Aidan mac Muir

## Background

Aidan grew up with his family in a small rural fishing village in the Copper Highlands.  Although he often worked on the sea, he spent free time with his three younger siblings exploring the surrounding moors, despite folklore about cursed cairns. When fourteen years old, Aidan and his siblings discovered an old crypt.  Aidan dared his brother, Conall, to step in a suspicious ring of stones.  Conall triggered dark magic, vanishing as living skeletons emerged from the crypt.  Aidan and his sisters fled.

Later that night, Aidan and Moira, the eldest siblings, stole their father’s weapons and went back to the cairn, leaving the youngest, Glenna, at home. They fought as well as expected of children, and were soon forced to flee, Moira grievously injured.  After confessing to their parents, the adult villagers rallied and went out to the crypts, temporarily sealing off the skeletons.

A party of mercenaries hired by the local lord soon came and cleared the crypt of undead, but did not find Conall.  Wracked with guilt for leading his siblings to danger, Aidan requested to join them.  They refused, but promised future consideration.  Moira lost her arm to her injuries and infection.

At the ages of seventeen, sixteen, and fourteen, the remaining siblings made a vow to rescue their brother, feeling in their guts he was still alive. Glenna, showing the inklings of magical talent, joined the Sapphire Tower.  Aidan and Moira joined the original band of mercenaries, proving themselves vicious fighters.  They fought with the band for six years, until the original members were all retired or dead.

At the ages of twenty-three and twenty-two, Aidan and Moira have split ways to cover more ground and gather more information while Glenna makes significant academic achievement at the Sapphire Tower.  They hope to return together within a few years and begin their rescue effort, but doubt gnaws at Aidan’s heart as he wonders if their quest can succeed.

## The First Chapter

Aidan met Annalia “Lia” Waters and Gandaval at a tavern in Minotas.  They joined on a treasure hunt, and crossed paths with the adventurers they would later join.  The group defeated the necrotic golem, which bound to them as goo.  Aidan, in one of many moment of stupid curiosity, licked the goo and nearly lost his tongue.  Lia’s quick thinking saved his sense of taste and ability to speak.

   When Gallus revealed himself to the party, Aidan only bound with him because he had little choice in the matter.  However, with his trusting and gullible nature, Aidan did not question Gallus’s plan or motives to seal the Corrupted Gods from the world, and even considered it a noble quest.  Although Gallus’s withdrawal to Ander’s corpse brought some relief, Aidan was upset by the abrupt farewell.

After the battle at the castle, Aidan found himself trapped in a room with nothing but a large, bronze carnyx in the shape of a dragon head.  Completely enthralled by the instrument, he blasted it as loud as he could.  Strange magic coursed from the instrument into him, and he has since been able to cast basic spells, although he often does not recognize when he uses magic.

Aidan greatly respects Lia for saving Rusty. He thought the baby dragon a lost cause, and would have put it out of its misery.  Lia’s perseverance and success against the odds renewed Aidan’s resolve to act with hope.  Although he wants to voice this to Lia, he has not.

On the road to the Sapphire Tower, Aidan nearly died from the wounds he received after losing a joust with an undead centaur lancer, one of the Dragon Hunters.  Despite a dislocated jaw, being impaled, and the indignity of falling off his horse, Aidan clung onto life just long enough for the dragon Darkonax to heal him.

Aidan’s previous acceptance of Gallus rapidly changed when they reached the Sapphire Tower to find mages murdered and Glenna overtaken by Gallus.  Helplessly trapped on the other side of a magic banner, Aidan grew furious and desperate as Gallus made lewd remarks about Glenna and attempted to rip her soul from her body.  Moira, disguised as a ritualist, gave the party an opening to attack.

Just as victory was at hand, Gallus offered Aidan the same deal he had given Glenna.  Gallus would free Conall from the hellish plane he was trapped in if Aidan helped Gallus ascend to a higher plane of existence.  Aidan, unaware the deal was a trick, seriously considered it.  To his silent relief, the decision was taken from him by Mhigo and the leader of the Sapphire
Tower.  As Gallus escaped, Aidan tackled him, but was dragged to the Astral Plane and subsequently cast from it into the void.  Glenna’s intervention brought him home.

Aidan has decided he will destroy Gallus.

## Trivia

Aidan is short of stature for a human and somewhat sensitive about it.  Although he would never admit it, he specialized in polearms since most melee fighters would otherwise have the advantage of longer reach against him.

Aidan always wears his kilt.  He hates trousers.

Aidan shrugs off most insults aimed at himself, aside from those about his height, but aggressively defends the honor of his family and friends.

Aidan and his childhood sweetheart still write to each other.  Although they mutually ended their romantic relationship when Aidan became a mercenary, they remain good friends.  Amid preoccupation with work, uncertainty about his sexuality, and a complete inability to recognize romantic gestures until they hit him in the face with a wooden board, Aidan has not pursued other relationships.

In private, Aidan affectionately calls Glenna ‘Bug’ and Moira less affectionately ‘Lizard’.

Aidan took Lia’s suggestion for his stage name at the Cross Roads under the secret compromise that his horn is Lia’s ‘The Dragon Horn’ and he himself is ‘Honker’.

Between his own gullibility and Discord’s stink eye, Aidan mostly knew Ander as Ulfric.  He still struggles to call Ander by Ander.

After its dislocation, Aidan’s jaw pops a bit funny when he opens his mouth too wide.  He plans to use it as a party trick when he has fully recovered.