dialect, as well as portions of the dwarven and hin tongue. His father had a direct hand in his upbringing and training as he grew into his teens, and it was thought he would be a peace-keeper or guardsmen as the Blackwells before him.
Possessed of the same stubborness that would take ahold of his younger sister, Darius too diverted from the family past-time, and it was in his thirteenth summer that he took the oaths of the Church of Torm. Was at this time that he left his birth-home and was taken in by the new home of the faith. His next few years continued his training, but instead of a guardsman's trade he now learned the expectatiosn held of a holy warrior.
And so it was that upon his eighteenth birthday Darius took the Oaths and Code of the paladin order long established and maintained by the Tormtar faith. His next few years were then spent, ironically, as a guard to the temple he had established residency in, and then as he grew in experience as a Sword of Torm he began to assist members of the clergy as they travelled abroad of Waterdeep.
When his sister decided to leave Waterdeep to travel north to visit their mutual cousin, Lysandra Blackwell, their parents asked their son to follow and protect her on the journey north. Originally meant only to escort her and return home as a personal leave from the Temple, upon his arrival Darius saw the dire need that the Temple Barracks of the Triumvirate had for aid. He wrote home and was approved to be assigned to the House of the Three, where he remains in service to this day.
The Many 'Women' in the Life of Darius Blackwell
Sarah: A simple iron-made blade, Darius' first and the one carried by him when he came into the valley of Sundren. Originally forged in Waterdeep by a smith of no reknown, she was the blade gifted to him by the Temple of Torm while in his early years. It was the first blade he named according to his old tradition. She is currently lost to him, and he does not know what became of the blade.
Courtney: Darius' second blade, and one forged by the gifted smiths and priests of the Triumvirate barracks. A cold iron blade with holy enchantments, Courtney served him for many months. The blade was eventually passed on to a Triumvirate Initiate, Chrisa Colds, where she remains to this day though the Initiate is abroad from the valley.
Magdalena: A blade forged at the behest of Cirion Reliun, financed by him and made by the hands of the Kelemvorite temple before its fall. The blade was made along with several other weapons, including the hammer Reliun wields. A beautifully made silver sword, Magdalena was created with one purpose in mind, and for only one purpose, the slaying of the undead. Reliun took good faith in allowing Darius to wield her, knowing that he had been bested time and again to the most hated of foes the vampires. More than once the blade was captured by the vampire Lilene, only to be returned by his reckless consort Johanna Patson. The blade served by his side for many months, even as his journey took him out of the vale for a time, but in his heart there was always a nagging doubt. It became known to him that the patron of the blade was one of the Fallen, and it was something that weighed on him heavily as he continued to wield her. Eventually a Lathander Priest, Trevor Lecarde, arrived in the vale that he thought to squire and guide, and during one of their lessons and journeys he did lend out the blade, hoping that it might inspire him to greatness. Alas, some curse sought out the blade, or its magic had been spent, and it shattered while Lecarde rested in the Second Wind Inn. The blade is sundered to this day, but efforts are being made to have her reforged and returned to glory, either in sacred duty once more, or to be retired as a relic of the Triumvirate Temple.
Lorena: Gifted to Darius during his aid of Sister Jeshana of the Triumvirate, Lorena was a holy blade bestowed upon him by a winged servant of the Three.
(( To be continued! ))
