Dol EarthBound the Hammer of Elysium

Role

Chapter 9

I am middle aged now, as humans reckon it. I'm a bit weaker, much less hearty,
but hopefully a little bit wiser. But what is most important is I've had many years now
to think and see how mages act, how magic affects the world and most
important the things that work and the things that don't when it comes to
stopping more like me from being stolen from the Fields.
The result is a few things. Magic, in all its forms, is bad. It's just not
within mortal grasp for safe use. As a result, mages are in some respect like
children. They play with fire, and me and my fellow battleragers are the parents
who must scold them, to teach them the lesson. But unlike fire, which can eventually
be controlled as an adult, magic can never be controlled. Thus the need for violence.
As a result, I don't think I can ever take the life of a goodly mage. They are children
and while I won't stop my brothers or sisters from taking goodly mage lives, I can't
bring myself to do so, as they do not understand.

Except conjurers.

I have watched them for years. Spoken to them for decades. And unlike all the other
mage guilds, conjurers specifically have proof - me - of the evil of their magic, of the
terrible consequences of their spells.
I will continue to try and use words to conviunce them, but I am coming
to a point, I think, where in the very specific situation of just conjurers, I
will need to use violence so they learn to stop what they do.
I am not there yet. But for decades now it has been building as I watch them just
blindly keep doing what they do, endangering more and more of my kind, and of course
continuing to make slaves of goodly angels and archons, souls ripped from their planes like me.
I will need to expend time and effort after to explain to such a mage why I
did what I did, and probably cry while doing it. But I'm beginning to think there
really is no other way to stop this evil. And it is evil, there is no doubt.

Role

Chapter 8

And Jormyr, my dark lord whose wisdom I trust, but whose motives I never can or
will. I've not seen him in a while, and have begun returning to the Convergence
to renew our discussions. I devote great time and effort to do as he suggested,
tending the veil to thicken it in the hopes that there might be enough to close
or even just narrow the hole to the Azure Fields from which I was stolen years ago.
If even one of my former mates and comrades in the Fields can be safe because the
hole is just that little bit smaller, I count it all worthwhile. But how much better
if it could be closed entirely. That would be a glorious Change.

For now, I work to keep the nexus weak and the veil thick. I try to fight with
courage, on my own, but not stupidly, with blind rushing into obvious traps.
I intend to participate in the Rites of war, with the same hope as the others, to
be chosen as Commander. The village could use a leader who knows of morality and
the Light. That too would be a triumphant Change. Great responsibility, but a
challenge I welcome.

Role

Chapter 7

It's cliche but it's true, change is the only constant. Chaos is often
misunderstood - it's complicated! - but one way of thinking of it is
unpredictability. Change. Embracing change, taking new and infusing
with the old, much like the para elements, is a joy of existence. But
while change is welcome, not all changes are welcome. Sometimes you pay
the price of a life of chaos. These are such times.

Sekope is dead. Llathe is Drillmistress. War is declared against Tribunal.
New blood is yet another duergar, among others. The one conjurer (the worst
of the worst of mages) to engage in combat escaped just a lick from death.
Several of my brothers and sisters don't much like me, I know, mostly
because they have no morals or standards. They think nothing of the evil
depravity they often committ, and when I refuse to abide by their ways, they
raise their voices in insult. Even some who walk the so called balance or gray
path, not just the black hearted fiends I must live with like Mightar, Thelathelao
and of course Sekope. Much seems to go wrong. Change.

Though even I must admit Sekope was among the least duerg-ish duergs I've
ever met. He continued to smell awful till the day he died, and I definitely
would never call him a friend, but I think given more time with him I might have
made progress bringing him closer to the light than to the dark. We'll never know
but it's a nice thought. Change.

Deldrach, imperial priest who is the worst but for mages, finds himself
subject to an order from his emperor not to touch my things as he has before
if I fall in combat. Despite my better judgment, I extend the worthy foe
status of Darvoderis and say I will do the same, either one or two things
or nothing at all, when Deldrach falls before me. I won't be the one to
break this, but I told Darvoderis I'd bet more than a little gold that
Deldrach finds a way around this, most likely having someone else do the
looting. As most others know, I rarely take anything, and when I do it is
but a few things. But Deldrach deserves to be naked to the bone and the
rage against him almost (not quite) rivals that against some mages. But I've
worked to overcome that, with both my focus on fighting the true enemies and
with much meditation and focus on my gift of life in the Light, and I am
content now to abide. Who knows what he does next as this is war and I'm
bound to fall sooner or later. Change.

I also spent a good amount of mental time thinking of how to dress better.
I don't agree with some who speak the plattitude that equipment means nothing.
That's just stupid. But I have come to terms with the great limitations my
values imposes upon me, even if I wasn't aware of it when I embarked on my
war against the mages. Change.

Role

Chapter 6

with the guildmaster to learn to be a better veil tender. Likewise on the
rare occasion I've met a mage of the Fortress (just once), I've spoken
at length on why they must change how they live their life. I don't know
if I had an effect and if I'm honest I doubt I did, but it was just the
first and I will never stop.

For now I must go. Every moment another of those in the Fields could be
cruelly yanked and stolen to serve some deluded mage.

Role

Chapter 5

Aging is an interesting thing. At once it is normal, impossible to
imagine not doing, and yet flashes of existing where a thousand thousand
years go by as if just one evening of revelry. The Fields knows time,
notes the events elsewhere, but is also unto itself timeless and eternal.
It causes some consternation sometimes, even some confusion, when I feel
separate from everything around me.

In some ways it's similar to my home. For many years now (at least it's
many in the eyes of a mortal human) I've been part of the BattleRager
village, and it holds the place in my heart where a family would be.
But at the same time I am constantly reminded how different I am from all
of my brothers and sisters. The obvious feeling of dirtiness that crawls
all over my skin when I have to spend time near my duerg brothers is just
the start - though I think I've had a good impact on Sekope. He smells
far better than when I first met him, and he has not participated in any
of the usual depredations and foul, twisted behavior common to his people.
But even with others who are commonly called gray the differences appear.
They worry so much about sparing enemies, enemies who come and kill our
guardian giant or the destructor, but they think nothing of wantonly
killing the innocent goodly souls those enemies summon - kidnap, really,
just as I was stolen from the Fields. I have tried, and will continue
to try, to walk them, step by step even if they don't realize it, toward
the Light. They are all for the most part good companions as they have
seen the truth of magic's evil. But the war exists in this world, and
being a good person still matters.

Not all is negative though. While there are many setbacks, still there
are some successes. I've completed the lessons of the various guild-
masters. Fifty times they've advanced me and now they have no more
general skills. They do have some small things they've learned over the
years to give an edge in battle, and from time to time I share a tale with
them to coax them to show me, but they are hard to please and hold their
specialized knowledge close to their vests.

Also my first true battle after attaining the final rank was with a
powerful undead, a wight, surrounded by its zombies and other magical
undead creatures, and though I was grievously wounded, the wight fell
to my flail and mace. A dark and potent magic laid low at least for a
short while, unable to do harm to anyone.

And finally I've been working to keep my word to Lord Jormyr. He is
vile, and as with my frustration at living in a village led by a duerg
I am constantly shocked at how I've ended up here, but the truth is the
truth, and his wisdom is undeniable. He exhorted me to work to keep the
veil strong as one of the best ways to sew up the hole between this world
and the Fields, and so I have done, even using some of my precious credit

Role

Chapter 4

And heart is my path in the light, as I mentioned in regard to following Jormyr, but
there's another side to it. The war will, and in fact already has, put me where I am face
to face with not just a goodly mage, but a goodly conjurer. Or at least one who thinks of himself
as goodly. I can understand doing as they do when they don't realize what they really
are doing. They all think their summoning is somehow this nice little thing, just some invitation
to the Fields for a small vacation on thera. The arrogance! The stupidity!! Why then their
magic circles? Why the binding?? But even so, their delusion might explain how they think
they can be goodly even though they do as they do. But once I explain, with personal first hand
knowledge of the actual truth, what does it mean when they simply don't change? They are so
enamored of the magic and the power it gives them that they deliberately reject the truth, even
when they now know it and can't pretend not to understand. What does it mean about them? Are
they still truly good? Are they still truly walking in the light when they know their work
violently kidnaps beings and makes them slaves, just like the empire does??
To me it seems like it makes them less than good. How long before their repeated, constant refusal
to change makes it clear that only violence will have a chance to make them, force them, to change?
To stop this horrible evil theft of souls?? I don't know. But I see that day coming...

Role

Chapter 3

Work is the crusade against magic, and in particular conjurers. It's my
life's task, to do all I can to end magic, and especially to close the hole that allows
souls from the Azure Fields to be sucked out and forced from immortality into mortality
in the bodies of humans. Early on I found a group who shares this war, albeit each for
different reasons. It was difficult to convince them to accept me, and as it turns
out it's both a gift and a curse for me personlly. It's a gift to find others who see what
seems so obvious to me, that magic is pure evil when in the hands of mortals. But
it's a curse that in my generation the most active leader, called a drillmster, is
a foul duerg brute. I'll admit he seems less obviously repugnant than others of his kind,
and I attribute that to his wisdom in knowing the true enemy of magic. I've told him I
hope one day he might walk the path to the light. But anyway, I eventually found my way into
the village, and now have allies I never thought I'd have, scum though some of them may be.

Soul in some ways mirrors the curse of my time in the village. Early on it became clear
to me that when searching all the world, the faith that struck the chord in my soul was that
of a black hearted god of frost giant descent, Jormyr. But that is where my faith rest and
many times I traveled to his holy place, the Convergence, once I'd found it, to speak with
him of such things. We share much, despite me seeing the power of the Light and he basking in
an abyss of evil. I am the fusion of mortal and immortal, of two souls, and
that joining, foul and forced as it was to happen, has created something different and
perhaps more than the parts alone. If nothing else it gives me a unique perspective, which
I think nobody better than Jormyr would understand. But as he was quick to point out
it's a pretty narrow path. I'm no paladin, and I can stand being around such wickedness,
but even so I need to always be aware of how they could be affecting me even subconsciously.
I am ever vigilant. And in some ways I think it's a good thing for the war, a way to learn.
As the old chestnut says, keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
Jormyr also knows a thing or two about war and destruction, and those are deep in
my life, so even though it might look strange, in truth there was no other choice.

Role

Chapter 2

I now knew who - what - I am. And I now knew why and how I am what I am. I am
not human. I am not Azure. I am both, and neither. I am part of both, a mixture.
In ways I am stronger, in ways weaker, than either, and there is sometimes conflict within.
But It is a source of strength. And it has given me purpose. Among the books in the
library was also one of the history of combat, and great leaders, great battles, great losses,
great causes. And one entire chapter was devoted to a group called the Battleragers, the
Haters of Magic. I was nearly as transfixed reading that as I had been reading about my
heritage. My great anger at the audacity, the hubris, the sheer arrogance and stupidity of that
conjurer was echoed by the anger and rage of others who have seen the perils of magic in
mortal hands. They work so hard, these mages. I can pity them. But they are, and always will
be, mortal. And when they err, their mistakes have consequences to rival even the gods.
I am living proof of those consequences. The meddle, they act, they dream, but they do not
understand. And most important they do not control. They cannot control. And they must
be stopped. The goodly ones may cherish the light, and motive does matter. But a child who
plays with fire may mean only to play, and to light a dark room. When the room, the home,
the whole town burns down, everyone is still dead, despite the good intentions. That is why
we keep fire out of the hands of children. And why I will spend my life fighting to keep magic
from the hands of mortals, for mortals are children.

Role

Chapter 1

Flashes of white light... green grass... impossible beings of impossible beauty...
Joy... infinite joy... all-encompassing happiness in every pore, every speck, every atom...
An awareness of such colossal everythingness... unity of the universe... inconceivable
but at the same time the only way ever known...

And then a twitch... something has changed... what is it... something pulling...
something that is less than perfect gladness... pain as the absence of perfect joy...
confusion... movement? Is that movement?... more flashes... a pulling, a sucking, as
in a vortex... what...??

I am Dol. I have seen those glimpses, felt those feelings, all my life.
When I was a child I did not understand. My parents, lovely people, a farrier
and a transcriber, were overmatched by what they couldn't help but think was some kind
of illness, or even worse, possession. How close they were, and how far, too.
I don't remember, but they say I would repeat a very long bit of gibberish, over and over
and over. All they could make out was that it started with "dol", and eventually that's
what everyone just called me. What they didn't know was that "dol" is just the beginning of
the word for what I was, the part of me that makes me glow, that makes me different,
and is unprounouncable to mortals. Even me, now. I am human, but I am not. And I am Dol.
I will never again be all that followed Dol. Just Dol, now. I don't really feel the feelings
I saw in those flashes, and I am a man more than anything else. But I am aware. It is always
in the back of my head. A sense of utter loss, of an emptiness so vast it can't even be
expressed in words.

They didn't know what to do, so they did what most parents do: they sent me away.
Not to some horrible prison or asylum. A goodly place, with honest and caring people.
But with a martial bent. A philosophy that constant physical effort, learning to fight
and the ways of battle, can drive out what may ail you. Of course it didn't work but it did
give me a path to pursue to keep me fed and clothed as I grew older. And it also gave
me access to knowledge. Treatises on wars, on stratgy, on terrain and maps and geography
and religion and everything, for anything can be part of a war one way or the other.
And it was there that I came across the book that finally explained my existence.
I remember sitting there, stunned, as I read about what others call the "azure touched".
I read about how this mage, this conjurer, arrogant and drunk with the power of magic, ripped
apart the doorway, and now the lives of those in the Azure Fields are stolen, and shoved, thrust,
forced like slaves into this world, a world they have left, and from a world they had earned.
I did not move for hours.

Immortal Comments

Immortal Comments

PK Gank-O-Meter

PK Statistics

Skill List

Skill List

Title History

Arena Statistics

PK Wins

PK Wins

PK Wins

PK Deaths

Leveling History

Timeline

Mob Deaths

Edges

Flaws

Racial Edges

Class Edges

Edges