Kiel Arinol

Kiel Arinol is a star genasi Circle of the Moon Druid played by Ronan in Godkiller.

Kiel's mother is star genasi, his father is human. His mother fled her tribe once she gave birth to Kiel, for reasons he still does not know. Kiel was born into a tribe that makes its home in the Valor Isles. It's a decent sized tribe but very isolated, resulting in the “small town” mentality of citizens. Those in the Valor Isles are generally guarded to begin with and this only strengthens that mentality.

The tribe is made up of soldiers, druids, shaman-like members, etc. Essentially, the entire populace in this tribe worships the Sun as their deity, claiming it to be a living entity that graces them with life. Kiel suffered abuse and harassment as a child, often isolated from others due to his odd appearance and elemental nature of his lineage. Many thought the stars blinking underneath his skin were his attempts at mocking the goddess and hated him for it. He grew very lonely on the tribe and often lamented why he was forced to live the way he was. He constantly explored and discovered things on his own since everybody else avoided him. He grew to resent mother for forcing this life and isolation upon him and not bothering to care long enough to stick it out.

As he got older, he fell in more upon himself, bottling his anger and sadness within himself. He snapped when he was 8 and spoke out against the sun goddess out of pure anger. While everyone felt she was the embodiment of nature, he disagreed and thought she wasn’t even real. Nature was its own thing without needing a goddess to take its form or control it. The town flipped out. He continued to denounce her and spread his views, like a piece of shit child, enjoying the reaction it got out of people. His father disowned him and forced him out of his home to go live with the druids that lived in the tribe. They taught him their ways but he never respected or believed in the sun goddess as they did.

When he was 12, he participated in a coming of age ceremony where initiates get their druidic focus. They get a stick from a supposed sacred grove of natural magic and it forms into a focus for them to cast magic from. Bright and vibrant staffs and wands and shit. Kiel’s stick warped and twisted into a gnarled, rotten, decayed staff. It stands four feet tall, a thick black and grey piece of wood that looks as if it should fall apart whenever it hits the ground but somehow stays intact. This concerned the tribe even more, considering dead focuses never formed, resulting in further isolation from everyone as they began to fear him.

H met Lila when she appeared in the village when he was 13. They cast her out as well. Kiel began to reach out to her, finding someone that finally didn’t care about his past or his lineage and Lila became his first and only friend in the village. About a year after she came, he discovered information regarding mystical artifacts scattered throughout the world though paid it no mind. The druids he was training with insisted he never reveal that information to outsiders, that nobody could know. Kiel rolled his eyes and dismissed their chidings with a wave of his hand.

The very next day a strange ship docked on the coast of his island. The occurrence was incredibly odd given that practically nobody found their way to the Valor Isles and fewer chose to dock on its shores. He watched the people on the boat from afar, cautious but curious all the same. They spoke of a mystical place called the edge of the world and the vast treasures that must be present there, of mystical artifacts that were rumored to be housed within the ruined islands. Artifacts just the same as Kiel discovered in the books on the island. Kiel was mesmerized and instantly entranced by these stories and ran to those on the ship, begging to join them. He shared how much he hated it in the Valor Isles, how desperately he wanted to leave. Those on the ship were reluctant so he blurted out about the artifacts, that he knew they were real. Those on the island were appalled and approached him with fury in their eyes though those on the ship stepped in and protected him. They let him join him and even allowed his friend Lila to join as well.

He left the island with Lila when he was 15. The ship journeyed to the Edge of the World and began scouring the island ruins for any signs of treasure. Kiel periodically made journeys with the crew out to the edge of the world, with varying degrees of success. When Kiel was 19, an expedition into a new stretch of island ruins uncovered a passage heading deep into the center of the island. Kiel followed it and it opened into a massive cavern with crystals sparkling throughout. In the center floated a massive crystal, a gem which Kiel could not identify. It appeared like a diamond but was clearly something else, something more ancient. Against the warnings of the crew, Kiel approached, as if the gem was calling to him. He touched it and light shot through his body, pouring out of his eyes. The stars that sparkled within his skin and hair flared bright for a moment before fading. The gem vanished and Kiel’s staff was graced with a floating gem at the head. The dead, gnarled bark remained though wrapped upwards and opened like a hand with which the gem floated above.

Kiel felt nothing different until a few days later. Suddenly old tools on the ship that nobody knew the purpose for made sense to him, energy around him seemed to tangibly pulse. He could connect to the mystical air of the world in a way that was nothing like he could before. He felt a draw to connect with the universe on his own terms so he and Lila decided to leave the crew and travel on their own.