Jorin Andor

Jorin (sideview)

“Even in the most bleak, dark, and corrupted times humans will always strive towards the hope of brighter futures and new beginnings; this ‘strength of spirit’ is their greatest and most resilient quality.” - *Aethar*, The Crucible

## Cortex

In Cortex, the imperial capital of the Illithid empire, where human oppression is pushed to the very limits, the ‘strength of spirit’ of the Andor household remained forever stalwart. Despite their roles as first-generation thralls, Freya and Jensen Andor secretly constructed a basement underneath their residency which they used to form a Caetharn covenant. Jensen’s important role as a carpenter and foreman provided him with both a certain degree of privacy from the prying eyes of the imperium, as well as the specialized skills necessary to construct a space outside the Illithids' purview. Jensen and his conventual even went so far as to dig a connecting tunnel, beneath the altar of the basement-turned-monastery, to the greater Cortexian sewers. A means to avoid apprehension for the strict Imperial bans on assembly. When Freya birthed her first and only child, Jorin, the couple taught him of Caetharn. Teaching him to read the Crucible (the Andor family's secretive heirloom). But most importantly they taught him to hope.

In his early years Jorin knew love from his mother, faith through his covenant, and community from his fellow man. Despite customarily joining the thrall slave work-force at six (grueling labor as a bricklayer) Jorin still eagerly awaited his father’s bi-weekly sermon. Jensen became something of an informal priest to his son and covenant, fulfilling an important role of upliftment to the dilapidated thralls. One evening, several months after Jorin’s 8th name day, the members of the covenant began to conspire their escape from Cortex; Jensen, at first hesitant, agreed to the motion and made a plan to escape through the sewers during the next meeting. In the lead-up to that much anticipated next meeting, Jorin and his father noticed that many of their religious compatriots were being “chosen” (consumed) by their Illithid masters. Jensen, fraught with the anxiety of receiving the same fate, planned to escape with just his family.

That night Jensen, Freya and Jorin gathered in their basement-turned-monastery preparing to leave through the sewers.

“What about the others? We can't just leave them here to be the brain-eater’s nourishment!” pleaded Freya.

Jensen reasoned that: “The Mindflayers have already gotten to them. We have only providence to thank that our destiny’s has not yet been intertwined with theirs. We must think of Jorin and his….”

Creeeeeeeeeek, the noise of the door opening upstairs filled the Andor family with silent dread. As Jensen and Freya exchanged glances, no words were needed, Jensen hurried upstairs to stall for time, while Freya grabbed Jorin, placing him in the compartment beneath the altar.

“Mother what’s going on?” Jorin asked.

“Shhhh my boy, God requires that you show your strength through silence. Pray to him and he will show you the path.” As she closed the hatch door, knowing the Mindflayer’s blood-lust was too close and that one needed to stay behind to correctly cover the secretive altar passageway.

Jorin felt he could not yet leave without his mother. But she had told him to betide silence. Jorin wanted to hug his mother but knew he could not open the door himself, it was far too heavy. He settled on a compromise, peering through the small hole on the side of the Altar, watching his mother shaking in fear as she knelt, her hands clasped in prayer. Jorin’s ears were treated to a distinct THUUD followed by the patter of several sets of feet making their way downstairs. When the footsteps stopped Jorin looked up to see two Githyanki guards and an Illithid master. It was not the first time Jorin had seen a Mindflayer, but the garb and presence of this particular one were especially harrowing. As the brain-eater moved forward Jorin saw that its tentacles were saturated with blood, the blood of his father.

*“The Overmind informs me that you have a child. Where is it?”* The Mindflayer said in the comprehensible, yet indescribable, telepathic language of the Illithid.

“You would demand a mother to forsake her own child? This is a question only a vile monster could ask.” Freya said indignantly.

The Illithid, wincing after being called a “vile monster,” lept forth on its prey. Jorin wanted to scream, but being bound by his mother to betide silence, could only watch her gruesome death. Here Jorin experienced the true evil of the Illithid, for how could something so vile and decrepit, the taking of the human consciousness, be viewed as a “great honor.”

*“What right does an insect have to call us a monster!”* the Illithid argued to no one. *“Gith! scour this house for the boy, he must be here somewhere.*

Jorin watched as one gith marched upstairs, while the other continued searching the basement. The Mindflayer, appearing to pay no mind to the search, was consuming his mother’s brain. Stunned and in silent shock at the image of his mother’s “mind-flaying” Jorin soon found the gaze of the githyanki guard. The githyanki then swiftly plugged the altar’s eyehole with a note and pretended that their eyes never met. As Jorin grabbed the note, it showed a map of safe passage through the sewers and the mountain pass to a strange marker.

“Lord Omecrelioum, there is nothing of worth from the thralls and the boy is not here, we should burn this place down” the githyanki guard suggested.

*"All I see are prayers to a nonsense god with no face. Humans are truly insects. Burn the anthill."*

Jorin had owed the nameless githyanki four favors: one for his life, another for the map to safety, by also stating the name of his vengeance’s scorn, “Omecrelioum,” and finally by suggesting that the covenant and his parents be burned. As divine fire renews the cycle of rebirth.

Jorin escaped into the sewers following the map to safety; he could deal with the smell. Once outside the city walls, the sewage of Jorin’s boots soon became frozen; he couldn't deal with the cold.

Jorin spent the next 8 days chasing the notes path, barely stopping for either breath or sleep as if to curse the blighted blizzard and the monsters that had forsaken and killed his devoted parents. He gradually started to believe that all hope was lost, the note could have been a cruel trick. On the evening of the 8th day Jorin, in his 8 years, fell to his knees, his legs and body refusing to work. Jorin took his bare hands out of his pockets and, feeling every inch of the blighted cold on his already dilapidated hands, began to pray.

“Aethar light my passage so that I may remain forever devout… just as my parents.”

Suddenly the skies cleared and Jorin saw it, a githyanki hideout, built across the cliff not more than 10 miles away, only visible through the divine light.

Jorin paced the cliffside and came across a githyanki scout. Jorin explained his circumstances and promptly collapsed. The gith was exceptionally generous, sympathetic to the Jorin’s weak state, carrying the unconscious boy down the passage to the holdout.

Once Jorin awoke he later found out the man’s name was Riuk, the leader of this militant community of githyanki, humans, and other magi. Here Jorin learned the art of war, resigning himself to the spear, sword and shield. Jorin always continued to pray, after succumbing to a broken leg in sparring, he performed his first miracle healing the injury. Jorin received great praise for this action but was never able to heal any gith, or magi, only other lost humans.

## Riuk's Rebellion

In Jorin’s later years he was a part of Riuk’s raid on Cortex. Serving a vital role in guiding a detachment through the sewers and to his father’s old basement-turned-monastery, now a new basement-turned-wine cellar. While the wine cellar was certainly a gift to a high-ranking thrall or even gith, his father’s carved stone remained imbued with the room's history. Jorin felt the fear of old memories long since walled off. As soon as Jorin left his former home, he became enraptured in death. Nothing Jorin knew mattered anymore, it couldn’t matter, he killed his first man, a human thrall, then he killed another, he only killed combative thralls, even a woman. The gith rebellion destroyed what semblance of a childhood he had left. He had thought his fellow man would rejoice in liberty. All he saw was foolishness in servitude.

“I must leave this place,” said amid carnage. As he fled for cover he thought of the words his mother always told him “you can see the entire world for its beauty, but it is the people that make a place home.” Jorin foresaw his “home” ablaze, he was watching his compatriots slaughter.

“I have no home and my people die, what hope do I have to live?”

Suddenly Jorin saw a strange silhouette outside the window of his holdout, a Mindflayer. Jorin could usually never tell them apart but this one, he knew the name of.

“Omecrelioum!” “You killed my father and mother do you remember!'' Jorin screeched as he charged open the door, shield first, spear ready in the lunge. Jorin’s charge was instantly halted the moment his eyes met the brain-eater’s. Fear enraptured him.

*"Insect, how could I possibly know to whom you refer. I’ve killed thousands of you."*

Jorin knelt on the ground, putting his weapons aside in both hesitation and trepidation.

“Then allow me to fulfill mine divine purpose.”

Omecrelioum, knowing that Jorin spoke truth, and believing that “divine purpose” meant consumption, assumed this “surrender.”

*"I will gather what dust you might know."*

The moment Omecrelioum extended his mouth to partake, exposing the strange beak that lay beneath, Jorin lunged, the tip of his spear made holy, and then he lunged again. The two jabs pierced through the mouth hitting brain flesh both times. Omecrelioum lay dead or unconscious in defeat. As Jorin was about to make a certainty of Omecrelioum's death he saw them, hordes of mindflayers alerted by another’s demise. Jorin ran, venturing to the familiar and safe sewers, yet seeing no githyanki in his path.

“How many human thralls did we kill? How many of our own died? I know how many Illithid I saw dead. One. Why does this world's cruelty know no bounds? Show me a sign? DO YOU DEMAND THAT I FORSAKE THE?” Jorin said to no one.

As Jorin trudged through the sewers, his faith in God and life shattered. He couldn’t help but think to himself: I still need a sign, what must I do now if I do not wish to live. When Jorin finally made his way up the ladder to the surface, with the bright sun hitting his eyes, he saw it. A Ventruvian banner.

“Aethar I beg for your forgiveness.”

Jorin ran so fast to those banners that they assumed him an enemy. Only after Jorin relinquished his weapons, succumbed to manacles, and cited the words of the Crucible did the bannermen subside their suspicions. While all these bannermen were indeed hardened veterans of war it was the largest and most intense of them that first asked Jorin a question not pertaining to him being killed.

“Why did you flee the battlefield?” The man asked.

Jorin could tell this man was the leader by the way his voice forced silence among the rest. This man was clearly a paladin of sorts. The most alarming thing about the man was his large zweihander, its crucifix-esc handle, and the blade’s glowing allure. He kept it bare across his back, as if for the world to see. The man walked up to Jorin and tossed up his hood, placed upon the center of his forehead was a Ventruvian tattoo, also for the world to see. The hairs on Jorin’s neck sprung up. Here lay a man far more devoted to Aethar than him, battle-scar certified to bat.

“Because I lost myself in the misery and torment…”

“So I take it the gith didn’t hold up well.” The man said matter-of-factly with a smattering of laughs among the crowd.

“No… they didn't… the brain-eaters sent their hordes of thralls... I only saw one brain-eater dead… the one I killed.”

Immediately the large man leaped upon Jorin, his large hand covering Jorin’s mouth.

“The next words you speak are beholden to the truth of God.” Jorin recognized the effect, the truth of the Crucible began bulging in his veins.

“I slew a mindflayer.” The bannermen gasped. “Aethar made my spear holy… And now he guides me to you.”

As Jorin spoke truth he couldn’t help but notice when he said “Aethar” Exedus winced.

“Well then, perhaps you have a place here, among our ranks. If God himself blessed you here, your purpose for our cause is fated.”