Description
Shrouded in layers of tattered robe and the stench of aged smoke, this
human's presence is unsettling. It is difficult to gauge their approximate
age, but this has little to do with the way they seem to purposefully
obfuscate their visage with clothing and hoods. Instead, it is the landscape
of ruin that reveals itself as his face in spite of any attempt to keep it
hidden - a flesh melted and warped in an age of infancy by what could only
be assumed might have been fire. His features are asymmetrical and
grotesque, one eye milky and shrunken in its socket, the other gleaming with
malignant intellect and the hue of sapphires. Patches of raven-black hair
cling stubbornly to a scalp that never fully healed, where scar tissue has
grown over bone like a pale, waxen mask. Listening closely, each inhale is
accompanied by a rasping sound as it's dragged through once seared lungs
that healed as well as his skin. Although the burns have long ceased to
fester, the legacy of their severity are ever present upon every inch of his
visible flesh.
Role
The Pyre of Arkham
Added Sun Apr 20 04:19:02 2025 at level 9:
Cityguard Haledrin could smell the smoke long before the first warning bells
began ringing in octave intervals - confirming an attack of arson. It was well
past midnight in the city of Arkham, so the undulating hues of orange and red
guided Haledrin to the source. His home, only his house, was engulfed. A pyre.
As his boots pounded the uneven masonry work of the street, the only thoughts
racing through his mind were that of his wife and child. They would have been
home and sound asleep at this hour, surely. With his mind consumed, he didn't
even consider that he was among the first to arrive. Not a drop of water had
been thrown on the blaze as he barreled through a fully engulfed entry door.
His body, skin, eyes and lungs suddenly felt as though they were on fire too,
and in spite of this, he quickly located his wife lying unconscious at the
base of a collapsed staircase. He fought against his body's urge to inhale as
he hoisted her limp body over his shoulder and ran back outside. Gasping once
he was freed from the enclosure, he could hear his wife murmuring. She was
alive, thank the light, but his heart sunk at her repeated words. "Daigric...
Daigric... Daigric..."
Barrels of water had begun arriving by those woken and near enough as well as
other members of the city watch. Haledrin tore off his cloak, doused it
entirely within a nearby barrel and charged back into his home while wrapping
his head in the wet cloth. This time he had pointedly taken in as much oxygen
as he could manage before reentering the inferno. The stairs were gone, but
unless he was delirious with asphyxiation Haledrin could hear one-year-old
crying. Screaming.
He scaled a support beam still mostly intact, hands searing on nails and
splintered wood, the second floor groaning beneath his boots. The smoke was
thicker on this level, and flames licked the walls from base to the roof's
apex. He managed to find the crib overturned, and somehow Daigric alive,
screaming in pain and through cracked lips. Haledrin took his now-mostly dry
cloak from around his head and wrapped Daigric protectively before he dropped
to the first floor instead of risking the burning support beam. Haledrin felt
a searing pain below his knee as he landed, and if it were not for the
cacophony of splintering wood and roaring flames in every direction, might
have registered the audible sound his tibia made as it broke.
As Haledrin exited his home, his adrenaline more than spent, he succumbed to
finally passing out.
Life and Debt
Added Tue Apr 22 09:01:34 2025 at level 14:
Haledrin awoke to pain and silence. While not much time passed before the
tending doctor paid him a visit, the pain Haledrin was experiencing made the
passing minutes impossible to measure. His breaths were shallow, each inhale
reflexively forcing him to wince. The doctor provided desirable news: his wife
and child were alive. His wife was already on the mend, but Daigric's future
was much less than certain. He lived, but he had lost an eye and his skin
would never fully mend no matter the attention of healers and clerics. There
was still the matter of treatment. And payment.
Haledrin could barely speak, his throat raw and burnt. "Them first."
Every coin from his years in the city watch was signed over to pay for their
attention. Salves, poultices, housing. It didn't occur all at once, but within
a short matter of weeks. After the first, Haledrin often woke to his wife,
tear-stricken, by his side. He continued to refuse treatment for his own
recovery, focusing what resources he had left to keep Daigric alive. After the
third, his body began failing. Sleep was no longer assured without sedations.
Fever wracked his body due to infections that festered beneath bandaged hands.
His wife, watching him fade day after day, broke. Guilt hollowed her out. He
would not pay for his own treatments, but maybe she could - she indentured
herself to pay for just that. Too little and too late. His body and internal
organs began shutting down as Sepsis bloomed. She couldn't bare the sight of
Daigric after that. The boy's face, half-blind and charred, was a living echo
of the man she'd lost.
She remained indentured for the services rendered, despite their failures to
save Haledrin. As time passed, her spirits long broken, her body naturally
followed suit. When it finally gave out, the asylum took her. The debt fell to
Daigric, who was sold into service in Seantryn Modan.
Contracts and Curses
Added Thu Apr 24 02:33:46 2025 at level 16:
Daigric continued to stare at the wrinkled parchment. An hour had elapsed
since it had been pressed into his palm, the official seal still flaking, the
ink smudged slightly by the sweat of his fingertips. He had crumpled and
uncrumpled it so many times that the paper now felt like cloth and had begun
separating in places. Each time his eyes traced the message, it struck him
anew, like a cruel cosmic jest: The woman is dead. His mother. That shadow who
haunted his dreams more than his memory, whose presence loomed larger for its
absence, was gone.
But it was not grief that seized him; it was freedom.
For eighteen years, he had served the city of Seantryn Modan under contract,
an indentured name scrawled on a dusty ledger passed between barracks clerks
like a half-forgotten debt. There had been no celebrations for him when his
numbers added up. No brotherhood. No camaraderie. He had no friends, only
obligations. Daigric had learned the laws because they were all he had, and he
upheld them with the mechanical precision of a ledger machine. He could not
charm, nor jest, but he could read, recall, and recite binding words better
than any man with a sword, and so he survived.
What little training he received had been grudging at best - just enough to
ensure he could hold a blade without slicing his own hand. Swords, whips, and
daggers became tools of necessity rather than mastery, instruments of survival
rather than skill. He could scarcely parry a strike; dodging was all but
impossible. He had not been trained to win - merely not to die too quickly.
Now, with the finality of his mother's death, his contract was nullified. He
was no longer a debt to be serviced, but a free man. And with what few coppers
remained to his name, Daigric purchased the one thing he had never been
afforded: direction.
Necromancy. It was not vengeance that led him to the guild, nor fascination
with the macabre, but something deeper - familiarity. Death had been his
constant companion. Loss, his only inheritance. He found himself drawn to the
necromancer's art not because of the dead it commanded, but because of the
laws that governed it. There was clarity in the hierarchy, structure in every
ritual and invocation. Power was a form of debt, and every pact, every soul
tethered, was simply another entry in a new ledger: a new order, built on
rules that mattered.
His voice, reduced to a hoarse whisper from the fire that scarred his
childhood, rarely rose above breath. But when he spoke, he did so with care,
every word measured and deliberate, like coin placed precisely on a scale. His
ambitions were never shouted, only etched quietly, like the tally marks in the
margins of a debtbook.
He would become a Tribunal, one of those who enforced the sacred contracts
that bound the cities. If the path allowed, he would walk beyond the decay of
flesh, not for vanity, but to collect the debts written in bone and soul for
eternity.
The Copy of a Contract Accepted
Added Mon May 5 14:52:35 2025 at level 26:
Allow this bond to be of faith and function:
I, Daigric Haledrin, son of ash and mind, by this contract place ink to truth.
You, Lord Nycruvae, keeper of the Chained Ledger. In question of what is good
for you I answer thee:
Use is good. Leverage is good. Order by obligation is good. Let my service
begin not only with prayer, but utility.
I offer:
"My mind, to discern hidden debts and name them plainly."
"My voice, to speak bargains others may fear to utter."
"My judgment, sharpened by loss, to assess what is owed and by whom."
"My position within Tribunal, to make visible debts actionable. To bind those
without law not just in chain, but in contract."
In return I request from You:
"Access to the deeper knowledge mentioned that You reserve."
"Agency in moments of weakness, that I may act as though wiser than I am."
"Consideration, that I may with time become more than just a mouthpiece.
Perhaps a hand, or pen amongst your faithful."
This agreement shall not be sealed by piety, but efficacy.
May this debt be one that you cannot ignore, because what I offer is of use,
and what I build accrues value to You.
Should I fail, may the debt of your trust be counted against me, and may my
worth be reweighed.
<signed with the flourished letters: D & H>
<A drafted parchment: How can law be enforced upon those whom reject them>
Added Fri May 16 02:00:19 2025 at level 35:
By my hand, in reflection of divine instruction:
I have been asked to consider how can I enforce the Laws against those who
reject them?
At first glance, the answer seems simple: I cannot. For if obligation is born
of mutual agreement, then those who refuse the promise of protection, the
privileges of structure, and the cost of restraint, have no debt to the Law.
They are not its subjects. They are outside its bargain.
But such clarity decays under scrutiny.
Even the one who shuns the contract benefits from its existence. A bandit
thrives because merchants walk roads built by order. A killer hides where
houses stand because others uphold the peace. They harvest the fruits of
systems they scorn.
This is not neutrality. This is theft.
They do not reject obligation. They deny it. They counterfeit immunity and
excuse themselves from the Ledger, hoping no one will notice the inkless space
where their name should be written.
So then, what is my role?
I enforce Law not only as a function of its legitimacy, but as a defense
against parasitism. Those who reject obligation yet still consume its fruits
are worse than oathbreakers. They are debtlings who feed upon the structures
they would see undone.
Thus, I assert:
Consent is not the only threshold for obligation.
One may accrue debt unknowingly - by taking from a system they do not support.
Rejection is not exoneration.
If you benefit from roads, laws, food, or peace, you owe tithe. Whether you
admit it or not.
To enforce Law against the lawless is not tyranny. It is collection.
A debt collector is not unjust because the debtor closes their door.
Let the laws be seen not only as agreed-upon commands but as records of who
owes what, to whom, and why.
If I strike the feral man who refuses to pay toll yet walks the guarded road,
I do not violate freedom. I settle a balance.
And if a village grows fat on trade but refuses the tax of peace, then let
them be made thin again. Not by cruelty, but by balance.
This is how I will enforce the Law - even upon those who reject it:
As one who reads the hidden debts.
As one who weighs invisible obligations.
As one who sees beyond consent into consequence.
The Ledger is not forged by signatures alone.
It records even silence. Even denial.
<signed by two flourished letters - DH>
PK Wins
Apr 27, 2025|Lv 20|Silverwood|Lysari vs 1: [20] Daigric (100%, chilling touch)
Apr 30, 2025|Lv 22|Bramblefield Road|Tuva vs 1: [22] Daigric (100%, chilling touch)
May 1, 2025 |Lv 22|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Pionice vs 4: [22] Daigric (7%), [40] Aevylen (12%), [51] Faelorn (46%), [51] Hildt (33%, hit)
May 2, 2025 |Lv 23|Desert of Araile|Thrvax vs 1: [23] Daigric (100%, pound)
May 2, 2025 |Lv 23|Hamsah Mu'tazz|Zalagkier vs 1: [23] Daigric (100%, acid blast)
May 7, 2025 |Lv 27|Kuharin Plains|Quelin vs 1: [27] Daigric (100%, punch)
May 8, 2025 |Lv 27|South Sutherspring Road|Fereshti vs 1: [27] Daigric (100%, punch)
May 28, 2025|Lv 36|The Open Plains|Misferlelin vs 1: [36] Daigric (100%, defilement)
May 30, 2025|Lv 36|The Galadon Sewers|Izaro vs 1: [36] Daigric (100%, defilement)
Jun 3, 2025 |Lv 37|Blackwater Swamp|Brynna vs 1: [37] Daigric (100%, burning, weeping sores)
Jul 7, 2025 |Lv 41|Voralian City|Azuglullith vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, punch)
Jul 23, 2025|Lv 41|Forest Road|Ixis vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, deathly touch)
Jul 23, 2025|Lv 41|Saurian Village|Ixis vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, deathly touch)
Jul 26, 2025|Lv 41|The Redhorn Mountains|Vaehlen vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, burning, weeping sores)
Aug 5, 2025 |Lv 41|Graveyard|Lemmylim vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, smash)
Sep 15, 2025|Lv 41|The Eastern Road|Liryn vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, word of death)
Sep 21, 2025|Lv 41|Graveyard|Liryn vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, defilement)
Sep 25, 2025|Lv 41|Outlying Villages|Hmuriy vs 1: [41] Daigric (100%, KB)
Oct 17, 2025|Lv 43|Mortorn|Darhon vs 2: [35] Evalius (17%, huge boulder), [43] Daigric (82%)
PK Deaths
Jul 31, 2025|Lv 41|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|vs 1: [40] Harza (100%, divine power)
Aug 24, 2025|Lv 41|Feanwyyn Weald|vs 1: [43] Wugfort (100%, chaotic blast)