Daniel Dogslayer

Daniel Dogslayer was a Valmasian soldier, lawyer, clergyman, and diplomat who organized the July Revolution in
Dawn, with the intention of overthrowing Sors Ultovex and establishing an Azraelite monarchy under Arthur Rowan. The revolution failed and Dawn was conquered within a decade by a coalition of Huangzhou, Gehenna, and Levengard, a precursor to the Reimaran Concordat. He committed suicide by self-starvation a decade afterwards.
== Early life ==
Dogslayer was born in Nostvale, Valmasia in 1527 to James Dogslayer and his wife Mary Godwinson. His father was a cobbler and religious dissident and, as a result, was transported alongside his entire family to Dawn, Valmasia's colony on Agartha.
Within six years of his arrival on Agartha, the vast majority of Dogslayer's family was dead, and he was homeless until 1539, when he joined the Legion of Daybreak and became the squire of Commander Artaghh, a position with a notoriously high mortality rate; it was said that nearly every one of Artaghh's squires had outlived him, which proved true decades later when he outlived Dogslayer, his last squire. During this time period, Dogslayer met and became good friends with John Dioguardi, a fellow Valmasian immigrant, and Tizetch Ixchel, a Gehennan dissident and expert in Vitra swordsmanship.
Sometime before 1539, around the age of ten or eleven, Dogslayer killed for the first time and reportedly cannibalized the corpse of his slain enemy alongside Ferus Daigal. For the rest of his life, Dogslayer was a prolific consumer of human flesh, a practice considered unsightly but not immoral in his religion. Around the age of thirteen, he also fought at the notoriously deadly Battle of Huangzhou, wherein the Legion of Daybreak, led by Arthur Rowan, was routed by the Fourfold enemy; during the battle, one of Dogslayer's childhood friends, a young man named Aku, was slain by the prolific mercenary Firestarter. At the same battle, the dark fae Nyphadora was captured by Isaac Shimasu and Neo Invidia was cut down by Ren-Shi. It is not recorded who Dogslayer fought, only that he was permanently deafened afterwards and purportedly had a vision of Azrael.
=== Thievery ===
Following the Battle of Huangzhou, Dogslayer, alongside Dioguardi and Ixchel, would use their positions in the Legion of Daybreak to extort travelers, vagabonds, and nearly anyone who happened to pass through the highly contested network of caves that served as a link between the embattled city-state and the rest of the continent.
Ixchel would also teach Dogslayer and Dioguardi on how to break into houses; notable homes burglarized by the trio include Ultovex Manor, Dr. Aldrah Leverd's laboratory, and the Invidia Manor, previously believed to be unbreakable. Around the same period, Dogslayer was hired by the undead scientist Loretta to break into the secluded cabin of one of Dawn's recently deceased paladins. At the age of fourteen, Dogslayer had earned nearly 80,000 coins, all through highway robbery and burglary.
The young squire's days as a highwayman and burglar came to an abrupt, almost fatal end when Dogslayer and Ixchel were spotted leaving the home of a notoriously irritable and disturbing Nethradin; Ixchel was alleged to have stolen an object of great value, variously described as an "orb", "stone", and "rock" with immense power. Knowing that his capture was likely, Ixchel immediately fled the city for Gehenna.
Dogslayer, none the wiser to the gravity of their crime, went to the town square and was promptly confronted by the vile, repugnant demon and their pseudo-family. It is said that the only reason Dogslayer was not executed on the spot was due to a combination of his position as Commander Artaghh's squire and a 20,000 coin bribe paid to the demon. His survival guaranteed for the time being, Dogslayer was tasked with hunting down Ixchel and returning that which he had stolen.
== Prisoner in Gehenna ==
Under threat of death, Dogslayer immediately traveled to Gehenna in order to convince his erstwhile partner-in-crime to give up the stolen orb in order to save his life. Upon arriving, he was confronted by the Chieftain Tototl, owing to his status as a Valmasian soldier. After a brief conversation, it became clear that Ixchel was a Gehennan spy and, after a brief struggle, Dogslayer's former companion knocked the boy unconscious. Upon awaking, Dogslayer witnessed his friend, Ixchel, be bisected by one sword-stroke from Tototl.
For the next year and a half, Dogslayer would remain a prisoner in Gehenna, eating very little and in constant fear of death. He was once confronted by the entire Mori clan, a Gehennan family of great renown and wealth, who demanded all of his money and shoes as payment for a perceived transgression; a potentially fatal fight was only avoided when Ixchel's widow appeared and defused the situation.
=== Rescue ===
In 1543, Dogslayer was rescued by Salvas Voss, Ferus Daigal, and the Prophet Syracuse; upon finding out that Dogslayer had been captured in Gehenna, Voss was said to have assembled a crack team of men to rescue the boy. Upon his arrival in the outlying swamps, Voss happened upon future Chieftain Kabu and tore his arm off, sending the young man back to the town square as a warning.
In response, Tototl assembled a team consisting of the demon Nyx and an unknown Huangese soldier who was vacationing in Gehenna and confronted the trio; following a short exchange of words, a pitched battle erupted, resulting in Daigal's untimely death at the hands of Nyx, who had mistaken him for his Belialite brother.
Despite returning to Dawn empty-handed, Dogslayer was spared execution; owing to his unlikely survival, he was knighted by Commander Artaghh at the age of sixteen, being dubbed "the Knight of Dogs."
== Plotting ==
For the next few years, Dogslayer would plot the demise of the alleged leader of Dawn, Sors Ultovex. The original plan was to have Arthur Rowan's son, Niklaus, succeed Ultovex as Dawn's adjudicator, but this plan was compromised by Niklaus's acceptance of a teaching position at the Academy in Levengard, something that Ultovex seized upon; shortly thereafter, Niklaus was declared a traitor to Dawn and any hope of Niklaus posing as a legitimate challenger to Ultovex dissipated.
After this, it became clear that Dogslayer would have to organize the coup d'etat. Shortly after being made a paladin by Ultovex for brutally murdering a Huangese interloper, Hisashi Sone, Dogslayer made steps to involve the majority of the military's strongest magi on the plot. Involved were:
* Arthur Rowan (Titular king)
* Artaghh (Commander)
* John Dioguardi (Paladin)
* Freya Vishkar (Paladin)
* Aldrah Leverd (Knight)
* Ascalon Zanders (Knight)
* Arlei Zanders (Knight)
* Feth Grauhimmel (Knight)
* Eryn Evanstere (Knight)
* Numerous initiates and free citizens
* Taiga Rowan (Levengarder)
* Niklaus Rowan (Levengarder)
Driven by a desire to stop Dawn from being conquered by a foreign nation owing to Ultovex's incredibly poor foreign policy, Dogslayer quickly set a date for the revolution and gathered all of the plotters in Artaghh's tavern. Following a brief debate over who would succeed Ultovex in case of a successful coup, (Arthur Rowan allegedly gave Dogslayer his blessing, owing to his own son's lack of interest in ruling the city and Freya Vishkar's peculiar health) the small band set out to make history.
=== The July Revolution ===
On July 4th, 1550, Dogslayer, alongside Arthur Rowan, Commander Artaghh, numerous paladins, knights, and initiates, as well as a small militia of non-magi sympathetic to the cause, entered the town square of Dawn and approached Sors Ultovex. Initially, Arthur Rowan attempted to convince Ultovex to come inside Dawn's Resurgence, the citadel, to speak, but Ultovex sensed what was happening and refused to go inside. It is unknown what started the fight, but within seconds, the square had erupted into violence; up to two hundred died, including Paladin Freya Vishkar, a comrade of Dogslayer's.
Within an hour, it was obvious that the revolution had failed. Dogslayer fled the city on horseback with Ultovex's daughter as a prisoner, alongside a handful of his closest friends. They were quickly deported from Levengard but deposited Ultovex's daughter there, under the assumption that they would be treated humanely. After a brief period of wandering, Dogslayer found a new home in Gehenna.
== Post-Revolution ==
Following the revolution's failure, Dogslayer spent the next few years in Gehenna, waiting out the entirety of the continent-wide war on Dawn after Ultovex aligned himself with a fallen angel, Akasha. Towards the close of this period, Dogslayer went on a pilgrimage to an Azraelite monastery in the northern part of the country, returning a completely changed man. For the rest of his life, Dogslayer would declare that he had seen what happens after a man dies and that it was not good. He made various other claims in a short journal discovered after his death, including that he shared a soul with a strange being that taught him black magic.
=== Aurum ===
For a brief period of time, Dogslayer was a councilor for the short lived rump state of Aurum. He wrote most of the fledgling republic's laws but resigned to join the Order of the Phoenix; after the Order's failure to gain mainstream acceptance and persecution at the hands of the Huangese authorities, Dogslayer returned to the same monastery he had made a pilgrimage to a few short years ago and led the life of an Azraelite monk for nearly a decade.
=== Suicide ===
In 1567, Dogslayer left the monastery to commit suicide outside of Levengard. He meditated under a tree for 127 days before dying of starvation; his grave is unmarked and only a few feet away from the grave of his friend and comrade Freya Vishkar's.
== Abilities ==
Dogslayer was a notoriously uninspiring combatant throughout his entire life; his acts as a knight and paladin amounted primarily to leading a death squad consisting of himself, Dioguardi, Taiga Rowan, and occasionally Hjarbard, a knight. Collectively, the group of four magi committed up to five-hundred extrajudicial murders. At the age of fourteen, Dogslayer reputedly drop-kicked an innocent woman's head off of her shoulders.
Shortly before renouncing his life as Dogslayer and becoming Gregor Ironheart, Dogslayer suspiciously lost most of his skill in swordsmanship and took up pyromancy and black magic.
=== Swordsmanship ===
In his lifetime, Dogslayer was considered an, at best, average swordsman. Early in life, he fought primarily using Vitra style but, later on, he adopted Fomoran style; he was said to be clumsy, faltering, and, later in life, prey to crippling asthma attacks that effectively halted any progress as a swordsman.
=== Constitution ===
Despite his lack of skill as a swordsman, Dogslayer was notoriously tough, primarily owing to a diet incredibly high in protein and a strong vitality; it was a legend among some of Dawn's legionnaires prior to it's conquest that, when he was only fourteen and still a squire, he had his arm cut off by Unkind Jeff, a notorious slum-lord and criminal, and kept fighting. It is considered highly exaggerated.
=== Cannibalism ===
Dogslayer was a cannibal throughout the majority of his life; it is estimated that he killed and presumably ate around one-hundred and seventy-two people, alongside Hisashi Sone, a Fourfold soldier who had attempted to spy on Dawn; Sone was brutally killed and eaten while still alive in front of a large crowd, including Sors Ultovex, his daughter, several children, and most of Dogslayer's close friends and companions. He considered this embarrassing, but not morally wrong.
=== Pyromancy ===
After his visit to the monastery, Dogslayer learned pyromancy. He did nothing of note with this ability.
=== Black Magic ===
Likewise with the occult arts; Dogslayer learned and did little with this.
== Trivia ==
* Dogslayer's full name is Daniel John Azrael-is-good-when-he-is-good-all-the-time If-Azrael-hath-not-died-for-our-sins-then-we-as-men-would-be-damned Dogslayer, abbreviated Daniel J.A.I Dogslayer.
* He reportedly killed the notorious Huangese smuggler, Fat Cheng, who claimed to be Isaac Shimasu's second cousin, twice removed.
* Dogslayer was nearly killed by Isaac Shimasu as a young man; Taiga Rowan leaped to his defense and lost an arm for it. After Shimasu and Taiga's brutal fight, Dogslayer was placed on a bench (as Levengard did not have prisons at the time) and Shimasu was tasked with watching him. Owing to the rules (if Dogslayer left the bench, Shimasu had full reign to kill him,) Shimasu repeatedly attempted to get Dogslayer to step off the bench, up to handing him an invisibility potion and turning his back on him.
* "Dogslayer's Worst Day" is a cocktail that is commonly consumed in Gehenna. It is three-parts rum and one-part bourbon; it refers to the Gehennan raid on Dawn, wherein Dogslayer fought with Laemor, Captain of the Crimson Company, and was defeated and launched several hundred yards away, landing right next to the demon Tih-Noctem, who promptly defeated him again and launched him several hundred feet north, into Dawn's town square.
* At the end of his life, Dogslayer had fathered up to seventy-eight bastard children and was said to have two-hundred and one grandchildren; prior to the July Revolution, he was often seen disciplining those brave few who had dared to seek child support from him.
* Dogslayer once slapped Nym Ann across the face when she was only a child, a slap that was said to have been heard as far as Briar Locke. This is considered to be exaggerated, as a slap of such strength would have, at best, crippled them for life and, at worst, crushed their skull.
* It was published in a newspaper that he had accidentally tackled one of Dr. Aldrah Leverd's many children during a game of tackle football, breaking the poor boy's neck instantly. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful until the grieving paladin prayed over the boy's corpse; he was revived instantaneously. This is considered a myth, similar to tales of Dogslayer's travels to an island of intelligent primates in his youth, and legends of Isaac Shimasu's notorious "cum magic." Tabloids in Dawn were highly suspect and full of propaganda about notable members of the military and the supposed depravity of the city-state's many enemies.