Benedis "Pyros" Oneiro

> *"The cost of a few for the good of many. We **sacrificed** our lives today for the sake of **civilization** itself. We will adapt to the land we call our home, taking on anything it throws at us."*
>
>

*-* Benedis and Klar explaining to Proto-Golem mk. 58 the costs of war.

## Sir Benedis Oneiro

### Aliases

Pyros (The Tower)Sir Benedis, Knight of Munkir

### Relatives

Thessalys Psaros (Father), Reylana Drifwin (Mother)

### Affiliation

Knights of MunkirVassoan Guard - Squadron Omada

### Allies

Squadron Omada, Squadron Filos, Draugr, Penumbra Grim, Oceloch

## Biographical information

### Marital status

Pious to the Undying Spirit of Lord Vasilias

### Place of death

Battle of Li Family Farms, but lives to fight another day

## Physical description

### Eye color

A Gleaming Greenish-Yellow

Young Benedis was raised by his father, Thessalys Psaros, in the Old Mansion District of Old Vassos. His mother, Reylana Drifwin, was a lowly tavern wench. After an evening rendezvous, Thessalys impregnated Reylana with a child she did not want. Reyana was unsure, yet they both agreed to raise the child. After Benedis was born, Reylana disappeared, leaving only a note at Thessalys' bed stating she was too young to raise a child and having a child out of wedlock tarnished her reputation already. She somehow obtained a position on a ship and sailed away.

Thessalys was angered yet prepared to raise the boy by himself. With no one to look after Benedis, his father took him to the armory where he operated as quartermaster to the Vassoan Guard; Thessalys had prior service to the Guard and retired to quartermaster with many honors. Benedis grew up around weapons and armors of all kinds. As a boy, Benedis would play with swords and pikes when unsupervised. His father or close friends within the Vassoan Guard would train him in combat skills on their free time. Before the age of 6, Benedis had no trouble picking up and swinging a mace.

Thessalys was a firm believer of Vasiliás, and thought all true Vassoan should be too. He often brought Benedis to the Temple of Vasilias to attend rituals and services provided by High Priest Thaulos and his clergy. Benedis, while retaining some ideals of Vasilian teachings, was all more interested in weapons and warfare.

Several guardsmen adored Thessalys and his father, Craetokis Psaros, for stories of their excellent fortitude in fights; they found the young Benedis to be just as strong willed. Days Benedis helped his father in the base of the Vassoan Guard, these guards took Benedis to the training grounds. There, the men pushed the boy to his limits: performing athletic obstacles, hand-to-hand combat in sand pits, getting wacked by sticks at times of failure. They roughed up the boy with the intent that he grows up to be tough, respectable fighter. Benedis enjoyed every minute - the pain, the struggle, the suffering - all of it excited him. The guards also treated young Benedis well, telling him stories about heroes of old and feeding him fine foods after training. Benedis dreaded when we had to return to the Arcanum for boring lessons.

When he was of age, Benedis was given a formal education as a lesser sage in the Grand Arcanum when he was not working with his father. He learned basic math and sciences as well as rudimentary magic studies. Benedis was always on the lower end of his class, often day dreaming of combat and saving defenseless ladies rather than completing mathematic equations. Benedis felt more comfortable in the armory with his father and the guards.

By the age of 18, Benedis discontinued his studies at the Arcanum to officially train to be a Vassoan guard. For four rigorous years, Benedis learned to spot out criminals, hone his combat skills, and take on the role of an authority figure. Thessalys felt proud of his son following his father's footsteps. He is given the nickname by his fellow recruits in Celestial, "Pyros," or "Tower" for his sturdy, lengthy physique.

## A Death and Rebirth of Benedis Oneiro

Benedis Psaros was 22 years old when the Gnolls sacked the the city of Old Vassos. He was ordered to ride a weapon wagon with his father arming citizens and guards alike. They kept handing out more and more weapons until there was no one left to hand weapons to; everyone had gone to the frontlines to die. With news that the Gnolls were pushing the line further back into the Old Mansion District, Thessalys had no choice but to don his old Vassoan Guard armor and wield his greatsword.

Benedis with a few guards he regarded as friends ran into battle with Thessalys. Together - father, son, and fellow guardsman - they slaughtered gnoll by gnoll. They were able to hold their line and drive back some of the Gnoll forces. Suddenly, a counterattack took them by surprise. Benedis saw a gnoll sneaking up on a fellow guard and stuck the gnoll with his sword before getting clubbed in the head. In a head-rattled haze, Benedis witnessed his father get stabbed by a larger gnoll, raised off his feet, then had his neck chewed out. Reinforcements arrived to drive out the remaining gnolls, saving a few guards that fought with the Psaros men. Before everything went black, Benedis caught a glimpse of a leafy-haired man looking over him.

Benedis frantically awoke in the familiar Temple of Vasilias. "Father! Father!" Around him, he saw excellent wall carvings of a man with long curly hair, and a short beard with a moustache holding a scepter in one hand and giving grain to the people below him with the other hand. Other carvings depicted this man casting men down laboring rings in a pit of fire and another carving of this man striking another man down with a sword. Benedis began to feel a fatherly presence as if he were back at the barracks with his father. He followed this feeling down the artful corridor to the center chamber. Upon entering the central room, the structure seemed unstable as brick work began falling down as the entire room was ablaze. Pues were broken and shattered around the floor. The broken ceiling exposed a dark void from the outside. Benedis in utter confusion, "What's going on? Where are you, father?" In the center of the room stood a long grey bearded man in a green and white chasuble standing over a smoking pyre.

"Your soul is willful and righteous, Benedis Psaros." His words echoed through out the temple.

"Who are you? Why I am here at the Temple?"

"I am Pontificus Oneiro, High Priest of the Lord Vasilias, God of invention, civilization, and adaptation." Benedis felt these words echo from deep within his own mind.

"This can't be real! I thought the gods have fallen during the Mallus!"

"Before my Vasilias was taken by those god-hunters, He gave me one final divine message; a path that may preserve the Light for the next cycle. 'The time of reckoning is at hand, Pontificus. Place yourself upon a burning pyre. Burn your body so that your soul may be free from physical form. I shall imbue your spirit with the last of My Power and cast your soul upon the broken planes. Find Me a soul both willful and righteous. Walk with them in spirit, guide their Light in conquering Darkness.' Here in this dreamscape, I have found you Benedis." His voice boomed across the Temple and shakes Benedis down to his core.

Benedis walked down the center aisle, "This is some wild dream! I failed my father and watched him perish at the hand of an enemy I could not defeat! If you are looking for a powerful crusader, I am not he!" Benedis dropped to his knees and sobbed. "He was a faithful man, where will he go?"

"Naturally, lost lives return to the earth to sow the seeds for new life. That much is good. Spiritually, many good souls of mortals are cast astray; there is no Light to guide them toward the Celestial Plane. I fear their souls may be claimed by evil forces or boundless vagrancy. If the Celestial Plane were restored, Light will guide them back to Paradise."

"My father fought hard and prayed well! He died protecting me!" An ease fell over Benedis and he stood up. "He deserves eternal rest. I accept my role in your divine intervention. But I must ask, how am I destined for this?"

"Destiny died when the gods were destroyed. There no longer remain Forces that brings Celestial Balance to the realms of Man. By the Mallus, Man made the decision to create their own path, a path of destruction that weakened and exposed the planes to chaos and evil that otherwise were kept Below by the Balance. Your path is determined by your decisions now, and your success granted by those decisions. Will you choose to join the fight against chaos and evil? Can you restore Order and Virtue? It is not your destiny, it is your choice."

"I am a bastard child from Vassos! Why would you bestow this choice upon me? I am a product of what you call sin."

"You are a true Seed of Vasilia, your quality of character speaks in volumes more so than the circumstance of your birth. Now, if you had not fallen into a coma three days ago, I would not have found you in this Dream Plane. It is mere coincidence that we have encountered each other. Now make haste! For the flames have reached my robes! Commend your life, your soul to the Undying Spirit of Vasilias and pull me from this fire, or leave His temple before it collapses!"

Benedis took the hand of Pontificus and pulled him off the pyre. Their hands phased together, then their bodies. They became one spirit, two minds, as radiant light shined down from a holy emblem on the ceiling. "We are reborn by the Spirit of Vasilias as one man of guidance and of sword. In the Light, you are baptized as Benedis Oneiro." The temple collapsed into darkness.

## The Druid and the Priest

Benedis awoke from his fortunate slumber. He noticed he was in an unfamiliar place; it was a home typical of the Dock District but heavily damaged. He rose from the cot that was deeply imprinted with his body. Across the room sat a half-elf Druid, leaves covering his head, at a table mixing a simple herbal remedy. His accent was recognizable as a lowborn Vassoan citizen.

"Wow, you are awake! Don't get up to quickly, the blood flow might make you a little queasy. Do..you know your name?"

"Benedis. Benedis Psar-. Benedis Oneiro."

"You don't seem so sure there, lad." He seemed to speak with his eyebrows. "My, how did those marks get on the side of your face? Dammit, I must have mixed that last batch wrong. Well, at least it healed it right up."

Benedis reached for a wide shard of mirror from a pile of rubble swept to the corner of the near destroyed home. He pushed back the long brown wavy hair from the left side of his face. Twisting interlocking knots from his forehead to the top of his left cheek were imprinted like a brand burn.

"I don't think this was from one of your tinctures, healer."

"Then how did it get there?"

"Divinity." Benedis stared into the sparkling bright green eyes from his own reflection.

"Hey, I kept ya breathin' for three days and you thank divinity?" The half-elf was disgusted.

Benedis shook his head and then reassured him, "I'm blessed by your aid, friend. Surely, I would not be alive without it. I owe you my life."

"You, a 'true Vassoan human,' calling me, a half-elf, friend? I thought I'd not see the day!"

"I don't care what race you are, you've done right by me. I wish return the favor."

"Friends need not return favors. I'm Klar by the way."

"Thank you, Klar."

Benedis and Klar spoke for a while about the Gnoll attack, what has happened in those three days in the coma, and the deaths of their fathers. Suddenly, Benedis felt something within him drawing toward the Temple of Vasilias. As he passed through the streets, he bared witness to the atrocities of Gnolls. There were women half eaten, children calling for their mothers, buildings burnt and toppled. Blood, ash, and bone littered the stone ruins. Approaching the Temple, he saw rows and rows of dead bodies covered in sheets. A man dressed in green and gold chasubles known as Thaulos stood over these bodies trying to identify them as other clergymen blessed the bodies with Gentle Repose until a surviving family member claimed the body for burial. Thaulos looked on Benedis with relief.

"Benedis, you have survived! Thank you Lord Vasilias. Your father, I'm afraid, laid his life down for Vassos. He was given an honorable burial by Master Archigos and fellow guardsmen. He is lain to rest over in the catacombs below the Temple."

Benedis walked over to a stairwell leading underneath the Temple of Vasilias. He knelt by his father's resting place - a marble slab with a knightly man carved in top with an ancient Vasilian elegy carved around the perimeter. Thessalys had commissioned this sarcophagus long before his death. Here in the cold, dim torch-lit catacomb, Benedis was alone in his life. But perhaps not as much as he thought. As he prayed before his father, he felt something calling from within.

## Notable Quotes

\*Speaking to Proto-Golem mk. 58 about Nihil Rhuoff and Thaulos\*

58: "Are you sure it's wise to bring this man to the forest? He doesn't seem to be a particularly strong fighter."

Benedis: "He is strong. Just not in ways apparent."

58: "Has he magic?"

Benedis: "No. He has faith."