Aoth

Name & Title

Aoth: Brother of the Order of the Setting Sun, follower of the Way of the Shadow.

Character Sheet

Updated May 20, 2016

Background

My father was a farmer, and I was his third and seemingly least-favourite son.

Life was hard in the fields of my father's farm. Green Fields was in the Western Heartlands, and it was fertile ground, but warlords came and went, seemingly with each passing season, to claim ownership over the region, and taking "their share" of the crops. Sometimes they took more than their share. Sometimes the women in the fields suffered.

Father was always quick to anger with the slightest provocation, and I seemed to bring his anger about the quickest. It was only when I was older that my father let slip, in a drunken rage, that I was likely the bastard son of a raider. I figured I was a constant reminder to my father of his shame and inability to protect his family.

Though Father favoured my two brothers, neither Tabor nor Landon fully escaped his ire. Punishments were swiftly dealt out, but usually light for them, and beatings were reserved for me. That is, until my brother lamed our ox at the start of planting season. Tabor had been careless harnessing the ox to the plow, and by the end of the day the yoke had dug into the poor beast's withers, and the wound was grievous. My father was furious as the beast would be laid up for weeks, and the crops would be planted late, possibly too late to fully harvest enough for the warlords' tithe, unless Father indebted himself to his neighbour for assistance.

Landon was still out in the fields, but I was putting away the tack as Tabor tried to reason with Father. I could see Father's eyes grow wild and that he was no longer listening as his rage took over his reason. He struck out at Tabor, his eldest son, with such force that it clearly broke his jaw and knocked him down, his jaw hanging at an odd angle as he looked up in fear and shock. As Father started to kick Tabor's ribs while he lay helpless, I resolved to stand up to my father. I could hear Ma running from the house, having heard the shouts, but she would not arrive in time. I put myself between the two and tried to push Father away from my injured brother, hoping Ma would hurry. Father, being far larger than I, grappled with me and held me in a headlock.

Ma arrived as Father held me, and all could see Tabor, my brother, on the ground in front of me, coughing up blood. More blood than there should be from a jaw. Ma went to him, wailing at me. At me! Asking me what I'd done to my brother. Father, not missing a beat, claimed that I had been fighting with my brother, and he had come to break it up. Tabor died as Ma held him, and when Father finally let me go I ran.

I ran like a child. A bastard child in my father's eyes, a murderer in my mother's eyes. I was tired from the long day, but I ran. I could never go home.

I ran for three days, begging for food, sometimes stealing it, until I reached Berdusk. I was there for months when I came to the attention of a monk who took pity on me. He invited me to rest at the monastery just outside of the city, and it is there that I escaped from the world, alternating between living life as a hermit and learning the Way of the Shadow from the Monks of the Order of the Setting Sun.

Years later, a group of Monks traveled to Candlekeep, to visit the Great Library there. A week after they were due, word came back that they had never arrived. I felt ready to face the world again, so I answered the call for a brother to go out and investigate. I hired myself out to a caravan as it headed to Candlekeep, by way of Greenest. It is thus that my journey began.