Stess of Clifton

2. Roasted and Boiled
3. N/A
4. The Catacombs
5. Shadows
6. Eyes of Fire
7. Hearth
8. Adjourned
9. N/A
10. N/A
11. Starting Over
12. Doing Time
13. Cloudy Nights
14. N/A
15. N/A
16. N/A
17. N/A
18. N/A

Stess is the main antagonist of Season 1 of the Urgency of Clay, and one of the two primary antagonists of Act 1: Shadows in the Riverlands. He is a major character in the first and second seasons, and a recurring character in season six.

## Appearance

Stess has a clean, youthful appearance. His face is smooth and clear of wrinkles or blemishes, though his cheeks are dotted with freckles. He has thick, bright red-orange hair that he keeps neatly combed and styled. His pupils are the same color as his hair, red-orange, and his sclera is a golden yellow. He has pointed ears, a small button nose, and always breathes from his mouth. He has natural racial markings on his cheekbones and beneath his eyes, yellow lines and dots. His face is carefully clean shaven every morning, and while he often tries to scent himself with different fragrances, his natural aroma of clean-burning cedar wood often overpowers it.

While not short, he is slightly below average in height, and has a slender frame. While not weak, his reedier build ensures that his natural strength will never rise above that of just a decent level. His shoulders are tight and not at all broad. He moves with purpose and direction, though after his angelic powers left him, his movements can be stilted and awkward, and he often trips or clumsily drops things.

Stess tends to keep his clothes, his arms and armaments, and his personal spaces clean and tidy. When he was still imbued with angelic powers, it was as if dirt, blood, and grime of other sorts could not even touch him. When he lost them, he fell into a deep depression and allowed his appearance to suffer, letting his hair grow long and shaggy, and patchy, unappealing facial hair protruded haphazardly from his cheeks.

While serving with the Citadel, Stess bore its standard white plate armor, but he especially doted upon his glorious alabaster cape, which he let sweep behind him and often swished it dramatically. As he is very particular about his appearance, he lets himself only wield swords, keeps it to versatile blades, and always wields them in one or two hands with no shield. While suboptimal, this is the idealized vision of a knight that he views in his head, and he keeps to it zealously.

## Personality

Stess is unbelievably arrogant, single-minded, and devoted. He keeps an air of professional disdain for others, and his moral code is utterly lacking in nuance. People are either evil criminals that must be punished with the fullest extent of the law, or they are paragons of honor. This childlike mentality has somewhat diminished as time has gone on, but Stess's immaturity, earned from his lack of education, seems perennial.

Along with these massive character defects, Stess is incredibly loyal. When he has a cause to fight behind, he sticks to it with unparalleled zeal. Friends and allies are not people that come to him easily, as he is more of an independent soul, and does not look easily to the assistance of others. Rather, he views others as like children that must be defended. He has a particular nasty tendency to infantilize women, who he views, chauvinistically, as the fairer sex that is incapable of defending themselves. When faced with competent women, he is unsure and uncomfortable.

Stess is also somewhat humorless, being awkward and intense in conversations and seemingly incapable of proper small talk. He is deeply passionate and a romantic, able to write poetry and tell fantastic tales with great skill. Those with knowledge of the tales he tells notice that he gets many details wrong, switching around names, dates, or events, but they also notice with interested amusement that while sometimes the themes or messages get warped, they are actually just as entertaining, if not moreso. Revering romantic myths especially, he longs for a "fair maiden" that he may sweep of her feet and be a proper knight to.

## History

Born to unknown parents, Stess was abandoned as an infant. He was left in the progressive nation of Zythradin, home to half-elves and tieflings: those unwanted and reviled by Maraldia. From there, he was taken to an orphanage in the capitol city of Clifton, where he spent his early years developing a deep inferiority complex. He viewed himself as nothing, so unwanted that even his parents abandoned him. So unwanted that even in the nation of unwanteds, he was truly alone. He made few friends and was an angry and bitter child, though his slight build led him to losing most of his fights. Though a fire genasi, Stess always thought he was a tiefling. Eventually adopted by a kindly prostitute and her abusive partner, Stess suffered for a great deal of time under his authoritative thumb. His foster mother cared for him when she could, but the nature of her job rendered both helpless victims. Working menial labor whenever he could, and ordered by his foster father to pick pockets, Stess found his only solace in the weekly stories given by the local historian, who shared tales of great heroes of old; heroes who protected the weak, brought justice to the evil, and lived lives of glory and honor.

One day, Stess made the mistake of attempting to pick the pockets of a knight clad in white - a soldier of the Aureate Citadel, who caught the young street urchin red-handed. Stess was left penniless and when he returned home, was beaten badly by the father and thrown out into the street. Luckily scrounging up just a few pieces of stale bread, the hungry boy was about to sate his hunger but for seeing another younger, weaker street girl shivering under a too small blanket. Remembering the tales of the heroes of old, Stess gave the girl his bread, and made a small fire for her to warm herself at; starving and aching from his wounds, he resolved himself to die having performed one small act of heroism that he could. Fortunately for Stess, his luck was about to change.

The Citadel soldier, rather than assault Stess in retribution or turn him in, sought out the young genasi and took him aside, asking him to just to talk with him. Shocked at this turn of events, and having anticipated a beating, Stess instead melted at this showing of compassion and wept openly, explaining everything to the soldier. The soldier listened calmly and patiently, and clothed and fed the boy. He reassured the boy that everything would be alright, and immediately went off to handle the situation. He brought the foster father to justice, forcing him to answer for his crimes, and, when found lacking, throwing him in prison. He donated his salary to Stess and other orphans to make sure they feed and clothe themselves, even if just for a while, and saved Stess from his miserable life.

Utterly inspired by this soldier, Stess resolved that he would one day be like him to: a Guardsman of the Citadel. He spent his early teens earnestly training his body, though once again his scrawniness interfered, and he could never meet the rigorous standards of the Citadel. He never gave up though, and tried endlessly. Stess was not alone, however. A guardian angel, which had been monitoring him ever since his selfless act with the hungry girl, took pity on him, and blessed the young man with incredible holy powers. Using these angelic powers, Stess finally managed to pass the test and was admitted to the Citadel.

Even with these newfound gifts, Stess worked tirelessly, constantly honing his skills. His hardships had earned him a great sense of determination and morale, and while his combat skills were still somewhat lacking, he was somehow untouchable on the battlefield. The underdog story of the Blessed Stess of Clifton echoed throughout the Citadel, and brought the attention of none other than the Soular Matron herself, Irene. Seeing the immense potential and unending courage of the recruit, Irene went to him personally and gave him her blessing, marking him as one of the very few Touched by Irene.

As his skill grew into competence and his angelic powers granted him further ability and renown, Stess was placed on difficult missions that pushed him to the absolute limit. He miraculously survived a near entirely fatal mission into Primordial lands, a mission that put him on another Citadel Guardsman, Carvik's, radar, and managed to get by without a scratch.

Unfortunately, while his background was entirely humble, that same inferiority complex that had plagued his earlier days never quite left Stess. His success grew a nasty snarl of arrogance, a hollow belief in his own superiority that was ironically built upon the hollow structure of his *in*feriority. He carefully groomed his appearance, kept his clothes and especially his beloved white cloak clean, and completely romanticized the image that he presented to others. His arrogance manifested also in a growing apathy towards the poor, the uneducated, and individuals that were not so unlike him just a few years previously. He viewed his own ascent as proof of his superiority, and thusly looked upon others less fortunate than himself with scorn.

His arrogance was allowed to fester in the ailing ethics of the Citadel, which had long since suffered from unchecked jurisdiction and power, and grew into authoritarian doctrine. Returning home to visit his foster mother, Stess was shocked to find her dead, beaten into oblivion in the drunken, unthinking rage of her partner, who had fallen on hard times after his imprisonment and redirected his rage towards her. In a hot rage, Stess drew his blade, and the father fell to his feet in a blubbering mess, claiming it an accident and begging him for forgiveness. But now, Stess had the power. Stess had the force and the gauntlet of justice at his beck and call. He was long past being a victim.

Now, all that would seek to do evil would suffer at his hand.

## Abilities

Stess idolizes the idea of the perfect holy knight, and he attempts for his abilities to reflect that. However, his mediocre strength, speed, and toughness ensures that he will never be the cream of the fighting crop. Rather, Stess's best ability is his absolutely magnetic, driving force of character. Stess is unbelievably stubborn, motivated, and ardent in his beliefs. If he is tasked with something, or gets it in his mind that something should be done, he devotes himself to it with an absolutely single-minded purpose. This tunnel vision makes it rather easy for clever folk to trick him, and it can lead to him being out of position both on the battlefield, and interpersonally. His arrogance ensures that he has few allies, and fewer friends.

While not powerful per se, Stess is not unskilled with the blade. His unending zeal granted him particularly powerful divine smites, sporting both fire and radiant with his weapon. His fire genasi heritage grants him a natural affinity for fire, and he is able to produce flames from his hands with ease.

Much of Stess's success came from the abilities granted to him by his guardian angel. These included the ability to make the ground shake and rumble as he spoke with the authority of the heavens, the ability to generate a halo above his head that could charm friend or foe, and the uncanny ability to avoid almost all harm. Stess's capacity to survive near-impossible odds time and time again were owed to these abilities, and his loss of them greatly diminished his competence in combat.

Even without the powers, however, Stess still has one quality that could never be extinguished: his absolutely tremendous reserves of courage. Faced with certain death, impossible odds, outnumbered, outclassed, or out of his element, it does not matter; Stess will face all dangers with that same unending bravery. Not just on the battlefield does this bravery manifest, but also in the immense decision to join with the Tenders of the Hearth. Stess was brave enough to join with this group that once was his sworn enemies, was brave enough to challenge his beliefs and perceptions, and was brave enough to trust and grow as a person. Time has yet to tell if he has the bravery to overcome his arrogance, and to become the true and pure knight that he has always strived to be.